Rail freight production in Brazil: Projecting scenarios in times of global uncertainty

The human losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are an overriding concern, nevertheless it is important to discuss other effects that will come in the wake of the pandemic. This article evaluates the pandemic impacts on the rail freight production in Brazil, as railways play a key role on the logistics chain of Brazilian commodities. To achieve this objective, rail production data for the period between January 2006 and December 2021 was analysed using intervention and prediction methods based on Box-Jenkins ARIMA models, assisted by Monte Carlo simulations. The study reveals that, although the 2008 economic crisis caused an inflection in the time series of the analysed macroeconomic variables, it had no statistically significant impact on rail freight production, considering the time series as a whole. The results also confirm that the historical trend of growth in production has been maintained until the moment with no apparent impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the prevailing uncertainty, the study examines other scenarios, projecting different degrees of expected production instability with a prediction horizon of 2025. These scenarios could be an important aid to plan short- and medium-term actions for this transport mode that is crucial to Brazilian economy and exports.