UK: The Railway Industry Association has called on the Treasury and policymakers not to base 30-year rail programmes and ridership forecasts on the period of the pandemic, but instead to plan ’increased investment for the growth in capacity we are going to need in the years ahead’.
This came after the Department for Transport published figures showing a run of seven days from August 6 to 12 where main line rail passenger numbers were between 93% and 95% of the same week in 2019.
‘Given all the industrial action of recent weeks, and that the month of August is the traditional summer season when many go on holiday, it is astonishing that we are now getting 95% of pre-Covid passenger levels reached on the national rail network, and in a week where over 93% was recorded every single day of the week’, said RIA CEO Darren Caplan on August 24.
‘This welcome milestone has been hit less than six months since pandemic restrictions started being relaxed, and is a clear vote of confidence in UK rail. One must assume it is only a matter of time before we are back to 100% of pre-Covid levels.’
