We therefore have reasons to be satisfied and to make cautious forecasts for the upcoming quarters. How do the specific financial results of PKP Cargo look? In Q1, we carried 23.3 million tons of cargo. We've done 6.417 billion tkm, our revenue with customers under contracts have grown year-by-year by 34%, amount to PLN 1.564 billion , generating PLN 104 million of net profit in comparison to 42 million of losses in 2022 and an EBITDA result of PLN 359 million and a profitability of 23%. The operating costs have grown by 16% to PLN 1.391 billion .
The beginning of this year was also a period of high scale investments, above all, in rolling stock for multi-system locomotives and building trans shipment terminals. The total investment made in Q1 was PLN 469 million. Of course, these are results with which we're very satisfied. As I mentioned, there are many unfavorable trends, which means that we have to maintain a cautious optimism and a responsible optimism if we talk about subsequent periods. In just a moment, I'll tell you a little bit more about the operating details and commercial details which contributed to our results. In Q1, our freight turnover was 6,417 million tkm , and delicately speaking, there was a 2% decline with a very high differentiation across the categories.
If we look at the solid fuels, we are speaking primarily here about hard coal. We have a 25% almost of increase, while if we look at intermodal transport, we see decline continuing from year-over-year. It's down by a little more than a half. We can see that the shipments of timber and agricultural products have also grown. This is also true of construction materials, we've also seen the transport of chemical products, metals, and ores having reduced. If we look at the rail turnover mass, we can see that we've done some 2.6 million tons less than in Q1 of 2022, with hard coal and intermodal transport responsible for some 70% of that amount. In the other categories, we have seen some small declines.
We do have to remember that we are still working on a very challenging work market when we compare the data to last year, and we're looking at what happened prior to the embargo on imports from Russia and Belarus, as well as the growth in inflation that was moving upwards by leaps and bounds, which has curtailed demand for many products that we ship. The growth in electricity in the country and the rates for distribution services and the tariff of our supplier of traction energy, has led to higher costs of electricity, costs for traction purposes on a year-on-year basis, as well as a quarter-on-quarter, and also as we do the conversions into 1 tkm.
We are looking at the final financial result, which has been positively delivered by our rail turnover of fast trains, and this has a lower level of energy intensity than trains that were in other categories. PKP Cargo has, in the first three quarters or three months of the year, incurred investment expenditures of PLN 469.3 million. That's 111% more than the corresponding period of 2022, and a lot was spent to do investment tasks related to rolling stock, including the locomotives, leasing of leased locomotives of PLN 202.8 million, as well as to do repairs and periodic inspections of rolling stock and modernization of locomotives, a total of PLN 160.9 million.
We also have expenditures for investment construction of PLN 29.4 million. If we look at the full year basis, we anticipate the CapEx will be slightly higher than last year. If we look at the operating parameters in hard coal segment, which because of external situation, is something we treat as a priority in the first quarter of 2023, we can see that the high level of inventory amongst our counterparties is of importance. If we look at the second most important segment, which in the long term perspective, will be something that has very high prospects, good prospects for our activities, and as we see the gradual departure from coal, we are talking here about construction materials as well as aggregates.
Despite the priority treatment given to coal transport and a number of other unfavorable phenomena, so the reduced amount of rock that's being lime rock that's being delivered to the Czech Republic, the reduced demand for quartz from Iceland, the suspended production of cement by one of the large off-takers, we've been able to do increase our rail turnover by 2.5% to 1.2 billion tkm. The turnover volume has slightly fallen by 4.43 million tons. If we look at intermodal transport, the group was able to basically carry 1.7 million tons of cargo, compared to 2.4 million tons previously.
Intermodal transport in the group, just as in the case of other entities operating on this segment of the market, is under pressure caused by Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine, which has led to major limitation in the throughput of ports, in which we see that coal is, basically stuck there. In such a situation, the business partners are looking for alternatives using car transport. we can say that the New Silk Road has seen the transportation reduced quite massively. The transportation of metals and ores has been affected quite strongly, and so the economic situation in Poland and across the world is driven by supply and demand for steel, high interest rates in terms of the global economy, and this is limited to the demand for the most important products in this segment.
