Istat - Italian National Statistical Institute

DIPS/DCAT/ATB - Division for environmental and territorial networks

Istat - Italian National Statistical Institute

Viale Liegi, 13  00198 Rome Italy

Mandatory data collection at EU level is based on legal act, the Regulation EU 2018/643 and covers goods and passengers.
Data is collected as following:

• Annex I (annual data) –goods transport ,
• Annex II (annual data)–passenger transport,
• Annex III – (quarterly data) goods and passengers,
• Annex IV and V( data every five years) regional statistics on goods and passengers and rail network and
• Annex VIII (annual data) goods and passengers transport for small undertakings.

Railway undertakings (public or private undertakings) which provide services for the transport of goods and/or passengers by rail.

Railway undertakings which operate entirely or mainly within industrial areas and similar installations, (including harbours) and railway undertakings which mainly provide local tourist services (such as preserved historical steam railways) are excluded.

The main concepts used in rail domain are:

Rail passenger means any person, excluding members of the train crew, who makes a trip by rail. For accident statistics, passengers trying to embark/disembark onto/from a moving train are included.
Passenger-km means the unit of measure representing the transport of one passenger by rail over a distance of one kilometer. Only the distance on the national territory of the reporting country shall be taken into account.
Weight means the quantity of goods in tonnestones (1 000 kilograms). The weight to be taken into consideration includes, in addition to the weight of the goods transported, the weight of packaging and the tare weight of containers, swap bodies, pallets as well as road vehicles transported by rail in the course of combined transport operations. If the goods are transported using the services of more than one railway undertaking, when possible the weight of goods shall not be counted more than once.
Tonne-km means the unit of measure of goods transport which represents the transport of one tonne (1 000 kilograms) of goods by rail over a distance of one kilometer. Only the distance on the national territory of the reporting country shall be taken into account.
Train means one or more railway vehicles hauled by one or more locomotives or railcars, or one railcar travelling alone, running under a given number or specific designation from an initial fixed point to a terminal fixed point. A light engine, that is to say, a locomotive travelling on its own, is not considered to be a train.
Train-km means the unit of measure representing the movement of a train over one kilometre. The distance used is the distance actually run, if available, otherwise the standard network distance between the origin and destination shall be used. Only the distance on the national territory of the reporting country shall be taken into account.

The reporting unit for rail transport statistic is the railway undertaking who carried out the transport of goods or passengers on the national territory.

Data on passenger and freight transport are collected from the railway undertakings operating at national territory within thresholds mentioned in the rail regulation.
Data on traffic are collected from infrastructure managers and railway undertakings. 

Operational railway network on national territory.

Data on passengers and goods are covered from 2004 onwards.

Data on accidents are covered from 2004 to 2015 (included).

Not applicable.

The volume and performance of rail freight traffic are measured in tonnes (mass) and tonne-kilometres. Passenger transport by rail is measured in the number of passengers and in passenger-kilometres. Information on the number of train kilometres is also available.
Traffic flows on the rail network are measured in number of trains - passenger, freight and others (optional)

The tables consist mostly of annual data. There are some tables providing quarterly and quinquennial (every five years) data.

According to the Rail regulation (EU) 2018/643 data is collected as following: Annual data
– Annex I –goods transport collected for a reference period of one year with a deadline for data transmission as 5 months after the reference periodreference period,
– Annex II –passenger transport, yearly data with eight months deadline after the end of reference period
– Annex III – quarterly data for goods and passengers with a deadline of three months after the end of the reference period,
– Annex IV and V data every five years on regional statistics on goods and passengers and rail network with deadline of 12 respectively 18 months after the end of reference period and
– Annex VIII goods and passengers transport for small undertakings with 5 respectively 8 months deadline after the end of reference period.

National level:The Rail Transport survey is included in National Statistical Programme, yearly approved by a Republic Presidential decree. Code: IST-01646.

European level: Since 2004, the data provision to Eurostat were based on an EP and Council framework legal act (Reg. EU n. 91/2003) and other several implementing Commission Regulations. Since 2018 there was a new legal act (Reg. EU n. 2018/643) after the codification of all previous legal acts.

Not applicable.

Several national legal acts guarantee the confidentiality of data requested for statistical purposes. According to art. 9, paragraph 1 of the Italian legislative Decree n. 322 of 1989, personal data can be disseminated but in aggregated form, in order to make it impossible to identify individuals. They can only be used for statistical purposes.

Legislative Decree n. 322 of 1989, art. 6 bis and Legislative Decree n. 196 of 2003 Annex A3 (Code of conduct and professional practice applying to the processing of personal data for statistical and scientific research purposes within the framework of the national statistical system), art. 8, provide that the exchange of personal data within the National Statistical System (Sistan) is possible if it is necessary to fulfil requirements provided by the National Statistical Programme or to allow the pursuit of institutional purposes.

The definition of confidentiality violation adopted by the Italian National Statistical Institute is based on the concept of identification of a unit of the observed statistical population.

Aggregated data are  considered the combination of modalities in which a frequency is not lower than a predetermined threshold to which it is associated. It is the “threshold rule” for which the minimum value attributable to the threshold is equal to three. Therefore  figures related to less than three undertakings are considered confidential and are not disseminated.

