The number of passengers using rail services in Wales is still well down on pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, a new report has shown. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has released a new report on passenger numbers for rail services across the UK.
The report shows the number of passenger journeys on Transport for Wales (TfW) trains in the period between January and March this year was only 67% of what it was in the spell between January and March 2019. There were 5.4m passenger journeys on TfW trains in the first three months of 2023.
Transport for Wales' percentage relative to the first three months of 2019 was fifth bottom of 22 UK rail operators with only Chiltern, South Western, Southeastern, and Transpennine Express recording a lower percentage of passenger journeys compared to four years ago.
Read more: The new train station being built in the middle of one of Cardiff’s busiest neighbourhoods
The latest figures reflect the difficulties facing many rail operators in the UK recovering from the pandemic with the majority of operators recording a lower volume of trips than in the first quarter of 2019. The overall figure for the UK showed a good recovery – a provisional estimate of 389m journeys were made in Great Britain in the first quarter of 2023, which stands at 88% of the 443m journeys in the same quarter four years ago.
Concerns have been raised over train services in Wales in recent months. Lee Waters, the minister responsible for transport in Wales, recently claimed Welsh railways will see a "managed decline" including more speed restrictions, reduced reliability, more service failures, and either stagnant or worsening performance in the next five years due to cuts in real-terms funding. You can read more about that here.
Wales has also missed out on crucial infrastructure funding with a WalesOnline investigation showing how Wales was being short-changed by £5bn over high speed rail as it has been defined by the Tories as an "England and Wales" project despite not a single metre of track actually being in Wales.
Work is ongoing on the major South Wales Metro project which will see the Rhymney, Aberdare, Merthyr, and Treherbert lines into Cardiff electrified for a new turn-up-and-go network with the Coryton and City lines in Cardiff also being upgraded. In March it was reported that the pandemic and spiralling construction inflation has pushed the cost of the project to the £1.bn mark.
The ORR report showed that between April 2022 and March 2023 TfW recorded 23.2m passenger journeys – 73% of the figure between April 2019 and March 2020. Average journey lengths were longer compared with four years ago for 11 operators including TfW and when compared across a 12-month period 12 operators recorded a longer average journey length compared with three years ago. TfW recorded the largest increase in journey length with a 15% rise.
The number of kilometres run by passenger trains was affected by the 29 strike days during the year. A total of 461m passenger train kilometres were operated in the latest quarter – 83% of the 558m train kilometres operated three years ago. This is 97% of the 474m kilometres operated one year ago (April 2021 to March 2022).
Five operators ran less than 80% of their train kilometres operated four years ago. TfW recorded 5.3m train kilometres between January and March 2023 – 90% of the amount between January and March 2019. It saw 22.5m between April 2022 and March 2023, which was 90% of the April 2019-March 2020 figure.
A spokesman for Transport for Wales said: “The latest ORR figures reflect the fundamental change in weekday travel patterns in Wales following the Covid-19 pandemic with fewer people commuting regularly than pre-March 2020. However TfW now has a larger share of leisure travellers compared to the wider rail industry with passengers using services for longer, occasional journeys rather than regular short-distance trips."
READ NEXT:
- The locations of dozens of new speed cameras throughout south Wales to be switched on within days
- Mum wakes to find burglar in her bedroom as her children slept
- Two arrested on suspicion of murder after man is found collapsed in lane
- 'Agitated' pub customer punched policeman to the ground
- Hour-by-hour Met Office weather forecast for Wales as heatwave to continue
