Season ticket drop prompts decline in passenger journeys

THE number of passenger journeys made on franchised train operators in 2017-18 fell by 1.4% compared with the previous year, to 1.7 billion.

According to the Office of Rail and Road’s latest figures released on June 14, this is the largest decrease recorded since 1993-94. It was led by a 2.1% fall in the London and the South East sector, which comprises more than twothirds of the national passenger journeys. And although the Long Distance and Regional sectors continued to grow, the rate here slowed to less than 1%.

ORR also reports a 9.2% fall in season ticket journeys, suggesting a shift in the type of ticket used by passengers.

The market share for season ticket journeys was 37% in 201718, down 11 percentage points from a decade ago. However, this decline has been compensated for by increases in the number of journeys made on Advance, anytime and off-peak tickets.

The number of journeys made on off-peak tickets showed the biggest increase, with 18.2 million extra journeys giving a market share of 33.3%. Journeys made on anytime tickets rose by 16.2 million to give a market share of 16.2%, and Advance fares by 5.7 million with a market share of 4.3%.

The rate of growth in passengerkilometres (0.3%) and passenger revenue (2.3%) is at its lowest since 2000-01, when disruption following the Hatfield derailment in October 2000 affected growth. Even so, the Regional and LongDistance sectors recorded their highest ever volumes of journeys, with 390 million Regional and 145 million Long-Distance journeys made.

The ORR’s statistics show that while Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) had the largest number of passenger journeys (319 million), this figure was two million less than in the previous year, with industrial action, staffing problems and planned cancellations all contributing to the drop.

South Western Railway was also affected - its total journeys fell by 18 million, with engineering works, industrial action and transfer of the franchise all having an effect.

Chiltern Railways recorded an increase of 6.4% in passenger journeys, while ScotRail recorded its highest growth rate (3.8%) since 2014-15, and an increase of 3.5 million journeys.

In the London and South East sector, TfL Rail, Greater Anglia, Great Western Railway, Southeastern and London Overground also reported falls in passenger numbers, although c2c and West Midlands Trains recorded small increases.

In terms of passenger-kilometres for the year, the Long-Distance sector increased by 1.9% to 22.4 billion and Regional by 1.4% to 13 billion. London and the South East reported a 1.3% decline to 30.2 billion. The total number of passenger-kilometres in 2017-18 was 65.6 billion.

The number of passengerkilometres travelled on Advance tickets increased by 7.2%, Anytime by 1.8%, and off-peak by 2.5%, whereas season ticket passenger-kilometres fell by 6.8%. The biggest drop in passengerkilometres was recorded by Govia Thameslink Railway, but Northern (-2.3%) and South Western Railway (-2.3%) also fell. All three operators were affected by industrial action in 2017-18.

Only seven operators reported growth in the number of passenger-kilometres in the fourth quarter of 2017-18, compared with the corresponding period in 201617 - GTR, Virgin Trains East Coast, CrossCountry, West Midlands Trains, Chiltern, Arriva Trains Wales and Grand Central. The biggest decrease was recorded by Caledonian Sleeper (down 28.8%), with Hull Trains falling by 9.3% and Northern 7.5%.

The Regional sector topped the list for year-on-year revenue growth, with a rate of 4.2% (a small increase on the year before), while the Long-Distance sector’s revenue growth continued but slowed to 2.8%. London and the South East increased slightly to 1.3%.

Revenue from season tickets declined by 4.6%, but that from Advance fares grew by 9%. Revenue per journey was £5.66, up 3.7% on 2016-17, and revenue per passenger-kilometre increased by 2% to 14.72p. Revenue for non-franchised operators fell for the first time since 2011-12, but the ORR says these account for less than 1% of all passenger revenue.

Rail Delivery Group Chief Executive Paul Plummer said: “There are over 1.7 billion rail journeys made every year and despite some slowing down, this growth isn’t expected to hit the brakes in the long term. While technology may mean fewer people are travelling into work every day, anyone taking the train into our major cities will know that investment to run more trains is essential.”