ZEW/Prognos Survey on Transport Markets - Increasing Quantities and Decreasing Prices

Freight quantities will increase in almost every sub-sector of the German transport industry in the coming six months. Only services providing courier, express and package (CEP) will decrease. Despite the rising transport quantities prices will drop in almost every area of the transport market. These are the key results of the Prognos/ZEW Transportmarktbarometer (Transport Market Barometer) for the first quarter of 2015.

For this quarterly survey, Prognos AG, Basel, and the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim interviewed about 250 top executives of the transport and loading industry. Their assessment applies for the development of transport quantities and prices for the next six months.

In the survey of December 2014 the interviewed experts were pessimistic about the development of the transport quantities - they forecast decreasing quantities in almost every sector of the transport market. The first survey by the Transport Market Barometer in 2015 shows a completely different situation: especially road transport, rail freight traffic, combined traffic as well as air and sea freight are expected to record increasing quantities. It is surprising that this development also concerns the Eastern European transport, which has been severely affected by the Ukraine crisis. We will only see in the long-term if this is a constant development.

Inland shipping is an exception to the overall trend: despite a positive general mood, the experts do not expect major changes for the transport quantities. Despite of a positive forecast by the experts the CEP services will decrease concerning transport quantities. Considering the positive economic prognosis for Germany - especially for private consumption - this result surprises since private consumption is the main factor for the CEP market.

In the first quarter of 2015 the experts forecast decreasing transport prices for the next six months in almost every transport sector. Only inland shipping has an inconsistent price development. Nevertheless, the overall trend in this sub-sector indicates falling prices. There is no single cause which explains the price decreases. According to ZEW researchers, however, the low oil price remains one of the main reasons for the decreasing prices, since it directly influences the transport prices by the fuel costs.

For more information please contact

Dr. Martin Achtnicht (ZEW), Phone +49 621/1235-208 E-mail achtnicht@zew.de

Hans-Paul Kienzler (prognos AG), Phone +41 61/3273 476 E-mail Hans-Paul.Kienzler@prognos.com