Transport by railway
Annual data: passenger and freight traffic on railways, freight loaded on Estonian public railways by country; freight traffic of dangerous goods on railways; transport of containers by rail transport; rail transport by trans-European network segment, freight traffic on railways by group of goods Quarterly data: freight traffic on railways by group of goods Monthly data: passenger and freight traffic on railways | |
International Standard Codes for the Representation of the Names of Countries (ISO 3166) Classification of categories of dangerous goods (ADR) Standard goods classification for transport statistics (NST 2007) Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) Trans-European Transport Network (TEN–T) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32013R1315&from=EN The TEN-T network parts in Estonia are defined in the technical annex to the Treaty of Accession between Estonia and the European Union) | |
Rail transport enterprises | |
Dangerous goods – the classes of dangerous goods carried by rail are those defined by the UN Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods. The classification of goods as dangerous is defined in the regulations concerning the international carriage of dangerous goods by rail, also known as RID. Dangerous goods are substances and solids that can harm people, property or the environment due to their explosive, flammable, radioactive, toxic, corrosive or other properties. Domestic traffic – transport of passengers or goods within Estonia Enterprise – an enterprise consists of one or more companies (public limited company, private limited company, limited partnership, general partnership, commercial association) or branches of foreign companies or sole proprietors. Rail transport statistics do not cover branches of foreign companies and sole proprietors. Freight turnover – freight indicators are the volume of freight carried in tonnes and freight turnover in tonne-kilometres. One tonne-kilometre is the transport of one tonne of goods across a distance of one kilometre. Goods in transit by rail throughout – goods carried by rail through the reporting country between two places (place of loading/unloading) outside the reporting country. Wagons entering and/or leaving the reporting network by ferry are included. Group of goods – goods have been classified by the standard goods classification for transport statistics (NST) International railway transport – railway transport between a place (of loading/embarkation or of unloading/disembarkation) in one country and a place (of loading/embarkation or of unloading/disembarkation) in another country. It may involve transit through one or more additional countries. To avoid double counting, each country only counts the passenger-kilometres (pkm) or tonne-kilometres (tkm) completed on its territory. Each country calculates the total number of passengers and the total weight of goods carried. Information on international goods and passenger transport is provided at the regional level (NUTS 2). International traffic – transport of passengers or goods by crossing Estonian borders. The origin and/or destination point is outside Estonian borders. Passenger traffic volume – measured in passenger-kilometres. One passenger-kilometre is the transport of one person across a distance of one kilometre. TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) – a standard unit for counting containers of various capacities and for describing the capacities of container ships or terminals. One 20-foot ISO container equals 1 TEU. One 40-foot ISO container equals 2 TEUs. Trans-European rail network – comprises the trans-European high-speed rail network and the trans-European conventional rail network as well as other infrastructure built or rebuilt for conventional rail traffic or high-speed rail traffic and the rolling stock designed for this rail infrastructure. The rail network is part of the trans-European transport networks (TEN-T). Railways: Tallinn – Tapa – Tartu; Tallinn – Tapa – Narva; Tartu – Valga; Tartu – Petseri (Koidula); Valga – Petseri (Koidula); Tallinn – Paldiski; Tallinn rail bypass. Volume of transport – to estimate the volume of passenger transport, the following indicators are used: the total number of passengers carried and passenger traffic volume. To measure the transport of goods, the following indicators are used: the amount of goods in tonnes and freight turnover in tonne-kilometres. | |
Enterprise | |
Rail transport enterprises FRAME List of active enterprises whose main or secondary activity is rail transport. The list is generated from the business register for statistical purposes. List of enterprises who have a license for rail passenger or rail freight services issued by the Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications. | |
Estonia as a whole | |
Passenger traffic on railways (months) 1991–… Freight traffic on railways (months) 1991–… Freight traffic on railways by group of goods (quarters) 2009–… Freight loaded on Estonian public railways by country 2001–… Freight traffic of dangerous goods on railways 2002–… Transport of containers by rail transport 2003–… Rail transport by trans-European network segment 2005–… | |
Not applicable |
DIRECTLY APPLICABLE LEGAL ACTS Regulation (EC) No 91/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on rail transport statistics REGULATION (EU) 2018/643 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 18 April 2018 on rail transport statistics REGULATION (EU) 2016/2032 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 26 October 2016 amending Regulation (EC) No 91/2003 on rail transport statistics, as regards the collection of data on goods, passengers and accidents Commission Regulation (EC) No 332/2007 of 27 March 2007 on the technical arrangements for the transmission of railway transport statistics Commission Regulation (EC) No 1304/2007 of 7 November 2007 amending Council Directive 95/64/EC, Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/98, Regulations (EC) No 91/2003 and (EC) No 1365/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council with respect to the establishment of NST 2007 as the unique classification for transported goods in certain transport modes Commission Regulation (EC) No 1192/2003 of 3 July 2003 amending Regulation (EC) No 91/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council on rail transport statistics OTHER LEGAL ACTS Official Statistics Act OTHER AGREEMENTS Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat); United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE); United Nations (UN); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); International Transport Forum (ITF); UNECE, ITF and Eurostat Common Questionnaire for Transport Statistics according to a gentlemen's agreement |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. | |
