Rail passenger numbers and revenues increase

Paddington, while for Northern it was as a result of timetable disruption.

Non-franchised operators also did well, with Grand Central reporting growth of 12.2% to 0.4 million journeys.

Revenues increased by 6.5% (£155 million year on year to £2,551m), while revenue per passenger-km rose by 4.3% to 15.32p - the highest Q1 rate of increase recorded since 2012-13.

Growth was fastest in the Long-Distance sector (6.8%), but the other two sectors - London and South East (6.4%) and Regional (5.6%) - also recorded increases. Revenues from nonfranchised operators increased by 9.8%.

The number of passengerkilometres continued to increase, by 2.1% year-on-year to 16.5 billion in the quarter. The Long-Distance sector drove this growth, with an increase of 2.3% to 5.7 million passenger-km.

LNER was the biggest contributor to long-distance growth, with passenger-km increasing by 7.8% in the quarter compared with the previous year.

However, growth in the Regional sector of 2.1% was the lowest rate since 2012/13, although the ORR says the May timetable meltdown could have affected this.

The number of passenger train-kilometres increased by 0.3 million to 132 million in Q1, despite the disruption caused by the May timetable change. The most significant contributions were made by TransPennine Express (up 7.5%) and Merseyrail (up 17.6%).