Each year ISTAT publishes a release calendar access providing the exact dates of press releases
for the coming year but Rail transport survey is not included in this calendar and the dissemination of rail data
 (referred to the previous year) is scheduled on December of the next year and it is announced by Istat weekly agenda of broadcasts and events.

Not applicable.

Time series data related to Rail Transport survey and its updating are disseminated on the ISTAT institutional website (excel table form). Starting from  2019, data  are disseminated on I.Stat, the institutional datawarehouse; users can select information according to their needs, building customised tables or downloading prepackaged datasets. Data are always accompanied by meta-information  methodologies, classifications, definitions.  

Dissemination at national level is scheduled on an annual basis (data referred to one survey year are released on december of the consequent year).

Aggregated datasets are provided to Eurostat according to the deadlines of Reg. EU 2018/643.

Currently there are no news releases at national level.

Starting from data referred to 2018, a pre-defined set of public tables is uploaded annually on I.$tat database. In the Navigation tree users can select the theme  “Services” and then the subject-->Rail Transport.

 Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The Istat documentation Information system of statistical metadata and quality indicators  - SIDI (https://intranet.istat.it/MetadatiEQualita/Pagine/MetadatiQualita.aspx) allows the  ISTAT researchers, to provide, for each survey, informations about the statistical documentation process and the product quality documentation (which includes the minimum set of quality indicators to be disclosed to external users).

The Istat Information system on quality of statistical production processes - SIQual (http://siqual.istat.it/SIQual/welcome.do) enables to display all the  information related to Istat statistical production processes and the activities developed to guarantee standard quality of  statistics.

For details: http://siqual.istat.it/SIQual/visualizza.do?id=7779948

Data coherence and quality are pursued by:

1)   a profile guided compilation of the  web-questionnaires;

2)   detailed instructions for each section of the web-questionnaires;

3)   check procedure at every stage of the production process on specific dominions;

4)   assessment of Eurostat check  reports.

Actions and tools for quality assurance are:

1)   calculation of load and distance indexes for each undertaking;

2)   evaluation of the variations and overall  trend  over time;

3)   call-back to respondents;

4)   specific  reminder program  for latecomers respondents.

The rail data users are:

-      the research offices of Rail transport companies;

-      the National Transport Department of the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport;

-      Foreign Universities;

-      Trade associations.

Users satisfaction is currently monitored through a permanent working group (Circolo di qualità “Trasporti e Mobilità”) that engages producers and users of official statistics concerning all transport modes and the environment. Railway Transport survey data are appreciated as the main official source of information about road freight transport.

The completeness is guarantees by the census survey on rail transport. However the lack of data on a territorial basis in order to identify the origin and destination of transport operations (both for goods and passengers) on annual basis, is persistently stated by public bodies and private users.

Not applicable for rail transport data collection.

The quality actions to control unit nonresponse are:

-  Reminder program;

-  Telephone call-back.

The quality actions to control the sources of processing error are:

-  Adoption of a profile guided compilation of the web-questionnaires: at this level the algorythms  is specifically designed to detect different kind of errors. Error messages are displayed  (blocking errors) during the guided compiling.

-  Evaluation of types of errors (blocking errors, systematic errors, random errors, outliers).

-  Outliers-specific actions: short analysis of the trend in the market segment in which the undertaking operates

-  Storage of previous version of web questionnaire (with errors) for data related to each undertakings.

-  Debriefing respondents about their errors, by e-mail or telephone contact.

Data are validated to the following sources:

-  Coherence control with previous data of the same survey Annex;

-  Calculation of load and distance indexes.

All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 643/2018 are transmitted to Eurostat within the deadline set up for each annex and without delays.

Not applicable.

Comparability over time is respected and generally breaks in series may happen only due to the overcoming of threshold (stated  by Reg. UE 2018/643) for the traffic flows of one or more undertakings.

Internal coherence of data is  pursued.

For this survey no outsourced activity is planned. So only internal costs shall  be assessed. The survey has 1,5  human resources per year
The burden has been the same since 2013.

Eurostat datasets are revised on the basis of detected errors or may be occasionally revised if unexpected troubles happen during treatment (e.g. IT recovery, damages etc).

The data collection process runs on a different time schedule for each module of the survey: Quarterly for undertakings above the threshold

Once a year for data collection –annual good data

Once a year for data collection – annual passenger data

Once a year (every five year) for regional data

Once a year (every five year) for data collection on rail network segment.

Validation and imputation is made for all the mandatory variables (internal coherence and correspondence with official classifications). Data check is pursued through IT procedures, and finally through Eurostat check. Coherence of aggregated figures for the main dominions is verified at quarterly and annual level.

The survey management system keep track of incoming response; selected undertakings can be timely identified if they have not replied after a given period; it enalbes the survey manager to address a reminder to the contact person.

The web questionnaire includes many datachecks routines, in some cases the computer correct automatically the errors during the data entry. In  processing the survey data on goods, the survey manager  calculates for each undertaking the load index and the distance index and compare them over time; it is necessary to assess the changes in the transport service performance of each undertaking and register if it may have transported full loaded train and/or implemented long or short distance journeys. If the indexes are within the range, data are submit to other checks for ex the type of goods transported   and then  it can start the procedure to aggregate data.  

No comment to report.