After a complicated 2023, rail-road combined transport in France grew by 9,9 per cent in 2024. Despite this revival, figures are still below 2022 levels, when the sector was on a growing trajectory. “The harmful effects of 2023 have thus not yet been recovered”, said the French National Group for Combined Transport (GNTC).
The sector posted the same percentage of growth, (9,9 per cent) in terms of trains/kilometre, for a total of 18,3 million, and tonnes/kilometre, for a total of 23,3 billion. The data from GNTC also showed that French rail-road combined transport is still a mainly national phenomenon, as only one-third of the services is international.
It needs to be mentioned that, during 2024, there were quite a few obstacles for the development of this sector in France. First and foremost the closure of the Frejus Railway between Italy and France for the whole 2024 which caused the interruption of the Alpine Railway Motorway (AFA). The positive year for French combined transport reflects a more European trend. The past year brought somewhat positive developments for the sector across the Old Continent, especially in the second and last quarters.
The sensibility of combined transport
Another interesting conclusion from the GNTC report is that the rail freight general trends are usually amplified within the combined transport segment. For example, between 2022 and 2023, rail freight in France dropped by 13 per cent and, in the following year, it grew by 5 per cent. At the same time, combined transport decreased by 18,7 per cent between 2022 and 2023 and increased by 9,9 per cent the year after. In other words, rail-road combined transport seems to be more susceptible to market changes. As GNTC put it, this type of transport is “falling more sharply in times of crisis and recovering faster in times of growth”.