| Code | IS.RRS.TOTL.KM |
| Indicator Name | Rail lines (total route-km) |
| Long definition | The total length of rail line in the country operated for passenger transport, goods transport, or both. |
| Source | Railisa Database, International Union of Railways (UIC), uri: https://uic-stats.uic.org/ |
| Topic | Infrastructure: Transportation |
| Dataset | WB_WDI |
| Unit of measure | Kilometers |
| Periodicity | Annual |
| Reference period | 1995-2021 |
| Statistical concept and methodology | 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 services and excludes dedicated private resource railways.
Gauge: N (standard gauge: 1,435 m); L (broad gauge: exact rail gauge inserted); E (narrow gauge: exact rail gauge inserted). The length of railway lines worked is obtained by taking these sections including main-line track listed in the Capital Expenditure Account.
Sections not worked are deducted only in cases where they are permanently out of use, that is, if they are no longer maintained in working order. Lines temporarily out of use continue to form part of the length of lines worked.
The length of a section is measured in the middle of the section, from center to the center of the passenger buildings, or of the corresponding service buildings, of stations which are shown as independent points of departure or arrival for the conveyance of passengers or freight. If the boundary of the rail network falls in open track, the length of the section is measured up to that point.
The section situated between a station approach and the join to the main line of two lines or more which is used by all trains in either direction over these lines, is only counted once. However, if for one or more of these lines, tracks are normally allocated, the length of these lines is counted separately.
If between two stations there are one or more parallel tracks (siding-lines) to the main line, only the length of the latter is counted.
In the case of regular lines worked exclusively during part of the year (seasonal lines), their length is included in the end-of-year statement (Var 1112: Total length of lines worked at the end of the year in the Railisa database).
Statistical concept(s): Railway line: one or more adjacent running tracks forming a route between two points. Where a section of network comprises two or more lines running alongside one another, there are as many lines as routes to which tracks are allotted exclusively. |
| 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, governments, and the private sector. 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.
Railway transport is 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.
Railways have helped in the industrialization process by easy transportation of 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. 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 goods. 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 | 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 from UIC is based on voluntary reporting by railway companies, and can show drastic increases or decreases for some of the years due to lack of reporting by some of the companies in that country. |
| License URL | https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/int/public-licenses#cc-by |
| License Type | CC BY-4.0 |
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