The global pipeline of railway projects now stands at $5.9tn, according to GlobalData.

North East Asia accounts for the largest share of global value, with a pipeline valued at $2.3tn. South Asia ranks second with a railway project pipeline value of $715.3bn, followed by Western Europe ($680.9bn) and North America ($617.6bn). The Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region accounts for $339bn of the total,

The GlobalData report highlights the key challenges that railway projects will face over the coming years. Elevated materials prices, rising labour costs and skill shortages, as well as a continued tightening of monetary policy are likely to impact global construction spending in the coming years.

These challenges have already begun to affect project viability. For example, in October 2023 the UK government cancelled the Birmingham to Manchester section of the High-Speed 2 project, part of its flagship ‘Levelling-up’ commitment, due to spiralling costs.

Geopolitics will also have an impact. The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is expected to exert additional downward pressure on new investment levels, particularly in Eastern Europe. Projects in Russia and Ukraine have been included in the pipeline in order to maintain continuity, though they are subject to significant uncertainty.

Assuming all projects in the currently tracked pipeline proceed according to their schedules and spending is distributed evenly across the execution stage, annual pipeline expenditure may reach $482.6 billion in 2024 and $564.5 billion in 2025.

Public investment finances the majority of rail projects globally, with 80.8% of the global pipeline funded by the public sector. Projects financed through public-private partnerships account for 16.7% of the global pipeline, with the remaining 2.6% of projects financed solely by the private sector.