The upswing in cargo transport on the Austrian section of the Danube, which began in the second half of 2009, was continued in 2010. In almost all goods segments, transport volumes increased in comparison to 2009, nearly reaching the level of 2008: In 2010, a total of 11.1 million tons of goods were carried on the Austrian Danube, which is equivalent to an increase of 18.6% or 1.7 million tons over the crisis year 2009. This result only falls short by 1.4% or 156,631 tons compared to the figures for 2008.

Consequently, transport performance on the Danube within Austria increased by 18.6% to 2.4 billion ton-kilometres over 2009, the overall transport performance by 19.4% to 11.5 billion ton-kilometres. The number of loaded journeys undertaken on the Austrian section of the Danube rose by 7.5% to 10,391.

In the import sector, the transport volume amounted to 6.2 million tons, showing an increase of 25.4% or 1,254,578 tons compared to 2009. About 76% of the imported goods entered Austria from the east. Close to 58% of this increase was due to the intensified import of ores by the voestalpine in Linz. Furthermore, the import of petroleum products, agricultural and forestry products, fertilisers and building materials increased between 100,000 and 200,000 tons compared to the reference year 2009.

In the export sector, 1.7 million tons of goods were transported by inland vessels, which is equivalent to an increase of 5.5% or 86,418 tons over 2009. In this transport segment, 50% of the goods crossed the eastern border and 50% crossed the western border of the Austrian territory.

The volume of transit transport rose by 10.6% or 262,104 tons to 2.7 million tons. In transit, 84% of the goods were carried upstream, 16% downstream. The transport volume reported for transit traffic constitutes an extrapolated figure since Statistics Austria uses an estimation model to compensate for the existing under coverage of transit transport.

Finally, domestic traffic on the Austrian section of the Danube waterway increased by 38.6% or 127,169 tons to 456,632 tons.

The shares of the individual transport segments in total waterway cargo transport in 2010 are specified below (changes over 2009 are indicated as percentages in brackets): 56.1% import (+3.1%), 24.7% transit (-1,8%), 15.1% export (-1.9%) and 4.1% domestic traffic (+0.6%).