Competition figures 2023/24

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Article: Competition figures 2023/24

DB's annual competition report reveals how the transport markets in Germany and Europe have performed, describes key trends and highlights competition-related developments. Some key points from the report are summarised below:

  • Strong demand overall in the German passenger transport marketAt around 1,050 billion passenger kilometres, transport volume in the German passenger transport market in 2023 was up 3.0% on 2022 and almost reached pre-pandemic levels (2019: around 1,101 billion passenger kilometres). Rail was the only mode of transport to exceed the pre-pandemic figure (2023: around 105 billion passenger kilometres; 2019: around 102 billion passenger kilometres). Passenger transport volume in Germany is expected to grow by around 2.0% in 2024.
  • Rail makes largest gains in market shareMarket share for rail climbed to 10.0% in 2023 (2022: 9.3%). Like public road transport, which increased its market share to 5.9% (2022: 5.7%), regional and local rail passenger transport benefited from the Deutschland-Ticket introduced on 1 May 2023. Part of this growth was due to passengers switching from long-distance rail services. Private motorised transport saw the lowest growth in volume of all modes of transport at an estimated 1.9%. Its share of the market fell to 83.6% (2022: 84.6%). The share of domestic air traffic in Germany rose to 0.5% in 2023 (2022: 0.4%) but remained well below its pre-pandemic level of 0.9%.  
  • Negative economic trend cuts freight transport Germany's economic output (-0.1%), industrial production (-0.9%) and trade in goods (-2.5%) declined in 2023, bringing a fall in demand for transport. The volume of freight transport was estimated at around 680 billion tonne kilometres. This was significantly lower than the previous year's figure (2022: around 710 billion tonne kilometres) and marked a continuation of the downward trend (2022: -0.2%; 2023: -4.2%). Freight transport volume is expected to grow again in 2024 (+1.0%).
  • Road haulage gains market shareThe decline in transport volume in 2023 was less pronounced for road haulage (-3.5%) than for inland waterways (-5.9%) and rail (-6.1%). Road's market share expanded by 0.5 percentage points to 71.4%. Rail freight transport (down by 0.5 percentage points to 19.9%) and inland navigation (down by 0.1 percentage points to 6.1%) both lost market share.
  • Non-DB rail companies increase their share of operating performance on the DB networkOperating performance on the DB rail network fell slightly in 2023 (down by 1.4% to 1,117 million train-path kilometres). The economic trend, which dampened demand for rail freight transport, and one-off effects (strikes, severe weather and construction-related restrictions) were among the causes. Demand for train paths from non-DB rail companies grew by 4.3%. These companies' share of total operating performance on the DB network climbed to 39.2% in 2023 (2022: 37.1%) and 40.8% in the first half of 2024.