After being overtaken by Brussels-Midi the year before, Brussels-North once again became the busiest weekday station in the country in 2023, according to passenger counts carried out by SNCB in October.
The number of rail passengers at the Belgium's biggest stations almost returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2023.
In 2023, Brussels-North station passed the 60,000 mark for passengers departing on weekdays. On average, 60,449 people were counted each day, compared with around 48,000 in 2022.
The station is therefore the busiest in the country on working days, ahead of Brussels-Central (58,877 passengers) and Bruxelles-Midi (58,344).
Ghent-Saint-Pierre ranked in fourth place, with an average of 48,441 passengers boarding during the week. Next came Antwerp-Central (37,591) and Leuven (31,461). The top Walloon stations were Ottignies (21,977) and Namur (21,590).
Brussels-North station. Credit: Belga / Jonas Roosens
Brussels-North being the commuters' station of choice is strongly reflected at weekends, when there are considerably fewer passenger numbers.
On Saturdays, an average of 20,825 departing passengers passed through the station, putting it in fifth place. Brussels-Midi, the rail hub for high-speed trains, took first place on Saturdays, with an average of 33,469 passengers. Next came Brussels-Central (26,916), Ghent-Saint-Pierre (25,578) and Antwerp-Central (25,163).
The country's least busy station was Beignée (Hainaut province), where just nine passengers were counted on average during the week. Hourpes, also in Hainaut, came second. In Flanders, the least frequented station was Alost-Kerrebroek (East Flanders) with 20 passengers per day.
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Passenger counts are carried out by the SNCB every year for a week in October. They are the only source for determining the number of boarding passengers per station and long-term trends in passenger numbers, the railway company pointed out.
SNCB also underlined that the "margin of error" can be significant in some cases, as its count is based on a "short observation period".
