Freight Railways Sue Against Increase in Track Prices

The pricing system for the use of federal rail tracks is being subjected to judicial review. A group of freight railway companies has filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court in Cologne and also requested interim legal protection to prevent the recently approved increase in track prices for rail freight transport by 16.2 percent.

(Berlin) Track prices are charged for every kilometer of a train journey on the DB InfraGO network. Currently, the DB subsidiary charges 3.21 euros for a “standard freight train”; from mid-December, this is set to rise to 3.73 euros.

The unprecedented increase in track prices is, from the perspective of the FREIGHT RAILWAYS, completely unjustifiable. Ludolf Kerkeling, Chairman of the Board of FREIGHT RAILWAYS, puts it succinctly: “We are expected to pay much more money for less service. The condition of the network has not improved, and the obstacles in the network are growing larger due to an increasing number of construction sites. As a result, operating costs for railway companies are already rising.”

In competition with trucks, and even in combined road/rail transport, the drastic ad-hoc reduction of the previous track price subsidies at the end of 2023 has already severely harmed and weakened freight railways. Companies cannot pass on further cost increases to end customers; numerous transport operations are becoming unprofitable and shifting from rail to road. Kerkeling: “Exploding track prices are harmful to the climate. Like a scale, CO₂ emissions soar when the market share of rail in freight transport declines due to sharply rising track prices. The lawsuit aims to avoid this effect and strengthen rail transport when politics cannot manage it otherwise.”

The head of FREIGHT RAILWAYS also sees “the completely contradictory behavior of the federal government” as a driver of the wave of lawsuits. Kerkeling: “Although the coalition has agreed to strengthen rail in freight transport, it is weakening the competitiveness of companies in an increasingly frequent manner.” In combination with the massive reduction of track price subsidies for rail freight transport in December, the actual track prices to be paid (track price including track price subsidy) are set to more than double compared to early December 2023. Kerkeling: “At the end of the month, there was a small avalanche of companies filing lawsuits.”

Since prices must be approved by the Federal Network Agency, the lawsuit is formally directed against the Bonn authority. Kerkeling does not blame the Federal Network Agency itself – the problem lies in the railway regulation law passed in 2016, which regulates the criticized track pricing system from the outset. Due to a statutory cap on the increase of track prices for local passenger transport, other modes of transport – freight and long-distance passenger transport – must incorporate significantly higher track price increases into their end customer prices.

Fundamental Change of the System Sought

The unique legal variant of the European legal framework in the EU states that track price revenues must cover all operating costs of DB InfraGO – plus a high profit claim in the form of a fixed capital return. This will lead to approximately 600 million euros in track price revenues in the 2025 timetable year, against which there are no operating costs at all. By the end of 2024, the price increase is expected to be higher in one step than in the previous five years combined. In the coming years, further significant increases in track prices are threatened. Therefore, the entrepreneurs aim with their lawsuit for a fundamental change in the system for determining track prices fixed in the railway regulation law.

Kerkeling: “If politics wants to shift more freight to rail, it must also take responsibility as a legislator for sustainable track prices in the freight transport market.”

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