Global traffic keeps rising

INTERNATIONAL: The strong Asian market is continuing to drive up railway traffic across the world, according to the International Union of Railways' analysis of 2007 statistics published on March 31. Collation of passenger and traffic figures submitted by 62 UIC member railways around the world highlights the relationship between rail trends and 'economic and demographic developments' as well as 'the globalisation of trade links', according to UIC's Senior Advisor, Olivier Georger.

Allowing for the inevitable problems of obtaining comprehensive returns and ensuring that railways report their performance on a truly comparable basis, the UIC figures show a continuing upward trend in total volumes, if not always reflected in market share.

In the passenger sector, Indian Railways reported the strongest year-on-year growth in passenger-km; at 12·9% this is well ahead of the 8·5% rise at Chinese Railways. Both operators are close to achieving 700 billion passenger-km per year, having doubled their traffic in less than 12 years according to UIC. UK train operators reported a 10·8% increase in passenger journeys, and a similar rise in passenger-km to 48·4 billion - the highest figure attained since World War II.

More modest increases in passenger traffic were recorded in Europe and Japan, at 1·5% and 2% respectively. Russian Railways saw a 2·4% fall in passenger-km after recording 4% growth in 2006.

India also saw the biggest growth in freight tonne-km, up by 9·4% compared with 7·6% in China and 7·2% in Russia. Average growth in Europe (excluding the CIS countries) was just 1%, compared with 4% between 2005 and 2006. With international traffic in Europe rising by 3·5%, the lower average suggests a decline in domestic rail freight flows.

The downturn in the US economy was reflected by a 1% fall in freight traffic reported by the AAR, after a 3% increase in 2006. Nevertheless the USA remains the largest rail freight market, with the Class Is handling 2 820 billion tonne-km compared to 2 211 billion in China and just 412 billion in the whole of Europe.

Table I. Top 10 rail operators in 2007