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Berlin (dpa) - The market share of rail freight transport in Germany has declined in the Corona crisis.
This emerges from a response from the federal government to a request from the Greens parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
Accordingly, with reference to forecast values for transport performance, the market share of rail freight transport fell from 19 percent in 2019 to 17.5 percent in 2020. The share of road freight transport, on the other hand, rose slightly.
Reasons for this were not given.
The Green transport politician Matthias Gastel spoke of a "traffic policy alarm cry".
The corona pandemic is only of limited use as an explanation in this context.
"Politically relevant reasons for the sharp decline in the transport performance of the freight railways are the structural problems at DB Cargo and the distortions of competition in the transport market, which burden the entire rail sector," said Gastel of the German press agency.
"If the federal government wants to achieve its self-imposed target of 25 percent market share in rail freight transport by 2030, then it must finally translate its Sunday speeches on transport policy with the slogan" shift more traffic to rail "into action."
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The Deutsche Bahn subsidiary DB Cargo has a market share of slightly less than 50 percent in rail freight transport.
When asked, the group emphasized that the share of rail in total freight transport fluctuates.
In times of low oil prices, for example, more freight forwarders would shift their transports to the road.
On the other hand, in dry summers with low water, the railways benefit from shipping.
But there is no sustained downward trend.
In addition, improvements in the infrastructure will only become noticeable in the medium term.
At the end of last year, for example, the Ceneri Base Tunnel was opened in Switzerland on the Genoa-Rotterdam route.
The long-running transit traffic by rail has now benefited from a simpler Alpine transit.
The Federal Government regards rail freight transport as an important component in achieving the climate targets.
According to the coalition agreement, the proportion of total freight traffic is to rise to 25 percent by 2030.
From the point of view of the Allianz pro Schiene interest group, however, this goal can only be achieved if, among other things, road transport subsidies are significantly reduced at the same time.
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Gastel said the Greens considered a market share of 30 percent for rail freight transport by 2030 to be necessary and also possible if the course is now set correctly.
“In the short term, the freight railways can help the federal government to take over the train path prices during the Corona crisis.
The gradual abolition of the climate-damaging diesel subsidies is long overdue and only one building block for fair competition between rail and road. "
In the long term, a network expansion strategy is needed that creates additional capacities for rail freight transport.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210319-99-887422 / 2