The COVID-19 crisis is hitting the rail industry in Europe very hard and possibly sustainably

[05.05.2020] In the study "Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the railway sector in Europe" presented today by SCI Verkehr, the wide-ranging effects on operators, vehicle owners and the rail vehicle industry are analysed in three scenarios. 

Since March, Europe has been subject to exit and contact restrictions, and the economy is at a standstill in many sectors. Passenger rail transport has been directly affected, with a decrease of over 90%, for example in Italy and France. Rail freight transport has been increasingly affected since April - operators report declines of between 20% and 35%, while car transport has come to a complete standstill.

How the situation will develop in the coming months and years depends largely on the further course of the pandemic, the duration of the lockdowns and the stabilisation of the economy. To this end, SCI Verkehr has made various assumptions in the three scenarios "Lockdowns return", "Disrupted markets" and "Rapid recovery" and derived the development of transport performance in rail freight and passenger transport.

In the event of a renewed lockdown in autumn, SCI Verkehr expects a 40% slump in passenger transport for 2020 as a whole, while freight transport in Continental Europe will decline by nearly 20%. In this most likely scenario, SCI experts do not expect a recovery to pre-crisis levels until 2023 or 2024.

While the high revenue losses of the operators in passenger transport will probably be partially compensated by government programmes, the freight transport operators, which are initially less affected, will also come under pressure due to widespread low margins. Lack of investment funds on the part of the railways will have a negative impact on vehicle procurement - in its study, SCI Verkehr evaluates the OEM market per vehicle segment and scenario.

The MultiClient Study "Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the railway sector in Europe" is now available (in English) from SCI Verkehr GmbH (www.sci.de), either only for rail freight transport or only for rail passenger transport with detailed analyses of up to five focus markets (Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic). A data annex in Excel format is also available for the study, which presents all the figures contained in the study in a transparent and clear manner.