As a result, we've seen some major declines in terms of rail transport as well as volume, freight volume, and freight transfer. If we look at an item where we see strong growth in the first quarter, it's not a big change to us and not a big surprise to us. This is timber as well as agricultural products. Above all, with respect to grains, we see the dynamic growth from Ukraine into the ports, the seaports. This has led to this category becoming more important by 37% in terms of freight turnover and freight volume, by 24%.
Here, I would like to say that impact, in fact, the entire grain that we've been able to take out of Poland, export to the east, has been exported. That's why we don't assume that there's gonna be a major decline this after the introduction of an embargo. Summing up our commercial activities in this context, we can see that in the next coming quarters, we're gonna focus on profitability, and we're gonna look to strike a balance between price and the freight mass. The results of Q1 would not be possible without the people who have generated it, and that's we have a great team, which is 19,752 persons, and headcount is down by 286 persons.
This is an ongoing trend from previous quarters, with people retiring and having bridge retirements. If you look at the financial results of the company, we can sum up quickly by saying the most important parameters. We have the most important line items, which is revenue on customer contracts have grown by 34% to PLN 1.56 billion, generating PLN 104 million of net profit compared to PLN 42 million loss in 2022, with an EBITDA result of PLN 359 million and profitability of 23%. We can talk about the operating results and the commercial results of trade results.
Operating expenses are up 16% compared to Q1 of last year, this is something that's driven by headcount costs and the cost of energy and traction fuel. Other cost items such as services and transport, are more or less in line with the growth in prices, driven by inflation. Having in mind the overall situation of revenue and cost, we can see that there is some correction of the key, ratios, EBITDA per employee, linked to the improvement of the profit and decline in headcount, has grown by 140% to PLN 18.2 million. Employee benefits are up by 20%, energy and traction fuel is up by some 43%.
The unit cost of access to infrastructure, more or less at the same level of 20.8 million tkm. If you look at cash flow, we have stable sources of financing. On top of the PLN 230 million of cash, we have open lines of credit and lease lines for PLN 294 million. In terms of financing structures, in Q1, we have higher long-term debt, as taking down some lease liabilities linked to the purchase of multi-system locomotives. We can see that short-term liabilities or current liabilities have grown slightly, and we're trying to manage them quite actively. In total, we can say that liabilities have grown to PLN 4.69 billion, with current and long-term debt being PLN 2.676 billion.
At the end, I would like to recap the most important facts relating to the first quarter and talk about the forecast for the rest of 2023. As a company and as a group, we're focusing on the profitability of freight, and we're looking to strike a balance between price and the volume of cargo. Of course, the market is demanding and challenging, but we're convinced that our competencies and experience will allow us to build an attractive offer with prices that enable us to be profitable. In the upcoming months of the year, if we look at freight turnover and volume in the main product groups, we anticipate there's gonna be stabilization, and this is caused by the easily noticeable symptoms of the economy cooling down. The press on freight turnover and volume is very likely.
We will increase our capital expenditures, having in mind the maintenance of positive financial results in 2023. Regardless of our rolling stock purchases, I'm thinking here about multi-system locomotives, especially the portion of modernizing rolling stock from last year, as we push that forward to this year. For us, the big priority is to control our costs. Despite the inflationary pressure and the unstable situation on the fuel and energy market, we're gonna work together with our partners, business partners, and we're gonna try to optimize our costs everywhere that's possible. Cargo is the future, so we'd like to thank you for accompanying us and coming to our meetings, for just being with us on the stock exchange, and rooting for us in the work that we're doing.
