EUROPE: The September update of the Community of European Railway & Infrastructure Companies’ Covid Impact Tracker shows signs of improvement for passenger train services, but none for freight and a worsening of the financial situation for infrastructure managers.
CER estimates the cumulative losses suffered by the rail sector from the beginning of the pandemic until the end of June at close to €42bn.
‘The financial impact of the pandemic remains dire in the whole rail industry’, said CER Executive Director Alberto Mazzola on September 28.
Passenger
A significant and continuous improvement in passenger-km was recorded between May and September 2021, after ridership fell by two-thirds from November 2020 to April 2021. However passenger-km in August were still down by a third on the same period in 2019.
Passenger-related revenues in August were also down by 30% when compared to pre-pandemic levels, although this was an improvement on the 50% reduction seen between November 2020 and April 2021.
Freight
CER reports no significant improvement in the rail freight sector, with revenues still around 10% down on 2019 levels.
There was not enough data to report on changes in tonne-km, but for those companies which provided both revenue and volume data the figures tended to correlate over time and were of a similar magnitude.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure managers’ revenues were down almost 10% compared to 2019, whereas train-km had returned to 2019 levels during the summer months.
CER cautioned that the overall average hides substantial differences between infrastructure managers, with three reporting particularly high revenue losses. This was primarily attributed to a lowering of infrastructure charges that had not been fully compensated by their respective regulatory authorities.
Impact on capacity to invest
CER reiterated the importance of governments providing ‘adequate and timely’ financial support, taking into account rail’s importance for making the transport sector greener.
‘With more than €40bn total loss since the beginning of the crisis, railway undertakings are recording operational losses that will have an impact on their capacity to invest, for instance in rolling stock’, said Mazzola. ‘Railways are grateful for the important investments in rail infrastructure supported by Next GenerationEU, the European and national budgets. However, in the current crisis support for operations is paramount.’
