By the end of 2023, in Georgia total length of railways amounted to 2 401.3 kilometers, of which 98.4 percent was electrified, - according to the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat).
According to the document, length of railway track amounted to 1 939.2 kilometers, of which 42.7 percent is length of main tracks, 30.1 percent - length of branches, 24.3 percent - length of station tracks and 2.9 percent is length of railway siding.
By the end of 2023 total length of railway lines equaled 1 576.5 kilometers, of which 98.4 percent was electrified. The length of main lines amounted to 529.9 kilometers, of which 44.7 percent is single-track and 55.3 percent is double-track. The length of the main line is fully electrified.
In 2023, the number of passengers transported by the Georgian Railway increased by 42.3 percent compared to the previous year and amounted to 2 283.3 thousand persons. At the same time, passenger turnover increased by 42.3 percent year-over-year and amounted to 687.3 million passenger-kilometer.
In 2023, the number of passengers transported within the country amounted to 2 242.6 thousand persons, which represents 98.2 percent of the total number of passengers carried and exceeds the same figure of the previous year by 44.1 percent. In the same period the number of passengers transported internationally amounted to 40.7 thousand, which is 15.8 percent less than the corresponding figure of 2022. The country of embarkation was Armenia for 67.5 percent of international transported passengers while the country of disembarkation was Armenia for 32.5 percent of international transported passengers (no passengers were transported from/to any other neighboring country in 2023).
In 2023, rail transported freight amounted to 13.6 mln. tons, which is 8.2 percent less than the respective figure of the previous year. 12.0 percent of the total freight was transported domestically, 31.1 percent was transported internationally (excluded transit) and 56.9 percent was transit.
In 2023 the share of outgoing freight represents 27.4 percent of the railway-transported freights, while the share of incoming freight was 72.6 percent.
In 2023, the sender country of 47.4 percent of total incoming rail freight was Russian Federation, 26.5 percent was sent by Azerbaijan, 3.4 percent – by Turkmenistan, 3.2 percent – by Romania, 2.8 percent – by Bulgaria, 2.3 percent – by Turkey, 1.3 percent – by Belarus, and 1.2 percent was sent by China.
In 2023, Kazakhstan was the final destination for 12.0 percent of total outgoing freight, Armenia was final destination for 10.8 percent, Russion Federation for – 9.5 percent, and Azerbaijan for – 4.5 percent.
The breakdown of the total transit freight in 2023 by the final destination country was as follows: Turkey - 11.3 percent, Netherlands - 8.8 percent, Italy - 6.2 percent, China - for 5.2 percent, and elsewhere was for the rest. In the same period, Brazil was the sender country of 6.1 percent of the total transit freight, Kazakhstan sent 5.7 percent, China - 2.4 percent, Turkey - 2.0 percent, and the USA sent 1.7 percent.
In the reporting period, 28.9 percent of the total freight were metal ores and other mining and quarrying products, 28.5 percent were coal, crude oil and oil products and natural gas, and 12.7 percent were food products, beverages and tobacco.
The distribution by type of goods was different in the case of freights transported domestically in 2023 as the share of metal ores and other mining and quarrying products equaled 65.5 percent of total, the share of other nonmetallic mineral products amounted to 10.2 percent, while the share of coal and lignite; crude petroleum and natural gas was 11.0 percent.
As for the freights transported internationally in the reporting year, incoming goods were mainly coal, crude oil and oil products and natural gas (44.3 percent), other nonmetallic mineral products (23.3 percent), and metal ores and other mining and quarrying products (8.3 percent); while outgoing goods were mainly metal ores and other mining and quarrying products (49.2 percent), food products, beverages and tobacco (23.0 percent), basic metals; fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment (10.8 percent), products of agriculture, hunting, and forestry; fish and other fishing products (4.8 percent).
In 2023 three type of goods, namely coal, crude oil and oil products and natural gas (30.0 percent), metal ores and other mining and quarrying products (26.3percent), and food products, beverages and tobacco (17.1 percent) constituted for 73.4 percent of the total volume of transit freight.
