UK LIGHT RAIL PASSENGER FIGURES UP BY 4 PER CENT
General – Sunday 12th October 2008

Figures released in September – and which I somehow managed to miss at the time – show that passenger journeys on modern public transport light rail rose by 4% in 2007/8 in comparison with previous year. In total 186 million passenger journeys were made in the year up until 31st March 2008.

For the purposes of these figures the Blackpool & Fleetwood Tramway, Croydon Tramlink, Docklands Light Railway, Manchester Metrolink, Midland Metro, Nottingham Express Transit, South Yorkshire Supertram and Tyne and Wear Metro are included. The figures show that 35% of all light rail journeys are taken on the DLR with the Tyne and Wear Metro having 21%, Croydon 15%, Manchester 11%, South Yorkshire 8%, Nottingham 5%, Midland Metro 3% and Blackpool 2% (a pie chart showing this much clearer can be found on page 15 of the official DfT document which is available at the link at the end of this article.

Name	Date Opened	No. of Stops	Route Length (KM)	Staff	No. of Vehicles	Passenger KMs 07/08 (millions)	Passenger Boardings 07/08 (millions)
Tyne & Wear Metro	August 1980	60	78	673	102	313	39.8
Docklands Light Railway	July 1987	39	55	484	94	326	66.6
Manchester Metrolink	April 1992	37	42	329	34	210	20.0
South Yorkshire Supertram	March 1994	48	29	258	28	44	14.8
Midland Metro	May 1999	23	20	162	23	50	4.8
Croydon Tramlink	May 2000	38	28	216	26	141	27.2
Nottingham Express Transit	March 2004	23	14	185	16	44	10.2
Blackpool & Fleetwood Tramway	1885	121	18	106	78	9	2.9
Total		389	284	2413	401	1138	186.2

Of note is that in total 2,413 people were employed on tram and light rail systems in the UK. Before any one asks I have no idea where the number of vehicles figures came from as they don’t actually seem to match passenger trams on several of the systems.

* To read the full statistical document, which includes graphs and charts, follow the link below – it will open as a PDF document.

Source: Department for Transport