Train travel is very popular in Austria. With 1,444 kilometers of rail transport per inhabitant in 2022, Austria ranks second in the EU, just behind France with 1,447 kilometers of rail transport, according to a report published on Thursday. Austria ranks third in Europe. Switzerland remains by far the largest railway country in Europe with 2,195 rail kilometers per capita.
All participating authorities in the 31 European countries surveyed reported a significant increase in passenger traffic for 2022 compared to 2021, the report continues. However, rail traffic has not yet been able to fully recover from the corona pandemic. Austria also achieved its previous record of 1,507 kilometers of rail journeys per inhabitant before the corona pandemic in 2019.
Although there was a four percent increase in the number of rail connections offered in 2022 compared to 2021, the value was still two percent lower than in 2019.
More train kilometers in freight transport
Rail freight transport saw a slight increase in the number of train kilometers traveled in 2022 compared to 2021, although transport performance (net tonne kilometers) fell slightly. According to the report, a total of 463 billion net tonne kilometers were delivered in 30 countries.
Germany still had the largest share with 140 billion net tonne-kilometres, followed by Poland and France. Austria was in fifth place with 23.8 billion net tonne-kilometres. The so-called incumbents (“state railways”) provided an average of 48 percent of the transport performance in the national market, 37 percent by the private freight railways and the rest by foreign incumbents.
Source: Krone
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