• In France, the cargo segment of sands, stones and building materials is the largest segment in IWT. Its transport performance follows a positive trend. The segment was affected by the Covid crisis in March and April, but transport performance recovered until June to pre-crisis levels.
• Agricultural products are the second largest cargo segment in France. Its transport demand is closely linked with harvest results. After a good harvest season in 2019, the 2020 season was quite weak, which will affect transport of grain in 2021.
INLAND WATERWAY TRAFFIC IN FRENCH PORTS
Sources : Ministère de la Transition écologique et solidaire, Voies Navigables de France
FACT SHEET IWT IN FRANCE – ANNUAL FIGURES
Notes on the factsheet: ‘Share in EU total’ contains figures for the EU plus Switzerland and Serbia.
In contrast to transport performance, for transport volume, a country-specific share cannot be calculated.
The modal split share is defined as the percentage of inland waterway freight transport performance (in TKM) within total land-based transport performance. Land-based freight transport modes include road, rail and inland waterways. The road freight activity is reported according to the territoriality principle, where international road freight transport data are redistributed according to the national territories of where the transport actually takes place. These principles are implemented in the Eurostat series [tran_hv_frmod].
IWW FREIGHT TRANSPORT IN FRANCE FOR THE TWO LARGEST CARGO SEGMENTS
- The Covid-19 pandemic had a V-shaped impact on the transport performance for sands, stones and gravel. The trough of this downturn was in April 2020. During the month of May, a recovery set in, which was completed in June 2020. The positive long-run trend reflects several influencing factors (demographic growth in France, rise in construction output). Short-run factors relate to individual one-off construction projects. The Olympic Games 2024 in Paris are an important example. From May until the end of October 2020, 125,000 tonnes of excavated material for the Olympic Village was transported on the river Seine (Source: Journal NPI, 01/2021, « Une dynamique dans différentes métropoles »).
- For agricultural and food products, the positive trend since 2017 is mainly explained by the development of harvest results (In France, inland waterway transport of agricultural products is closely correlated with harvest results. See: EU/CCNR (2018), Inland Navigation in Europe – Annual Market Observation Report, Chapter 9). According to Eurostat data (Eurostat series [APRO_CPSH1], Cereals for grain production (including seed production), (C0000)), grain harvest in France amounted to 71.8 million tonnes in 2015, but dropped to 53.6 million tonnes in 2016. In the years 2017-2019, volumes recovered and reached 70.4 million tonnes in 2019. In 2020, however, grain harvest in France was only 56.7 million tonnes. A dampening of the positive trend can therefore be expected for 2021.
- In the river-sea-port of Rouen, which is among the three largest ports in Europe for the export of cereals, the modal split share of IWT, for grain coming from the hinterland to the port, rose slightly in recent years. It reached 32% in 2020, according to information from the logistics company which exploits the terminals.
FIGURE 1: TRANSPORT PERFORMANCE FOR SANDS, STONES, BUILDING MATERIALS IN IWT IN FRANCE (IN MILLION TKM)
Sources: Ministère de la Transition écologique et solidaire, Données et études statistiques, CCNR calculation
FIGURE 2: TRANSPORT PERFORMANCE FOR AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD PRODUCTS IN IWT IN FRANCE (IN MILLION TKM)
Sources: Ministère de la Transition écologique et solidaire, Données et études statistiques, CCNR calculation
