The length of the world’s high-speed rail network has grown by a third since 2020

The length of the world network of high-speed railroads has grown to almost 59 thousand kilometers by 2023. The number of countries where high-speed railways are operated and much attention is paid to projects of their development is also growing. These are, first of all, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Great Britain, the Republic of Korea and China. These data were announced on March 7-10, 2023 in Marrakech (Morocco) at the 11th World Congress on high-speed traffic held by the International Union of Railways (UIC). Railway Supply magazine wrote about it referring to zdmira.

There are over 44 thousand kilometers of high-speed lines for Asia-Pacific region, almost 12 thousand kilometers for Europe, 1500 kilometers for Middle East countries, 735 and 186 kilometers for North America and Africa correspondingly. The opening of the high-speed lines currently under construction will increase the length of the HSL network in the world by 33%. The growth of the world high-speed rail network has been accelerating since 2018. Since then, high-speed lines have been commissioned in three countries: Denmark, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

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There are more than 6,500 high-speed trains on the global HSL network, and more than half of them (54.8%) are in China.

According to the UIC, 19.7 thousand km of high-speed trains are currently under construction, of which 14,367 km – in the Asia-Pacific region, more than 3,000 km – in Europe, 2,000 km – in the Middle East and 274 km – in North America.

In the medium and long term 25.2 thousand km of high-speed railroads are to be built in Asia-Pacific region, more than 9000 km in Europe, almost 5000 km in the Middle East and 6 400 km in Africa. In North and Latin America the total length of the HSL network in the long term must reach 7,400 km, of which 6,800 km will be opened in North America.

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