Polish transport concluded 2025 with a clear increase in both freight and passenger traffic. According to data from Statistics Poland, the total volume of transported cargo rose by 7.6% to 2.3 billion tonnes, while passenger numbers increased by 4.2% to 728.4 million. However, behind the strong performance of the sector as a whole lie highly contrasting trends within individual transport branches. Aviation saw the most robust growth, road transport maintained its dominant position in freight, while rail freight found itself under pressure once again.
Road Transport vs. Rail Freight
Road transport remains the most critical segment of the market. In 2025, it carried 2.026 billion tonnes of cargo, marking an 8.8% increase year-on-year. This means that trucks accounted for approximately 88% of the total volume of goods transported. Road transport performance grew by 4% to 408.2 billion tonne-kilometres. The data confirms that the Polish economy continues to rely heavily on roads for its logistics.
In contrast, the situation in rail freight looks significantly weaker. In 2025, rail carried 216.1 million tonnes of cargo, down 2.7% from the previous year. Transport performance also declined — by 3.4% to 55.9 billion tonne-kilometres. This serves as another signal that rail is losing market share to road transport, particularly where flexibility, speed of organisation and infrastructure availability are paramount.
The Aviation Boom
Air transport stands out among the positive exceptions. Air cargo transport grew by 17.5% to 109,000 tonnes. The growing significance of aviation is even more visible in passenger traffic. In 2025, airlines carried 19 million passengers, representing a 9.5% increase year-on-year. Passenger transport performance in aviation rose by 8% to 39.8 billion passenger-kilometres.
Divergent Trends in Passenger Rail and Bus Transport
Passenger rail also recorded strong results. The number of passengers increased by 7.7% to 438 million. This outcome means that rail accounted for over 60% of all passengers carried by the public transport systems included in the report. The growth in passenger numbers and transport performance indicates that rail is becoming increasingly effective at capturing traffic, particularly on routes between major cities.
The opposite trend is visible in bus and road passenger transport. The number of passengers carried dropped by 1.4% to 268.9 million. Transport performance shrank even more noticeably — by as much as 16.3%. This may suggest that buses are increasingly serving shorter, local routes, while longer journeys are being taken over by rail and aviation.
Maritime, Pipeline and Inland Waterway Freight
In freight transport, growth was also recorded in the maritime and pipeline sectors. Maritime transport carried 7.1 million tonnes of cargo, up 6.3% compared with 2024, with its transport performance increasing by 12.4%.
Pipeline transport increased its volume by 5.9% to 49 million tonnes, with a 10.1% increase in transport performance. Inland waterway transport, on the other hand, remained stable in volume terms, but its transport performance dropped by 5.3%.
