Virgin Trains sees record increase in the number of passengers travelling between Edinburgh and London
There has been a record increase in the number of passengers travelling with Virgin Trains recently. This growth in the number of passengers has encouraged the train operator and it is now aiming for half of the travel market share by 2023. There has been 18 per cent annual increase in the number of passengers travelling between London and Edinburgh in June. With this, the train operator has 33 per cent share of the air and train travel market on the route, which is past the previous record of 32 per cent in June 2014.
Virgin Trains says it has seen strong growth in July and August as well. Moreover, the operator will include Azuma trains, the state-of-the-art vehicles, in its fleet. There has been a test run for the high-speed train on the east coast route between London to Edinburgh, which is the UK’s busiest domestic air route.
These figures for Virgin Trains coincide with the release of Transform Scotland report which reported historical shift in travel patterns. It was revealed that more passengers now prefer the land route compared with the air route.
Meanwhile, there has been an overall increase in the number of passengers commuting between Glasgow and Edinburgh to London, which includes both air and train travel. In total, 180,000 passengers travelled between London and both Edinburgh and Glasgow with Virgin Trains in June compared with 152,000 the year before.
“When we took over the east coast route, we set out ambitious plans to gain a 50 per cent market share between Edinburgh and London by 2023,”
said David Horne, managing director of the east coast.
“These figures show an encouraging start to that journey and confirm an historic shift in travel patterns towards train. Our customers have responded positively to the improvements in customer service and investment in new train interiors and additional services.”
