Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on experience acquired in the application of Regulation (EC) No 91/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on rail transport statistics
Date: 2007-12-20
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU statistics, data collection, exchange of information, rail transport, statistical method, transport statistics

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 20.12.2007 
COM(2007) 832 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on experience acquired in the application of Regulation (EC) No 91/2003 of the 
European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on rail transport statistics 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................ 3 

1 

1.1 

1.2 

1.3 

1.4 

2 

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 3 

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES ....................................................................... 3 

POLICY CONTEXT.................................................................................................... 4 

IMPLEMENTING RULES.......................................................................................... 5 

COVERAGE OF MEMBER STATES AND OTHER COUNTRIES ........................ 5 

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REGULATION ........................................................ 7 

2.1 

ISSUES ENCOUNTERED.......................................................................................... 7 

2.1.1  Respect of legal obligations ......................................................................................... 7 

2.1.2  Burden of the implementation and regular data provision for reporting countries...... 9 

2.1.3  Data collection, compilation and validation process.................................................... 9 

2.1.4  Methodological issues................................................................................................ 10 

2.2 

RESULTS .................................................................................................................. 10 

2.2.1  Data transmission and validation ............................................................................... 10 

2.2.2  Methodological guidance ........................................................................................... 11 

2.2.3  Data dissemination ..................................................................................................... 11 

3 

3.1 

3.2 

CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................ 13 

SHORT TERM DEVELOPMENTS.......................................................................... 14 

LONG TERM DEVELOPMENTS............................................................................ 14 

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Regulation  (EC)  No 91/2003  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  16 
December 2002 on rail transport statistics1 specifies in its article 9 that, after data have 
been collected over a period of three years, the Commission shall submit a report to the 
European Parliament and to the Council on experience acquired in the application of this 
Regulation. This report is aimed to comply with this requirement once the first 3 years of 
data collection have been completed (2003-2005). 

After a general description of the background, objectives and policy context of the legal 
act,  some  issues  linked  to  the  implementation  are  discussed.  The  report  also  presents 
information  on  the  main  results  achieved.  The  final  section  provides  conclusions  and 
possible future developments. 

The implementation of this Regulation led to the availability of detailed information on 
European  freight  and  passenger  transport  by  rail,  as  well  as  data  on  rail  accidents  and 
marked  an  improvement  in  the  data  quality  and  timeliness.  Member  States  have  made 
efforts to fulfil the requirements of the Regulation and these efforts need to continue in 
order to improve the timeliness and completeness of data provision. 

1 

INTRODUCTION 

1.1 

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES 

The Regulation 91/2003 was designed to provide the Commission, other EU Institutions, 
national  governments  and  the  general  public  with  comparable,  reliable,  harmonised, 
regular  and  comprehensive  statistical  data  on  scale  and  development  of  the  carriage  of 
freight and passengers by rail in the European Union. 

This  is  achieved  by  expanding  certain  essential  aspects  of  the  data  previously  collected 
by  the  Council  Directive  on  rail  goods  transport  statistics  (80/1177/EEC)  to  include 
information  on  passengers  transport,  traffic  flows  and  accidents  on  rail  network; 
information  on  type  of  dangerous  goods;  information  on  type  of  transport  unit  and 
information on national and international goods and passenger transport at regional level 
(NUTS2). 

The main features of Regulation 91/2003 can therefore be summarized as follows: 

•  Data provision should cover all railways in the Community. 

1 

Regulation (EC) No 91/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 
on rail transport statistics, OJ L 14, 21.1.2003, p.1. 

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•  Data provision is defined for both freight and passenger transport by rail. The 
data collected include annual and quarterly statistics on goods and passenger 
transport. 

•  Origin-destination data provision obligation for both freight and passengers is 

geographically defined at NUTS2 level. 

•  The  information  collected  includes  statistics  on  traffic  flows  on  the  rail 

network for freight and passenger trains. 

•  Data provision covers the statistics on rail accidents. 

