Season ticket slump
Journeys made using season tickets has dropped to the lowest level since 2010 as passenger habits change.
SOME 434 million rail passenger journeys were made in July to September 2018 (Q2 2018-19), a climb of 1.9% compared with the corresponding three-month period in 2017.
The increase was driven by a 3.1% rise in the London and South East sector, according to Office of Rail and Road (ORR) figures published on December 13. The Long Distance and Regional sectors reported declines of 0.8% and 0.7% respectively over the same quarter.
Meanwhile, in the 12 months to the end of September 2018, some 1.73 billion passenger journeys were made.
In Q2 2018-19, the number of journeys made using tickets such as advance, anytime and off-peak increased by nine million (to 291 million) compared with the same period in 2017-18, while the number of season ticket journeys declined in the same period to 143 million.
This was the lowest since Q2 2010-11, suggesting that passengers are continuing their move away from longer-term tickets, according to ORR. It was the ninth quarter in a row the figures have dropped.
Passenger revenue was up 5.4% in Q2 2018-19 compared with the previous year. ORR says this also illustrates a switch from season tickets, which it says offers the lowest price per journey.
Passenger kilometres increased 1.4% in Q2 2018-19 compared with Q2 2017-18, although only the London and South East sector reported a growth (3.8%).
The operator with the most passenger journeys in Q2 2018-19 was Govia Thameslink Railway - its
83.7 million journeys represented a 5.6% increase on Q2 2017-18. The least used was Caledonian Sleeper with 0.1 million journeys, a rise of 3%.
TfL Rail recorded the highest increase compared with Q2 201718 (up 21.1% to 13.0 million), after taking over the Heathrow Connect services between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport. Great Western Railway experienced the biggest decline (down 6.0% to 25.0 million). ORR attributed the decline to the transfer of services to TfL Rail, as well as ongoing infrastructure work on the route.
Open access operators recorded their highest Q2 growth since 2015-16. ORR said the 0.4 million journeys on Grand Central represented GC’s highest quarterly volume since the time series began in 2011-12.
The total passenger kilometres rose to 17.1 billion in Q2 2018-19, a 1.4% increase from the same quarter last year. London and South East was the only sector where passenger numbers grew (up 3.8%), with 7.9 billion passengers carried. Regional recorded a 0.1% drop, while Long Distance dropped 1.1%.
ORR said the latter’s decline was affected by closures at London Euston, while improvement works also affected CrossCountry and East Midlands Trains services.
Total passenger revenue increased by 5.4% to £2,541 million, compared with Q2 2017-18. Nationally, revenue per passenger kilometre rose 4.0% to 14.85p - the highest Q2 increase recorded since 2013-14. The LSE sector accounts for almost half of this, with a 7.1% revenue increase.
Passenger train kilometres (the number of kms travelled by revenue-earning passenger trains) rose by 1.8 million to 135 million in Q2 2018-19, compared with the corresponding quarter in 2017-18. This included a 6.3 % increase for Northern, while GTR reported a 3.1% rise.
Commenting on the figures, Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald said: “We should all be alarmed by this latest decline in the number of passengers on the railways, which will worsen congestion, and therefore air pollution and climate change.
“Our dysfunctional system of franchising out the railways depends on the revenue from fares continuing to grow - so with fewer passengers now using the railways, there’s a major risk of the taxpayer having to bail out even more train companies.”
McDonald said passengers were being driven off the railway by unreliable services and above inflation fare rises.