The dissemination of data collected for the production of official statistics is based on the requirements laid down in §§ 34 and 35 of the Official Statistics Act. The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here. |
Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month). | |
All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8.00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar. |
Not published | |
Transport statistics are also available on the following websites: https://www.stat.ee/en/find-statistics/statistics-theme/energy-and-transport/transport; https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/transport/overview; europa.eu/pol/trans; www.unece.org/transport; https://data.oecd.org/energy.htm#profile-Transport | |
Data are published in the statistical database at https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat under the subject area “Economy / Transport / Rail transport” in the following tables: TS1411: Freight loaded on Estonian public railways by country TS1413: Freight traffic of dangerous goods on railways TS1414: Transport of containers by rail transport TS1420: Passenger and freight traffic on railways TS1421: Passenger and freight traffic on railways (months) TS182: Freight traffic on railways by group of goods TS183: Freight traffic on railways by group of goods (quarters) TS38: Rail transport by trans-European network segment | |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes. | |
Data serve as input for statistical activities 21408 “Supply and use tables”, 21405 "National accounts (quarter)" and 22029 “Transport of passengers and goods by transport enterprises”. | |
Glossary for transport statistics (prepared by the Intersecretariat Working Group on Transport Statistics – Eurostat, ITF and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) | |
Published in the statistical database, table TC40: Population, sample and respondents of transport enterprises |
To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act. | |
Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions. |
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications; Ministry of Climate; Ministry of Finance; Technical Regulatory Authority | |
Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys. | |
In compliance with the rules (regulations) |
The type of survey and the data collection methods ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness. | |
Not applicable | |
The total freight in tonnes may be double counted because in domestic transport one and the same quantity of freight may be carried to the destination by several railway enterprises if one of them carries the freight on a public railway and the other carrier on a non-public railway. Therefore, it is recommended to characterise the quantity of freight carried using the indicator freight turnover, which indicates the volume of work done (in tonne-kilometres) in the carriage of the freight. |
The data are comparable with data of other European Union countries because a common methodology has been used for transport statistics. | |
The data are comparable over time because a common methodology has been used. | |
The data on freight and passenger transport volume are comparable with the same data in other activities of transport statistics. | |
The data are made internally coherent by using a common methodology in data collection and the same rules of data aggregation. |
The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics on the website of Statistics Estonia. | |
The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available within a year from the end of the reference period. |
SURVEY DATA The population of the survey includes all enterprises whose main or secondary economic activity is the transport of passengers or goods by rail and that have been issued the corresponding operating licenses. The population includes 8 objects. All objects are observed. ADMINISTRATIVE DATA List of companies holding railway transport permits based on data from the register of economic activities. DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES Not used | |
Annual; quarterly; monthly | |
Data are collected and the submission of questionnaires is monitored through eSTAT (the web channel for electronic data submission). The questionnaires have been designed for independent completion in eSTAT and include instructions and controls. The questionnaires and information about data submission are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section Questionnaires. Data are collected with the monthly, quarterly and annual statistical questionnaires “Railway transport”. | |
Arithmetic and qualitative controls are used in the validation process, including comparison with the data of previous periods and other surveys. | |
In the case of missing or unreliable data, estimate imputation based on established regulations will be used. Variables and statistical units which were not collected but which are necessary for producing the output are calculated. New variables are calculated by applying arithmetic conversion to already existing variables. This may be done repeatedly, the derived variable may, in turn, be based on previously derived new variables. Microdata are aggregated to the level necessary for analysis. This includes aggregating the data according to the classification and calculating various statistical measures. The collected data are converted into statistical output. This includes calculating additional indicators. | |
Not applied |