THE BUSINESS CLIMATE IN THE RAIL INDUSTRY IS STAGNATING—DEMAND FOR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES REMAINS SUBDUED
SCI RAILINDEX QII/2026
Hamburg. With business performance remaining weak but expectations becoming slightly more positive, the SCI Rail Index rose minimally by one point. Sentiment shows no improvement; business is stagnating. Maria Leenen of SCI Verkehr explains: “The investment gap is enormous: developed industrialized nations face the necessity of investing in their outdated existing networks. The trend is toward automation and connectivity. Predictive maintenance solves the problems of conventional approaches, reduces costs, and is also capable of preempting the looming shortage of skilled workers. Improved traffic management can only be achieved through greater digitalization. At the same time, geopolitical tensions are dampening transport demand—public budgets have less leeway.”
The SCI GLOBAL RAIL INDEX is based on approximately 100 reports from representative companies in the global rail industry. The companies are regularly asked to assess their current business situation and their expectations for the coming three months. They can indicate their situation as "good", "satisfactory" or "poor" and their business expectations for the coming six months as "more favourable", "stable" or "less favourable". The balance value of the current business situation is the difference between the percentages of the answers "good" and "bad", the balance value of the expectations is the difference between the percentages of the answers "more favourable" and "less favourable". The business climate is a transformed mean value from the balances of the business situation and the expectations.
