Relevance for the logistic market:
Transport industry deregulation is expected to continue, leading to a reshaping of the modal split and an increase in the supply of freight transport services, while increased competition will change the performance of the freight transport system (e.g. fleet utilisation, freight rates, lead-times, service quality/reliability); However, considering the modal split development of freight transport for inland modes between 1995 and 2012 it is evident that the share of road freight transport increased slightly to a peak of 73.4% in 2009, but subsequently decreased by 1.8%by 2012. In contrast, the share of rail freight transport declined between 1995 and 2009 from 20.3% to 15.7%, but has increased by 1.5% points since then. For the most part, the share of inland waterway transport stagnated during this period. When trying to put these developments into the context of transport industry deregulation, one should expect that, in general, deregulation would lead to increased competition (thus the more deregulated the mode, the higher the modal share of this mode). Interestingly, this anticipated outcome seems to be reflected in the modal share figures in particular for road transport. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the deregulation of the transport industry is not impacting the freight transport sector alone. Thus a simple comparison of modal shares will not allow identification of the full extent of the impact of deregulation. In fact there are further transport related factors (e.g. cost/price, technology, etc.), which affect the development of inland freight transport in the EU. In particular, economic development is the most important factor influencing the transport and logistics sector, as clearly indicated by modal split developments since 2009.