Both diesel and electricity consumption on the railway reduced, largely because of fewer trains running across the network during the pandemic, resulting in lower CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions.
Diesel use by passenger trains fell in the last year to 354 million litres, which resulted in 977 kilotonnes of CO2e emissions in 2020-21 – a reduction of 26% on the previous year.
The amount of electricity used by passenger trains fell by 12% to 3.7 billion kilowatt hours (kWh).
This led to a 20% decrease in CO2e emissions attributed to electricity generation, from 1,087 kilotonnes in 2019-20 to 868 kilotonnes in 2020-21.
ORR’s data shows that since 2016-17 emissions from electricity usage have been lower compared with emissions from diesel use, despite increases in electricity usage across the rail network.
This is predominantly due to a transition towards renewable energy sources by the electricity sector in Great Britain.
For freight trains, there was a decrease in emissions with both diesel and electricity use falling.
Electricity use by freight trains fell by 9% compared with 2019-20, from 70 million kWh to 64 million kWh. This was the second lowest electricity figure for freight since 58 million kWh in 2016-17.
There was a slightly larger decrease in diesel consumption, which fell by 11% to 153 million litres.
Notes to editors
- ORR is the accredited primary provider of railway industry official statistics. We publish a range of statistics, including railway performance, rail usage (both passenger and freight) and safety. The trustworthiness, quality and value of our statistics are overseen by the UK Statistics Authority’s regulatory arm – the Office for Statistics Regulation.
- The full statistics release can be found on the ORR Data Portal.