I'd like to thank all of the employees of PKP Cargo. We know that this year will also be a tough year. We take the position that we should basically prepare ourselves to think about what the future will bring us. All of these difficult situations mean that a big and strong group like PKP Cargo is becoming more and more flexible, especially in terms of management. This is something I'd like to emphasize very strongly. Once again, I'd like to thank all of you for being together with us. Thank you very much, Mr. President, for telling us about the results in Q1 and the prospects for the upcoming months of this year. Now, I'd like to invite you to join us for the Q&A session.
The first question: If we look at freight volume and turnover, they've fallen with respect to last year, but also with respect to Q4. We also see that market share is down, while net profit in Q1 is 30% higher than in the previous quarter. Does this mean that we have the end of the high profits? Well, three, though, basically, this is a result of seasonality. Q4 is usually the best, Q4, 2022 was one of the very best quarters in the history of the company. We can say that freight volume fell a little bit. We're talking about intermodal transport and coal, above all, this is of a macroeconomic origin. We have a more than 30% increase in revenue, which is quite solid, quite robust. We're also affected by energy costs.
We have a new contract for electricity costs, we have the costs of employee benefits. If we think about profitability of the country, we want to regain that, we had to resign from some contracts. Let's remember that we have a market share in excess of 30%. We have more than 120 entities on this marketplace, our position as a leader is unchallenged. We are quite humble, we want to regain and recover this market, that's our strategy for the future. Step by step, consistently, we want to prepare the company, build the company, look for savings across the costs that we're incurring in order for us to be able to regain the market. This is something I'd like to emphasize very strongly. We want to recover the market.
We want to be present in Poland and across Europe. Now we have the next question. In the results of Q1, we can see the level of investment is more than double the level that we saw in Q1 of the previous year. Is the company capable of incurring such extensive expenditures? That is true. In Q1, we were able to pick up 16 of the 22 multi-system locomotives that we had ordered. These investments of PLN 200 million, so wise, and the main source of cost year-on-year. What I would like to emphasize that we're continuing to modernize and upgrade our rolling stock, and I want to speak about this very strongly. This is something that we have to do here and now in order to prepare for the future.
We can't talk about the ultimate value of CapEx in 2023. This is something that's gonna be linked to the needs for development as well as the EBITDA that we're gonna generate. This is something that we have to do. We want to be present across the market in Europe. We want to fight with the competition. We want to recover the market share that we had, and that's why we need to make these investments. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Now we have another question. This is a very important question to our shareholders: What does the company plan to do with respect to dividend? Ladies and gentlemen, well, the company wants for you to be with us, for you to be, show your trust to us, and for you to be together.
Basically, the recommendation of the management board is to allocate the net profit to supplementary capital. We have to remember that we need to cover losses from previous years, and we also have investment needs. We're counting on shareholders sharing our viewpoint, and that we'll have, sometime in the future, an opportunity to distribute profits. Today, we want to build the foundation for this group, for the PKP Cargo Group, and for those who've placed their trust in us, that this foundation is something that we have to build today such that it will work for us in the upcoming years. This is that point in time when we have to incur all of those burdens, the investment-related burdens and costs. This will give us the ability to be competitive in the future. Thank you very much.
The next question pertains to the most recent shareholder meeting. Why were there so many different proposals in terms of changing the articles of association at the most recent shareholder meeting? Well, that's a great question because this shows how our company operates, and you know that I take the stance that we have to be very transparent. Well, the need to introduce these changes to the articles, this is because of updating Polish law. Most of those changes came from amendments to the Commercial Company Code, and that's something that we need to have in mind, and we have to make sure that everything is legalities, so according to the law. Thank you. The next question is about the transport of grain. What was the impact of your on the results in terms of the import of grains?
Will limiting imports of grain from Ukraine have a negative impact on your results in terms of what's happening geopolitically with grain movement? Thank you for this question. This is very important topic. I'd like to emphasize that when we talk about grain, well, we can say that most of the grain movements are in road transport. That's because it's easier to load, unload, especially in those areas where grain is purchased. If we look at us, PKP Cargo, the transport of grains as well as other ag products, while this is some 3% of our freight turnover, even this value has grown by 1.5x to 4.5%. This is not a category that will have a major impact on our results.
