Yahoo Finance Rail commuters making slower return in London
Rail commuters are returning to London at a slower rate than the rest of the country, it emerged on Monday.
Passenger numbers are only at 41 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, compared with 54 per cent outside the capital, according to the Rail Delivery Group.
It estimates this is having a knock-on impact of depriving the London economy of £2.3bn in train passenger spending on food and drink, shopping and entertainment.
But there was better news on Tube and bus travel, with Transport for London saying the Underground was running at 80 per cent of normal at times last weekend.
On Sunday the Tube was at 73.3 per cent of normal, up 0.3 points on the previous Sunday, though Saturday’s numbers were down a fraction on a week earlier.
Between Wednesday and Friday last week, rates were around 60 per cent of pre-pandemic.
On the buses, weekday passenger numbers at the end of last week were 73 per cent of normal, increasing to 79 per cent at the weekend.
The Rail Delivery Group said the so-called “London lag” in the return of train commuters would make it harder for shops and restaurants to reopen.
Train commuters spend on average £12 on food and drink, £8 on shopping and £6 on entertainment and culture for each journey.
Pre-pandemic, this totalled an estimated £16.7bn a year in London, but currently stands at £6.8bn, according to research by WPI Economics for the Rail Delivery Group.
If commuting levels into London matched other regions, the capital’s hospitality sector would stand to gain an estimated £43.5m every week, adding up to £2.3bn over a year, it said.
Andy Bagnall, director general of the Rail Delivery Group, said: “Train companies are doing their bit to deliver a national recovery, including continuing to help passengers travel with confidence by ensuring trains are clean and well ventilated and introducing innovations like part time season tickets.
“Closing the gap between commuting in London and elsewhere will help level up the country rather than levelling down the capital.”
Figures from the Office of Road and Rail earlier this month revealed that train journeys across the wider South East, including London, were at 42 per cent of pre-pandemic levels between April and June.
The London and South East sector recorded 127 million journeys – compared with 301 million journeys in the same quarter two years ago.
London Overground (55.9 per cent) recorded the highest relative usage this quarter with TfL Rail (53 per cent) and c2c (48.2 per cent) also recording around half of the journeys made in the first quarter of 2019. By contrast, Chiltern Railways was at 34.5 per cent.
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