Record 21.5 Billion Tonne-Kilometers: Inside Austria’s Just-Released Freight Boom

Austria rail freight volumes reached 96.2 million tonnes in 2025. That was up 1.8% from the previous year. Also, domestic transport performance increased 2.6% to 21.5 billion tonne-kilometres. This is reported by the railway transport news portal Railway Supply.

According to Statistics Austria, total rail freight was 1.7 million tonnes higher than in 2024. Domestic movements reached 28.5 million tonnes, up 3.5%. Meanwhile, transit traffic climbed 2.7% to 30.0 million tonnes. Cross-border inbound volumes were almost unchanged at 21.0 million tonnes. They were up 0.1%. At the same time, outbound traffic slipped 0.2% to 16.7 million tonnes.

Transit volumes and partner-country flows

As Railmarket reported, transit made up 31.2% of all rail freight tonnage in Austria. For example, cargo moving between Germany and Italy through Austria totalled 13.1 million tonnes. This equalled 43.8% of the country’s transit traffic. Also, Germany remained Austria’s main rail freight partner. It accounted for 30.9% of inbound traffic and 43.8% of outbound traffic.

Measured by transport performance, transit freight reached 8.4 billion tonne-kilometres. That was an increase of 6.7%. In addition, domestic transport performance grew 5.0% to 4.5 billion tonne-kilometres. Cross-border outbound performance decreased 3.1% to 3.7 billion tonne-kilometres. Inbound performance fell 1.7% to 5.0 billion tonne-kilometres.

Long-distance and intermodal traffic

Longer routes continued to carry the largest share of rail freight activity. Services over 300 km represented 57.8% of total transport performance. That was equal to 12.4 billion tonne-kilometres.

Separately, intermodal traffic also expanded. It involved 2.1 million road vehicles, semi-trailers, containers and swap bodies. That was up 2.9% year on year. It corresponded to 3.2 million TEU, a 4.6% increase.

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