UK: Provisional statistics released by the Department for Transport show rail journeys reached a high of 66% of pre-pandemic levels this summer, driven by increased leisure travel. Meanwhile, industry data shows that leisure journeys to seaside destinations over the August bank holiday weekend surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
National Rail ridership reached a low of 4% to 5% of pre-pandemic levels between the end of March and mid-May 2020. Traffic increased to 10% of the normal level in June 2020, and then increased slowly to around 33% at the end of the year before further restrictions brought numbers back to 11% of pre-pandemic levels by the start of 2021.
From early June 2021 passenger levels remained close to 50% of the norm, before the arrival of the school holiday period saw the start of another lift in train use. The peak of 66% was achieved on August 23, while bank holiday Monday on August 30 saw ridership at 62% of normal levels.
Similar improvements have been seen at London Underground where a peak of 72% was recorded on August 28.
Rail industry data shows that ticket sales to seaside destinations more than doubled compared to last year’s August bank holiday, up by 117% and surpassing the same pre-pandemic weekend in 2019 by 17%.
Operators say that this marks the first week where leisure travel has surpassed pre-pandemic levels in many locations across the country
Sales of railcards are up 6·5% compared to 2019, driven by sales of 26-30 and 16-25 railcards which have beaten industry expectations. Journeys with the 26-30 Railcard have increased to 300 000 a week, up 43 000 journeys since the beginning of June, while and journeys with the 16-25 Railcard are up 49 000 to 1·03 milllion journeys a week since the beginning of June.
Research by WPI Economics for the Rail Delivery Group has found leisure travellers by train spend £107 per trip on things like shops, restaurants and hotels, generating £46bn for businesses.
Commuting and business journeys by rail are still well below pre-pandemic levels, and rail industry revenue is just 59% of that seen in 2019.
Meanwhile, DfT figures show car use to be over 90% of pre-pandemic use, with some days reaching 110% of pre-pandemic totals.
