Accredited official statistics

Rail passenger numbers and crowding on weekdays in major cities in England and Wales: 2020

Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics in several major cities in England and Wales during 2020.

• From: Department for Transport
• Published: 21 October 2021

Documents

Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics: 2020 report

PDF, 978 KB, 17 pages

Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics: 2020 tables

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Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics: infographic

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Details

COVID-19 impact

Passenger numbers, train capacity, and crowding were affected by COVID-19 during autumn 2020. Passenger numbers fell to historically low levels, the number of planned services was revised, and some operators ran longer trains to allow passengers to maintain social distancing.

This annual release typically presents statistics on 2 key crowding measures:

• the percentage of passengers standing
• passengers in excess of capacity (PiXC)

It would also provide a list of the 10 most overcrowded routes. However, the impact of COVID-19 meant that demand fell well below capacity levels for all services. As a result, since the values would all be zero, there is no reporting of overcrowding and passenger standing measures within this statistical release (although data tables capture 0% PiXC metric).

Capacity estimates are indicative as train operators had separate policies on social-distanced capacity.

Key findings

In autumn 2020, there were on average 453,603 daily passenger arrivals into major cities. This represents a decrease of 75% compared to autumn 2019 (1.8 million).

London remains the city with the highest rail passenger numbers with 10 times more passengers arriving across the day than Birmingham, the city with the second highest.

There was an 81% reduction of passenger arrivals during the AM peak (07:00 to 09:59) across all major cities, with passengers travelling at slightly different times of the day compared to years prior to COVID-19.

In London, 39% of daily arrivals were in the morning peak (a reduction from 55% in the previous year) reflecting a flattening of peak-demand due to a decrease in commuting trips

Indicative estimates suggest non-social distancing seating capacity decreased by 8% compared to autumn 2019. For September to December 2020 with 1 metre social distancing, capacity fell 56% on autumn 2019.

Background information on the rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics and how they are collected can be found in the notes and definitions.

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Published 21 October 2021