Rail Moves One Sixth of the EU's Inland Freight and Almost None of Ireland's

Weight multiplied by distance

The modal split of freight divides everything moved inside a country between road, rail and inland waterways. Its unit is the tonne-kilometre: one tonne carried one kilometre. A lorry taking twenty tonnes across a city and a train taking two thousand tonnes across a country are weighed accordingly, so the measure describes where the heavy, long-distance work is done rather than how many consignments each mode handles.

On that measure, road carried 78.2% of the EU's inland freight in 2024, rail 16.6% and inland waterways 5.2%. Rail's share is, near enough, one tonne-kilometre in six.

Where the railway carries the load

Lithuania records the highest rail share in the Union at 37.7%, followed by Latvia at 35.1%, Slovenia at 31.1%, Austria at 30.3%, Slovakia at 30.1% and Sweden at 30.0%. Six Member States move at least 30% of their inland freight by rail.

Hungary at 26.2%, Croatia at 24.3%, Poland at 23.6%, Finland at 23.3%, Czechia at 21.3%, Romania at 21.2%, Germany at 20.3% and Bulgaria at 18.0% complete the group above the EU figure: fourteen Member States in all.

Two things, in part, hold that group together. The Baltic states and much of central Europe inherited dense railway networks built for bulk freight, and their geography puts them on transit corridors between larger economies. Austria and Sweden are the other case: long distances or Alpine crossings, and policy that has kept freight on rails. The two explanations arrive at similar shares from very different starting points.

Where the road has almost everything

Ireland moves 0.6% of its inland freight by rail and 99.4% by road. Greece records 1.3% and 98.7%, Spain 3.9% and 96.1%, Denmark 7.8% and 92.2%. Cyprus and Malta have no railway at all, so their inland freight is road freight by definition: 100.0%.

Six Member States therefore move at least 90% of their inland freight by road, and eleven move at least 85%: Italy at 88.4%, France at 88.3%, Portugal at 86.3%, Luxembourg at 85.6% and Estonia at 85.4% join the six. Seven Member States have a rail share below 10%, three of them below 5%.

France and Italy are the notable members of that list. Both operate large railway networks, and both are known for their passenger trains. For freight the picture is different: 9.8% in France and 11.6% in Italy, each below the EU figure and closer to Denmark than to Germany.

The water route

Inland waterways carry 5.2% of EU freight, but that average is made almost entirely by a handful of countries. The Netherlands moves 40.4% of its inland freight by water, the highest share of any mode other than road anywhere in the Union. Romania records 23.4% and Bulgaria 21.9%, both on the Danube. Belgium follows at 11.0%, Luxembourg at 8.0% and Germany at 7.0%.

Thirteen Member States report any waterway freight at all; in the other fourteen the mode does not exist or carries nothing measurable.

This is what explains the Dutch position in the rail ranking. At 5.9% the Netherlands sits between Luxembourg and Spain, which would be surprising for the country of Rotterdam, Europe's largest seaport, if rail were the only alternative to the road. It is not: the barge is, and it takes two fifths of everything. The Dutch road share of 53.7% is the lowest in the EU, with Romania at 55.4% the only other Member State where road carries less than 60%.

What the split leaves out

The indicator covers the three inland modes and nothing else. Sea and air freight are outside it, as are pipelines. A country whose exports leave by ship is measured here only on the leg between the factory and the port, which shortens the distance the road mode is credited with and flatters no mode in particular. For an island Member State the effect is that the entire international leg vanishes from the count.