2024/5 has been a mostly successful year for tram and light rail systems in England with a 1% increase across all eight systems where figures are reported to the Department for Transport. But whilst the overall picture is a positive one it is a mixed bag with some systems seeing a rise in passenger with others having a fall. These figures are also the first time since 2007 that the two London systems do not account for at least 50% of the total numbers in England.
The eight systems which are included in these figures are Blackpool Tramway, Docklands Light Railway, London Trams, Manchester Metrolink, Nottingham Express Transit, South Yorkshire Supertram, Tyne and Wear Metro, and West Midlands Metro. The period under review is the 12 months up to the end of March 2025.
The big headline figure is that there were 231.2 million passenger journeys during the year – this is an increase of 1%. But included in that are some winners and some losers. The big winner is Manchester Metrolink which increased to 46.0 million passenger journeys, up from 42.0 million in 2024, a rise of 9.5%. This is the highest number of passengers ever carried on the network – even higher than pre-COVID levels.
West Midlands Metro (6%), Tyne and Wear Metro (4.9%), South Yorkshire Supertram (4.6%) and Nottingham Express Transit (1.3%) also saw rises in passenger numbers. For the West Midlands Metro these were their highest ever figures whilst the others are still behind where they were before COVID.
But as with everything, whilst some systems have done very well in the past 12 others have seen lower passenger numbers. Bottom of this list is London Trams who saw a 14% reduction (down to 17.2 million from 20.0 million) – the concern here is that this is an ongoing trend as numbers have now fallen by 40% since March 2019. The Blackpool Tramway also saw a fall in numbers (6.4% – down to 4.4 million. The third system to see a decline was the DLR with only the 97.8 million journeys (a fall of 1.1%), but it does still remain by the far the busiest network in the country.
Passenger journeys summary
| System | Passenger journeys 2024/5 | Passenger journeys 2023/4 | Percentage change |
| Blackpool Tramway | 4.4 million | 4.7 million | -6.4% |
| Docklands Light Railway | 97.8 million | 98.9 million | -1.1% |
| London Trams | 17.2 million | 20.0 million | -14% |
| Manchester Metrolink | 46.0 million | 42.0 million | 9.5% |
| Nottingham Express Transit | 15.7 million | 15.5 million | 1.3% |
| South Yorkshire Supertram | 9.1 million | 8.7 million | 4.6% |
| Tyne and Wear Metro | 32.2 million | 30.7 million | 4.9% |
| West Midlands Metro | 8.8 million | 8.3 million | 6% |
The figures for both the DLR and London Trams in 2024/5 are only an estimate owing to a security breach at TfL.
Whilst not part of the release, the figures for Edinburgh Trams are included in the tables and these show that 12.2 million journeys were recorded, a increase from 10.1 million in 2023/4.
The release from the DfT contains a lot more than just passenger journeys. This includes concessionary journeys, vehicle mileage (no system saw a fall in miles run), infrastructure including number of trams/trains (Blackpool sees a big decline here as no heritage vehicles are now included in their figures), revenue and number of people employed.
As its not possible for this article to include any kind of review of all these you are invited to head to the DfT website where you can take a look at all the data: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/light-rail-and-tram-statistics-england-year-ending-march-2025/light-rail-and-tram-statistics-england-year-ending-march-2025