The sustainable development goal ‘Industry, innovation and infrastructure’ (SDG 9) calls for building resilient and sustainable infrastructure and promotes inclusive and sustainable industrialisation. It also recognises the importance of research and innovation for finding solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges.
One of the Eurostat indicators to measure progress in SDG 9 is the share of rail and inland waterways in inland freight transport. Since 2012, the share of rail and inland waterways in total freight transport in the EU has declined almost continuously. It accounted for 21.9% in 2023, which is a new low in the time series, and corresponds to a 4.6 percentage point decrease compared with the peak of 26.5% in 2012. As a result, the share of road freight transport increased by the same amount over this period. (....)