What situation would the railways be in today and the near future if Covid had never happened?

[PTR 444]

It is now two years since Covid-19 has been in existence, and as we know it has caused unimaginable havoc on our railways, bringing an abrupt halt to a trend of growing passenger numbers over the last 20-25 years and uncertainty as to whether they will ever fully recover. The drop in March 2020 was immense, and it must make some people wonder where we might be now if we somehow managed to keep Covid fully away from our National borders? The biggest question is with assumed continual growth, would we have been worrying about the existential threat remote working and electric, driverless cars might have on the railway years from now?

While working from home has been a massive factor in keeping passengers away from public transport, I suspect even if the pandemic hadn’t had happened, there would still have a gradual drop as a result of this since some companies were already implementing remote working and there was encouragement by the government for more to do so. This is evidenced by passenger numbers at London Waterloo, which peaked at 99.403 million in 2016-17 but dropped to 94.354 million in 2017-18 and have remained below that level ever since. This might show that remote working has had an impact, but it is only a gradual drop and without Covid might have taken a decade or two to get to the situation we are in today, compared to the dramatic cliff-drop which only happened two years ago and slow recovery which is still ongoing now.

 

[philosopher]

It is now two years since Covid-19 has been in existence, and as we know it has caused unimaginable havoc on our railways, bringing an abrupt halt to a trend of growing passenger numbers over the last 20-25 years and uncertainty as to whether they will ever fully recover. The drop in March 2020 was immense, and it must make some people wonder where we might be now if we somehow managed to keep Covid fully away from our National borders? The biggest question is with assumed continual growth, would we have been worrying about the existential threat remote working and electric, driverless cars might have on the railway years from now?

While working from home has been a massive factor in keeping passengers away from public transport, I suspect even if the pandemic hadn’t had happened, there would still have a gradual drop as a result of this since some companies were already implementing remote working and there was encouragement by the government for more to do so. This is evidenced by passenger numbers at London Waterloo, which peaked at 99.403 million in 2016-17 but dropped to 94.354 million in 2017-18 and have remained below that level ever since. This might show that remote working has had an impact, but it is only a gradual drop and without Covid might have taken a decade or two to get to the situation we are in today, compared to the dramatic cliff-drop which only happened two years ago and slow recovery which is still ongoing now.

My guess is that passenger growth would have slowed down in the first half of this decade and plateaued in the second half of this decade. I agree there was a shift to more stuff being done online such as remote work, online shopping and online entertainments which have led to fewer trips per person even without Covid. However I think this trend without Covid would have been very gradual and so would have been countered by population growth and the increase in jobs in city centres where rail commuting tends to more common.