It’s that time of the year when people look back over the last 12 months and look ahead to the next 12 months.

I’ve just looked at my post from last December in which I summarised 2020 and made some forecasts about 2021.

I wrote: “The promised return to normality next year has to be accompanied by a major campaign to promote the benefits of public transport.”

Well, the return to normality didn’t happen. Rail travel picked up when the lockdown restrictions were lifted but have fallen back again with the rise of the Omicron variant and the return of the “work from home if you can” guidance.

What recovery there has been in 2021 has, as I pointed out in my post in September, been led by leisure. Working patterns have changed – so too has the pattern of rail travel.

While Train Operating Companies did begin to push the benefits of train travel with the ‘Let’s get back on track’ campaign, the timing in late summer meant it never caught on enough before the autumn and winter waves of coronavirus led to a further slump in National Rail usage. The highs of 70% of pre-Covid levels achieved in October in early November fell to around 50% by mid-December, according to Department for Transport statistics.

And so what of the year ahead.

Expect the nationalisation of the railways to continue. It’s already been announced that ScotRail will be taken over by the Scottish Government next year and other key franchises are due to come to an end including the largest train operator Govia Thameslink Railway. GTR’s Emergency Recovery Measures Agreement (ERMA) was extended until 31 March 2022.

There’ll be a lot more from the Great British Railways Transition Team as the future shape of the railways begins to emerge. Indeed, 2022 will be a transition year as the old franchises continue to fall by the wayside and the path towards a new system of running and operating the railways becomes clearer.

Rail fares reform and payment for tickets are on the cards with pressure from politicians to ensure the changes keep up with technology as well as passenger demands.

We won’t have the previously traditional early January rail fares rise story after ministers pushed the increases back to March once again – something I wrote about in March this year. Yet fares will still rise by 3.8% although that is below the rate of inflation.

So there are some reasons to be optimistic about rail travel in 2022. I detect a focus on making sure the failures of privatisation won’t be repeated – let’s hope for a simpler and clearer system with passengers feeling the service is being run according to their needs.

But all the plans are dependent on the response to the pandemic. As with this year and last, coronavirus could overshadow all our plans.