Of course, we try to make sure that we have the necessary rolling stock in order to transport-... and then grain from the east. The question is about what's gonna happen in the future of this tragic war in Ukraine, what this will mean for the future to us? We hope that this war comes to an end as soon as possible. We hope that Ukraine would like to opt for transport by rail and road in the future. We want to adjust our strategy of the Group in order to be poised for what's gonna happen on the frontiers. I think we're prepared, but I think we're to be even better prepared in the future.
Today, this is not a line item that is a very highly important line item in terms of the our portfolio services. Thank you very much for that question about this very sensitive topic. We have several questions about the intermodal industry from online participants in Poland and abroad. I'd like to combine that into a couple questions. How do you see the intermodal industry and the major declines? What is the future for intermodal transport in subsequent periods? What is your judgment about the current status of the intermodal industry? Thank you for this question. As Madam Director indicated, we have questions coming in from just not Poland, but across Europe and the rest of the world. I'm gonna try to respond to your question about intermodal transport.
If we look at the overall industry, well, I'm convinced that this is the future, and this is an industry that will be growing more strongly, even though the New Silk Road has fallen quite strongly. We have in my former city, we have a area of land with 150,000 hectares, which could be used for the development of business, so for these type of industries. Well, that's the city I come from. Well, close to Lodz, we have some three catchment areas where I think we're gonna have the biggest land-based port in central Poland, and this is for the intermodal industry. We're talking with customers about that subject, and I think this is gonna be an industry that will grow very strongly. We have the terminal in Paskov.
We want to have a terminal close to Prague, in the Czech Republic. We have the Three Seas Initiative, which can work very strongly in intermodal. I think there is a strong future for this, an attractive future for this industry. This is a future for PKP Cargo. What's worthwhile to mention here, the decline in intermodal transport is because of macroeconomic factors. That applies to all entities. Inflationary pressure basically contributed to substantial price increases. That's why some customers started to use road transport again. Another factor, what is the war in Ukraine. Russia's aggression, above all, has reduced the train traffic along the New Silk Road. There's embargoes on the imports of raw materials.
Basically, in order for Poland to have its energy security, we have, you know, fuel being delivered through the marine ports, seagoing ports, and so fewer containers are being delivered this way. This was linked to ensuring the security of the country. I would like to say a few congrats to our employees who've been able to do all the work necessary to ensure the security of the nation with the hard work that they've done. Now we have another question, which is about freight. If we look at freight turnover, what sort of decline do you anticipate in the second half of the year? If we're looking at the hard coal and aggregates, building aggregates, that there's not gonna be an offset there?
Well, in every company, we have basically a team that's working for the company, that's working for the community around the company. We as a management team, headed up by myself, this modest person. I would like to remind you that we have Marek Olkiewicz, we have the CFO, Maciej Jankiewicz, and we have the sales director, Mr. Rutkowski, and Zenon Kozendra, who is responsible for labor affairs. We're taking all the efforts in order to offset what's happening with hard coal, and we're trying to offset that with transport of other groups or categories, such as, aggregates and construction materials. We're trying to find, regardless of what we're responsible for in the company, we're working in various meetings and panels and other places. We're looking for customers for our company.
As I mentioned previously, we're gonna have the largest dry port, starting operations, launching operations in Zduńska Wola , and this will develop intermodal transport, and we wanna fill that gap. There will be a gap after coal, and we know what's happening in terms of the transition away from dark energy, dirty energy. As I said previously, we will gradually and unwaveringly prepare the company for these new challenges. Thank you very much. The next question pertains to cash flow, and we have several questions, but all of these questions, more or less, boil down to one subject: What we'll be able to do to have a better structure of cash flow?
