Only 8 percent of funds allocated to road and railway infrastructure were directed to the Romanian railway infrastructure in 2005. This ratio was the lowest from all the countries analyzed by A.T. Kearney and 4 times smaller than the average.
Relative to the freight market, Romania’s investments in rail infrastructure are lagging behind most European countries (13 times smaller than average investments per freight volume – EUR/t-km). This situation lead to a competitive disadvantage for railway transporters, with a very high mismatch between rail and road freight evolution. Due to this trend, there has been a major shift within the Romanian freight structure. Even though in absolute terms, rail freight market decreased yearly by only 1 per cent between 2000 and 2006, in relative terms, it has clearly lost its strong position within the market structure (from 47 per cent in 2000 to 19 per cent in 2006).
