The number of passengers who traveled by train in the first quarter of 2025 was 16.102 million, down 7.5% compared to the same period in 2024, according to data centralized by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

According to the same source, passenger travel decreased by 8.1% in the mentioned period.

Regarding rail freight transport, there was a decrease of 18.5 % recorded in the volume of goods, against the first quarter of 2024, with an increase only in transit, by 47.7%. 9.034 million tonnes of goods were transported, of which 79.9% in national transport.

Significant shares in the total transported goods were recorded for coke, refined petroleum products (26.5%) and coal and lignite; crude oil and natural gas (21.4%) divisions. Regarding the route of goods, 36% of the total corresponded to the coke, refined petroleum products and 9.4% to basic metals; manufactured metal products, except for machinery and equipment.

INS emphasises that most of the technical and economic indicators of the use of the vehicle fleet in railway transport recorded a negative development compared to the first quarter of 2024, a positive dynamics having been recorded only the following indicators: average running time of freight wagons (days) – increase by 23.5%; average commercial speed of freight trains (km/h) – increase by 1.4%.

Negative developments compared to the same quarter last year were recorded in: average daily route of freight wagons (km/day) – decrease by 30.4%; loaded wagons imported from abroad (thousand wagons) – decrease by 17.5%; average daily route of locomotives used for the transport of goods (km/day) – decrease by 14.9%; loaded wagons on the CFR network (thousand wagons) – decrease by 11.1%; railcar mileage (thousand railcar-km) – decrease by 5.6%; average commercial speed of passenger trains (km/h) – decrease by 2.5%; average gross weight of freight wagons (tonnes/train) – decrease by 2.1%, etc.

AGERPRES