Rail transport statistics

PURPOSE : to establish common rules for the production of Community statistics relating to rail transport. CONTENT : the improvement of rail safety is an increasingly important element of Community policies on rail transport. The provision of harmonised safety data is a fundamental precondition for monitoring the development of rail safety, for comparison of safety performance between modes of transport and for benchmarking between Member States and between railway undertakings. The lack of comparable statistical information in this area has been a widely recognised shortcoming of rail statistics, which this proposed Regulation aims to remedy this situation. The proposed Regulation defines a set of statistical tables on the transport of goods and passengers by rail, as well as on accidents, together with the most important definitions needed to ensure the comparability of the statistics. It sets out the rules on the coverage of railway undertkaings by these statistical and on the role of national authorities and other organisations in collecting and transmitting data. It also provides for the future adoption of rules on data transmission formats, as well as for the future adaptation of the Regulation, for example by changes to the definitions and to the list of tables.