Well, this is something that's very important in operations, because in terms of the financing structure of our company, we obtain external financing for different periods of time, having in mind the assets that are being financed. This gives us the ability to manage debt flexibly, but at the same time, have to a stable structure to pay down our liabilities. We know these are huge numbers. We're talking about figures in the billions, hundreds of millions, and we're responsible for that. This is a very important element, and we're very, very, basically attentive to that subject. Thank you very much. The next question is about the rates for cargo. What is the outlook for upcoming quarters? Should we anticipate that Q1 was the peak in this respect? This is a very important question.
Ladies and gentlemen, PKP Cargo, in terms of its pricing policy, its commercial policy, sales policy, operates, of course, on a market, and we have to adjust our prices to the trends we see on the marketplace. This is a direction that's being adjusted. A company like ours, a big company, has to adjust flexibly to what's happening in the marketplace. We want to gradually regain the market share. We're competing on the Polish market against 120 companies in our industry. This is a major challenge, and that's why it's self-evident that the price policy is something that we need to shape proactively. It's something we discuss on a daily basis at the management board, especially if we think about the sales and operating departments of a company.
This is something that is subject to kind of a market overview, because the market dictates or drives the conditions in which we have to operate and what's emphasis. We have to react. We are reacting to what the market, the opportunities the market is affording us. Having in mind our financial responsibility for the company, this is what we're actually doing. We have one more question. The increase of the average salary of 24% year-on-year, which is above inflation, why the beneficiaries of good results are only employees and not shareholders? This is not an easy question. I would thank you for posing that question. Of course, for shareholders to be happy, well, the employees have to be at the center of our attention.
In operations like ours, this is the most important thing, and we're responsible for our employees, the social partners, and the overall staff. This is what's happening. That's what this management is doing. We entered into an agreement with the trade unions in order to put to an end a long-term dispute that was started in 2022. Basically, this shows how tough a topic this is and how hard it is in order to strike a balance and to ensure that all parties are happy. If we think about the distribution of profits, the final decision will be known once the shareholder meeting is held. We, as a management board, would emphasize what I've been saying. Cargo is the future. We want for you, as shareholders, to be with us.
We want you to believe in us, that we're gonna be able to change, transform cargo in order to create and forge a safe future for PKP Cargo. That's why we need to have, you know, good employees, happy employees with high levels of competencies and skills in order to be able to compete on the marketplace, and this is something that we emphasize quite strongly. HR in our company, we want to raise and elevate the level of skills of our employees in order to be able to compete. We want to have highly qualified and trained employees, and this is something that's very important. That's why we're investing in place. Well, thank you very much. We want for our shareholders to be happy in the future as a result. Thank you very much for that response.
Many questions are recurring, we'd like to say that the responses to all questions will be placed on our internet, our website, to make sure that all shareholders have equivalent access to information. I'd like to thank you, Mr. President, for today's results conference. The fact that we've been able to say to our shareholders and all of our online participants, to say a few words about what's happened in Q1 of this year, we wanted to respond to the questions that they had. There's a large number of questions. We'd like to thank you very warmly. Let me extend my thanks to all of our employees. I'd like to thank my colleagues from the management team. I'd like to thank the management teams in all of the companies within our group and to the trade unions and the social partners.
I'd like to thank you for being with us, for accompanying us, and for buying our shares and investing in us, and supporting us as the national carrier of PKP Cargo, and supporting the future of this group. You will not be disappointed, so stay with us and be patient and to ensure that the company will be not the second company in Europe, but the first company in Europe. I'm putting forward this statement as the CEO of PKP Cargo. I understand this is a bold statement and generates some consequences, and that being, so we're gonna have to undertake some tough efforts, but we wanna be in the Three Seas Initiative, and we wanna present our new strategy in the fall. We wanna be the very best. That's our goal for the entire group, for our employees, and for the companies in our group.
We wanna do that for the benefit of you as our shareholders who believe in us, who have been here with us, who've accompanied us in difficult times. I hope that you can look at what we've been successful in doing with some satisfaction, that we're pushing the financial results in a better condition. We wanna be the best company in Europe. Once again, I'd like to emphasize very strongly that PKP Cargo is the national carrier, we'll not to disappoint you. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you.