COMCEC Transport and Communications
Outlook 2016
26
Figure 10 shows the length of the rail network relative to the country’s population. As in the case
of road network, rail network per capita can be considered as a proxy for measuring the extent
of service by railways to any person in a country. All OIC countries (except Djibouti, Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan, Gabon, Tunisia, and Azerbaijan) have fewer than 200 km of rail lines per million
population. At the individual country level, Djibouti and Kazakhstan registered the highest level
of rail network per capita, i.e. 880 and 817 km per million population, respectively. Average rail
network per capita of the OIC countries is equal to 92 km per million population while the world
average is 164 km. This suggests that the length of the rail network is inadequate to serve the
OIC population, evenwithout taking into consideration that almost half of the OIC countries have
no railway network.