Freight transport dropped again, passenger transport exceeded the last year's values by more than 10%

After a growth in July, freight transport again recorded year-on-year smaller volumes of transported goods. This trend was not reversed even by rail transport, which was the only component that increased year-on-year. The number of passengers in road passenger transport matched the pre-pandemic August 2019. People used mainly public transport, which rose by more than 20% year-on-year, and rail transport also reached the highest number of passengers this year.

The enterprises that were registered in Slovakia in August 2023 transported a total of 18.1 million tons of goods within freight transport. The total decrease of transported tons by 4.5% was due to the decrease in all components of this sector, except rail transport. Rail transport represents almost a fifth of the entire freight transport sector and it rose by 4.3% compared to last year's values. Road transport accounts for more than two-thirds of the transported tons of goods and it significantly affects the overall parameters of the entire industry. After double-digit year-on-year growth last month, the volumes of transported goods by road decreased again by 5.5% year-on-year in August.

Download high resolution chart format PDF (69 kB) or PNG (86 kB).

The indicator characterizing transport - freight transport performance which also takes into account transport distances, decreased by 1.2% year-on-year and reached 3.1 billion ton kilometers (tkm) in the eighth month. The decrease in performance was mainly influenced by the drop in mileage in public freight transport. This is the largest share of road transport, which is carried out by transport companies, i.e. companies with a core business other than transport.

In total for the first eight months of 2023, the volume of goods in freight transport was lower by 8.9% year-on-year, after taking into account transport distances, current performance also decreased by 9.6%.

Passenger transport was more favourable mainly thanks to public transport

In August 2023, the number of passengers in passenger transport increased by 10.8% year-on-year and reached 50.8 million people. These were almost identical values as in August 2019. Double-digit year-on-year growth continued to be maintained by the decisive road transport, while its component- public transport increased by 22.6% year-on-year. Rail transport also achieved higher values in passenger transport, by 7.8% more passengers using it year-on-year.

Passenger transport performance, taking into account the length of transport, reached 921 million passenger kilometers, it was higher by 6.8% year-on-year and thus recorded the best values within 2023. Year-on-year performances rose mainly in road transport, by 16.1%, rail transport recorded a growth by 10.4%. Performance decreased year-on-year only in other transport.

In total for the first eight months, by 14.8% higher number of passengers traveled by passenger transport than a year ago, and after taking into account the transport distances, the number of passenger kilometers was higher by almost 16%.