Hi Guys,
A recent report published by France’s road freight data agency, the Comité National Routier (CNR) shows that Poland has consolidated its position at the top as Europe’s leading international road haulage country.
Poland’s road haulage companies clocked up 147,274mtk (million tonne kilometers) of international traffic movements in 2013, which shows an increase of 10.5% on the year previous.
In second position was Spain and following in third was Germany, although haulage companies in these countries showed a decline in international traffic from the previous year. 0.4% for Spain and 6.6% for Germany.
Haulage companies from Poland now carry close to a quarter of all international road freight in the EU and increases their activity in ‘cabotage’ by nearly 40% in 2013.
They now have a whopping 27% share of the ‘cabotage’ in the EU these are freight deliveries between two or more markets that does not include the haulage companies home country.
The global international traffic figures across the 28 European Union member states was up by 6.1% in 2013 compared to the previous year.
The 13 EU member states that joined in or after 2004 have posted average growth of nearly 10% on international traffic, this is compared to the growth of the 15 longer standing EU members of only 2.2% growth.
The ‘new’ EU member states occupy six of the top ten places for international haulage. The notable performers were Lithuania who showed a share of 13.3% and Romania who posted 26.7% growth. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia also showed solid growth figures.
The remaining countries in the top ten were The Netherlands with 10.7% growth and Portugal showing an increase of 23.1% on the previous year.
The top ten reads:
- Poland
- Spain
- Germany
- The Netherlands
- Czech Republic
- Portugal
- Hungary
- Slovakia
- Lithuania
- Romania
You will notice that haulage companies in the UK, France and Italy, which are three of the four largest economies in the EU, do not appear in the top ten list.
UK haulage companies ranked in 18th position and increased their international traffic by only 1% in 2013, however international freight only represents 5% of UK haulier’s business, while Polish haulier’s have 60% of their total business being on international routes.
These figures show that the vastly lower labour costs in Eastern and Central Europe are having an explosive effect on the EU haulage market.
With the cost of fuel and labour in the UK and other Western EU states it makes it very difficult to compete against the likes of Poland on international road haulage.
So, what’s new, we all know that most of the work is going to eastern Bloc hauliers, it’s the cabotage bit that could
be a problem if Brussels decides to change the cabotage rules ?
Rgs
JJSL