Romanians are increasingly reluctant to travel by train (survery of Sustainable Development Department)

Romanians prefer the train less and less, although 52% of them say that rail transport the most environmentally friendly compared to other modes of transport, reveals an opinion poll conducted within the project "Sustainable Romania," based on data from Eurostat and the National Institute of Statistics (INS), published on Tuesday by the Department for Sustainable Development, agerpres reports.

According to the same source, in Romania's case, compared to other European countries, there is a massive reduction in the share of rail transport in passenger transport, in the last two decades. Thus, Romania sees a decrease from 16.3% of the total passengers, in 2000, to 4.2%, at present.

"The situation is all the more interesting as we do not see such involutions for other countries. In Germany, the share was 7.7% in 2000 and 9.4% in 2019. In the EU28, the average was 7.1 % in 2000 and 8.1% in 2019. While the general trend in the EU and in developed countries is to invest and use more rail transport for passenger transport, Romania has evolved massively in the opposite direction," the survey said.

Centralized data by specialists in the Department of Sustainable Development show that reducing the use of rail transport by passengers is closely related to reducing the length of the total functional railway network, as revealed by INS data.

In this context, the statistics show that the total number of railway kilometres reached 10,769, from 11,015 total kilometres in operation in 2000, Romania losing thus 246 kilometers.

"The average value of carbon dioxide emissions per kilometre for new passenger cars has decreased in recent years: from a level of 154.8 in 2007 to 124.3 in 2019. These developments are present not only for Romania, but also for for the EU28 average and for reference countries such as Poland and Germany, but the European ambitions for the next decades are higher," the research states.

Except for the maritime transport, where the degree of satisfaction at the population level is 21%, Romanians are the least satisfied with rail transport (29% satisfaction), compared to air transport (46%).

Regarding the transport of goods, it is worth noting the Eurostat data according to which, at the level of 2018, the share of rail and inland waterway transport in the total transport of goods in Romania was over 57%, well above the European average of almost 23% .

On the other hand, the average speed of freight trains at national level is very low (17 km/h, in 2018), which shows the need for investment in infrastructure to encourage this greener form of transport, is one of the conclusions of the document.

The "Sustainable Romania" project, co-financed by the European Social Fund through the Administrative Capacity Operational Programme, is implemented by the Department for Sustainable Development within the Romanian Government.