In the past three decades, the traveling habits of the Macedonian nationals have changed significantly. The data provided by the State Statistical Bureau of North Macedonia show that car and taxi transportation have had become the main means of transportation through the years.
In 2018, 80.4% of the traveled passenger-kilometers in the road transport (9,452 millions passenger-kilometers), were in private cars or taxies. On the other hand, the public transportation ammounts to only 10.9% of the total number of passenger- kilometers (1,278 million passenger kilometers).
The statistics for 2018 show that the intercity and international bus transportation ammounts to 968 million passenger kilometers (8.2 % of the total number), while the railway passenger transport has managed to accomplish only 64 million passenger kilometers (0.5 % of the traveled kilometers during the year).
The statistical data reveals that the current numbers are very interesting if we juxtapose them to the ways the passenger transport was organized in the period of the dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia.
In 1990, the population’s mobility was almost half of what it is today. Unlike the 11,762 million passenger kilometers registered in 2018, almost three decades ago, 6,750 million passenger-kilometers were recorded in the road transport. Out of them, 54.7% were by car and taxi transportation (3,692 million passenger-kilometers) while 22.1% of the the numbers account for the intercity and international bus transportation (1,492 million passenger kilometers).
In 1990, the urban and suburban public transport has managed to accomplish 1,211 million passenger-kilometers (17.9 % out of the total kilometers) while in the railway passenger traffic, 355 million passenger kilometers were evidenced (5.3% of the total number)
This trend in the development of Macedonia’s passenger transpor is due to the continuous decline in the number of passenger trains that are transiting through Macedonia ,including the decline of the number of bus lines and their frequency, but also the urban public transport and the inter-city bus transport.
