Multidimentional analysis of the decline of rail passengers in European countries in 2020 in terms of economic security

ENThe article presents a multidimensional comparative analysis of the drops in the number of passengers transported by rail in 28 European countries on a quarterly basis in 2012-2020 in terms of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic security. Data collected from Eurostat on the number of passengers transported by rail in 28 European countries were aggregated and further analyzed in order to emphasize the regularities governing them. The research has observed a growing trend on an annual and quarterly basis in the total number of passengers transported by rail in 28 European countries in 2012-2019. Additionally, in the unnamed (quarterly) data, a quarterly seasonality was detected. Since 2020, there have been declines in the number of passengers transported by rail in all of the 28 European countries considered. The declines were subjected to a comparative analysis, adopting various criteria, in order to assess which countries were most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of rail passenger transport. Keywords: transport; rail transport in Europe; COVID-19; multidimensional data analysis; economic security; European countries.