Freight transport stagnation intensified, reaching the lowest volume of goods transported in the last seven years.

In Q1, freight transport volumes dropped by over 9% year-on-year and transport performance by 6%, with declines across all freight modes. Passenger transport still rose year-on-year but at the slowest pace in the last four and a half years. The growth was due to a higher number of passengers transported by road. Yet, for the first time in five years, passenger transport performance declined.

The volume of goods transported by freight transport in Slovakia in the first quarter of 2026¹⁾ reached 40.8 million tonnes, marking the lowest value recorded since 2019. The year-on-year decline amounted to 9.3 %, representing the second sharpest decrease in freight transport observed over the past two years. The downturn was reflected across all transport modes. Road freight transport reported an 8.3 % year-on-year decrease in transported goods, while rail freight transport dropped by 4 %. Other freight transport activities, including inland waterway, air and pipeline transport as well as warehousing and supporting services, experienced the most pronounced decline, dropping by nearly 32 % year-on-year.

Freight transport performance, which mainly reflects transport distance, reached 8.8 billion tonne-kilometres (tkm) in the first quarter of 2026, representing a year-on-year decrease of 6 %. Lower year-on-year values persisted for the fifth consecutive quarter. In road freight transport, tonne-kilometres dropped by 5.1%, mainly due to a decrease of more than 46 % in transport distances in non-public transport. Rail freight transport performance decreased by 8.3 %.

Passenger numbers in passenger transport rose at a slower pace

In the first quarter of 2026, passenger transport services carried 189.2 million passengers²⁾, increasing by 1.8% year-on-year. However, the year-on-year growth rate was the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2021. The overall development was mainly driven by the higher number of passengers using road passenger transport, including both urban public transport and suburban and long-distance bus transport. Urban public transport carried almost 129 million passengers, which was 2.4% more than in the corresponding period of the previous year. Passenger numbers also rose in suburban and long-distance road transport, where 38.2 million passengers were transported, representing a year-on-year growth by 1.6%.

In contrast, rail transport recorded a lower number of passengers carried. In the first quarter, it was used by 17.7 million passengers, representing a year-on-year decline of 2.6%. This marked the third consecutive quarter of lower rail passenger numbers.

Passenger transport performance, which also takes transport distances into account, reached a total of 2.6 billion passenger-kilometres in the first quarter of 2026, decreasing by 2.2% year-on-year. For the first time since the first quarter of 2021, passenger transport recorded a decline in transport performance. This development was mainly due to a 1.5% decrease in passenger-kilometres in road transport, with urban public transport showing a more significant drop of 10.1%. Rail transport performance also dropped by 2.1%.