The market for rail freight services : certain selected aspects

The Polish market for rail freight services belongs to a group of markets with a relatively high level of liberalization. Strong competition on the Polish freight market, forcing the search for new sources of strategic advantage, is leading to processes of consolidation, merging and acquisition. There are high fees for access to the infrastructure, despite its relatively low quality of performance. Opportunities for rail-related international exchange are not being taken, the geographical location of Poland is not being taken advantage of and the quality of the services provided is low. An important role in the intensification of rail transport infrastructure is the condition of the railway network. The modernization of these networks by 2011 has improved the condition of the Polish railway infrastructure. The structure of the rail freight market by weight of cargo in Poland, the structure of the polish freight market, the dynamics of changes in the size of cargo in the years from 2006 to 2011 according to transported mass relative to the size of the cargo in 2004, advantages of rail freight services, problems with the development of the rail freight market are presented in the paper.