1.2 

POLICY CONTEXT 

The development of the Common Transport Policy requires the best possible knowledge 
of  the  extent  and  evolution  of  passenger  and  freight  transport  by  rail.  The  White  Paper 
“European  transport  policy  for  2010:  time  to  decide”2  defined  the  objective  of  the 
Community  Transport  Policy  as  to  help  provide  Europeans  with  efficient  and  effective 
transportation  systems.  This  objective  has  been  maintained  in  the  Mid-term  Review  of 
the  White  Paper3  although  more  oriented  towards  ensuring  sustainable  mobility  in 
Europe. The renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy4 sets sustainable transport as 
a  key  objective  for  EU.  Thus,  Community  rail  transport  statistics  are  used  for  framing, 
monitoring  and  evaluation  of  EU  transport  policy  and  other  EU  policies  such  as  the 
renewed Sustainable Development Strategy and the functioning of the internal market. 

The  importance  of  these  data  for  EU  decision-making  is  increasing,  for  instance, 
following  the  competence  attributed  to  the  Commission  on  behalf  of  the  2nd  and  3rd 
railway packages of proposals. 

The  second  railway  package  consists  in  three  directives  (safety,  interoperability  and 
market opening directives) and one regulation on the European Railway Agency.  

The  third  package  of  legal  measures  includes  two  directives  (a  directive  on  a  further 
opening of the market for international passenger transport by rail and a directive for train 
driver licences) and one regulation (on the rights and obligations of rail passengers).This 
information  is  also  used  for  the  measurement  of  passenger  and  freight  flows  and  the 
calculation of the modal split of transport in the EU.  

Other examples of the use of these data for policy needs are the following: 

2 
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4 

COM(2001) 370 of 12 September 2001. 
COM(2006) 314 of 22 June 2006: "Keep Europe moving – Sustainable mobility for our continent. 
Mid-term review of the European Commission's 2001 Transport White Paper". 
Adopted by the European Council on 15-16 June 2006. 

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•  The  European  Railway  Agency  (ERA)  is  also  interested  in  exploiting  these 

data for its work, e.g. for the development of common safety indicators. 

•  There is also a potential to use these data for environmental policy purposes 
in comparison with other modes of transport. The data need is growing with 
the political will to reinforce the railway transport for environmental reasons. 
These  statistics  are  relevant  to  TERM  transport  and  environment  reporting 
mechanism, which is designed to inform the EU transport policy makers and 
is  developed  by  the  European  Environment  Agency  in  cooperation  with 
Member States experts and the European Commission. 

1.3 

IMPLEMENTING RULES 

Regulation  91/2003  confers  implementing  powers  on  the  Commission,  which  are  to  be 
exercised via the comitology procedure as set out in Articles 10 and 11. Eurostat has used 
this procedure to adopt a set of rules covering different aspects of the implementation of 
the  Regulation.  These  rules  are  adopted  in  the  form  of  Commission  Regulations  after 
opinion of the Statistical Programme Committee. 

So far, two implementing Regulations have been adopted: 

•  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1192/20035of  3  July  2003,  which  mainly 
provides  harmonised  definitions  to  be  used  in  railway  statistics  by  all 
countries  providing  data  but  also  adapts  the  content  of  the  annex  related  to 
statistics on accidents; 

•  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  332/20076of  27  March  2007,  which 
provides  the  technical  format  for  data  transmission  (datasets  to  be  provided 
with the corresponding structure and codification). 

One  more  Commission  Regulation  is  currently  being  discussed  in  the  relevant 
committees.  It  aims  at  harmonising  a  number  of  definitions  and  amending  Annex  H  of 
Regulation 91/2003 for it to be consistent with Annex 1 of the Railway Safety Directive 
2004/49/EC. 

1.4 

COVERAGE OF MEMBER STATES AND OTHER COUNTRIES 

Regulation 91/2003 applies directly and in its entirety to all Member States. It does not 
have to be transposed into national legislation. However, the gradual introduction of the 

5 

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Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1192/2003  of  3  July  2003  amending  Regulation  (EC)  No 
91/2003  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  on  rail  transport  statistics,  OJ  L  167, 
4.7.2003, p.13. 
Commission Regulation (EC) No 332/2007 of 27 March 2007 on the technical arrangements for 
the transmission of railway transport statistics, OJ L 88, 29.3.2007, p.16. 

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Annexes of Regulation (for certain railway companies, datasets and variables) according 
to certain rules and for a maximum period of time of three years (until 2005 included) has 
been introduced. 

