Bundesnetzagentur publishes special edition of the Railway Market Analysis 2021
Date of issue 2021.07.19
The Bundesnetzagentur has today published a special report about the development of the German railway market in 2020 under conditions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sharp decline in transport performance
Transport performance fell in 2020 by 38% in regional and local rail passenger transport services and by 47% in long-distance passenger rail transport. There were several months in which rail transport services through non-federally owned providers of long-distance rail services were completely suspended for economic reasons. With the exception of the months of April and May, the local and regional railway passenger undertakings as well as DB Fernverkehr, responsible for long-distance transport, continued serving their connections with no significant restrictions.
Rail freight transport performance decreased by around 5%, with a particularly slow second quarter. Freight transport in the second half of 2020 remained stable. As was the case with regional passenger rail services, rail freight transport through non-federally owned providers gained market share.
Lower utilisation of train capacities and of the railway network helped to significantly improve punctuality in rail transport.
Heavy losses
Railway undertakings incurred costs of around €100m for health or
cleaning measures related to the pandemic for protecting employees and customers. With a focus on local public transport, a state rescue package was put in place that, among other things, compensated the local public transport railway undertakings for lost revenue.
The railway undertakings are nevertheless suffering heavy losses caused by the pandemic. The Bundesnetzagentur estimates losses for 2020 to be €2.55bn, of which nearly €2bn were in long-distance passenger rail transport. For long-distance passenger rail transport and rail freight transport, plans are being worked on for retroactive funding of track access charges that would reduce losses for railway undertakings by around €1.1bn.
The special edition of the Railway Market Analysis 2021 has been published in German on the Bundesnetzagentur website at www.bundesnetzagentur.de/eisenbahn-marktuntersuchung.