The proportion of people traveling by train with seasonal tickets has fallen to the lowest level since records began.
Just 13% of journeys in Britain were made using tickets in the year to the end of March – down from more than a third in the year before Covid-19 pandemic.
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said “changes in travel patterns” were the reason for the fall, amid a sharp rise in the number of people working from home full-time or several days a week.
Ascending ticket prices and complaints about the reliability of rail services were also blamed.
Seasonal tickets can offer passengers better value for money if they travel on a service five days a week – but a growing number no longer do so.
They include Ashley Holmes, 40, who used to commute from her home in the Hampshire town of Fleet to London.
However, since the pandemic, he now works from home part of the week.
The digital designer told Sky News: “Annual season tickets are very expensive. Mine was around £3,500 – it’s currently around £5,000.
“Now I go to the office three days a week, which still costs a good portion of my monthly salary. It’s a little cheaper, though.”
Mr Holmes added: “I wouldn’t mind too much, but the train service I use it often and it’s unreliable, and sometimes it’s tight and uncomfortable.”
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The ORR said a total of 1.6 billion train journeys were made in the 12 months to the end of March – a 16% increase on the previous year.
However, it stated that the 13% of trips made using season tickets – down from 17% in 2021/22 and 15% in 2022/23 – was the lowest since such records began in 1987.
The rail industry has historically depended on many passengers – especially in the south-east of England – who purchased expensive annual tickets for a large proportion of their total revenue.
Railway companies have been trying to reverse the downward trend in recent years, notably by introducing flexible ticket lanes for passengers who no longer travel five days a week.
However, take-up has been minimal and the packages have also been criticized for offering little or no extra savings.
A change in the law introduced earlier this year has made it easier for employees to request flexible working, and employers are increasingly offering alternative solutions in an attempt to attract new, talented employees.
Last year, more than a third of employers reported an increase in staff working from homewith cost of living pressures putting even more pressure on the price of daily travel.
However, changing working patterns have caused difficulties for some companies.
The editors of the Evening Standard newspaper announced last month that it would discard your daily print edition amid “substantial losses”, in part because readership declined as more people worked from home.
The ORR also revealed that in the year to the end of March, rail passenger revenue was £10.3 billion – down from £12.7 billion in 2019/20 before COVID-19 – despite of the total number of trips made have recovered to 93%. .
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
