Passenger transport activity

In 2019, 6 trillion passenger-km were travelled in the EU-27, excluding extra-EU aviation. These passenger-kilometers were covered using the motorised transport modes listed in Figure 1, and represent a 33.5% increase in passenger activity since 1995 (EC, 2024d). This means that passenger activity increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.2% for 24 years in between 1995 and 2019. In 2022, a total of around 5,617 billion passenger-km were travelled. This represents an increase of 24.9% compared to 1995, which corresponds to a CAGR of 0.8%. The figures quoted here reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, although the period 2020 to 2022 saw a progressive return towards the pre-COVID levels of activity.

Importantly, as shown in Figure 2, overall transport activity is forecast to grow further, at least according to the recent MIX-FF55 scenario from the European Commission (EC) (EC, 2021d). Additional information on this scenario can be found in the Annex. This scenario indicates that there will be an increase from 5,618 billion passenger-km in 2015 to 6,088 billion passenger-km in 2025 (an increase of 8.4% compared to 2015), and 6,487 billion passenger-km in 2030 (an increase of 15.5% compared to 2015).

Reducing the environmental impacts of passenger transport, including decarbonising it, is extremely challenging also due to the current level of passenger transport activity, the past trend and the projected increase. One potentially effective strategy for mitigating the impacts of mobility is managing demand whenever possible, e.g. by promoting a shift towards active or collective transport modes or through increased accessibility to local services (such as, for example, hospitals, schools, groceries, pharmacies, etc.). This strategy should be used to complement more technologically focused policies (OECD, 2021).

Figure 1: EU-27 passenger transport activity for different transport modes

1Activity (Gpkm)2Shares (%)

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Figure 2: EU-27 passenger transport activity for different transport modes according to the FF55-MIX scenario

1Activity (Gpkm)2Shares (%)

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Passenger car transport

In 2022, 4,100 billion passenger-km were travelled by passenger car. Alongside aviation, this mode was one of the main drivers of the aforementioned growth in transport activity. The number of passenger-km travelled by passenger car increased by 24.8% between 1995 and 2022 for the EU-27. As already discussed, it is important to note that these figures reflect the impact of COVID-19 on passenger trips. Two years earlier, in 2019, just before COVID-19, the number of passenger-km travelled by passenger car had increased significantly more, by 30.9% (4,299 billion passenger-km), in comparison with 1995. Notably, as shown in Figure 1, passenger cars accounted for 73.0% of passenger-km travelled in the EU-27 in 2022 – the largest of any mode of transport. This share has remained fairly constant over time, decreasing by only 1.4 percentage points in the 1995-2019 period. It is important to note that during the pandemic, in 2020, the share of passenger cars increased significantly, by 8.7 percentage points compared to the previous year. This effect is ongoing, with the share 1.4 percentage points higher in 2022 compared to 2019.

The EC’s Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy (EC, 2020) identified the need to shift ‘more activity towards more sustainable transport modes’. For passenger transport this would be achieved through different milestones: (1) carbon neutral scheduled collective travel under 500 km by 2030; (2) doubling and tripling the activity on high-speed rail by 2030 and 2050 respectively; (3) having 100 climate-neutral cities in Europe by 2030 (EC, 2020). It is worth noting, however, that most of these actions foresee an increase in absolute activity without any explicit consideration of the resulting transport mix.

According to the MIX-FF55 scenario, passenger cars will remain the dominant mode of transport in the EU-27 in the near future. It is estimated that approximately 4,354 billion passenger-km and 4,533 billion passenger-km will be travelled by passenger cars in 2025 and 2030 respectively. These figures correspond to an increase of 7.3% and 11.7% compared to the activity modelled for 2015. In terms of share, according to the scenario, in 2030, 69.9% of all passenger-km will still be travelled by passenger cars. Notably, some EU countries have highlighted the clear need to reduce the number of passenger-km driven by private cars; Austria discusses this in its mobility plans up to 2030 (Federal Ministry Republic of Austria, 2021).

Public transport

Public modes of transport, referring here to buses, trains (including high-speed ones), trams and metros, are a sensible environmental choice. This is due to the fact that generally they have lower emissions or consume less energy per passenger-km travelled compared to, for example, passenger cars or motorbikes (EEA, 2022d). Public transport activity reached around 995 billion passenger-km in the EU-27 in 2019. This represents a 2.2 percentage points reduction in the share of these modes in the total transport activity compared with 1995. This share reached approximately 16.6% in 2019. The number of passenger-km travelled by public transport plummeted in 2020 before recovering slightly to 878 billion passenger-km travelled in 2022. This is equivalent to a reduction in the modal share of 3.2 percentage points compared to 1995, meaning that 15.6% of passenger-km in the EU-27 in 2022 were travelled using public transport (EEA, 2023h). Overall, these figures suggest that buses, trains, trams and metro were severely affected by COVID-19 travel restrictions, perceived health risks and the associated changes in mobility habits due to the pandemic. Indeed, bus travel declined by 13.2%, train travel by 28.7%, and tram and metro travel by 8.4% in 2022 (with respect to 1995). By way of comparison, the equivalent figures for 2019, again compared with 1995, show that bus travel had increased by 3.9%, train travel by 34.9%, and tram and metro travel by 36.5%.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty vehicles in Europe

More specifically, the figures for rail passenger transport show that high-speed rail travel increased from 32.5 billion passenger-km in 1995 to a peak of 134.0 billion passenger-km in 2019, when high-speed trains accounted for 31.8% of the all rail passenger-km travelled (EC, 2024d). France, Germany, Spain and Italy were largely responsible for this increase since 91.1% of all high-speed activity in the EU-27 in 2019 took place in these four countries. During the pandemic, high-speed rail passenger transport decreased drastically; it accounted for only 69.3 billion passenger-km in 2020, though it recovered to 131.2 billion passenger-km in 2022.

