Record number of rail passengers in EU in 2023

Rail passenger traffic in the European Union reached a record last year if you look only at the number of passenger kilometers, according to data from the European statistics office Eurostat.

In 2023, 8 billion passengers used trains in the EU. Thus, the dip initiated by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 was also eliminated for the first time.

Germany and France score well

In 2023, passenger kilometers – the total distance traveled by all rail passengers – reached 429 billion, 11,2% more than the 386 billion in 2022. This broke the previous record from 2019 when rail traffic peaked at 411 billion passenger kilometers.

Germany and France, not coincidentally two of the larger European countries, managed to tap into a large portion of the 8 billion rail passengers registered in the EU in 2023. Germany and France accounted for 33,9% and 15% of passengers, respectively, or almost half of those 8 billion rail passengers.

No explosive growth compared to 2019

In general, all EU countries recorded an increase in the number of passengers transported by rail in 2023 compared with 2022, except Greece, Bulgaria, and Sweden.

Croatia recorded the most significant increase at 29%, followed by Ireland (28,7%), Luxembourg (25,1%), Spain (20,2%), Italy (19,6%), Austria (16,9%), and Portugal (16,8%). By contrast, three EU countries recorded falls in 2023 compared with 2022: Greece by 17%, Bulgaria by 7,8%, and Sweden by 1,2%.

The drop in Greece is primarily due to the damage to its rail network caused by Storm Daniel in September, which halted train services to northern Greece.

At the EU level, an average of 17.8 passengers per capita traveled by rail within their country in 2023. Germany and Austria had the highest rates, with 32.1 and 32 passengers per capita, respectively. Denmark (31.3 passengers per capita) and Luxembourg (30.1 per capita) followed.

Overall, though, if you look purely at the number of passengers, you can’t really speak of pronounced growth with those 8 billion train passengers when you know that the highest recorded number of passengers, reaching 8.2 billion, was in 2019.

Dip for freight transport

Rail freight transport in the EU fell slightly to 378 billion ton-kilometers, down 4,9% from 2022. Excluding the 2020 COVID year, this is the lowest level since 2015.

Germany was by far the most significant contributor to rail freight transport performance in the EU, with 125 billion tkm in 2023. Poland and France followed with 60 and 29 billion tkm, respectively. At the other end of the scale, Estonia, Greece, Luxembourg, and Ireland registered less than 1 billion km in 2023.