The highest increase among the EU countries was recorded by Croatia (+40.6%), followed by Luxembourg (+29.9%), Ireland (+27.9%), Spain (+26.0%), Italy (+18.7%), Slovenia (+15.1%) Finland (+13.7%), Austria (+13.3%), Latvia (+13.2%) and Slovakia (+11.9%).
The candidate countries Montenegro and Serbia also registered large increases, by 32.2% and 23.9%, respectively. Greece, by contrast, decreased by 39.7%, primarily due to the damage of its rail network caused by Storm Daniel in September, which halted train services to northern Greece.
In 2023, Germany and France were the largest contributors to rail passenger transport performance in the EU, with 101.4 billion pkm and 101.3 billion pkm, respectively (each accounting for a 23.6% share of the EU’s total rail passenger transport performance). At the other end of the scale, 6 EU countries recorded less than 1 billion pkm in 2023. The candidate countries Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia recorded less than 70 million pkm in 2023.
Latvia recorded a figure of 612 million pkm, up from 541 in 2022.
From the perspective of the share between national and international transport, national transport is predominant in all countries. It represented more than 90% of the total rail passenger transport performance for all countries in 2023, except for Luxembourg and Czechia, where national transport represented 63.9% and 82.8%, respectively. Estonia, Greece, Latvia, and Finland only reported national passenger transport for 2023.
At EU level, an average of 17.8 passengers per capita travelled by rail within their country in 2023, increasing to 6.1 passengers per capita compared with 2021, and by 1.7 passengers per capita compared with 2022.
Germany and Austria had the highest rates in 2023, with 32.1 and 32.0 passengers per capita, respectively. These two countries were closely followed by Denmark (31.3 passengers per capita) and Luxembourg (30.1 passengers per capita).