After the pandemic, however, another trend appeared, with a renewed interest in passenger sleeper trains – overnight trains with berths and/or couchettes for sleeping. Overall, the number of sleeper trains had been declining rapidly since about 2010 (EP, 2017) until a recent revival in this transport segment, in the last few years, with new routes being offered. The development of additional night train connections is being supported by the EC (EC, 2024b), alongside other long-distance cross-border services (a total of 10 pilot projects). This represents part of the follow-up to the EC’s action plan to boost long-distance and cross-border passenger rail (EC, 2024a). The European Railway Agency recently published a new assessment on the environmental impacts of the railway sector in the EU-27 (ERA, 2024).

According to the MIX-FF55 scenario, referred to above, public transport is expected to expand in the EU-27 in the near future and to reach 1,174 billion-passenger km by 2030, an increase of 22.6% compared to 2015. However, due to the concurrent expansion of other transport modes in the scenario, its share will reach 18.1% in 2030, an increase of only 1.1 percentage points compared to 2015. The expectation is that increased public transport activity is likely to be driven by the railway sector; the scenario anticipates that rail transport activity will account for 633 billion passenger-km in 2030. This would mean that rail passenger transport will account for 9.8% of all forecast transport activity, i.e. an increase of 1.4 percentage points compared to 2015. The EC’s Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy (EC, 2020), referred to in the passenger cars section above, is calling for an important expansion of the railway sector, both for conventional and high-speed trains. Fulfilling such a vision will require significant effort.

The projected bus and coach activity is expected to increase to 542 billion passenger-km by 2030. This level of activity would correspond to a share of buses and coaches in the overall forecasted passenger transport activity of 8.4%, i.e. a reduction of 0.3 percentage points compared to 2015. This indicates that a significant modal shift is not expected within this scenario. According to an amendment of the CO₂ standards for heavy-duty vehicles (EU, 2024b), urban buses will be required to have zero CO₂ tailpipe emissions by 2035, potentially increasing the relevance of this mode of transport from a climate perspective.

Aviation (domestic and international intra-EU)

Domestic and international intra-EU air travel peaked at around 575 billion passenger-km in 2019, reaching a modal share of 9.6%. These figures were significantly impacted by COVID-19; they decreased more than half to approximately 176 billion passenger-km in 2020 and then recovered to 512 billion passenger-km in 2022 (corresponding to a 9.1% modal share). If we exclude the pandemic effect in 2020 and some of 2021, the demand for aviation has been growing constantly since 1995, with a 142.5% increase in the 1995-2019 period. Similarly, its share in total transport activity has grown by 4.3 percentage points in the same period. These figures do not include extra EU-27 aviation. By way of reference, in 2019, about 1,035 billion air passengers were recorded in the EU-27, with 161 million passengers carried on national flights, 355 million carried on international intra-EU-27 flights, and 520 million on extra-EU-27 flights (Eurostat, 2024d).

According to the MIX-FF55 scenario, referenced above, by 2030 domestic and international intra EU-27 aviation activity is expected to have grow by 35.9% compared to 2015, reaching around 612 billion passenger-km in 2030. This corresponds to a modal share of 9.4% in the total forecast passenger activity in 2030, a 3.3% increase from 2022.

Waterborne navigation (domestic and international intra-EU)

Approximately 21 billion passenger-km were undertaken using domestic and international intra-EU maritime passenger transport in 2019. This represents a modal share of 0.4%. This mode of transport was among the most affected by the onset of the pandemic. In 2020, it accounted for only 11 billion passenger-km. The sector partly recovered in 2022 with 18 billion passenger-km travelled. Activity for this mode declined of approximately 7.7% in the 1995-2019 period. If calculated for the 1995-2022 period, this decline is of 22.3%.

According to the MIX-FF55 scenario referenced above, domestic navigation (which includes domestic maritime and inland waterways (IWW)) is expected to reach 39 billion passenger-km by 2030; this would represent a share of 0.6% in overall transport activity and would correspond to an increase of 15.8% compared to the simulated activity in 2015 of 34 billion passenger-km. Note however that the figures in the scenario reflect a different aggregation (they exclude international intra-EU transport) to that reported in the historical time-series and thus they are not directly comparable.

Others

Powered two-wheelers have represented a reasonably constant share of the total transport activity over the years, with a figure of around 2.0% in 2022. This corresponded to about 110 billion passenger-km. A similar situation is forecast in the MIX-FF55 scenario for 2030. This category does not include e-bikes and pedelecs, despite the importance of such modes for both urban and rural mobility. While there are very few data on these modes of transport, it should also be noted that their overall contribution to transport activity (measured in pkm) may not be very evident compared to other modes as they tend to travel shorter distances.