Visualizing Transport Volumes

Introduction

Considering geospatial factors is becoming increasingly prominent in many statistical domains. Given the nature of transport statistics, concerning the movement of goods and passengers between different regions is of particular relevance. This page shares a few examples of existing sources for these data at the international level.

Background and Resources

NUTS classification – regions are classified according to the Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS). The NUTS serves as a reference for the collection, development and harmonisation of EU regional statistics and for socio-economic analyses of the regions (more information is available on Eurostat's website: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/overview).

Software used

In order to allow reproducibility, open-sources statistical software was used for all analyses, namely R (utilising RStudio).

The script files used are available for download at XXX. The scripts are written in a way that should allow any user to run them and recreate the same maps. If a user is new to R, then each library referenced at the start of each script will need to be installed (only once). E.g.

Install.Packages("tidyverse").

UNECE E-Road and E-Rail Censuses

E-Road Census

The UNECE E-Road Census collects traffic volumes on principal road arteries of international importance. Data are only collected every five years. Data for 2025, 2010 and 2005 can be explored here https://www.unece.org/trans/main/wp6/e-roads_maps.html.

E-Rail Census

The UNECE E-Rail census collects data on principal rail routes, as defined by the AGC, in a similar fashion to the E-Road census. Rail traffic has the advantage of the split between passenger and freight trains is normally easy to make, therefore traffic for either the movement of people or goods can be visualised separately.

Eurostat Regional (NUTS 2 and NUTS 3) Data for Road, Rail and Inland Water

In addition to the census data collected directly by UNECE, Eurostat collects many different regional datasets that can be visualised, some of which are on an annual basis. While the UNECE censuses collect traffic volumes, i.e. number of vehicles per day, the Eurostat data focus on transport measurement, that is passenger numbers and passenger-km, tonnes and tonne-km.

Road

Road accidents

Rail Passengers

There is only one passenger rail dataset that contains data below the national level. The "tran_r_rapa" set covers both national and international railway passengers transported by loading and unloading NUTS 2 region.

WP.6 - Transport Statistics