5% growth in rail travel puts industry on course for busiest year since the 1920s

17/10/2011

Passenger numbers on the railways grew by 5.3% over the summer months. The figures, published by the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), confirm that the railways are set for their busiest peacetime year since the 1920s with well over 1.3bn journeys expected to have been made by train by the end of 2011.

According to ATOC, one of the reasons behind the rise in rail travel is the continuing high price of petrol, leading more leisure travellers to switch from road to rail when taking summer breaks or day trips out with the family. Increasing numbers of people are taking advantage of operators offering cheap Advance tickets for those who book early. Sales of these tickets have almost doubled in the last four years, with almost a million now bought every week.

Separate figures from ATOC show a surge in the number of people choosing to visit seaside resorts and beauty spots by rail, with passenger numbers on some small rural branch lines almost doubling over the last few years.

Overall, petrol prices rose slightly during the quarter. In September prices remained 18% higher than in the same month last year. This compares with an average rise in rail fares of 6.2% in January. The AA has calculated that drivers have cut their petrol consumption by more than 15% since the start of the recession.

In Quarter 3 2011 (26 June – 17 September):

- There were 314.3 million passenger journeys, compared to 298.4m million in Q3 2010 - a rise of 5.3%.

- Journeys in London and the South East grew by 5.8%; long distance journeys by 4.0%; regional journeys by 4.4%.

Other significant factors contributing to continued growth in rail travel include:

- Investment in better and more frequent services on many routes, high levels of punctuality and reliability, new stations, more car parking spaces and the roll-out of services such as Wi-Fi.

- Continued rise in the use of season tickets. Journeys on season tickets, used almost exclusively by commuters, rose 3.5% when compared to the same quarter last year. Over half a million people commute into and out of London every weekday.

Michael Roberts, Chief Executive of ATOC, said:

“Despite difficult financial times, more people are choosing to go by train when travelling to work and on business, visiting friends and family, or just taking a well-earned break. Over the summer, leisure travellers and families left the car keys at home and took advantage of cheap train tickets as a way of getting around the country for less.

“The railways continue to play a central role in supporting jobs and businesses, which is why sustained investment will be the key to promoting long-term sustainable economic growth.”

ENDS
 

Notes to editors

1. Figures for journeys come from the LENNON database, the rail industry’s central ticketing system, which records around 98% of all journeys. Rail accounting is done in 13 periods of four weeks, so “Quarters” 1, 2 and 4 comprise 3 periods each but “Quarter 3” comprises 4 periods. However, the duration of rail periods 1 and 13 (and hence Q1 and Q4) actually varies slightly from year to year to ensure the year end always falls on 31 March. The data have thus been adjusted for length differently depending on whether the comparison is with the previous or the following year to ensure that the figures compare like with like (eg if the same quarter in each year has different lengths) and for other technical factors. Quarter 4 data comprise periods 11 to 13.

2. According to figures from the AA, petrol prices rose from 115.2ppl in September 2010 to 135.6ppl in September 2011.

3. Since rail privatisation was completed in 1997, passenger numbers have increased by 69%.

4. Examples of some of the recent improvements made or being made by train companies include:
- 6,500 rush hour seats added by First Capital Connect
- £900,000 spent by First Great Western to make stations more accessible
- East Coast delivering new First Class service
- East Midlands Trains improving every train in its fleet through a £30m investment package
- c2c has recently completed a £1.2m upgrade and rebuild of Southend East station
- Arriva Trains Wales building a new ticket office, shops and toilets at Chester
- Chiltern spending £10m leasing four new two-car trains to increase capacity and frequency of service
- CrossCountry installing Wi-Fi on High Speed and Voyager trains
- First Scotrail investing over £2m across train fleets
- Northern Rail refurbishing 200 trains and spending £350,000 to improve on board facilities
- Southeastern investing in improvements at Bromley, Dartford and Sittingbourne stations including new concourses, ticket offices, lifts, retail and passenger information systems
- Southern refurbishing trains to increase capacity
- South West Trains investing £12m to provide an additional 450 ticket machines
- Virgin Trains introducing bio-fuel power on their fleet, the first public rail service to do so
- First Transpennine Express launching a new train fleet
- London Midland remodelling Watford Junction and Milton Keynes stations
- National Express East Anglia added a fleet of new Class 379 trains on the Stansted Express and the West Anglia routes
More details can be found by downloading ‘Keeping Britain Moving’ at:
www.atoc.org/clientfiles/File/publicationsdocuments/Keeping%20Britain%20Moving_Sept2011.pdf

 

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