The Impact of Migration of Road Freight Transport Services on Economic Indicators in Selected EU Countries

Abstract

Transport is an industry that generates a significant portion of national income and directly or indirectly employs a large number of workers, while supporting the existence and development of all other sectors of the economy. Despite the long-standing goal of decoupling economic and transport growth in the European Union (EU), freight transport volumes, especially road freight transport, continue to increase. This leads to a deterioration of the quality of life and the environment, but on the other hand also creates business opportunities. The question is which country’s haulers will benefit the most. Using a shift-share analysis, the authors provide an overview of the dynamics of the EU road freight market and select countries for closer examination. They then examine the extent to which the road freight sector contributes to national income in these countries. Using a regression analysis, they estimate transport prices and changes in turnover and gross value added (GVA) for selected countries due to market structure change. The results show that the sector’s turnover increased by 4% due to market changes, sectoral GVA deviated only slightly, and there was a loss of at least 8 billion EUR in GVA due to the shortage of truck drivers.