The new study "Competitiveness of rail transport" covers data for 2020 provided by rail carriers. The connections offered by different operators were updated as of February 2022.
In 2020 the highest number of passengers was transported between Warszawa and Łódź. Rail transport services between these two cities had very good transport results for many years, which was influenced both by the size of both cities and transport accessibility. Rail transport is very popular with Łódź residents due to short travel times and a stable transport offer.
More than one million passengers travelled on Warszawa-Kraków route in 2020. As for popularity of rail connections, seven out of ten most popular include Warszawa.
In the new report prepared by the Office of Rail Transport we look closely on the situation on the rail market in Poland and we compare different connections, where the commercial offer of rail operators meets passengers' expectations, but also those, which - due to many years of virtually no investments or organisational problems - do not create demand for rail services - comments Ignacy Góra, the President of the Office of Rail Transport.
To examine the effectiveness of direct rail services between different cities, we introduced a “rail connection indicator”. The value of this indicator is the quotient of the number of passengers travelling on a route (round trips) and the sum of the populations of both cities.
The highest rail connection indicator was recorded on Katowice - Tychy route. On average, there were almost two journeys on this route per inhabitant in 2020. High results were also recorded e.g. on the Bydgoszcz - Toruń route.
The study is available here.