Keolis UK grew passenger numbers across its light rail and tram networks in England by 5.7 million in the year to March 2019.
New figures from the Department for Transport (DfT) show that the Greater Manchester Metrolink achieved the highest passenger growth of all UK light rail networks in the year 2018/19. The Metrolink, which Keolis operates in a joint venture, saw a 6.1% increase from 42.4 million to 43.7 million journeys.
In Nottingham, growth of 5.7% took annual passenger journeys on the Nottingham Express Transit (NET) network from 17.8 million to 18.8 million.
And for another year the KeolisAmey-operated Docklands Light Railway (DLR) remained the most popular network in the country. With 121.8 million journeys during the period the DLR saw a 1.8% increase on the previous year.
Overall, the three Keolis-operated networks achieved a 3.19% increase in annual passenger journeys, compared with 1.95% across the eight major English networks.
Alistair Gordon, chief executive of Keolis UK, said:
“These figures serve as further proof that light rail continues to be a highly popular and growing mode of travel for the UK public.
“We’re particularly pleased to have achieved consistently high levels of customer satisfaction at the same time as growing passenger numbers year-on-year across all of our networks. This reflects the hard work of our dedicated local teams and our ongoing commitment to bring international best practice to our UK operations.”
The DfT collects light rail and tram statistics annually to help inform the development and monitoring of national light rail policy. The figures cover eight urban and primarily surface-running systems: DLR, London Tramlink, NET, Midland Metro, Sheffield Supertram, Tyne and Wear Metro, Greater Manchester Metrolink and Blackpool Tramway.
The full statistics can be found here.