April 19, 2021 Abdulrahman Alwosheel, a senior research analyst in the Transport and Urban Infrastructure program at KAPSARC. RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s early measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 led to a drop in rail demand by 60% last year to 0.7 million passengers in 2020, compared with 1.8 million passengers in 2019, according to a recent Data Insight published by the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC). The researcher Abdulrahman Alwosheel, a senior research analyst in the Transport and Urban Infrastructure program at KAPSARC, mentioned that rail passenger demand in the Kingdom has increased by 8% per year over the past six years, from 1.25 million passengers to around 1.8 million in 2019.