Julio García
The Autonomous Communities of Navarra, La Rioja and the Balearic Islands are among the leading regions in the European Union with the highest railway electrification, according to the European Statistical Office, Eurostat.
In 2022, there were 202,100 km of railway lines across the EU and more than half, 56.9%, were electrified, with six regions classified at level 2 of the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 2) standing out, where virtually all railway lines were electrified in 2022.
This is the case of the Spanish autonomous communities of Navarra, La Rioja and the Balearic Islands, and the Dutch regions of Drenthe and Flevoland and the Croatian capital of Grad Zagreb.
Another eight regions and cities had at least 95% of their tracks electrified: Luxembourg, the capitals of Poland, Sweden and France, the eastern Bulgarian region of Yugoslavia, as well as Liguria and Umbria in Italy, and Utrecht in the Netherlands.
According to Eurostat, electrified railway lines offer a number of benefits over diesel trains operating on non-electrified lines. They generally have lower operating costs, reduced emissions and noise, better performance and greater energy efficiency.
