In 2017, rail freight transport in the European Union (EU) increased by 13 billion tonne-kilometres compared with 2016, reaching 416 billion tonne-kilometres. This represents a year on year rise of 3.2 %, and follows a positive trend since 2013. The level of rail freight transport in 2017 is at its highest annual level since the low point of 353 billion tonne-kilometres in 2009 associated with the economic crisis.
The data sources are rail_go_typepas and rail_go_quartal.
Annual growth between 2016 and 2017 was registered in 17 EU Member States. In absolute terms, Germany recorded the largest decrease over this period (-3.9 billion tonne-kilometres), followed by Latvia (- 0.9 billion tonne-kilometres) and Italy (-0.3 billion tonne-kilometres).
In contrast, four countries reported absolute increases of more than 1 billion tonne-kilometres over the same period, namely Poland (+6.2 billion tonne-kilometres), Hungary (+2.8 billion tonne-kilometres), Lithuania (+1.6 billion tonne-kilometres) and Romania (+1.5 billion tonne-kilometres).
Note:
The data include only main railway undertakings, which are defined as follows:
Until 2015: undertakings with a total transport performance greater than 500 million tonne-kilometres or 200 million passenger-kilometres.
From 2016: undertakings with a total volume of goods transport of at least 200 million tonne-kilometres or at least 500 000 tonnes or a total volume of passengers transport of at least 100 million passenger-kilometres.
There is no railway in Cyprus or Malta.
For more information:
- Statistics Explained article on railway freight transport statistics
- Transport statistics overview
To contact us: estat-user-support@ec.europa.eu