Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025: rail chapter
Chapter 5: Rail
- Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025 - Download PDF
- Rail—Yearbook 2025 (99 KB) - Download Excel file
This chapter provides information on rail expenditure, activity and network lengths. Estimates of passenger kilometres up to 2024-25 can be found in Chapter 2 - Passengers.
- People in Melbourne use light rail more than any other city with 155 million passengers in 2023–24.
- People in Sydney use heavy rail more than any other city with 352 million passengers in 2023–24.
- In 2023-24 there were $36 billion of public rail-related expenditure.
Figure 10 shows Australia’s network of railways by gauge and Figure 11 shows rail public transport patronage by million passenger movements. This refers to all trips on suburban rail networks and is based on reporting from train operators. Passenger movements were trending upwards in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide before starting to fall sharply in 2019–20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2023–24 patronage numbers had generally still not returned to 2018–19 levels.
Figure 10 Australia’s railways, by gauge
Source: BITRE (2025), Trainline 12
Figure 11 Public transit patronage on heavy rail, Australian capital city networks
Sources: BITRE (2015), Long-term trends in urban public transport
BITRE (2025), Trainline 12
Prior Trainline publications
Test Trainline 12 page
Trainline is a compendium of Australia's railways. The compendium provides insights, analysis, and an understanding of the railway industry. Australia's railways are evolving, with changes both outside and within the industry. These changes include logistics, commodity flows, technology, urban patronage, and regional passenger services. The publication presents an overview and data on railway transport tasks performed; characteristics of the railways and train operators' rolling stock that runs; and aspects of railway performance, including safety, environment and reliability.
Related freight reports
For additional freight related information select the relevant publication below.
Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2023 and Rail chapter
Chapter 7
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Chapter 7 provides information on rail lengths, rail interstate non-bulk freight, public transit patronage on rail and rail related expenditure. The data is sourced mainly from BITRE and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
- People in Melbourne use light rail more than any other city with 205 million passengers in 2018-19 (before COVID impacts).
- People in Sydney use heavy rail more than any other city with 379 million passengers in 2018-19 (before COVID impacts).
- 18.2 billion dollars was spent by all government on rail related projects in 2021-22.
Figure 1 Australia’s railways, by gauge
The lines shown in Figure 1 are the railways that were open for traffic at October 2022. The only change since 2021 was the opening of the Forrestfield-Airport Link (Metronet) line in Perth.
Figure 2 Public transit patronage on heavy rail, Australian capital cities
Figure 2 shows rail public transport patronage by million passenger movements. Passenger movements were trending upwards in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide before starting to fall sharply in 2019-20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While Melbourne’s passenger numbers began to recover in 2021-22, Sydney’s continued to decline rapidly, recording a larger proportional fall than in each of the two preceding years. This refers to all trips on suburban rail networks and is based on reporting from train operators.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7 aims to give an understanding of Australia's rail characteristics. This chapter provides information on rail lengths, rail interstate non-bulk freight, public transit patronage on rail and rail related expenditure. The data is sourced mainly from BITRE and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
- People in Melbourne use light rail more than any other city with 148 million passengers in 2022–23.
- People in Sydney use heavy rail more than any other city with 271 million passengers in 2022–23.
- In 2022–23 there were 35 billion dollars of public rail-related expenditure.
Figure 15 shows Australia's network of railways by gauge, breaking it down into different classifications. The lines shown here are the railways that were open for traffic at October 2022. The only change since 2021 was the opening of the Forrestfield-Airport Link (Metronet) line in Perth.
Figure 15 Australia's railways, by gauge
Figure 16 shows rail public transport patronage by million passenger movements. Passenger movements were trending upwards in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide before starting to fall sharply in 2019–20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While Melbourne's passenger numbers began to recover in 2021–22, Sydney's continued to decline rapidly, recording a larger proportional fall than in each of the two preceding years. This refers to all trips on suburban rail networks and is based on reporting from train operators.
Figure 16 Public transit patronage on heavy rail, Australian capital cities
Download data
- Rail—Yearbook 2024 (105 KB) - Download Excel file
- Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics—Yearbook 2024 - Download PDF
Also see
Chapter 5
This chapter provides information on rail expenditure, activity and network lengths. Estimates of passenger kilometres up to 2024-25 can be found in Chapter 2 - Passengers.
- People in Melbourne use light rail more than any other city with 155 million passengers in 2023–24.
- People in Sydney use heavy rail more than any other city with 352 million passengers in 2023–24.
- In 2023-24 there were $36 billion of public rail-related expenditure.
Figure 10 shows Australia’s network of railways by gauge and Figure 11 shows rail public transport patronage by million passenger movements. This refers to all trips on suburban rail networks and is based on reporting from train operators. Passenger movements were trending upwards in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide before starting to fall sharply in 2019–20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2023–24 patronage numbers had generally still not returned to 2018–19 levels.
Figure 10 Australia’s railways, by gauge
Source: BITRE (2025), Trainline 12
Figure 11 Public transit patronage on heavy rail, Australian capital city networks
Sources: BITRE (2015), Long-term trends in urban public transport
BITRE (2025), Trainline 12
Prior Trainline publications
Download data
- Rail—Yearbook 2025 (99 KB) - Download Excel file
- Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025 - Download PDF
Also see
This compendium provides insights, analysis, and an understanding of the railway industry. Australia's railways are evolving, with changes both outside and within the industry. These changes include logistics, commodity flows, technology, urban patronage, and regional passenger services. The publication presents an overview and data on railway transport tasks performed; characteristics of the railways and train operators' rolling stock that runs; and aspects of railway performance, including safety, environment and reliability.
Trainline 12 gives an overview of freight, urban and non-urban passenger rail. The report analyses traffic levels, the provision of infrastructure and rolling stock, and railway performance. It is the twelfth in the publication series.
Trainline is a compendium of Australia's railways, providing insights, analysis and an understanding of the railway industry. Australia's railways are evolving, with changes within and outside the industry. These changes include logistics, commodity flows, technology, urban patronage and regional passenger services. The publication presents an overview and data on railway transport tasks performed; characteristics of the railways and train operators' rolling stock that runs; and aspects of railway performance including safety, environment and reliability.
Trainline 11 gives an overview of freight, urban and non-urban passenger rail. The report analyses traffic levels, the provision of infrastructure and rolling stock, and railway performance. It is the eleventh in the publication series.
Economic Contribution of Transport in Australia, 2020-21
The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Australian Transport Economic Accounts (ATEA) 2020-21 provide estimates of the full economic contribution of transport activity, both for-hire and in-house transport services, to the Australian economy, from 2010-11 to 2020-21.
The ATEA estimates that transport’s total contribution to the economy was $164.4 billion in 2020-21, equivalent to 7.9 per cent of total GDP. Measured in this way, transport was the second largest sector of the economy, behind only the Mining sector.
This release provides a short summary and highlights of the ABS ATEA 2020-21. More detailed ATEA statistics and explanatory notes are available from the ABS website: www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-transport-economic-account-experimental-transport-satellite-account
Trainline is a compendium of Australia's railways that provides insights, analysis and an understanding of the railway industry. Australia's railways are evolving, with changes within and outside the industry. These changes include logistics, commodity flows, technology, urban patronage, and regional passenger services. The publication presents an overview and data on railway transport tasks performed; characteristics of the railways and train operators' rolling stock that runs; and aspects of railway performance, including safety, environment and reliability.