People in the EU took 8.7 billion rail journeys in 2024, totalling 444.5 billion passenger-kilometres.
Passenger-kilometres measure how far people travel — one passenger travelling one kilometre counts as one passenger-kilometre, Eurostat said in a release on Thursday.
Germany and France recorded the largest overall rail passenger transport performance in 2024, with 109.1 billion and 107.3 billion passenger-kilometres respectively.
Italy followed with 55.9 billion passenger-kilometres.
Six EU countries recorded less than 1 billion passenger-kilometres over the year: Lithuania and Estonia (0.4 billion each), Luxembourg (0.6 billion), Latvia and Greece (0.7 billion each) and Slovenia (0.9 billion).
Travel per person varied widely
Luxembourg had the highest number of rail passengers per capita in the EU in 2024 at 46.2, followed by Austria (35.6) and Denmark (35.2), Eurostat said.
The lowest ratios were recorded in Greece (1.4), Lithuania (1.8) and Bulgaria (3.3).
