Benchmarking European Rail Freight Transport Companies

This article focuses on answering the following research question: How efficient are European rail transport companies compared with each other? When the focus in benchmarking is placed on “employee productivity performance,” Railcargo Austria and VR Cargo perform relatively well when compared with their competitors. RENFE and SNCF Fret are the worst performers. If the focus is on “sales productivity performance,” the best performers are Green Cargo, SBB, and VR Cargo. The worst performers are Trenitalia, CP, and SNCF Fret. The best in “railcar productivity performance” are Green Cargo, VR Cargo, and Railcargo Austria. The worst performers are SNCF Fret, Trenitalia, and RENFE. Analysis of effects, using a mixed model approach, showed that there are large differences among the companies. The overall trends were mostly not significant, but the distributions of the signs of the trends (+ or ‐) are quite plausible and significant. Two main conclusions arise: First, the inputs (employees, locomotives, and railcars) have been reduced over the years. Second, the partial productivity performances (tons/railcar, tonkms/railcar, sales/railcar, employees/railcar, sales/ton, sales/employee, sales/tonkm, and tonkms/employee) have improved over the years. Overall, less freight is transported more efficiently.