Freight transport on the Austrian Danube increased again
A total of 9.1 million tonnes of goods was transported on the Austrian section of the Danube in the year 2016, Statistics Austria announced on Mach 29. Compared to 2015, this was an increase of 0.5 million tonnes (+5.5%).
The total transport performance (i.e. the product of transport volume and distance travelled) was 9.3 billion-tonne kilometres (tkm) and therefore 11.3 percent higher than in 2015. Around 2.0 billion tkm (+8.7%) of this transport performance was provided on the Austrian section of the Danube.
The number of laden trips decreased from 8,658 to 8,448 (-2.4%). The increase in transport volume and performance in spite of the declining number of laden trips can be explained by the higher utilisation per kilometer (+ 7.6%).
Following significant declines due to the weather-related low water levels in 2015 (-15% to 8.6 million tonnes compared with 2014), a slight upward trend in cargo transport on the waterway was recorded in 2016 again.
In 2016 transit tonnage in 2016 increased by 19.5 percent, or 0.4 million tonnes to 2.2 million tonnes, and by 12 percent or 0.2 million tonnes to 2.0 million tonnes with cross-border shipments. Cross-border reception showed a decrease of the shipped volume by 0.6 percent to 4.3 million tonnes. The transport volume in domestic transport was 0.6 million tonnes, up 10.5 percent on the previous year.