Dear Customers,
We regularly provide updates on the unfavourable operational situation on the railway network, which has persisted since last year and has continued to deteriorate since the beginning of this year, not only due to weather conditions. Ongoing track closures and maintenance works significantly disrupt the overall flow of rail transport, both passenger and freight, and consequently also affect our services. This applies to both the northern corridor, particularly in Germany, and the southern corridor, where Slovenia is currently the most impacted.
Additionally, individual countries are carrying out their own closures, construction, and reconstruction works, which slow down operations, and in some cases even prevent safe and stable traffic. Closures do not only result in longer detour routes and transit times, but also require a higher number of train sets, locomotives, and personnel, while generating additional costs associated with enforced train standstills. The railway infrastructure, due to its congestion, further complicates transit through bottlenecks.
Track closures, combined with the regulation of train entry into the ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven, are creating low-capacity conditions on the rail network. Not only the North German ports are struggling with exceeded capacity and delays in handling, but Gdańsk has also been affected since the first quarter of the year.
The Slovenian infrastructure manager has announced a renewed reduction in capacity for routing traffic on the corridor to/from Koper. At the same time, in the Adriatic region, we are preparing for further restrictions on transport to/from Italy due to the planned closure of the Tarvisio border crossing at the end of summer.
All of the above-mentioned circumstances are significantly impacting transport costs. Throughout this challenging period, we have been making every effort to stabilize the situation without increasing prices.
Following our Newsletter No. 049/2026 dated 05.03.2026, we would therefore like to inform you about an increase in the Congestion Surcharge for the North German ports, Gdańsk, and Koper, effective from 01.05.2026.
The specific surcharge rates can be found on our website.
Should you have any questions, our pricing department is at your disposal. We will continue to monitor the situation and assure you that should operational conditions stabilize in general or at least on certain corridors, we will revise or even cancel our decision accordingly.
This step was not taken lightly, and we have postponed it for as long as possible. We greatly value our mutual cooperation and trust that you will understand our decision.
METRANS Team
