Research and analysis

Rail ticket types and journey purposes

Explores the rail ticket types that passengers use for different journey purposes in England.

• From: Department for Transport
• Published: 9 April 2025
• Last updated: 30 October 2025 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Exploring connections between rail ticket type and journey purpose

PDF, 951 KB, 86 pages

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Journey purpose by ticket type: data findings

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Details

This research explores the rail ticket types that passengers use for travel purposes in England. It includes insights on commuting behaviour and railcard use.

Findings from this research are from an on-train survey, completed by 6,151 passengers between September and October 2024.

The sample design used means findings are representative of passenger kilometres, actual distance completed, rather than the number of individual passenger journeys taken by rail.

Newer research into these topics formed part of the business travel survey 2025, released in September 2025.

Savanta carried out this research on behalf of the Department for Transport.

Published 9 April 2025

Last updated 30 October 2025 + show all updates

1. 30 October 2025

   Additional clarifying information added to help with interpretation of the results. The results of the report remain the same.

2. 9 April 2025

   First published.