Statistical Institute: The number of passengers who traveled by train down 7.5pct in Q1 2025

The number of passengers who traveled by train in the first quarter of 2025 was 16.102 million, down 7.5% compared to the same period in 2024, according to data centralized by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

According to the same source, passenger travel decreased by 8.1% in the mentioned period.

Regarding rail freight transport, there was a decrease of 18.5 % recorded in the volume of goods, against the first quarter of 2024, with an increase only in transit, by 47.7%. 9.034 million tonnes of goods were transported, of which 79.9% in national transport.

Significant shares in the total transported goods were recorded for coke, refined petroleum products (26.5%) and coal and lignite; crude oil and natural gas (21.4%) divisions. Regarding the route of goods, 36% of the total corresponded to the coke, refined petroleum products and 9.4% to basic metals; manufactured metal products, except for machinery and equipment.

INS emphasises that most of the technical and economic indicators of the use of the vehicle fleet in railway transport recorded a negative development compared to the first quarter of 2024, a positive dynamics having been recorded only the following indicators: average running time of freight wagons (days) - increase by 23.5%; average commercial speed of freight trains (km/h) - increase by 1.4%.

Negative developments compared to the same quarter last year were recorded in: average daily route of freight wagons (km/day) - decrease by 30.4%; loaded wagons imported from abroad (thousand wagons) - decrease by 17.5%; average daily route of locomotives used for the transport of goods (km/day) - decrease by 14.9%; loaded wagons on the CFR network (thousand wagons) - decrease by 11.1%; railcar mileage (thousand railcar-km) - decrease by 5.6%; average commercial speed of passenger trains (km/h) - decrease by 2.5%; average gross weight of freight wagons (tonnes/train) - decrease by 2.1%, etc.