Patronage hits new record in golden autumn for the railways

1923 total exceeded again after six years, but revenue yields still depressed

Growth in demand for rail travel took passenger numbers up by 6.3% to a new all-time record in the rolling year in 2025, according to National Rail Trends statistics published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR). The previous record, set in 2019, stood at 1,780.9m – a figure now exceeded in two successive quarters, reaching 1,812.2m during the autumn.

The total was 1.4% ahead of pre-Covid levels – though without the Elizabeth Line, there was still a shortfall of 10.4%.

The provisional figures cover the third quarter of fiscal year 2025/26, finishing at the end of December: across the network, 465.7m passenger journeys were made during the twelve weeks, up from 446.0m in 2024. Between them, they covered 16.7 billion passenger kilometres, 0.3% lower than last year, and paid a total of £3,055m in fares, 5.5% more than in 2024 in current prices.

Looking at demand by ticket type, advance tickets were up by 4.4%, taking sales 65% ahead of the pre-pandemic figure. Anytime peak and off-peak tickets were up by 5.0 and 3.6% respectively, leaving them 20.6% and 34.5% ahead of the pre-Covid figure. Season ticket holders made 1.9% more journeys than last year, but the 61.3m journeys were 60.3% below the 2019 figure.

Aside from the Elizabeth Line, services in London and South East moved ahead by 3.2% during the quarter, but this was once again the slowest growing sector. Between them, the operators carried 255.3m passengers in the twelve weeks, 14.9% below 2018/19. Amongst individual operators, West Midlands Trains saw the fastest growth on 4.9%, followed by GTR on 3.5%. South Eastern and South Western both saw small falls.

The Elizabeth Line carried 67.1 million passengers during the quarter, 6.0% up in the year, meaning that the line accounted for 14.9% of the national network’s patronage in the April to June quarter, second only to GTR’s 17.3%. The London Overground network saw a faster increase of 8.2%, meaning that demand is now 4.2% ahead of 2018/19 levels.

The long-distance InterCity sector saw demand increase by 3.4% compared with 2024, taking passenger numbers to 39.1 million, 4.9% above pre-Covid levels. The passenger kilometre figure was 1.3% ahead. Revenue on the InterCity services moved up 5.7% (2.2% after inflation), but remained 16.9% down on 2018/19 in real terms. LNER saw the largest growth, on 6.1%, followed by EMR on 4.7%. Great Western grew by 5.2% whilst Avanti West Coast inched ahead by 0.1%, whilst Cross Country saw no movement and Caledonian Sleeper was down by 2.1%.

Amongst the regional franchises, total patronage was 7.1% up on 2024, coming to within 5% of 2018/19 levels. Amongst individual TOCs, TfW led the pack, with growth of 13.1%. Close behind came Scotrail, advancing by 10.2%, whilst both Northern and Merseyrail saw patronage move up by almost 7.0%. TransPennine’s advance, meanwhile, slowed to 0.5%.

Amongst the non-franchised operators, Hull Trains saw the largest quarterly growth, of 4.4%, taking its total to a tad over 400,000, an astounding 89.5% above pre-pandemic levels. Fellow FirstGroup operation Lumo saw growth of 3.0% on its London-Edinburgh route. Arriva’s Grand Central operation saw a small 0.8% advance, which took it to 16.3% up on 2018/19. Competition from the Elizabeth Line still affected Heathrow Express, where patronage grew by 1.2% in the quarter. This left patronage on the premium route 28.1% below previous peaks, despite passenger throughput at the airport itself breaking more records.

Rolling year figures

The national totals for the twelve months ended 30 June show growth of 6.3% compared with 2024/25. The new record total was 1.3% up on the 2018/19 figure. Without the Elizabeth Line, the growth was 6.2% and passenger numbers remained 10.2% short of the 2018/19 figure. Passenger kilometres travelled were 5.4% higher at 63.9 billion, whilst passenger revenue grew by 8.7% to £11,939 million. Adjusted for inflation, revenue was 5.3% up on the year, but remained 12.1% below pre-pandemic earnings.

