In Slovenia, the volume of passenger transport and traffic has been increasing over the past few decades. In particular, there has been a steady rise in one of the most environmentally damaging modes of transport – car travel. Its share places Slovenia in the unenviable fourth place among EU member states whose residents rely most heavily on private cars for their journeys.

Road freight transport in Slovenia has grown sharply since the country’s accession to the EU, with the volume of tonne-kilometres carried by Slovenian hauliers alone increasing more than 2.5 times between 2004 and 2024. After the pandemic-related slowdown, the volume of road freight transport returned to previous levels.

In the first decade of this century, Slovenia directed most of its investments into the road network, primarily the construction of the motorway cross. The railways, on the other hand, were largely neglected in terms of investment, making them uncompetitive compared to road transport.

Energy consumption in transport has been declining slightly in recent years. This is due to combination of lower domestic vehicle consumption as well as lower sales to foreign vehicles. Most of the energy is used in road transport. Consumption of diesel fuel in road transport is increasing.

The estimated value of external transport costs in 2021 is approximately 2.4 billion euros, accounting for 4.6% of Slovenia's GDP. The majority (99%) of these costs are attributed to road traffic, while only 1% is attributed to rail traffic. Two-thirds of external costs arise from passenger traffic, with the remaining one-third from freight traffic. Notably, a third of the external costs of transport are associated with traffic accidents, followed by costs related to congestion (20%), climate change (18%), air pollution (16%), damage to habitats (7%), and noise (6%).

Both the residents of the EU-27 countries and the residents of Slovenia are only partially aware of the problem of increasing transport and its consequences for the environment and health. Public awareness of the impact of transport on the environment is still relatively low, although the differences between European countries are considerable. People's awareness of the environmental problems of transport does not automatically lead to changing their travel habits, even though this would contribute to their better health.

In the last decades, major emissions of air pollutants from transport decreased. However, road transport remains one of the most significant sources of air pollution. In Slovenia in 2022 road transport contributed 43 % to the total emissions of nitrogen oxides. In the period 1990-2022 emissions of substances that cause acidification and emissions of ozone precursors in transport sector declined by 71 % and 76 %. In the period 2000-2022 emissions of particulate matter decreased by 51 %.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport in Slovenia almost tripled between 1986 and 2022. In the EU, GHG emissions from transport also exceed economic growth on average, but significantly less than in Slovenia; in the period 1990-2022, they increased by a quarter in the EU-28. The main source of GHG is mostly road transport, which contributes as much as 99% of all GHG emissions from transport. The majority share of traffic emissions in Slovenia in total GHG emissions and insufficiently effective measures to reduce them hinder Slovenia's efforts to achieve the accepted obligations.

Although the annual number of road traffic fatalities in Slovenia has been declining for decades and has decreased to about a third since independence, traffic still requires an excessive tax. The number of traffic accidents with victims or serious injuries is at the level of 30 years ago, the number of serious injuries is already 15 years stagnant. Traffic accidents have claimed an average of almost 110 lives per year over the last ten years, and fortunately, the number of deaths in traffic accidents has been slightly decreasing over the past ten years.

The ownership of passenger cars, closely linked to their usage, has been steadily increasing in Slovenia for a long time – it has doubled since the country's independence in 1991. Between 2008 and 2015, car ownership grew more slowly due to the economic recession, but since 2015, the growth has accelerated again. The exceptions were the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. Slovenia's motorization rate (measured in the number of personal cars per thousand inhabitants) exceeds the EU average and is higher than that of many economically more developed EU countries.