ACCORDING to a report from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), Scottish rail usage has fallen drastically over the last two years.

ORR, the independent economic and safety watchdog for railways in Britain, has published regional rail usage statistics for the last two years today (Thursday, February 17).

Travel from Scotland to other areas of the UK, and travel within Scotland, had risen steadily year-on-year before early 2020.

Unsurprisingly, this usage then dropped precipitously due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

From 2017 until 2019, passengers in the UK made some 97.8 million journeys a year by train. Since the pandemic hit, overall usage has fallen to 14.4 million from 2020 to 2021.

Analysis of data from the rail regulator found that the total number of journeys for Scotland was 15.6 million in 2020 and 2021 - 15.6 percent of the total 99.6 million journeys made in 2019-20.

The 14.2 million journeys within Scotland equate to 15.8 percent of the 89.7 million journeys made in 2019-20.

Scotland recorded 1.4 million journeys to or from other regions, the equivalent of 13.8 percent of the 9.8 million journeys made in 2019-20.

Previously ORR had published local station usage estimates which mirrors the fall in rail travel.

Numbers of passengers at Dumbarton Central fell by around 90 percent from pre-pandemic levels. In 2019-2020 the number of 'entries and exits' from the station was clocked at 718,088. The following year the figure was just 75,242.

Similarly at Clydebank, pre-pandemic 'entries and exits' from the station sat at 376,942. When Covid-19 arrived the figure fell to an estimated 49,338. 
ORR is the independent economic and safety regulator for Britain’s railways.