In an interview with Railfreight.com, Marc Vollet, EVP, European Road Network at SNCF-owned multimodal operator Geodis, highlights that the flat-to-low-growth economic climate in Europe has led to a weakening in freight demand, resulting in a decline in road haulage rates. This in turn is impacting the viability of existing rail freight/intermodal services and arguably making the continued development of the sector even tougher.
Geodis has been directly affected by the deteriorating market conditions having temporarily suspended its Łódź (Poland)-Barcelona rail service – launched in June 2024 – at the end of last year.
All-by-truck mindset
The French group is one of Europe’s leading providers of road haulage, a segment in which it earns a significant percentage of its global turnover. Nevertheless, Geodis is committed to an intermodal/multimodal approach to freight transport, Vollet emphasised.
“Road accounts for around 90 per cent of Geodis’ overland freight volumes but we have a strategy that focuses on offering more than one modal solution – as our weekly programme of around 120 trains operating across France and Europe testifies. This contributes to reducing the risk to supply chains and is also in line with our decarbonisation road map to reduce CO2 emissions by 42 per cent by 2030.“
However, he is under no illusion of the task in hand to convince shippers to depart from a long-established ‘all-by-truck’ mindset and transfer part of their goods flows to rail.
“The prevailing environment in road haulage at any one time, particularly in terms of rates, often determines the state of a good part of the rail freight market. Rail freight/intermodal transport has traditionally been a little more expensive than road. Since 2023, road haulage rates have fallen to a fairly low level, exerting pressures on the attractiveness of rail freight.”
‘Intermodal’ thrived during pandemic
Vollet recalled the COVID-19 years during which rail/intermodal freight transport came out of the shadow of road haulage as supply chains slid into chaos and there were far fewer trucks than normal on the roads.
“2021-2022, we were able to create a lot of things, because road haulage rates had rocketed. Customers were looking for capacity and rail freight was able to provide it in abundance. I would go as far to say that everything at the time was conducive to the development of intermodal transport. Everyone wanted to get their cargo on board the trains because it was cheaper and the railways were extraordinarily reliable and everything ran smoothly.”
However, the end of that year and early-2023 saw a steady decrease in road haulage rates, the market normalising as the pandemic regressed and the intermodal segment entered a more complicated period.
Shortage of train drivers, reliability of locomotives
As for other issues facing rail freight, Vollet noted that it is starting to experience the same difficulties as road haulage which has been dogged for some time by a shortage of truck drivers.
“There’s a dwindling pool of train drivers and while rail firms have for several years undertaken major recruitment and training programmes, it’s not uncommon these days for trains to be delayed because of a lack of available drivers.”
The reliability of rolling stock is also a concern despite rail operators investing heavily in new locomotives. “Train breakdowns can happen and when they do, it’s effectively the equivalent of 40 trucks that are immobilised, not just one when compared to road haulage.”
Market outlook
In conclusion, Vollet underlined that as long as the economic argument continues to favour road haulage, rail freight will be in a battle to retain existing customers and attract new ones.
“One can’t deny that the market is going through a challenging phase. For a year, year and a half now, road haulage rates – notably in the long-distance sector where there is head-on competition with intermodal – have fallen sharply. Speaking for Geodis, over the past few months our rail-borne volumes have been a little lower than expected.”
As for convincing shippers to take the train, Vollet observed there were those who simply did not want to entertain the idea of rail freight at all, leaving two categories of potential new customers: firstly, those who are very motivated when it comes to the ‘greening’ or decarbonisation of their transport provision and secondly, shippers who could envisage a shift to rail provided the price differential with road was marginal.
“Today, in general, I would say a shipper switching to rail does so primarily out of a real desire to decarbonise and is ready to take on the constraints of intermodal transport such as punctuality and the uncertainty of on-time delivery. They know that there may be a few problems down the line but are ready to accept them in the name of sustainable transport solutions.”