On 21 March 2024, UIC participated in the bi-annual meeting of the Eurostat working group on Rail Transport Statistics.
First on the agenda (https://vu.fr/ybhyo) was the status of rail data collection, validation, and quality reporting, with the comparability of data derived from Annex V (formerly G) and ERA administrative data (RINF) also being addressed. Certain inconsistencies arose, with Eurostat proposing specific improvements to representatives of the Member States.
Subsequently, Eurostat presented information to the attendees on recent developments in EU rail transport policy, including new legislation on infrastructure capacity management, the facilitation of cross-border and freight transport, long-term planning, setting up governance and digital tools, and promoting more efficient use of infrastructure.
Further objectives presented included monitoring the shift from road to rail, data collection on high-speed activities, as well as data collection by tractive energy.
The streamlining of rail indicators in the Common Questionnaire and updating the glossary for transport statistics (Eurostat, UNECE, ITF-OECD, https://unece.org/transport/publications/glossary-transport-statistics) were also discussed.
The UIC Statistics Platform was invited to participate in the expert group to improve current definitions. UIC also presented recent progress made in the Statistics Platform framework (https://vu.fr/YaWlp).
To conclude, Eurostat gave a presentation on its collaboration with RailNetEurope (RNE), designed to make the most of innovative data for transport indicators.
