Entries and exits in train stations in Great Britain 2020/21

From April 2020 to March 2021, Stratford (London) was the busiest station in Great Britain with close to 14 million people entering and exiting the station that year. The London Victoria station came in second with approximately 13.8 million people entering and exiting. During the same period, passengers in the UK traveled around 12.4 billion kilometers via national rail services.

Rail travel impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic

Prior to the pandemic, rail transportation in Great Britain accounted for around ten percent of all passenger transport. However, in 2020, passenger rail transport fell to under three percent in the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this massive drop in ridership, rail still remained the second most used mode of transport in the country—after cars, vans and taxis. In the 2020-21 fiscal year, the number of passenger journeys with UK’s National Rail only amounted to 388 million, a mere 22.3 percent of the 1.7 billion journeys reported in FY 2019-20.

Highspeed rail

The first highspeed rail project in the United Kingdom was High Speed 1 (HS1) or the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL)—a 108-kilometer-long railway linking the UK with mainland Europe. HS1 became fully operational on November 14, 2007, subsequently spurring the idea of a second highspeed link in the UK. After much discussion, public consultation, and assessment, the British Government confirmed in 2020 that the High Speed 2 (HS2) would move forward. The HS2 will serve London, Birmingham, Manchester, Crewe, and Wigan, together with two airports (MAN and BHX), and, at 86 billion U.S. dollars, is one of the most expensive rail projects in the world. In the fiscal year 2020-21, the government funding for the HS2 project amounted to more than 3.3 billion British pounds, the UK’s highest annual investment yet.