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Of the five railway lines operated by Pasazieru Vilciens, the Riga-Tukums line was the busiest in 2018, with the number of passengers carried on that line growing 5.9% y-o-y to 6.67 mln people last year.

Passenger numbers grew on the other four railway lines as well, which included both on electric and diesel train routes.

In 2018, rail passenger numbers rose 3% to 4.48 people on the Riga-Aizkraukle line, 2.5% to 2.94 mln people on the Riga-Jelgava line, and 5% to 2.28 mln people on the Riga-Skulte line.

Riga-Valka, meanwhile, was the busiest diesel train line, with the number of rail passengers on the route growing 4.1% from 2017 to 910,000 people in 2018.

The total distance run by Pasazieru Vilciens trains last year was 582.2 mln kilometers, which means that the average trip was 32.2 kilometers long.

Like in previous years, 65% of train passengers traveled on single journey tickets in 2018 while the remaining 35% opted for alternative types of train tickets.

For the first time, the number of train tickets bought in a year exceeded one mln with 1.25 mln tickets purchase on Pasazieru Vilciens website or Mobilly app, which is 10.6% of total train tickets sold in 2018.

Pasazieru Vilciens was established in 2001 to separate domestic passenger services from other functions performed by the state-owned Latvijas Dzelzcels (Latvian Railway). Although initially Pasazieru Vilciens was a 100-% owned subsidiary of the Latvian Railway, in October 2008 it was transformed into an independent state-owned company.