£16bn rail spend
Of the £29.1bn spent on transport in 2016-17, more than half goes on rail, according to latest DfT figures.
MORE than half of the UK’s public expenditure on transport goes to rail, according to the Department for Transport’s Transport Statistics Great
Britain, released on November 23. Of the £29.1 billion spent on transport in 2016-17, around £16bn went to the rail sector, accounting for 54% of the total. National roads received 14% of the total, local roads 19%, other public transport 8% and other transport 5%.
The detailed figures show that total government capital expenditure on railways for Great Britain rose from £7.21bn in 2015-16 to £7.5bn in 2016-17. Current and resource spending also increased, from £3.62bn to £4.04bn. Capital expenditure in 2016-17 was £6.63bn in England, £643 million in Scotland and £226m in Wales.
Local government expenditure on railways also rose, from a national figure of £1.94bn in 2015-16 to £1.95bn in 2016-17, although current and resource spending fell by £28m to £320m in 2016-17. GB public corporations spent £1.66bn on railways.
In other statistics released on the same day, total government support for the railways in 2016-17 was put at £4.22bn, plus £5.6bn of loans to Network Rail. This total support figure is the lowest in real terms since 2002-03 (when the adjusted figure was £3.42bn at 2016-17 prices).
Ticket revenues of franchised passenger operators reached their highest ever level in 2016-17, at £9.44bn. In real terms, this is a £46 million increase over 2015-16’s figure.
Revenue from ordinary fares rose by £261m to £7.27bn, but that from season tickets fell from £2.21bn in 2015-16 (in absolute terms) to £2.17bn in 2016-17. The statistics were released by the Department for Transport on November 23.
Other statistics show that the private car remains by far the most popular mode of travel, accounting for 62% of all trips made in 2016 and 78% of the total distance travelled.
Although rail’s share of the passenger market was 2%, it accounted for 8% of the total distance travelled. The total of 801 billion passenger kilometres
travelled across all modes is the highest ever recorded.
The average rail commute is 59 minutes, and in terms of greenhouse gas transport emissions, rail was the most environmentally friendly - 93% of all domestic transport greenhouse gas emissions were from road transport.
The number of National Rail passenger journeys was 1.73 billion, an increase of 152% since 1985-86, and a 21% market share of public transport journeys.
Buses remain the most popular form of public transport, accounting for 59% of journeys, while London’s and Glasgow’s underground networks account for 17% of public transport journeys and light rail 3%.
For goods moved, 9% of the 201 billion tonne-km was carried by rail, with 17.2 billion tonne-km of freight moved (a drop of 3% from 2015-16). This is put down to an 82% fall in coal traffic from 201314.