In the first three months of 2011, rail passengers made around 5% more trips than in the same period one year ago. From January to March of 2011, 316 million journeys happened, which is a significant amount more than the number that took place in the snow-hit 2010.

In the entire 12-month period leading up to March 2011, there was a 6.6% increase in the number of rail journeys traveled.

Chief Executive of ATOC (Association of Train Operating Companies) Michael Roberts said to Simon Jack of BBC Breakfast that the price of petrol was a major factor in people deciding to go by train instead of paying for the fuel it would take to go in their cars. In fact, the ATOC official stated that they estimated 4.8% of the 5% rise happened because of the inflating cost of gas.

According to market research, this data means that around one in six travelers decided to switch from taking their cars to taking the train for at least one journey in February and March. This increase in figures show that even though the prices of railway tickets are going up faster than inflation, travel by train is still continuing to become more and more popular at the same rate as before the economy went into a recession.