Number of city rail commuters in England and Wales passes pre-Covid levels
The number of rail passengers travelling into cities in England and Wales has overtaken pre-Covid levels but changing work and travel patterns have eased overcrowding on the morning commute, official statistics show,Almost 1,9 million people took trains into cities on a typical weekday last autumn, the highest figure since the records were first collated in 2010,However, there were still about 13% fewer passengers arriving during the morning peak than in 2019, showing that the return to traditional nine-to-five office working remains some way off, despite recent pressure on staff from some firms,Arrivals into every station in London grew in the 12 months to autumn 2024, with particularly rapid growth at Paddington and Liverpool Street stations, both served by the Elizabeth line.
The data suggests that the line, fully opened in 2023, has taken the pressure off other trains, with overcrowding in the capital down from 2019 levels,Now busier trains into Birmingham are matching London for the squeeze on commuters, according to the Department for Transport,Five Thameslink and West Midland services were the most overcrowded, with the 7,30am Bedford to Three Bridges having an 184% load factor – or almost twice as many passengers as seats – when it reached London St Pancras,Southwestern and Chiltern services made up the rest of the top 10 most overcrowded trains recorded by the DfT.
The total number of people travelling into cities outside London remains below pre-pandemic levels, at about 660,000 daily arrivals compared with 730,000 in 2019.The DfT figures allow for standing capacity on many London commuter services, with almost one in four passengers standing on arrival in the morning.It found that average overcrowding – or “passengers in excess of capacity” – on midweek (Tuesday to Thursday) morning arrivals to the capital had increased slightly in the last 12 months to 1.6%, a figure now matched by Birmingham, with trains arriving at Bristol and Sheffield stations ranking as the next most crowded, after rapid growth in rail commuting last year.The DfT said that while directly equivalent statistics on crowding were not available, British rail passenger numbers appeared to be recovering faster than those in France, Germany or Italy, with growth of 9% last year compared with 5-7% in the three biggest EU economies.
Public transport campaigners heralded the figures as underlining the return of rail, after passenger numbers dropped to as little as 5% of pre-pandemic levels in 2020, followed by pay freezes and industrial unrest.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionBen Plowden, of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “Gloomy predictions for the future of rail at the time of the pandemic have proven wrong: rail is back in a big way, boosting our economy, keeping workers moving and saving our streets from gridlock.“The fact that passenger arrivals are up while overcrowding is down is partly due to the huge success of the Elizabeth line.With more bold projects like this we could transform cities and improve daily life for vast numbers of people.An expanded rail network combined with more affordable fares could really bring about a rail revolution.
”Rail fares are expected to continue to rise above inflation, however, as revenue is still significantly lower than before the pandemic, with more people travelling off-peak,The report noted that Southwestern, once the railway’s most lucrative commuter network, had roughly two-thirds of its previous demand, now concentrated from Tuesday to Thursday,A number of businesses in the City, including banks and hedge funds, have been pushing staff to return full-time to the office in recent months,However, recruitment firms say workers fear the impact on their wellbeing, as well as the cost of commuting,Hybrid working is now the standard mode for more than a quarter (28%) of working adults in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.
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Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed that Meta would spend hundreds of billions of dollars on developing artificial intelligence products in the near future and, to that end, construct a data center planned to be nearly the size of Manhattan.The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is among the large tech companies that have struck high-profile deals, and doled out multimillion-dollar pay packages to AI researchers in recent months – some as high as $100m – to fast-track work on machines that could outthink humans on many tasks, a concept known as “super-intelligence” or “artificial general intelligence”.Its first multi-gigawatt data center, dubbed Prometheus, is expected to come online in 2026, while another, called Hyperion, will be able to scale up to 5 gigawatts over the coming years, Zuckerberg said.“We’re building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” the billionaire CEO said
Internet-safe iPhone for children goes on sale for £99 a month
A neutered iPhone, stripped of web browsers and social media apps, is going on sale to parents worried about their children’s phone use, but the “peace and freedom” its creators promise will come at a steep price.The pared-back version of the top-selling handset, which will not allow internet searches, gaming or downloads of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and other social media, is being offered in the UK for £99 a month by a US company that wants children to “reconnect with real life, not just reduce screen time”.At more than double the price of a typical two-year iPhone contract, Sage Mobile, an iPhone 16 handset loaded with custom software, will be a pricey way to avoid online harms. But it reflects growing parental dilemmas over the best way to start their children’s digital lives.Research has shown children with problematic smartphone use are twice as likely to experience anxiety and almost three times as likely to experience depression compared with those whose use did not resemble addiction
WeTransfer says user content will not be used to train AI after backlash
The popular filesharing service WeTransfer has said user content will not be used to train artificial intelligence after a change in its service terms had triggered a public backlash.The company, which is regularly used by creative professionals to transfer their work online, had suggested in new terms that uploaded files could be used to “improve machine learning models”.The clause had previously said the service had a right to “reproduce, modify, distribute and publicly display” content, and the updated version caused confusion among users.A WeTransfer spokesperson said user content had never been used, even internally, to test or develop AI models and that “no specific kind of AI” was being considered for use by the Dutch company.The firm said: “There’s no change in how WeTransfer handles your content in practice
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Apple has signed a $500m deal with a US firm for rare earth magnets, essential for manufacturing electronics, after China curbed exports of the scarce, vital materials.The backing from one of the world’s most valuable companies comes after MP Materials, which operates the only US rare earths mine, last week agreed to a multibillion-dollar deal with the US Department of Defense that will see the Pentagon become its largest shareholder. Both deals are aimed at mitigating supply chain risks after China limited the outgoing supply of rare earths earlier this year in response to Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.The deal, announced on Tuesday, guarantees Apple a steady flow of rare earth magnets free from China – by far the world’s largest producer. For Apple, the cost to support US magnet production pales in comparison to the long-term risk that it could lose access entirely to the critical components, analysts said
Nothing Phone 3 review: a quirky, slick Android alternative
The Phone 3 is London-based Nothing’s latest attempt to get people to ditch Samsung or Apple phones for something a bit different, a little quirky and more fun.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.As the firm’s first high-end Android in several years, it has most of what you’d expect a flagship phone to have
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