The volume of freight transported by rail in Czechia increased year-on-year in 2021, amounting to over 16.3 billion tonne-kilometers.
Investments in infrastructure have been following the growing demand for inland transportation in the country. Between 2017 and 2020, investments in inland transportation infrastructure in Czechia almost doubled from 1.6 to 2.8 billion euros. In 2020, the Czech government spent 1.31 percent of its GDP on inland transportation infrastructure.
Passenger transportation dominated by road transportation
The road network in the country was not only the prevalent land transportation mode for freight but also for passengers. In 2021, over 93.3 million passenger-kilometers were traveled by road in Czechia, almost 14 times more than by rail. That year, the volume of passenger rail transport reached only about 6.8 billion passenger-kilometers, a significant drop compared to pre-pandemic volumes of about 10 billion passenger-kilometers. Measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 and fear of infection were some of the factors discouraging passengers in Czechia from using trains. Instead, they opted for traveling by passenger cars where the risk of contracting COVID-19 is lower. In 2020, about 77.7 percent of all passenger-kilometers traveled in Czechia were covered using passenger cars.Passenger car registrations on the rise
The number of passenger car registrations in Czechia has steadily grown since 1990. As of 2020, the number of registered passenger cars reached over six million units, an increase of 250 percent compared to 1990. This amounted to 565 passenger cars per thousand Czech inhabitants in 2020. That year, Czechia ranked third in the number of cars per thousand inhabitants in Central and Eastern Europe, topped only by Poland and Estonia with 664 and 608 passenger cars per thousand inhabitants, respectively. In contrast to the noticeable rise in passenger car registrations, Czechia’s number of registered buses and coaches heavily oscillated between 1990 and 2020, dropping from 20,500 to 20,000 registrations.Investments in infrastructure have been following the growing demand for inland transportation in the country. Between 2017 and 2020, investments in inland transportation infrastructure in Czechia almost doubled from 1.6 to 2.8 billion euros. In 2020, the Czech government spent 1.31 percent of its GDP on inland transportation infrastructure.
