1. Summary Railway passenger volumes continued to grow in 2025, with an overall increase of about 4.5% compared with 2024. Growth was particularly strong for Indian Railways, National French Railways (SNCF) and the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak).

Railway freight transport recorded more modest growth in 2025, with a 2% increase in tonne-kilometres compared with 2024. This global figure masks diverging regional trends. Freight volumes continued to fall for many companies, particularly in Europe, where volumes amongst the 27 member States of the EU (EU-27) fell by an estimated 2.2%. This decline was offset by moderate growth for Indian Railways (IR, +2.6%), China Railways (CR, +2.6%) and among Class I railroads in the United States (+1.1%).

Note: The market overview presented in this document is partial and should be interpreted accordingly.

Monthly passenger traffic index (left-hand graph) and monthly freight traffic index (right-hand graph) for the January 2019 to December 2025 period. The base reference (100) for indices is January 2019.

Companies: China Railways (CR), Indian Railways (IR), East Japan Railways (EJR), Kazakhstan Railways (KTZ)
Aggregates: “AAR”: Class 1 companies from the Association of American Railroads in the US; “Africa”: SNCC, SNCFT, SNTF, ONCF, Trans Gabonese Operating Company (SETRAG); “North America”: AMTRAK and VIA RAIL, “Other Asia Pacific”: TRC, THSRC, KTM, KORAIL, VNR and KTZ (KZ, only for passenger transport index); “EU-27”: Eurostat (+ UIC when missing data); “Other Europe”: Eurostat (+ UIC when missing data).

2. Passenger traffic trends Since 2023, following the COVID-19 recovery phase, global passenger traffic growth has gradually stabilised and slowed. In 2025, passenger traffic increased by around 4.5% globally, compared with growth exceeding 9% between 2023 and 2024.

Indian Railways, with passenger traffic growth of 7.7% between 2024 and 2025, continued to significantly influence the global trend and, for the first time since the pandemic, recorded an annual passenger volume comparable to its 2019 level. CR recorded more moderate growth, with passenger traffic increasing by 3.7%. Growth ranging from 1% to 4% was also observed for Malayan Railway Limited (KTM), Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL), Vietnam Railways (VNR) and Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC). Conversely, stagnation or declining passenger volumes were recorded for Kazakhstan Railways (KTZ, −3.6%) and Australia’s Sydney Trains (−6.8%). It should also be noted that some companies like for example East Japan Railways, Vietnam Railways (VNR), Sydney Trains, and KTZ have not yet returned to pre-COVID passenger traffic levels.

Passenger traffic growth in Europe [fn]Eurostat: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Railway_passenger_transport_statistics_-_quarterly_and_annual_data[/fn] is estimated at around 1.5%, with particularly strong performance observed for Trains of Portugal (CP, +27%), Polish State Railways (PKP, +13%), Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) and Raaberbahn (GYSEV) (+9% and +13% respectively), Lithuanian Railways (LTG, +8.8%), Croatian Railways (HŽ, +7%), SNCF (+4.4%), Danish State Railways (DSB, +4.3%), German Railways (DB AG, +2.7%). However, several European undertakings continued to face difficulties and have not yet recovered pre-COVID traffic levels, notably Railway Company of Slovakia (ZSSK), Czech Railways (ČD), National Railway Company of Belgium (SNCB), Dutch Railways (NS), LTG and Swedish Railways (SJ). For several other undertakings, the strong growth observed after the COVID-19 pandemic has gone into the negative, with passenger traffic declining since 2023 and continuing to decrease in 2025. This was the case, for example, for Romanian Railways (CFR), Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ) and ČD. However, for ČD this trend should be interpreted in the context of increasing intramodal competition in both the open-access and public service obligation (PSO) segments in the Czech Republic.

In North America, Via Rail Canada Inc. (VIA RAIL) experienced a slight increase in 2025, while Amtrak maintained solid growth, recording a 5.5% increase.

In Africa, passenger traffic showed a general decline, with an average decrease of around 2.4% in 2025.

3. Freight traffic trends Overall, the global trend in rail freight transport remains positive over the longer term. However, since the beginning of 2022, regional developments have increasingly diverged.

In Asia, KTZ recorded the strongest growth, a trend confirmed in 2025 with an increase of 8.3% compared to 2024. IR and CR had more a moderate growth of 2.6% each. Other Asian operators showed mixed results, with moderate performance by VNR (+2.8%), contrasted by declines for KORAIL (−8.5%) and Taiwan Railway Corporation (TR, −17.6%).

In Europe, the downward trend observed since 2022 continued into 2025, with an overall decline of around 2.4% compared to 2024. The decline in rail freight traffic in Europe since 2022 has mainly been driven by reduced industrial demand, particularly in energy-intensive sectors, combined with the effects of the energy crisis, which increased rail operating costs and weakened competitiveness against road transport. In addition, infrastructure constraints, notably network saturation caused by competing passenger traffic priorities and frequent maintenance work, alongside operational disruptions and a lack of service predictability, have further limited freight rail performance. This is compounded by the structural fragmentation of the European rail system, where technical non-interoperability and administrative delays at borders continue to hinder cross-border efficiency[fn]UIRR: https://www.uirr.com/web-news/european-rail-freight-not-stagnating-its-fully-declining[/fn] [fn]Railfreight.com: https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2026/07/03/stagnation-bottlenecks-and-border-delays-the-key-freight-findings-from-eras-latest-rail-report/[/fn] [fn]https://www.era.europa.eu/content/report-railway-safety-and-interoperability-eu-2026[/fn]. In this context, it appears that companies in the Baltic States, the Balkans and Eastern Europe have been among the most impacted. For several European companies, the decrease exceeded 10%. Incumbent operators appear to be particularly affected, while new market entrants have shown better resilience.

In Africa, freight traffic trends remain contrasted. Strong growth was recorded by the National Railway Company of the Congo (SNCC, +16.4%) and Moroccan National Railways (ONCF, +11.2%), while declines were observed for Algerian National Company for Rail Transport (SNTF, −3.8%), and the National Company for Tunisian Railways (SNCFT, −22%).

In the United States, according to Association of American Railroads (AAR)-reported data [fn]AAR: https://www.aar.org/rail-industry-overview/[/fn], rail freight activity rebounded in 2025, with a 1.1% increase following a slight decline in the previous period.

Overall, after a plateau in 2024, 2025 experienced a global recovery of approximately 2% in rail freight activity.

More information Please consult the monthly and quarterly reports on passenger, freight, and train traffic, available online via the UIC web application for statistics correspondents Quarterly reports are also available on the extranet Annual data is available from Railisa

Acknowledgments Many thanks to all of the correspondents who actively contributed to providing the data used for this brief overview from the UIC Statistics Platform.

Contact UIC Statistics Unit stat@uic.org

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