Concerning Romania and Bulgaria, both countries have declared their willingness to fully 
comply with the EU legislation in this field, starting from 2006 as a reference year for the 
data provisions. Romania has provided almost all 2005 data according to the provisions 
of the Regulation. 

Concerning  the  candidate  countries,  Croatia  and  Turkey  provide  some  data,  while  the 
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has not yet submitted any information. 

In  2003,  Regulation  91/2003  was  formally  incorporated  into  Annex  XXI  (Statistics)  of 
the  EEA  Agreement  by  a  Decision  of  the  EEA  Joint  Committee7.  According  to  this 
Decision, Norway has to transmit the data required in the Regulation. Regulation foresees 
provision for simplified reporting and this is applied for Liechtenstein data8. 

Data  based  on  the  Regulation  principles  will  be  also  transmitted  by  Switzerland  in 
accordance  with  the  Agreement  between  the  European  Community  and  the  Swiss 
Confederation on cooperation in the field of statistics9. Switzerland shall collect the data 
required by this Regulation from, at the latest, the beginning of year 200610. 

7 

8 

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Decision  of  the  EEA  Joint  Committee  No  12/2004  of  6  February  2004  amending  Annex  XXI 
(Statistics) to the EEA Agreement, OJ L 116 of 22 April 2004, pp.63-64. 
The Liechtenstein data are provided by Austria, as one (Austrian) railway undertaking operates on 
Liechtenstein territory only. 
Signed  on  26  October  2004  and  approved  by  Council  Decision  of  27  February  2006  on  the 
conclusion of the Agreement between the European Community and the Swiss Confederation on 
cooperation in the field of statistics, OJ L 90 of 28 March 2006, pp.1-21. 
Annex A Transport and Tourism Statistics of the above-mentioned Agreement. 

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2 

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REGULATION 

2.1 

ISSUES ENCOUNTERED 

2.1.1  Respect of legal obligations 

The compliance with the data provision obligations defined in the Regulation has experienced 
a positive evolution during the period considered. The evolution trend was mostly caused by 
the fact that the provisions of the Annexes have been introduced gradually as follows: 

•  2003 data – Tables A1, A2, A3 and Annex I were required for the first time; 

•  2004 data – Tables A4, A5, A6, A7, A8 and A9, Annex B, Annex C, Annex D, 

Annex E and Annex H were required for the first time; 

•  2005 data – Annex F and Annex G were required for the first time. 

Table  1  shows  the  status  of  the  data  delivery  for  the  reference  year  2005  by  dataset  and 
periodicity. According to Regulation 91/2003: 

•  datasets  related  to  Annex  E  (Statistics  on  goods  and  passenger  transport)  are 

quarterly; 

•  datasets of Annexes A, B, C, D (Statistics on goods and passenger transport) and 

H (Statistics on accidents) are annual; 

•  datasets of Annexes F (Regional statistics on goods and passenger transport) and 
G  (Statistics  on  traffic  flows  on  the  rail  network)  are  five-yearly  (and  are  to  be 
provided beginning with the reference year 2005). 

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Table 1: Compliance with Regulation requirements regarding timeliness and 
completeness in 2005 (reference year) 

Quarterly 
data 
delivery 
E 

3* 

T 
T 

T 

– 

T 

– 

T 

– 
T 
– 
– 
– 

– 

Annex 
Months for 
data delivery 

Belgium 
Czech Republic 
Denmark 
Germany 
Estonia 
Greece 
Spain 
France 
Ireland 
Italy 
Cyprus 
Latvia 
Lithuania 
Luxembourg 
Hungary 
Malta 
Netherlands 
Austria 
Poland 
Portugal 
Slovenia 
Slovakia 
Finland 
Sweden 
United Kingdom 

Bulgaria 
Croatia 
FYROM 
Iceland 
Liechtenstein 
Norway 
Romania 
Switzerland 
Turkey 

Annual 
data delivery 

5 years 
(beginning 2005) 

