France inland river transport: national, excluding transit
France inland river transport: national, excluding transit stood at 307 tonne-km in Mar 2026, according to INSEE – Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (BDM). It is one of the indicators in the Monthly transport traffic table (Value · Monthly), with a complete series running from Jan 1982 to Mar 2026. The complete series with an interactive chart, free to download.
This indicator in the Monthly transport traffic table
| Indicator | 03-2026 | 02-2026 | 01-2026 | 12-2025 | 11-2025 | 10-2025 | 09-2025 | 08-2025 | 07-2025 | 06-2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inland river transport - National transport - Excluding transit | 307 | 294 | 281 | 296 | 333 | 353 | 387 | 304 | 303 | 279 | |
| Inland river transport - International transport - Excluding transit | 155 | 183 | 161 | 171 | 195 | 206 | 188 | 169 | 157 | 201 | |
| Air freight and mail transport - Aéroports de Paris | 171.1 | 164.1 | 160.2 | 184.4 | 183.6 | 184.2 | 163 | 163.3 | 173 | 161 |
Understanding france inland river transport: national, excluding transit
Cargo movement evaluated here covers shipments that both begin and end their journey within domestic borders via navigable rivers and canals, calculated in terms of weight multiplied by distance covered. The series excludes all international voyages and strips out foreign transit traffic that merely traverses domestic waterways without local commercial engagement. This isolates purely internal supply chains from cross-border trade dynamics captured in separate statistical rows.
Interpreting this dataset necessitates filtering out weather disruptions that restrict barge drafts or halt canal operations during specific periods of the year. Analysts must rely on twelve-month comparisons to identify genuine structural shifts in domestic logistics, bypassing normal seasonal troughs tied to agricultural harvest cycles or industrial shutdown periods. Early releases frequently undergo upward or downward adjustments as smaller shipping companies submit delayed transport logs. Contrasting this internal metric with road haulage figures reveals modal shifts, though waterway constraints mean shifts rarely happen overnight.
Frequently asked questions
- Are shipments originating abroad included in this national total?
- No, only cargo with both loading and unloading points entirely within the national border is counted here.
- Which types of goods dominate this internal waterway metric?
- Bulk commodities such as construction materials, agricultural grains, and heavy industrial inputs form the vast majority of volume.
- Why is month-on-month analysis unreliable for this series?
- Regular weather events and recurring industrial holiday periods cause sharp monthly swings that obscure underlying economic direction.