Train data shows Sydney opts to work from home on Mondays

Mondays have emerged as the most popular day, according to new data on train trips from Mathew Hounsell, a researcher at UTS’ transport research centre.

Across February this year there was an average of 942,367 tap-ons recorded on Mondays, lower than Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays – the most popular days for travel – when an average of a tick over a million taps are recorded through the rail network each day.

Friday is the second most popular day which Sydneysiders choose to avoid making train trips, with an average of 991,767 tap-ons recorded.

The result was not surprising to Mr Hounsell, who has been keeping tabs on the data.

“We always knew Mondays and Fridays were the days people liked to take off and that there was stronger patronage on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” he said.

“However, the data does show that Tuesday-Thursday came back with a higher level of patronage (post lockdowns) when compared to Monday and Friday.”

“There was a much bigger drop during the peak hours … the 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock people going to factories and those kinds of jobs, their patronage level has come back much stronger, but the 8 o’clock office jobs, they haven’t come back as much.”

Despite the lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic being a distant memory, train patronage still remains below what it was in 2020.

Tap-ons on Mondays are only 70 per cent of their pre-lockdown levels, compared to 75 per cent on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Despite Sydneysiders avoiding train travel on Mondays and Fridays, riding the train has almost returned to pre-2020 levels for weekends as people get out and about.

Data shows the biggest rebound is for trips into the city on Saturdays, where patronage has returned to 94 per cent of what it was in February 2020.

Despite the level of patronage still remaining below 2020 levels, Mr Hounsell says this does not indicate low demand, with a surge in train travellers experienced before the pandemic.

“Patronage had been growing strongly since 2016 up until 2019 and 2020,” Mr Hounsell said.

“We’re not coming back to the old days [when demand was low], we’re coming back to pretty strong growth.”