As in previous quarters, performance varied between the sectors. Patronage on the InterCity routes was 6.6% up on the year, and moved past the 2018/19 total by 5.8%, despite a real terms shortfall in revenue of 16.5%. Regional networks saw growth of 8.0% on the year coming to within 1.3% of full recovery. Passenger journeys in London and South East excluding the Elizabeth Line saw the slowest growth at 5.5%, leaving the commuter lines 14.1% below 2018/19 levels.

Comment

Back in the darkest days of the first lockdown in May 2020, in one of these articles, I was talking about the fact that rail patronage in the calendar year of 2019 was higher than the previous 1923 record of 1,772 million journeys. “When will we see that again?” I wondered.

Well, now we know the answer. It took six years, and here we are recording a new record high of 1,812 million. Almost worthy of the fanfares of Tchaikovsky’s synonymous overture, one might think.

And all this against the background of a still-stuttering economy, a shrinking labour market and static living standards – generally speaking, not a recipe for growth in any business that relies on derived demand.

The rises were not country-wide, though, and all those that did see growth experienced a much lower level of increase than in the previous two quarters. This time, only two TOCs – TfW and ScotRail – saw double digit rises. Overall, growth on franchised operations was restricted to 3.6%, whereas it was 6.9% on the TfL concessions and 4.4% on the open access routes.

We have previously noted the distinction between TOCs that traditionally relied on commuters, and the rest of the network. This remains stark: during the 2025 rolling year, four operators remained more than 15% below their pre-pandemic patronage – Merseyrail (26.0%), South Eastern (21.4%), South Western (20.5%), c2c (19.5%) and Chiltern (17.8%). Meanwhile, the Elizabeth Line continues to power ahead, growing by 6.7% during the year to 31 December, carrying a total of 254.7 million passengers, still well up on the original forecast.

The contrast with the long distance market is stark. The sector was ahead of its 2018/19 patronage for the third successive quarter and for the year to 31 December – still mainly driven by the operators on the East Coast and Midland Main Lines, LNER and EMR. LNER maintained its impressive growth record with an annual figure of 12.7%, taking the number to 29.3% ahead of its pre-Covid peak. Over on the Midland route to Sheffield and Nottingham, EMR’s growth was less spectacular, at 4.8%, but the total was 21.3% higher than the same quarter in 2019.

The other long distance operators remained short of full recovery in 2025: Avanti West Coast by 8.4% and Cross Country by 1.8%, despite its impressive 8.5% growth in the year to 31 December. Great Western moved to within 7.2% – though the 2018/19 figure included a share of suburban traffic later transferred to the Elizabeth Line.

Once again, though, the problem remains revenue. Despite impressive real terms annual growth of 5.3%, total income is still 12.1% short of the inflation-adjusted 2018/19 figure. In the InterCity sector, for example, patronage is now almost six% above pre-Covid levels, but revenue is still 16.5% behind after adjustment for inflation.

The network revenue per passenger kilometre (also known as “yield”) was 18.25p in 2025, compared with an inflation adjusted figure of 20.31p before the pandemic – that’s a shortfall of 10.2%, representing some £1.3 billion a year in lost revenue. In the InterCity sector, the shortfall is as much as 14.2%, with yields of 17.56p in 2025 compared with 20.3p in 2019 – the difference explained by a loss of first class revenue and the move towards discounted advance purchase fares.

It is good to be able to report on a record-breaking market performance, and it makes a pleasant change after so much grim news over the last few years, However, it would be idle to pretend that everything in the garden is lovely, and there are no problems ahead – especially in view of the uncertainties thrust upon us by President Trump and a new Middle East conflict, ongoing as I write. Those of us who are old enough to remember the oil shocks of the 1970s and the inflationary explosion that followed shudder at the thought of what might be to come. Meanwhile, though, rail managers can, I think, administer themselves a part on the back for the speed and extent of the recovery over the last five years.