Traffic and Mobility
All About Austria:
In 2020 the transport volume of freight transport amounted to 658 million tonnes in Austria. 84% thereof were transported on the road, 15% on rail and 1% on the Danube. The transport performance on Austrian territory (freight weight in tonnes multiplied by kilometres driven) totalled 74 billion domestic tonne-kilometres in 2020. 70% were conveyed on the road, 28% on rail and 2% on the Danube. The explanation for the different percentages between transport volume and performance is based on shorter distances performed on the road compared to rail and ship.
Road Freight Transport About 65% (357 million tonnes) of the tonnage on the road were transported within Austria, 12% (65 million tonnes) were received from other countries and 10% (59 million tonnes) were dispatched from Austria.
Exactly 13% (74 million tonnes) were transported through Austria. The dispatch from Italy (20 million tonnes), Germany (17 million tonnes) and the East European countries (24 million tonnes) through Austria caused the highest amounts of transit traffic. Only 1.6% of the transport volume in transit through Austria was performed by Austrian road freight vehicles.
Only 1.6% of transport volume in transit by Austrian road freight vehicles
Most freight transport conducted on the road
On 114.428 flights 9.271.181 passengers were counted on Austrian airports in 2020. Due to the corona crisis, the number of outgoing passengers decreased by 40% compared to 2000. Almost 86% of passengers counted on Austrian airports had their destination in Europe, respectively 60% in an EU-27country. Nearly 30% of the passengers were transported to Germany. 7% of all passengers travelled to Asian countries, 4% to American and 3% to African countries. 84% of all passengers were registered at the airport Vienna.
Comparing the destinations of travellers counted on Austrian airports, it can be observed that in scheduled services Western European cities were most common, whereas in non-scheduled services destinations further away were preferred. The most frequently chosen targets also changed: London is still the leading city in scheduled air services.
However, while 20 years ago many passengers went to Frankfurt or Zurich, in 2020 Berlin and Amsterdam replaced those cities. Concerning non-scheduled air services, the most important destinations in 2020 were Hurghada, London, Manchester, Copenhagen and Stockholm. Besides Antalya, 20 years ago the most common destinations were Heraklion, London, Monastir and Palma de Mallorca.
Air travel today and 20 years ago
Covid decreased the number of outgoing passengers by 40% in 2020 compared to 2000, and 84% of all air passengers in Austria were registered at Vienna Airport
Around 5,09 million passenger cars are currently registered in Austria (end of 2020). Since 1990, the stock of passenger cars increased by more than two thirds (+70.2%). The one million mark was exceeded for the first time in 1970.
After the Second World War, road traffic began to increase in importance and gradually began to replace the railroad as the main means of transportation. By the mid-1950s, the wide scale motorisation wave hit Austria, and the car advanced from a status symbol to an every day commodity.
Since 1995, the number of diesel vehicles has shown an above average increase. In contrast, sharp declines in petrol driven vehicles were documented. Since 2017 passenger cars with diesel drive are decreasing whereas petrol drives as well as alternative drives get more and more popular.
Increasing air and noise pollution are on flip side of the coin, going hand in hand with rising numbers of accidents: Until 1972, accident numbers were increasing steadily. This trend changed since then, when safety measures such as speed limits, obligatory seat belt usage and helmet wearing, child restraint systems and the lowering of the legal alcohol limit came into operation. Improvements in traffic and vehicle technology, emergency medicine and driver training as well as the removal of accident black spots, combined with increased traffic supervision, have also had positive effects on the accident rate.
Due to the lower traffic volume during the corona-related lockdowns the number of road traffic accidents with personal injury decreased by 5 066 (-14%) to 30 670 in 2020. 37 730 people were injured, 7 410 or 16% less than the year before. 344 people died in road traffic accidents. The number of fatalities decreased by 17% compared to the previous year and was significantly below 400 for the first time. As a result, an average of 84 road accidents involving 103 people injured occurred per day; every 26 hours a person died immediately or within 30 days after a road accident.
