Encouraging more travellers to choose rail should be a “national mission” that harnesses the collective power, skill and innovation within the industry.

That’s the primary message from a new White Paper commissioned by Trainline and published on February 21 as part of the I Came by Train campaign, launched last year to encourage more people to make sustainable travel choices and pledge to swap their journeys to rail.

“Sustainability can be rail’s secret weapon for creating growth,” said Trainline CEO Jody Ford.

“But to inspire travellers to choose rail, we must appeal to both their hearts and their heads. Creating a mass movement from car and air to rail should be a national mission, and that mission will succeed best through a coalition of activity that harnesses our collective power, skill and innovation.

“Trainline is passionate about sustainability, but collectively we all have work to do to address the public’s general lack of awareness about the green benefits of travelling by train.

“We want to work with the Government, the wider rail industry and the tech sector to address this gap in understanding, and to help make rail famous for being green.”

Reasonable by Rail, which analysed 250,000 journeys, shows that 75% of journeys are cheaper or faster using rail if tickets are booked in advance, and 64% would be cheaper still if a railcard is used.

Read this article in full in RAIL issue 978 here

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Author: Paul Stephen
Features Editor, RAIL
[email protected]
01733 468521

Joining RAIL trom an editorship at a renewable energy magazine, Paul plans the features for RAIL and writes both news and features across a number of disciplines. He also plans our regular supplements and contributes to RailReview.