Austria's Railways Report Record Operations – Roughly Every Second Long-Distance Delay Has Foreign Cause

Record figures despite construction sites

Despite these burdens, rail traffic in Austria continued to grow. Last year, passenger kilometres in long-distance transport rose by one percent, with passengers covering a total of 15.1 billion passenger kilometres – an increase of 0.7 percent compared to the previous year. Passenger numbers, however, fell marginally by 0.3 percent to 347.5 million passengers.

ÖBB remains the clear number one domestically with a market share of 84.1 percent of passengers. Competitors such as Westbahn and the Czech company Regiojet, however, increased their share of passengers carried to 15.9 percent. Competition in long-distance transport is thus continuing to intensify.

In freight transport, the market share of ÖBB subsidiary Rail Cargo Austria (RCA) declined again. Measured in net tonne-kilometres, the share was only 52.3 percent last year, down from 57.3 percent the year before. This continues the downward trend that has persisted since the start of data collection in 2016. Both net and gross tonne-kilometres, however, grew by roughly five percent in 2025.

Freight transport: competition intensifying

According to Röhsler, this growth was not due to a genuine upturn but to diverted traffic: „Das war laut Röhsler aber nicht einem Aufschwung zu verdanken, sondern Umleitungsverkehren.“ On the main freight corridors – the Brenner and the Western axis – the market share of third-party providers is around 60 percent, according to Schienen Control.

With 74 companies, a record number of providers were authorised to operate on the domestic rail network in 2025. In total, 98 railway undertakings are registered in Austria in the areas of infrastructure, transport or as integrated companies.

Vienna S-Bahn main line interrupted

The decline in passenger numbers is attributed in the report primarily to the recent closure of the Vienna S-Bahn main line. A further closure of the main line has since begun and will lead to a months-long total shutdown of the line.

Röhsler hopes for positive effects from the implementation of a new EU regulation aimed at better Union-wide coordination of construction sites on international corridors. The domestic rail network continues to benefit from longer-term planning compared with the rest of Europe through the six-year framework plans, even though the current one has seen some projects postponed due to the austerity package.

New tool for delay causes

For the first time, data on delay causes was collected using a new, digitalised procedure. A corresponding visualisation tool is under development, according to Schienen Control. Users are to gain access to the tool within the current year, and it will then also depict delays in regional transport.

Overall, the report paints the picture of a growing but increasingly complex system: more traffic, more competition, more international dependencies – and more need for cross-border coordination.