Slovak Republic - Rail lines (total route-km)

The value for Rail lines (total route-km) in Slovak Republic was 3,629 as of 2019. As the graph below shows, over the past 24 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 3,673 in 1996 and a minimum value of 3,622 in 2008.

Definition: Rail lines are the length of railway route available for train service, irrespective of the number of parallel tracks.

Source: Internation Union of Railways (UIC)

See also:

Year Value
1995 3,668
1996 3,673
1997 3,665
1998 3,667
1999 3,662
2000 3,662
2001 3,662
2002 3,657
2003 3,657
2004 3,660
2005 3,626
2006 3,626
2007 3,629
2008 3,622
2009 3,623
2010 3,622
2011 3,624
2012 3,631
2013 3,631
2014 3,627
2015 3,626
2016 3,626
2017 3,626
2018 3,627
2019 3,629

Development Relevance: Transport infrastructure - highways, railways, ports and waterways, and airports and air traffic control systems - and the services that flow from it are crucial to the activities of households, producers, and governments. Because performance indicators vary widely by transport mode and focus (whether physical infrastructure or the services flowing from that infrastructure), highly specialized and carefully specified indicators are required to measure a country's transport infrastructure. The railway transport industry a vital engine of global socio-economic growth. It is of vital importance for economic development, creating direct and indirect employment, supporting tourism and local businesses. Economic growth, technological change, and market liberalization affect road transport throughout the world. Railways have helped in the industrialization process of a country by easy transportation of coal and raw-materials at a cheaper rate. As railways require huge capital outlay, they may give rise to monopolies and work against public interest at large. Even if controlled and managed by the government, lack of competition sometimes results in inefficiency and high costs. Also, many times it is not economical to operate railways in sparsely settled rural areas. Thus, in many developing countries large rural areas have no railway even today. Rail transport is a major form of passenger and freight transport in many countries. It is ubiquitous in Europe, with an integrated network covering virtually the whole continent. In India, China, South Korea and Japan, many millions use trains as regular transport. In the North America, freight rail transport is widespread and heavily used in for transporting gods. The western Europe region has the highest railway density in the world and has many individual trains which operate through several countries despite technical and organizational differences in each national network. Australia has a generally sparse network, mostly along its densely populated urban centers.

Limitations and Exceptions: Unlike the road sector, where numerous qualified motor vehicle operators can operate anywhere on the road network, railways are a restricted transport system with vehicles confined to a fixed guideway. Considering the cost and service characteristics, railways generally are best suited to carry - and can effectively compete for - bulk commodities and containerized freight for distances of 500-5,000 kilometers, and passengers for distances of 50-1,000 kilometers. Below these limits road transport tends to be more competitive, while above these limits air transport for passengers and freight and sea transport for freight tend to be more competitive. Data for transport sectors are not always internationally comparable. Unlike for demographic statistics, national income accounts, and international trade data, the collection of infrastructure data has not been "internationalized". The data is based a reporting by the railway companies and it can show a drastic increase or decrease for some of the years because of no reporting by some of the companies of a country.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Rail lines are the length of railway route available for train service, irrespective of the number of parallel tracks. It includes railway routes that are open for public passenger and freight servies and excludes dedicated private resource railways.

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Infrastructure Indicators

Sub-Topic: Transportation