While query parameters are related to the route as a whole, matrix variables can be associated to a particular segment of the route, which could have a greater contextual meaning to the application.
For example...
/foo/bar;a=1;b=2;c=3/qux
/foo;a=1/bar;b=2/qux;c=3
Details can be found in the URI RFC:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-3.3