B 

5 

– 
T 
– 

– 

T 
– 
– 

– 

– 
M 

– 
– 

– 

– 
– 
– 
– 

A 

5 

T 
T 

M 
M 

– 

– 
M 

T 

T 
T 

– 

– 
– 
– 

– 

– 

C 

8/14 

T 
M 
T 

M 
M 

– 

T 

– 

T 
T 

– 

– 
– 
– 
M 

– 

D 

8 

T 
– 

– 
– 

– 

– 
Q 

– 
– 

– 
– 
– 
– 

H 

5 

Q 
T 
T 

– 

– 

T 

T 

T 

– 

– 
– 

– 

– 

F 

12 

T 

T, M 

T 
M 
T, M 
T 

– 
M 

T 

– 

T 

M 

T 

M 
M 

– 
– 
– 
– 
– 
M 
– 
– 

I 

5 

T 
T 
Q 

T 

– 

T 

– 
Q, T 

M 

T, Q 
Q 
Q 
Q, T 

– 

– 
– 
T 
T 

– 
M 

G 

18 

M 
T 

– 

T 
T 
– 
M 
T 

M 

M 

– 
– 
– 
– 
T 

– 
– 
– 

* Timeliness for providing the fourth quarter of 2005 data has been taken into account. 
Legend: 

T 
M 
Q 
– 

compliance with Regulation requirements 
timeliness problems 
some tables are missing 
quality problems, incompleteness of data 
not concerned 

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Concerning the data provision for 2003, some reporting countries had problems with 
the  delivery  of  certain  datasets  (mainly  regarding  statistics  on  accidents,  etc.)  or 
certain  elements  (train  movements,  etc.).  The  data  provision  in  the  two  subsequent 
years  has  improved,  although  efforts  are  still  needed  in  order  to  improve  the 
periodicity and completeness of the datasets. 

2.1.2  Burden of the implementation and regular data provision for reporting countries 

In the majority of reporting countries the compliance with the Regulation has meant 
a straightforward exploitation of the existing data and therefore, no specific measures 
have been taken, as the existing processes were sufficient to satisfy the requirements. 
However,  in  some  countries,  extensions  of  the  data  collection  and  additional 
compilation procedures were needed. It has to be mentioned that no financial support 
was foreseen in the Regulation to cover the cost of its implementation. 

Concerning  the  regular  data  provision,  the  workload  involved  is  considered  as 
acceptable by a majority of reporting countries. Nevertheless, in some countries this 
involves  a  major  burden,  particularly  for  the  railway  companies  as  original  data 
providers and for the CNA of countries where the EU liberalisation rules are applied 
and, as consequence, many new railway companies are active. 

In terms of costs, a pilot study launched in 2006 on behalf of the Working Group on 
European  Statistical  System  Programming  and  Coordination  revealed  a  very 
heterogeneous  situation,  with  an  average  annual  cost  of  producing  rail  transport 
statistics  varying  considerably  even  among  Member  States  with  similar  size  and 
market structures. With a very few exceptions, the Member States confirmed that the 
figures presented in the cost-benefit study11 are indeed reflecting the total annual cost 
of producing rail transport statistics according to the Regulation 91/2003. 

2.1.3  Data collection, compilation and validation process 

The  data  collection  and  compilation  process  in  the  reporting  countries  follows 
a traditional bottom-up flow of information. In general, this flow starts at the railway 
company who transmits the information to the CNA, which makes the compilation, 
validation and transmission of the national data to Eurostat.  

In  some  cases,  CNA  use  information  from  other  sources,  such  as  the  Ministry  of 
Transport,  infrastructure  managers  or  National  Safety  Authorities,  particularly  for 
statistics on traffic flows on the rail network and for statistics on accidents. 

All CNA apply validation checks before sending the information to Eurostat, using 
internally  developed  control  procedures  and/or  using  a  pre-validation  software  tool 
provided  by  Eurostat.  The  validation  rules  cover  many  aspects  of  the  process 
including data format, codification, internal consistency of each dataset, consistency 
between datasets and variables, etc. and when errors are detected, they are manually 
corrected before transmitting the data to Eurostat. 

11 

The report was presented and discussed with MS in the WG ESS Programming and Coordination on 19 
June 2006 (Item 2.1. on the agenda Review of priorities – results from cost-benefit pilot studies). 

