Entries and exits in train stations in Great Britain 2023/24

From April 2023 to March 2024, London Liverpool Street was the busiest station in Great Britain, with close to 94.5 million people entering and exiting the station that year. London Paddington station came in second, with approximately 66.9 million people entering and exiting. During the same period, passengers in the UK traveled around 60.1 billion kilometers via national rail services.

Rail travel recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic

Before 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 a massive drop in ridership, rail still remained the second most used mode of transport in the country and has since returned to an 8.7 percent mode share. 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. In 2023/24, this figure had recovered to 1.6 billion.