Rail freight transport is facing contradicting realities. Ambitious goals to stimulate this mode of land transport at the expense of the less sustainable and over congested road transport, are going hand in hand with a continuous decrease in usage and modal share statistics. As it is known that a lack of flexibility is holding back the development of this mode, this research wants to evaluate what could be the direct economic impact of rail freight transport in Belgium if these bottlenecks are resolved. By generating three economic indicators, evaluating the added value per unit of workforce, the added value per unit of production and the added value range for the incumbent rail freight operator, the productivity and efficiency of rail freight transport services in Belgium are evaluated and compared with the four main competitors. Results show that for all indicators a positive direct economic impact and an upward trend can be observed, although data collection proves to be challenging and historical data is inexistent or inconsistent due to the absence of joint cost allocation, which is clearly a point of attention for policymakers. Results also indicate that liberalization of the rail freight market is stimulating rail freight operators to improve their efficiency by rethinking their business.

铁路货运面临着矛盾的现实。以不可持续和过度拥挤的公路运输为代价来刺激这种陆路运输方式的雄心勃勃的目标，与使用量和运输方式份额统计数据的持续下降齐头并进。众所周知，缺乏灵活性阻碍了这种模式的发展，本研究旨在评估如果这些瓶颈得到解决，比利时铁路货运对经济的直接影响。通过生成三个经济指标，评估单位劳动力的附加值、单位生产的附加值和现有铁路货运运营商的附加值范围，评估比利时铁路货运服务的生产力和效率，并与四大主要竞争对手。结果表明，对于所有指标，都可以观察到积极的直接经济影响和上升趋势，尽管数据收集被证明具有挑战性，并且由于缺乏联合成本分配，历史数据不存在或不一致，这显然是政策制定者。结果还表明，铁路货运市场的自由化正在刺激铁路货运运营商通过重新思考其业务来提高效率。