The number of rail passenger journeys completed without the need for a paper ticket to be issued has risen by more than five percentage points within the past two years
Heading into the busy Christmas travel season, the proportion of railway tickets issued digitally hit a new high of almost nine in ten last month.
As of summer 2024, about 81-82% of all tickets for UK railway journeys were “fulfilled as digital tickets”, according to government figures recently cited by Keir Mather, the Department for Transport’s by aviation, maritime and decarbonisation minister.
In September 2024, there was a jump to 84% and, in every month from then until October 2025, the figure has fallen somewhere between 84% and 86%.
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In November, however, the proportion reached a new high, with 87% of all train journeys completed using a wholly electronic ticket, and just 13% being issued in paper form.
This means that about seven in every eight rail tickets were provided digitally.
Most train companies began offering electronic ticket options in the 2010s and, in 2017, DfT ministers in the then-Conservative government set a target that, by the end of the following year, all customer journeys would come with at least the option of a digital ticket.
More recent developments backed by the government department include trials of a GPS-based ticketing system in which passengers’ location and journey is tracked and then charged for accordingly.
