Rail passenger numbers and revenues increase

THE number of journeys made on Britain’s rail network increased by 3.1% in April-June this year, compared with the corresponding three-month period in 2017-18.

Most operators recorded growth, and revenues also increased, according to the latest quarterly statistics released by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) on October 4.

The total number of journeys in the quarter was 429 million, driven by a 3.5% increase in the London and South East sector. The majority of journeys (278 million) were made using ordinary tickets, whereas the number of journeys on season tickets fell by 2.6% to 150 million.

Only Great Western Railway, Northern and Caledonian Sleeper recorded a decrease in the number of passenger journeys in the quarter. For GWR, this was attributed to Transport for London taking over the operation of some trains from London

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%).