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2.1.4  Methodological issues 

The  methodological  arrangements  of  implementing  Regulation  91/2003  have 
provided  a  common  framework  to  ensure  a  harmonised  data  collection  and  the 
production of comparable results. During the period considered, the following major 
methodological issues have been raised: 

•  Question of inclusion/exclusion of passenger transit; 

•  Methodological  problems  in  establishing  the  correspondence  table  of  the  UIC 
station  codes  with  the  NUTS2  regions  and  one  common  conversion  tool  for 
NST/R-NST2000 (CPA, CN) for transport statistics purposes; 

•  Need for harmonisation of the definitions between Rail Safety Directive 49/2004 
and  the  rail  Regulations  (together  with  changes  in  the  data  collection  range)  in 
order to improve quality of rail accident statistics; 

•  Methodological help on Annex G – Statistics on traffic flows on the rail network; 

•  Correspondence problems between Annex I and the data deliverables. 

2.2 

RESULTS  

2.2.1  Data transmission and validation 

Each Annex of Regulation 91/2003 provides for specific deadlines for transmission 
of data by the reporting countries. During the period considered, the compliance with 
these deadlines has improved. 

Regarding  the  technical  arrangements  for  data  transmission,  a  high  level  of 
standardisation  has  been  achieved.  Data  are  transmitted  electronically  to  Eurostat 
respecting the requested structure of the data files and the record format. This allows 
for a quick integration of the information into the Eurostat production database and 
an early detection of basic errors and unknown codes.  

Once  data  have  been  loaded  into  the  Eurostat  database,  detailed  validation 
procedures  are  applied  to  ensure  the  quality  of  the  transmitted  data.  The  validation 
includes  the  internal  consistency  of  the  datasets,  the  consistency  over  time,  the 
coherence between datasets and a comparison of the results for traffic between two 
reporting countries.  

The data quality can be judged as good in freight transport (which is based on freight 
papers).  The  passenger  data  cannot  reach  the  same  quality  level,  as  a  result  of 
different  methodologies  in  data  collection  in  each  Member  State.  Concerning  the 
accident  statistics  the  data  are  sometimes  'polluted'  by  suicides  and  attempted 
suicides. Parts of accident data still suffer from a lack of national adaptation to the 
common  definitions  (probably  because  of  the  transition  period  of  five  years 
permitted  in  the  Regulation  91/2003);  the  harmonised  definitions  mentioned  above 
will  improve  the  data  quality.  This  statement  is  based  on  the  implementation  of 
a solid  common  methodological  framework,  on  the  efforts  in  the  compilation  and 

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validation procedures at national level as well as on the subsequent quality controls 
performed at Eurostat before data dissemination. 

The majority of Member States consider the level of compliance with the Regulation 
91/2003 as good. Most difficulties are encountered for the provision of information 
at regional level due to poor data sources and aggregation tools, limited access to the 
data  and,  in  some  cases,  data  processing  difficulties.  However,  in  many  reporting 
countries there are ongoing efforts to improve the situation, such as regular contacts 
with data suppliers to allow completing the data transmission, or development of new 
data processing systems. 

2.2.2  Methodological guidance 

Eurostat has produced a Reference Manual for the implementation of the Regulation 
91/2003 to provide guidance to Member States and other reporting countries on the 
implementation  of  the  Regulation.  The  Reference  Manual  is  updated  annually  to 
include  the  most  recent  information,  documentation  or  guidelines  relevant  to  the 
collection of these statistics. 

Moreover,  the  correspondence  table  of  the  UIC  station  codes  with  the  NUTS2 
regions was established by Eurostat in cooperation with Member States and UIC. 

2.2.3  Data dissemination 

According to Article 7 of Regulation 91/2003,  the  Commission can disseminate  all 
data  not  declared  as  confidential  by  the  Member  States.  In  practice,  very  few 
countries  have  used  this  clause  and  the  large  majority  of  the  data  delivered  to 
Eurostat  can  be  disseminated.  The  Annex  I  data  (information  on  railway 
undertakings) is confidential based on the provisions of Regulation. 

