The Swiss Federal Statistical Office announced today that in 2023 the provision of freight transport services in Switzerland have significantly decreased compared to the previous year, both for the road haulage services (-6.1%) and rail services (-5.7%) which totalled a total performance of €26.1 billion tonne-kilometres (-6.0%). The Office pointed out that, with 15.5 billion tonne-kilometres last year Road haulage even recorded the lowest value since 2007, and, with 9.9 billion tonne-kilometres, also the rail freight transport was found to be at levels particularly low: with the exception of 2020, the year on which they the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is necessary to Go back to 2012 to find a lower value.

With regard to total transport performance, in 2023 the share of rail transport remained unchanged at 38% as well as that of road transport, which has again at 62%.

The Bureau of Statistics explained that the decline in transport performance in 2023 can be traced back to mainly due to the weak development of the economies that affected both Switzerland and the rest of Europe. In 2023, these benefits in the International traffic (imports, exports and transit) recorded a decrease of -8% both on road and rail, greater decline than domestic traffic that relatively road haulage recorded a decrease of -5%, while for the railway, which nevertheless contributes relatively limited to the transport of goods within Switzerland, is an increase of +5% was detected.