Hungary reported a 60% increase in rail passengers last year, due to the introduction of discounted and free options for specific groups, by far the largest growth in the European Union, new data has shown.
According to the Eurostat data, other countries to report a double-digit growth in rail passengers included Latvia (+13.9%) and Ireland (+10.0%), while Greece (+9.7%), Poland (+9.3%), Portugal (+9.2%) and Luxembourg (+9.0%) also saw notable year-on-year growth.
Two countries reported a fall in rail passengers last year, Romania (-4.9%) and Bulgaria (-3.1%), however both recorded increases in terms of passengers per kilometre.
At the same time, despite seeing overall passenger numbers increase, France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Latvia all recorded decreases in passengers per kilometre.
Most rail passengers carried
Overall, Germany carried the most passengers of any country in the European Union, at 2.9 billion, ahead of France (1.32 billion) and Italy (843 million). Countries to report the lowest passenger numbers included Lithuania (5 million), Estonia (8 million) and Greece (14 million).
Looking at the ratio of passengers per capita, meanwhile, Luxembourg led the way, with an average of 32.8 passengers per person, followed by Denmark at 31.0 and Germany at 30.0. Greece and Lithuania both reported the lowest ratios at 1.5, while Bulgaria and Romania each recorded 3.6.
Rail freight
While passenger transport by rail increased last year, rail freight transport reported a slight decline, to 375 billion tonne-kilometres (tkm) in 2024, down from 378 billion tkm in 2023 (-0.8%).
Germany was the biggest contributor to rail freight activity, moving some 126.3 billion tonne-kilometres of goods, followed by Poland with 56.7 billion, and France recorded 32.2 billion.
The main types of goods transported by rail in the EU in 2024, based on tkm, included metal ores (12.2%), coke and refined petroleum products (10.1%) and basic metals and fabricated metal products (8.9%), Eurostat‘s data showed. Read more here.