Eurostat releases the data collected through its dissemination database freely and is 
accessible from the Eurostat web site. There are already 19 tables which are filled in 
with the data coming from the Annexes A–E and H. This year (2007) the number of 
tables will increase because of dissemination of the data from Annexes F and G. 
Eurostat also disseminates information though specific publications such as the series 
Statistics in Focus or news releases that provide relevance to the data for the media 
and the general public. 

Based on the data which has been delivered within the provisions of the Regulation, 
it was possible to publish three Statistics in Focus for 2005 data: 

•  Rail transport accidents in the European Union in 2004-2005; 

•  Rail freight transport 2005; 

•  Passenger transport by rail in 2004-2005. 

Table  2  contains  some  key  figures  on  the  European  rail  transport  collected  on  the 
basis of this Regulation. 

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Table 2: Total12 rail transport of passenger and freight and persons killed in rail 
accidents by country in 2005 

Passenger 
transport 
(million pkm) 

Change 
comparing to 
2004 (%) 

Freight 
transport 
(million tkm) 

Change 
comparing to 
2004 (%) 

Number of 
persons killed in 
rail accidents13 

Belgium 
Czech Republic 
Denmark 
Germany 
Estonia 
Greece 
Spain 
France 
Ireland 
Italy 
Cyprus 
Latvia 
Lithuania 
Luxembourg 
Hungary 
Malta 
Netherlands 
Austria 
Poland 
Portugal 
Slovenia 
Slovakia 
Finland 
Sweden 
United Kingdom 
European Union 25 
Bulgaria 
Croatia 
FYROM 
Iceland 
Liechtenstein 
Norway 
Romania 
Switzerland15 
Turkey 

8305 
6667 
5957 
78244 
248 
1854 
21153 
76886 
1781 
50088 
- 
894 
280 
267 
9851 
- 
14036 
9236 
17882 
3809 
716 
2182 
3478 
8910 
44415 
: 
: 
1227 
: 
- 
1 
2709 
7960 
: 
5036 

-4.3 
1.3 
0.7 
7.4 
28.6 
11.1 
4.1 
3.4 
12.6 
1.7 
- 
10.3 
-1.0 
5.8 
-3.1 
- 
-0.4 
5.0 
-3.0 
1.5 
3.0 
-2.0 
3.8 
3.2 
2.5 
: 
: 
5.0 
: 
- 
0.0 
3.4 
-7.6 
: 
-3.8 

:c14  
14866 
1976 
95421 
10639 
613 
11635 
40701 
303 
22761 
- 
19779 
12457 
392 
9090 
- 
5025 
18957 
49972 
2422 
3245 
9463 
9706 
21675 
22322 
: 
: 
2835 
: 
- 
17 
3149 
16582 
: 
9077 

5.7 14 
-1.5 
-14.9 
3.8 
1.4 
3.6 
-2.0 
-9.8 
-24.1 
2.6 
- 
6.2 
7.0 
-33.9 
3.9 
- 
-3.8 
1.1 
-4.5 
6.1 
3.0 
-2.5 
-4.0 
3.9 
-1.0 
: 
: 
13.7 
: 
- 
-17.3 
10.7 
-2.6 
: 
-2.7 

24 
249 
23 
157 
21 
26 
65 
79 
0 
99 
- 
5 
33 
0 
91 
- 
25 
44 
291 
99 
5 
7 
22 
21 
74 
1464 
: 
35 
: 
- 
0 
4 
36 
: 
154 

12 

13 
14 

15 

Simplified  and  detailed  reporting,  all  types  of  transport  (international,  national,  transit  for  freight 
transport only). 
Some data may contain suicides. 
Data  confidential  because  of  the  confidentiality  clause  put  on  the  simplified  reporting  (small 
undertakings); the data for big undertakings (detailed reporting) was 8130 million tkm in 2005. 
Switzerland  shall  provide  the  railway  data  starting  from  the  2006  as  a  reference  year  (according  to 
the Agreement  between  the European  Community  and  the  Swiss  Confederation on  cooperation  in  the 
field of statistics, OJ L 90 of 28 March 2006, pp.1-21). 

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3 

CONCLUSIONS 

The experience gained and the results obtained on the implementation of Regulation 
91/2003  can  be  considered,  in  general,  as  very  positive.  The  adoption  of  the 
Regulation, the work and resources put into setting up the legal requirements, both at 
national  and  Eurostat  level,  have  allowed  a  quick  production  of  comparable  and 
reliable results. This is particularly relevant in the case of the ten Member States that 
joined the EU in 2004. 

