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Railways: Trespass

Asked by Laurence TurnerLabourDepartment for TransportTabled Answered 21 May 2026UIN 689

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many passenger rail delay minutes were attributed to trespassers in each year from 2020/21 to 2025/26.

Answered by Keir Mather

The British Transport Police work in collaboration with the rail industry to minimise disruption to the network following a trespass incident. Their activity includes innovative new tactics such as the deployment of Beyond Visual Line of Sight drones, which provide early situational awareness to support officers on the ground and inform decision-making at live incidents so the railway can reopen as quickly as possible.

The table below summarises delay minutes attributed to trespass (excluding fatalities) in the years 2020/21 to 2025/26.

Table: delay minutes and incidents attributed to trespass, total delay minutes and trespass delay minutes as a share of total delay minutes, Great Britain, 2020/21 to 2025/26

Financial Year

Trespass delay Minutes1

Incident Count1

Total Network delay minutes2

Trespass delay minutes as a share of total delay minutes2

2020/21

388,444

9,409

6,744,325

6%

2021/22

561,702

11,547

10,484,576

5%

2022/23

718,916

11,574

13,730,898

5%

2023/24

864,867

12,712

15,496,138

6%

2024/25

1,120,521

13,588

15,989,802

7%

2025/26

1,148,914

13,902

16,756,962

7%

Notes: 2020/21 to 2022/23 were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic

Source:

1 Network Rail

2 ORR Table 3184 - Delay minutes by operator and cause (periodic) | ORR Data Portal

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