After a period of sustained growth, rail transport performance in passenger-kilometres started to be affected by the economic crisis at the beginning of 2009. Rail passenger transport nevertheless remained less affected than rail freight transport.
In 2008, 405 billion passenger-kilometres were registered in the European Union (excluding Bulgaria), a 4.2% growth compared to 2007. The figure was higher than the average annual growth of 3.1% observed at EU level over the period 2004-2008.
During the first quarter of 2009, the number of passenger-kilometres started to decrease, with a loss of 1.5% compared to the same quarter in 2008. After a period of stability, passenger use of railway transport changed slightly during the second quarter of 2008. The average length of passenger trips, which had stayed very constant between 2005 and 2007, dropped by 2% from the second quarter of 2007 to the same quarter in 2008 (53.3 kilometres in 2008 against 54.2 in 2007).
The development of passenger transport performance (expressed in passenger-kilometres) varies from country to country, and different patterns apply at EU level over the period considered. Passenger transport performance is especially concentrated within a limited number of EU countries (France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy). A large majority of the reporting countries recorded increases in rail passenger performance between 2007 and 2008.
The impact of the economic crisis is clearly reflected in the figures available for the beginning of 2009, with 16 Member States showing a reduction in the number of passenger-kilometres between the first quarter of 2008 and the same quarter of 2009 (out of the 22 Member States for which this information is available). The strongest declines were registered in Romania (-12%) and in Ireland (-11%). Regarding the Candidate countries, Croatia recorded a 1.3% growth between the first quarters of 2008 and 2009 respectively while Turkey registered a decline of 4.5% over the same period.
In 1Q2011 news are good, the rail passenger sector in Western Europe grew by nearly 1%, but contracted by the same amount in Eastern Europe. In Eastern Europe, however, the rail passenger sector has been contracting for over 20 years, and this trend continues in 2011.
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