Despite low economic growth and public deficit problems in several important countries, the world rail supply industry steadily grew at approximately 1.5% per annum in the period from 2011 to 2013, according to the 2014 UNIFE World Rail Market Study released today at InnoTrans. The study, conducted by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and based on trends and future orders, expects the annual growth of the industry to increase to 2.7% per year over the next six years.

Lutz Bertling, President of Bombardier Transportation and Chairman of UNIFE, announced the study at InnoTrans, stating, “The demand for rail products continues to be resilient in a difficult economy—the expected year over year growth of 2.7% until 2020 reflects the growing need for sustainable mobility. Global trends like an increasingly urbanised world population will create further needs for modern mobility solutions thus ensuring a long-term prosperous future for our industry.”

The study details that the regional markets with the highest growth rates over the next six years are Latin America, Asia/Pacific, and NAFTA, this is driven by major investments in rail projects in Brazil, Colombia, China, and the U.S. The Africa/Middle East region is expected to maintain its current high market level in the upcoming years. The total world market will amount to approximately €176 billion per year by 2017-2019.

Philippe Citroën, Director General of UNIFE, commented, “European industry is still the predominant player in the global rail supply market, in fact, the manufacturing of rail supplies is one of the few sectors where Europe is still in a leadership position. We expect this trend to continue as the European industry continues to invest in innovation. I am confident that a number of initiatives being developed at EU level, like Shift2Rail, the Connecting Europe Facility and the adoption of the Fourth Railway Package, will give a further boost to the rail market in the near future.”

EU initiatives such as Shift2Rail, the Connecting Europe Facility and the Fourth Railway Package will give an additional boost to the market. According to the report presented by Andreas Schwilling, a partner in Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, between now and 2020 demand will increase annually by 2.7 per cent, with a yearly market volume of some 176 billion euros during the period from 2017 to 2019. Faced with a decline in public funding for rail projects on some markets, alternative forms of financing such as public-private-partnerships are acquiring increasing importance. As revealed by the study, the highest annual growth rates are expected in Latin America, at around six per cent, and the Asia-Pacific region with around four per cent, closely followed by North America with roughly 3.5 per cent. And even in the Africa/Middle East region, where massive investment in recent years is expected to produce zero growth, the volume of orders is expected to reach seven billion euros annually.