Revision of Error Margins Agenda point 9 (point for decision) Mathieu Erzar 9-10 November 2011 Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics Agenda point: 9

Aim and current situation General aim of the margins Detection of extraordinary growth rates between two consecutive years Verification of the credibility of the records with the concerned country Focus on the most important problems Current situation Previous revision of the error margins led to thresholds Taking into account the specificity of the various datasets Defined on the basis of the reference years 2004, 2005 and 2006 Need to assess if they are still appropriate for the most recent data or if modifications are needed 9-10 November 2011 Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics Agenda point: 9

Revision of the margins Aims of the new “error margins” New error margins taking into account the latest developments in the field of rail transport Reduction of the burden of the countries, by focusing on errors for higher absolute values Methodology New analysis based on the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 growths Comparison between the existing thresholds and the results of the analysis For low absolute values: more tolerance if the new threshold is higher, increase of the error margin if the new threshold is lower, current error margin kept For high absolute values: more focus if the new threshold is higher, current error margin kept if the new threshold is lower, decrease of the error margin 9-10 November 2011 Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics Agenda point: 9

Example of application of the new margins proposed   Number of loaded ITUs YEAR COUNTRY A COUNTRY B Y-1 47 500 40 000 Y 66 200 60 800 Change 39% 52% Higher values (66 200 and 60 800) included in the interval [50 000;Max] Example of records provided by reporting countries A and B Extract of the table with the new margins (full table available at the end of the room document) COUNTRY A Growth rate (39%) lower than 50% The new threshold is not reached (no clarification needed from the country) 9-10 November 2011 Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics Agenda point: 9

Example of application of the new margins proposed   Number of loaded ITUs YEAR COUNTRY A COUNTRY B Y-1 47 500 40 000 Y 66 200 60 800 Change 39% 52% Higher values (66 200 and 60 800) included in the interval [50 000;Max] Example of records provided by reporting countries A and B Extract of the table with the new margins (full table available at the end of the room document) COUNTRY B Growth rate (52%) higher than 50% The new threshold is reached (clarification needed from the country) 9-10 November 2011 Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics Agenda point: 9

Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics Summary & proposal The new margins aim at: Taking into account the latest developments in the field of rail transport Focusing on the main problems Reducing the burden of the countries Errors for Annexes A to E datasets and Alerts for Annex H datasets Proposal: Replacement of the current set of error (and alert) margins by a new set of error (and alert) margins (see new thresholds defined in room document) 9-10 November 2011 Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics Agenda point: 9

The Member States are kindly requested to express their position on the new error margins settings proposed by Eurostat Thank you for your attention ! 9-10 November 2011 Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics Agenda point: 9