Passenger Numbers Recover

Recovery in passenger numbers continues but season ticket sales still down by two-thirds

Britain's railways continued to regain passenger numbers but season ticket sales continued to be down by two-thirds during the summer of 2022, according to the latest published figures. The recovery from the depths of the Covid lockdowns continued between June and September, with passenger numbers more than 45 per cent higher than the same quarter in 2021, reaching their highest level since the imposition of the first lockdown in March 2020.

Overall, demand came to within 80.2 per cent of pre-Covid levels, according to National Rail Trends statistics, published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).

The provisional figures cover the second quarter of fiscal year 2022/23, finishing at the end of September: across the network, 359.4 million passenger journeys were made during the twelve-week period, up from 247.9 million in 2021. Between them, they covered 13.7 billion passenger kilometres, 31.8 per cent up, and paid a total of £2.2 billion in fares, 43.5 per cent more than in 2021.

Looking at demand by ticket type, advance tickets were up by 137.5 per cent, whilst anytime peak and off-peak fares were up by 103.3 per cent and 97.8 per cent respectively. Season ticket holders made 48.6 per cent more journeys.

Comparing these figures with the same quarter in 2019, there has been wide divergence in the performance of different ticket types. The growth in advance purchase tickets means that sales were 9.4 per cent higher than in the same quarter in 2019. Season tickets, though, were still only at one-third of 2019 levels. Sales of anytime peak tickets were 16.2 per cent down, whilst off-peak fares were 6.1 per cent lower.

Services in London and South East saw the strongest growth in the over last summer. Between them, the operators carried 252.3m passengers in 2022, up 52.4 per cent on 2021, remaining 17.7 per cent below 2019. Strongest quarterly growth came at West Midlands (44.6 per cent) and GTR (41.5 per cent). Weakest were c2c (20.5 per cent) and Southeastern (21.8 per cent).

The long distance InterCity operations saw more modest growth during the quarter, being 30.4 per cent up on 2021, but 17.9 per cent per cent down on 2019. Looking at individual InterCity operators, EMR fared the best, growing its traffic by 46.6 per cent and recovering to within one per cent of 2019 levels.

Next came Great Western, 41.6 per cent up on the quarter but still 24.9 per cent below 2019. Cross Country was up by 31.7 per cent but stayed 31.8 per cent short of 2019. LNER saw growth of just 18 per cent during the quarter, but this took the business to almost six per cent above pre-Covid traffic. Avanti West Coast, hit by driver shortages after a fall-out with drivers over overtime working, saw a modest 12.2 per cent increase, remaining 35.5 per cent short of pre-Covid patronage.

Amongst the regional franchises, total patronage was 28.2 per cent up on 2021, but remained 26.7 per cent below 2019 levels. Amongst individual TOCs, ScotRail saw the strongest recovery, with patronage up 37.2 per cent from 2021, though still 33 per cent below its 2019 figures. TfW saw growth of 27.8 per cent, whilst TransPennine saw the lowest growth in the quarter, 16 per cent, leaving it 36.2 per cent below 2019 levels –not the highest shortfall in the sector, which belongs to Merseyrail, still 37.2 per cent down despite achieving growth of 24.1 per cent during the quarter.

Rolling year figures

The national totals for the twelve months ended 30 September show that, compared with the last pre-Covid year of 2018/19, the number of passenger journeys was 29.7 per cent lower at 1.25 billion. Passenger kilometres travelled were 29.4 per cent lower at 48.1 billion, whilst passenger revenue saw a shortfall of 27.9 per cent at £7.6 billion.

As in previous quarters, performance varied between the sectors. Passenger journeys were still over 30 per cent below 2019 levels in London and South East and on the regional networks but moved to within 23.6 per cent on the InterCity routes.

Comment

Sunshine and tears may be the two words which sum up the quarter, as the country basked in near-record temperatures for several weeks, but then mourned the loss of their Queen in early September, prompting a flood of people travelling to the capital for the ceremonies associated with the death, including the lying in state and the state funeral. The comparative quarter in 2021 had been relatively calm, characterised by falling Covid infection rates.

Thus, the percentage growth figures we are seeing are rather less spectacular than in the Spring quarter, but nevertheless do mark some solid progress on the road to recovery. The variations in performance between different TOCs that we have remarked on before are still there. Including the open access operators, there were three operators who exceeded their 2019 patronage figure during the quarter: Grand Central was 7.9 per cent ahead, LNER was on 5.4 per cent and Hull Trains stood at two per cent. A fourth, East Midlands Trains, came within a whisker, being just 0.08 per cent short of its pre-Covid figure. The next nearest was London Overground but this remained over 17 per cent short of its previous levels.

This is such a sharp contrast, though, with the nine operators whose patronage was still more than thirty per cent short of full recovery during the quarter. Merseyrail had the most ground to make up, being on 37.8 per cent; next came TransPennine (36.2), Avanti West Coast (35.5), Southeastern (34.4), South Western (33.6), Scotrail (33.0), Chiltern (31.9), CrossCountry (31.8) and Heathrow Express (30.1).

Once again, it is clear that a fall in commuting is the main problem, and this is amply reinforced by looking at season ticket sales. The number of journeys made on these tickets is recovering – up by 30.7 per cent in the quarter, and 48.6 per cent during the rolling year. But the numbers remain over two-thirds below the levels seen in 2019.

This contrasts sharply with leisure-based fares – advance tickets were 9.4 per cent ahead of 2019 levels during the quarter, whilst journeys made on off-peak tickets were 4.6 per cent up.

As we have noted before in these articles, one consequence of this shift in the market is that the railway earns a lower amount of money for each passenger kilometre travelled (what I term ‘the yield’). After allowing for inflation, the national figure during the quarter was 9.3 per cent below

the 2019 figure, at 16.08p. However, the loss rises to a whopping 13.5 per cent on the InterCity operations – reflecting a fall in business travel and first class income.

More recent trends on patronage levels are still available from the Department for Transport, through its continuing publication of transport demand estimates for every week since the lockdown began in March 2020. At the start of the summer quarter, weekly demand was averaging above 80 per cent, and exceeding 90 per cent in mid-August before slipping back.

The number went to over 90 per cent of 2019 levels again in the first week in September and stayed there. There were three weeks in October when demand topped the 100 per cent mark. It slipped back slightly but remained at 98 or 99 per cent throughout November and into December – despite the much-publicised problems over driver shortages and industrial action.

These numbers would seem to promise further recovery when the next set of quarterly figures come out in the spring – but there is much to be endured in the meantime.