Inland water transport shows the highest effectiveness compared to road and rail transport, not only because of its low energy consumption, but also because of its high mass-transport capacity, as inland waterway transport offers much larger transport capacities per transport unit than other transport modes.
A pushed convoy carrying a load of 3,700 tonnes is equivalent to 93 railway wagons carrying 40 tonnes or 148 lorries carrying 25 tonnes. On the road, this number of lorries would form a convoy extending over approximately 10 kilometres.
In comparison with the nowadays sometimes heavily congested transport modes of road and rail, waterway transport has sufficient available capacities. Currently only approximately 15% of the overall capacity of the Danube are used for navigation.
A greater volume of water-borne freight transport mean less congestions and hence a reduction of the burden on the transport system of road and rail. Fewer accidents, less noise, fewer emissions, low capital expenditure requirements and low energy consumption combined with a high mass-transport capacity enable inland waterway transport to contribute to the environmentally friendly and economically effective management of part of the increase in freight transport volumes in the Danube corridor.
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