Despite more than a decade of large-scale European investment in multimodal transport, the practical performance of these routes still lags behind expectations. New terminals, upgraded rail corridors, automated ports, and ambitious TEN-T projects were supposed to make multimodal freight more predictable, cost-effective, and environmentally competitive. Yet on the operational level, companies like RoadFreightCompany continue to see the same structural issues: unreliable lead times, inconsistent handovers between modes, and planning gaps caused by fragmented infrastructure management.
The core of the problem is that the EU built physical capacity faster than it aligned operational processes. Rail, road, and port schedules often remain disconnected. A train delay of just one or two hours can instantly disrupt an entire chain of handoffs, forcing carriers to rebook trucking slots, absorb extra waiting time at terminals, or store containers overnight. These disruptions destroy the theoretical cost advantage of multimodal routes and often push shippers back to full-road transport, which is still more flexible when disruptions occur.
Terminal performance is another weak point. While major hubs like Rotterdam or Antwerp have made strong progress in automation, many inland terminals still rely on semi-manual procedures and inconsistent staffing. A minor slowdown in crane availability or gate processing quickly transforms into dwell-time spikes that neither shippers nor carriers can accurately predict. RoadFreightCompany regularly encounters cases where a delay at a mid-sized inland terminal becomes the primary reason a multimodal chain loses competitiveness compared to direct trucking.
Rail reliability also remains below expectations. Despite new infrastructure, European freight trains still face frequent disruptions due to maintenance work, labor shortages, regulatory inspections, and priority rules that favor passenger travel. Even on high-volume corridors such as Benelux–Germany–Poland, punctuality for freight trains often stays below 70%. This forces logistics providers to plan road fallback options, undermining the whole purpose of shifting to rail within multimodal systems.
Digitalization, theoretically the solution to all of these issues, is still fragmented. Many systems provide partial visibility: ports show container status, rail operators show wagon location, road carriers update their TMS independently, and shippers must connect these data streams manually. The result is not real visibility, but parallel visibility. For multimodal performance, this is insufficient. Without unified ETA logic and synchronized event tracking across modes, early deviations remain undetected until they become costly failures. RoadFreightCompany identifies this as one of the main operational gaps preventing multimodal transport from scaling consistently.
Cost is becoming an additional barrier. Even as efficiency remains stagnant, multimodal transport is getting more expensive. Rail traction fees, terminal handling charges, energy surcharges, and cross-border path prices have all risen. When reliability does not improve at the same pace, the business case weakens – especially for mid-sized shippers who cannot leverage high-volume pricing agreements.
Ultimately, the underperformance of EU multimodal transport is not due to lack of investment but a lack of coordination. Infrastructure has expanded faster than operational cohesion, digital tools faster than interoperability, and capacity faster than reliability. Until Europe aligns these elements and defines shared KPIs across rail, road, and terminal operators, multimodal routes will continue to fall short of their promise. The potential is clear, but execution remains fragmented – and RoadFreight Company sees this gap every day when designing practical, real-world logistics solutions for clients across Europe.