On 23 and 24 October 2024, the Steering Committee for the Statistics Platform met in Florence at the headquarters of the Italian railways, FSI.
The discussion began with the revision of the Glossary for Transport Statistics published by Eurostat/ITF-OECD/UNECE, starting with an examination of the dichotomy between heavy rail and other rail transport modes, such as metro, tram, and, more generally, light rail. This distinction within railway statistics will subsequently be introduced into the common Eurostat/ITF-OECD/UNECE questionnaire.
Until now, the railway statistics published by these international organisations, including UIC, have only covered heavy rail. However, to better assess development policies, it is now essential to have a complete view of all types of rail. Along with other partners, UIC has been tasked with revising existing and introducing new definitions for the next version of the glossary. These definitions concern terms useful for measuring infrastructure, equipment, and operations. Several technical meetings have taken place and will continue to be organised for this purpose.
The committee then addressed how to clarify a series of points in the explanatory notes for data collection, specifically regarding shunting operations, types of train services, and energy consumption.
Furthermore, it was decided to conduct a review with statistics correspondents regarding the data provided by infrastructure managers for Table 13, specifically verifying whether gross tonne-kilometres for trains indeed include the weight of the tractive vehicles. Freight and passenger railway undertakings will now be asked to verify that the weight of tractive vehicles containing no passengers or goods is excluded from gross tonne-kilometres to meet the requirements for hauled gross tonne-kilometres.
The annual inventory of rolling stock was also discussed, focusing on the variables related to current stock equipment, i.e. excluding vehicles awaiting repair or immobilised for more than 28 days. As these variables are not used in the indicator calculations, the committee will propose that the plenary session removes them from questionnaires 21, 22, and 23, which pertain to tractive, passenger, and freight vehicles, respectively.
In parallel, improvements to online data collection tools are planned, including a pre-filling feature for certain variables which may be redundant for certain non-integrated companies, particularly in Table 73 on financial results by core activity. Additionally, further data visualisation features for monthly statistics will be implemented in 2025.
Response rates to the questionnaires were analysed, revealing that a number of companies are behind in submitting their data to UIC. A targeted follow-up campaign will be launched in the coming weeks to complete an initial version of the 2023 International Railway Statistics, which is set to be presented at the plenary meeting on 4 December 2024.
Finally, FSI invited the group to visit the Model Railway Museum. This model railway is one of Europe’s largest with a 280 m² area. It is an impressive creation that mixes detailed craftsmanship with technology in a playful way, and was designed by Giuseppe Paternò Castello di San Giuliano in the 1970s.
More information on the meeting can be found on extranet at https://extranet.uic.org/en/node/13301?grp=670.
UIC members are invited to keep on providing their data using our online tool at http://stats.uic.org/.
To download UIC data, visit Railisa at http://uic-stats.uic.org/.
For any information concerning the statistics at the UIC, please send an email to stat at uic.org.
