IN STATS: How many trains ran on time in Sweden in 2020

And although Sweden has been trying to improve its long-term maintenance work of its railroads, fewer passengers as a result of the pandemic was unsurprisingly a key factor.

“Fewer passengers mean more efficient stops at stations. When a train stops it of course means that it is much faster to get on and off,” traffic director Roberto Maiorana told the TT news agency, but added that the number of departures was still high in 2020.

In total, the Transport Administration registered 958,990 departures last year compared to 1,030,611 in 2019, as most city trains kept running as normal to avoid crowding.

Trains are considered to be “on time” if they arrive within five minutes of the scheduled arrival time. Cancelled trains are included in the statistics and count as delayed trains.

But to give the data more context, 88 percent of trains arrived within two minutes of their scheduled arrival time in 2020, and 97 percent arrived within 15 minutes.

A total of 95.7 percent of short-distance trains arrived on time, 91.7 percent of medium-distance trains, and 86.7 percent of long-distance trains, according to the Transport Administration.