Polish intermodal traffic has reached its highest-ever share in the rail market. In Q1 2025, the intermodal share in transport performance (tonne-kilometres) and weight reached new heights, according to statistics agency UTK. The data can be seen as a good sign for Polish rail: it is responding effectively to contemporary challenges.
During the first three months of the year, intermodal transport accounted for 12.7% of the rail market in terms of volume, and nearly 16.6% in terms of transport performance. Both figures are record highs – never before has intermodal traffic occupied such a large share, or such a volume, in Polish rail.
In the same period, trains moved 432,700 intermodal units for a total of 680,700 TEU. The total volume amounted to 6,63 million tonnes, and transport performance reached 2,21 billion tonne-kilometres.
“Intermodal transport is a pillar of modern railways. Its dynamic development in recent years demonstrates that the Polish railways are effectively responding to the challenges of logistics transformation. Data for the first quarter of 2025 confirm that the intermodal market remains highly stable,” commented UTK president Ignacy Góra.
There are not only positives
Despite intermodality taking a bigger and bigger share of the rail pie, there are some setbacks as well. In absolute terms, for example, both weight and transport performance of intermodal traffic declined in recent months.
Those numbers can be explained by a recent downturn in the number of units transported. Those peaked in Q3 2024, but shrunk in the two subsequent quarters.
Statistics agency UTK lists 39 companies as being active in the Polish intermodal market. Out of those, PCC Intermodal takes the largest share of the pie in transport performance: 21%. The company is closely followed by national operator PKP Cargo. DB Cargo Polska and LTE Polska take third and fourth place, respectively.
It is clear that 2024 brought a significant boost to the Polish intermodal market. Geopolitical and economic challenges hurt the intermodal segment considerably in the year prior. A key driver of the rebound was improved eastward connectivity. China-Europe traffic through the Belarusian border checkpoint and Brest gained momentum through much of the year. At the same time, newly launched intermodal connections with Ukraine continued to grow. Both developments were complemented by record transshipment volumes at Polish seaports.
