THE quarterly passenger usage statistics published by the Office for Rail and Road (ORR) on March 16, reveal the continuing weakness in demand for rail services in the period between October 1, and December 31, 2022.
A comparison is made with statistics for the same quarter three years ago, which was last period unaffected by the Covid pandemic, before travel restrictions were applied from March 2020 when lockdowns were first introduced.
A total of 369 million journeys were made in the period covered. This was 80% of the 461 million journeys made three years earlier, but this would certainly have been higher had it not been for nine strike days called by the RMT union and two by the drivers’ union ASLEF. In addition, there was a strike by ScotRail RMT staff between October 10 and 29, 2022.
The strikes did not affect all operators but the lack of signallers meant complete service cancellations on routes with traditional signalling, and operations restricted to a 12-hour shift for lines controlled by the centralised Rail Operating
