Railway transport
Infrastructure, equipment, enterprises, and economic performance
The following information is available in the database:
- length of tracks and lines
- number or capacity of locomotives, railway vehicles and wagons
- railway enterprises and expenditures
- number of train and hauled vehicle movements.
Data come from the ‘Eurostat / ITF / UNECE common questionnaire on inland transport statistics’.
Data are collected annually and are provided on a voluntary basis.
Data are published approximately 12 months after the end of the reference year. If needed, data are revised 3 months after the first release.
Available indicators
Eurostat publishes annual data on the length of railway lines equipped with the European rail traffic management system (ERTMS). This is a European signalling and speed-control system that aims to enhance safety, as well as efficiency and cross-border interoperability of rail transport in Europe.
Data sources and frequency
Annual data are provided by the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA).
Data releases
Data are published approximately 2 months after the end of the reference year.
Passenger and goods
The following information is available in the database:
- passenger transport
- type of transport
- international passengers transported and country of embarkation / disembarkation
- passenger train movements
- number of passenger trains on the rail network
- goods transport
- type of transport
- type of goods
- country of loading and country of unloading
- category of dangerous goods
- type of consignment
- type of transport and type of transport unit
- goods train movements
- number of goods trains on the rail network.
Please note that the data do not include:
- undertakings which operate entirely or mainly within industrial and similar installations (including harbours)
- railway undertakings which mainly provide local tourist services, such as preserved historical steam railways
- passenger transport by metro, tram, and light rail.
Eurostat receives data from the EU countries, countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and the EU candidate countries Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Türkiye.
Detailed data, meaning data with the above-mentioned breakdowns, are available annually.
The values on total rail transport performance of goods and passengers are published quarterly.
Every 5 years, Eurostat also publishes the results of a regional rail data collection for level 2 of the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) and statistics on traffic flows on the rail network.
Quarterly data on goods and passenger transport are published approximately 5 months after the end of the reference quarter.
Annual data are published approximately 11 months after the end of the reference year.
Regional data are published approximately 18 months after the end of the reference year.