Martin Placek
Research expert covering transportation and electronics
Transportation industry in Czechia - statistics & facts
Czechia relies heavily on road transportation for moving of goods within the country, making use of its extensive network of road infrastructure. Rail transportation is the second most dominant mode of transportation in the country. Like the road infrastructure, rail infrastructure is vast and relatively well connected with neighboring countries. In 2022, nearly 65.8 billion tonne-kilometers of freight was transported by road in Czechia, an increase of some three percent compared with 2021 and the highest volume in the past 15 years.
The volume of freight transported by rail in Czechia increased slightly year-on-year in 2022, amounting to nearly 16.4 billion tonne-kilometers.
Investments in infrastructure have been following the growing demand for inland transportation in the country. Between 2017 and 2021, investments in inland transportation infrastructure in Czechia more than doubled from 1.6 to 3.3 billion euros. In 2021, the Czech government spent 1.4 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 2022, over 100 million passenger-kilometers were traveled by road in Czechia, almost 11 times more than by rail. That year, the volume of passenger rail transport reached only about 9.5 billion passenger-kilometers. Although the volume of passengers travelling by train increased compared to the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, it still lay below the pre-pandemic levels. As a result of measures put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19, about 81.9 percent of all passenger-kilometers traveled by land in Czechia were covered by passenger cars in 2021.Passenger car registrations on the rise
The number of passenger car registrations in Czechia has steadily grown since 1990. As of 2021, the number of registered passenger cars reached over six million units, an increase of 250 percent compared to 1990. This amounted to 579 passenger cars per thousand Czech inhabitants in 2021. 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 687 and 620 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 2021, dropping from 20,500 to 20,600 registrations.Investments in infrastructure have been following the growing demand for inland transportation in the country. Between 2017 and 2021, investments in inland transportation infrastructure in Czechia more than doubled from 1.6 to 3.3 billion euros. In 2021, the Czech government spent 1.4 percent of its GDP on inland transportation infrastructure.
