1. Status of rail transport

• In 2016, passengers travelled over 4 trillion kilometres by rail, around 8% of total transport

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passenger-kilometres. Rail travel is concentrated in a few regions: People’s Republic of China

(“China”), the European Union, India, Japan and the Russian Federation (“Russia”), which

together make up about 90% of global passenger rail activity. Despite rapid expansion of metro

and high-speed rail systems over the past decade, the share of rail in global motorised

passenger transport has remained roughly constant.

• Today, around 600 billion passenger-kilometres are travelled by high-speed rail every year

compared with 3 100 billion by conventional rail. Two-out-of-three high-speed rail tracks are in

China, which starting from virtually zero only a decade ago has built over 41 000 kilometres of

high-speed rail tracks. The speed and size of this achievement place it among the largest

infrastructure projects of recent years.

• Nearly 200 cities worldwide have metro systems. The combined length of the metro tracks

exceeds 32 000 kilometres. Light rail systems add 21 000 kilometres of track length, across

more than 220 cities. The pace of extension of China’s metro network since 1990 has

outstripped the global average, pushing the country’s share of global metro networks from less

than 10% in 1990 to more than 28% in 2017. Since urban rail is typically electric, travel by

metro and light rail systems gives rise to none of the tailpipe emissions associated with road

transport and can achieve zero-emissions mobility overall.

• About 7% of global freight transport activity, as measured in tonne-kilometres, goes by rail.

Growth was very rapid at the turn of the century, but slackened and levelled off thereafter. In

contrast to Europe, Japan and Korea, where rail networks mostly serve passengers, rail

networks in North America overwhelmingly cater to freight transport. In Russia, more than half

of freight activity takes place on rail. Australia, Brazil, Canada, India and South Africa also carry

substantial volumes of goods by rail.

• Rail transport today accounts for close to 2% of final transport energy use, a modest share

compared with rail’s share of transport activity. Three-quarters of passenger rail transport and

almost half of all freight rail are electric, using around 290 TWh of electricity every year

(25 Mtoe). Diesel-powered trains account for the remainder of final energy use (0.6 mb/d, or

28 Mtoe a year). Electric and diesel trains together give rise to around 3% of all well-to-wheel

greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector.

• Although rail is an energy consumer, it also makes an important contribution to containing energy

demand. If all passenger and freight services currently carried by rail switched to road vehicles, such

as cars and trucks, global oil demand from transport today would be 16% higher (8 mb/d). The

contribution rail makes to containing GHG emissions is as significant as its energy savings. If all

current passenger and freight traffic by rail shifted to road vehicles, global GHG emissions would

increase by 1.2 Gt of CO2-eq, or 12% more than total emissions from transport today.

reserved.

• Investment in rail infrastructure is expensive. In order for a rail construction project to pay off,

high passenger or freight throughput is necessary. If this condition is met, shifting large

quantities of transport away from cars, trucks and planes delivers very important societal and

IEA 2019. All rights

environmental benefits, which may not be fully captured in conventional commercial pricing.