Rail commuters shun full-time return to the office

Numbers catching train to work five days a week have dwindled as most opt for home or ‘hybrid’ working

ONLY a tiny proportion of rail commuters have returned to the office five days a week, Transport Focus has found.

More than half now expect to work from home and only head to the office “when required”, the passenger watchdog study shows.

The organisation called on train companies to make rail travel “more attractive” to bring commuters back and avoid saddling the public with expensive subsidies.

Last year, taxpayers footed a £12 billion bill propping up the railways during the pandemic and the Government is set to spend billions more this year as passenger numbers continue to languish well below pre-covid levels.

Transport Focus today releases the results of a study of the habits of 3,700 rail commuters, which then focused specifically on a segment of 1,300 who said that their jobs could be done in part or wholly from home.

The poll found that only 6 per cent of this group said they are now travelling into the office five days a week, compared with 42 per cent pre-covid.

The watchdog found that most workers now expect to have a “hybrid” arrangement with their employers, whereby they will be permitted travel into work as seldom as once a week.

Of those surveyed, 57 per cent said they only planned to travel on an ad hoc basis when work “required” them to, whereas just 44 per cent said they expected to commute into work on a routine basis.

The report concluded that for those whose jobs allowed them to work from home “the traditional four or five days a week commute is unlikely to return”.

The taxpayer faces a big bill to cover the lost revenue of millions of commuters staying home after Covid restrictions have lifted. Last week, the top mandarin at the Department for Transport, Bernadette Kelly, said the Government has earmarked £4.1 billion to make up the expected shortfall this year.

Government figures show that rail passenger numbers are at only around 60 per cent compared with pre-covid.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of Transport Focus, said: “The traditional five days a week commute looks unlikely to return any time soon. A hybrid pattern of one to three office days a week is emerging. This will have a significant effect on levels of demand, the frequency of services and ticket revenue. With this new flexibility for passengers, it is more important than ever that train operators focus on providing attractive, value-for-money services.”

Suren Thiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “A decline in commuting could have a negative impact on the UK economy if it drives a more persistent weakening in consumer spending as workers spend less on the goods and services associated with being at work such as in nearby pubs, restaurants and shops.”