It’s received scant publicity for the last few months but the Department for Transport has been publishing weekly statistics about public transport use during the pandemic.

Not surprisingly, transport use dropped dramatically during the first lockdown when a clear “Stay at Home” message was issued.

It was widely reported in October that railway passenger numbers had fallen to their lowest levels since mid-1800s.

Now we have a complete picture up to the end of the year and this is what the graph looks like:

Note: the figures are percentages of an equivalent day or week. The data for the last few days of the year are still provisional.

But there is a clear trend. Numbers fell to about 4% of normal levels of national rail use in April and May as the first lockdown led to people abiding by the advice to only use public transport for essential journeys.

Then numbers slowly picked up as I – and many others – started using the trains again when restrictions eased.

Further lockdowns led to another reduction in national rail travel and we end the year at about 20% of normal usage. Think how much lost revenue that means over the course of the last nine months.

The pandemic and the resulting fall in rail journeys have led to the introduction of emergency contracts, the scrapping of rail franchising and the reclassification by the Office for National Statistics of the railways as effectively renationalised.

So essentially it is now down to the Government to ensure the national railways are in a fit state to carry increased numbers of passengers when confidence returns.

But worringly there are signs that that confidence will be a long time coming.

A survey today suggests more than half of public transport users will continue to avoid trains and buses after the coronavirus crisis.

Whereas that is good news for people like me who are happy to use trains, it paints a dire scenario for the train operating companies and the Department for Transport who look likely to have to pick up the bill for continuing to run the railways for many years to come.

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

Let’s hope the health concerns can be addressed so that the environmental positives from train travel can be advocated once again.