The car remains by far the most popular form of transport within the European Union – with increasing levels of ownership and in many countries a growing share of travel when compared with train, bus and coach travel, according to new figures.

In 2017, travel by car accounted for 83.3 percent of passenger-kilometers, against 8.8 percent for coaches, buses and trolley buses, and 7.9 percent for trains. That was a 0.2 percent increase for cars from 2007, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.

As you can see from the chart above, for European countries, cars were the most dominant form of passenger transport in Lithuania, Norway and Portugal, and had the lowest shares in the Czech Republic, non-EU member Turkey and Hungary. 

The three countries with the highest proportion of train travel, according to Eurostat, were Austria, the Netherlands and France.

The three countries with the highest proportion of coach, bus or trolleybus travel were Hungary, Cyprus and Malta.

But how has the pattern of car use changed over time? Have the many high-profile, environmentally inspired efforts to persuade people to switch from cars to public transport made much difference?

The chart below shows on a country-by-country basis what changed between 1997 and 2017, where the figures are available for countries. Switzerland tops the table, with the biggest fall in the percentage of passenger journeys taken by car.

France and the UK are also in the group of countries to have seen the share fall.

By contrast, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania have seen the biggest switch in the other direction – with 20 percent to 25 percent of journeys previously made by train or bus now being made by car instead.

Eurostat also keeps an eye on the number of registered cars in each country.

It has worked out what the proportion of cars per 1,000 people is in each country. That doesn't mean the vehicles are used more, but it shows Finland now has the highest rate of car ownership, followed by Malta and Cyprus. 

Hungary, North Macedonia and Latvia have the lowest rate of car ownership among the countries included in the Eurostat figures.

As you can see from the chart above, all countries have seen an increase between 1997 and 2017 in the number of cars per 1,000 people, although Germany and Austria have seen the smallest increase.

These figures are for passenger journeys only, so do not include people who have decided to cycle or walk instead of driving – but it seems there is still a long way to go before the growth in the number of cars and people using them, comes to an end.