More  problems  concerning  rail  data  collection  were  encountered  in  the  countries 
where the railway market is developed (there are many railway operators). 

The data provisions in the two subsequent years have improved, although there are 
still remaining problems, particularly as regards the periodicity and completeness of 
datasets. 

Because  of  the  constant  learning  process  (during  the  three  previous  years),  all  the 
2006  quarterly  data  were  already  available  in  May  2007  (all  Member  States 
respected the deadline for the quarterly data). 

A  great  progress  has  been  achieved  by  some  countries  in  order  to  release  the 
confidentiality  restrictions  of  some  tables.  At  the  beginning,  7  countries  declared 
some tables as confidential, but with the contacts of NSIs with railway undertakings, 
the data could become public. Currently only three countries (AT16, BE17 and BG18) 
put  some  restrictions  on  the  data.  The  procedure  for  the  disclosure  of  data  is  still 
ongoing  in  these  countries.  As  a  result,  the EU  aggregates  (for  some  variables)  are 
still  not  available.  This  seriously  hampers  the  monitoring  of  the  rail  market  at 
European level and thus the usefulness of the datasets. 

Most  of  the  issues  linked  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Regulation,  data  collection, 
compilation, transmission and validation have been addressed and properly tackled. 
The  implementation  of  this  Regulation  has  led  to  an  increase  in  the  availability  of 
information on the sector as well as an improvement of data quality and timeliness. 
Regarding the use of the data, the results obtained have an immediate application for 
policy-making, particularly for the development, implementation and monitoring of 
the rail transport sector policies at national and EU level. Data dissemination through 
different  public  means  has  contributed  to  the  visibility  of  the  whole  process  and  to 
provide a return to the citizens for the investment of resources made on it. 

16 Tables A3, F1 and F2 are confidential, tables C1, C2, C3 C4, E2, F3, F4 are under disclosure procedure. 
17 B1 for 2004 and 2005 are confidential. 
18 Tables E1 and E2 – ongoing procedure for disclosure. 

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3.1 

SHORT TERM DEVELOPMENTS 

In the short term, the efforts should be concentrated on the following issues: 

•  Finalise  the  introduction  of  harmonized  definitions  for  better  comparability  of 

data of different countries and different modes of transport. 

•  Integration  and  harmonisation  of  some  rail  accident  data  (which  are  currently 
collected separately by ERA and Eurostat) in order to avoid duplication of work 
and publication of different figures in future. 

•  Further improvement of data quality for certain elements and of the timeliness is 
necessary.  Some  reporting  countries  need  to  make  additional  efforts  to  supply 
reliable and comparable data and to improve the timeliness of data provision. 

•  Dissemination of traffic flows on the rail network and regional data; 

•  Enlargement  of  the  EU  to  Bulgaria  and  Romania.  Eurostat  will  pay  particular 
attention  to  ensure  that  these  two  new  Member  States  comply  with  the  EU 
legislation on rail transport statistics. 

•  Full  lifting  of  confidentiality  restrictions  in  order  to  allow  for  a  timely 

dissemination of EU aggregates. 

3.2 

LONG TERM DEVELOPMENTS 

The collection of new variables may be foreseen and will be discussed, based on the 
needs  announced  by the  data users  (e.g.  the  train-km performed  divided  into diesel 
and electricity could be useful for environment impact calculations). The possibility 
of data collection on high-speed passenger trains (number of passengers, passenger-
km and train-km) can also be discussed. 

However, reporting countries have clearly expressed the problems of collecting more 
information and the need to duly justify any further burden linked to the collection of 
statistics in general and on rail transport statistics in particular. 

At  least  two  future  developments  not  linked  to  new  data  requirements  could  be 
envisaged: 

•  A short reduction on the data transmission period to five months after the end of 
the period of observation for the annual data on rail passengers,  in line with  the 
statistical data collection of other modes of transport. 

•  Extension of the  geographical coverage due to either future EU enlargements or 
the voluntary involvement of third countries through co-operation agreements. 

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