Annually published data from Litra, a Swiss public information portal for transportation, has revealed how Germany compares to its European neighbours when it comes to love for train travel.

Germany ranks fifth in Europe for train travel frequency

Litra, a Swiss organisation which collects data about public transport systems in Switzerland, has published new numbers revealing which countries in Europe have been most besotted with train travel in 2021. Each year Litra publishes data from the previous year.

According to the organisation, people in Germany took an average of 21 trips with the train during 2021, with each person travelling an average of 691 kilometres. That's slightly less than in 2020, when each person took 22 trips, on average. The number of people travelling on long-distance trains in Germany has significantly decreased since the coronavirus pandemic - in 2019 the German average was 35 trips per year - but it will be interesting to see how Germany’s 9-euro ticket, which was a major success this summer, shapes next year’s data.

Switzerland defends its train-loving title

Every year Switzerland puts its European neighbours to shame when it comes to train usage, and 2021 was no exception. The Swiss travelled an average of 1.628 kilometres by train in 2021 and took 48 trips per person. France came second only to the alpine nation when it came to kilometres per person (1.118 km), but the unsuspecting Luxembourg managed to take second when it came to the average number of journeys per inhabitant, with 26. Austria slipped into third in both categories, with an average of 24 journeys and 933 km per person.

Countries on the eastern parts of mainland Europe dominated the lower end of the scale, namely Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania and Greece. In both categories, Lithuania and Greece took 26th and 27th place respectively. During 2021 people in Greece took an average of one train journey per person, travelling only 62 km. Across Europe, 2021 saw people take an average of 13 train journeys.