Railways in Developing Countries : A Global Review
As a green mode of transportation, railways have an important role to play in decarbonizing transport through shifting transport from more polluting modes of transport such as road and air. Railways can enable economic growth, which in turn generat...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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Washington, DC: World Bank
2022
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099515004292230157/P1766680d0330a0a10ba540e118a9f4da59 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37394 |
| Summary: | As a green mode of transportation,
railways have an important role to play in decarbonizing
transport through shifting transport from more polluting
modes of transport such as road and air. Railways can enable
economic growth, which in turn generates increasing
transport demand, while keeping greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions low. However, in many parts of the world, railways
have lost traffic and market share to air and road transport
modes. As countries seek to reduce their GHG emissions,
while still delivering on economic growth, many are
rethinking the role of rail. Many developing countries have
existing railway networks, which will provide the starting
point for efforts to increase rail in the transport mix.
This report provides a basic stocktaking of those railways,
explaining the industry structure and the current situation.
Basic data on network size; volume; passenger fares and
freight tariffs; labor productivity; network density; and
perceived service quality assets, traffic, pricing and
staffing have been compiled into the Developing Country Rail
Database, which could be useful for analysis and comparisons
across regions. The data have been collected from various
public sources—annual railway or regulator reports and/or
national statistical annuals. Most data are for 2018. The
report covers railways providing services to the general
public in 77 countries. Not included are the railways in
most higher income countries (North America, Europe,
Australasia, and northeast Asia), private mining railways
and China, whose railway network has been covered in
numerous other reports. The information shared in this
report is presented in seven regional summaries, which group
together railways sharing a common geographic area and other
characteristics: South America; Sub-Saharan Africa; South
Asia; Southeast Asia; the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) and Mongolia; and the Middle East. These summaries
include basic data on institutional arrangements. |
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