Urban rail in the United Kingdom

Urban rail, commuter rail, regional rail, or suburban rail plays a key role in public transport in many of the United Kingdom's major cities. Urban rail is defined as a rail service between a central business district and suburbs or other locations that draw large numbers of people on a daily basis. The trains providing such services may be termed commuter trains.

Unlike light rail, urban rail is classed as heavy rail, operating on lines shared with other passenger and freight trains with networks often larger than those of light rail. The infrastructure in Great Britain is owned by Network Rail, and stations served by one urban rail network may be managed by different train companies. In Northern Ireland NI Railways have responsibility for both the infrastructure and operations.

As urban rail networks are part of the wider rail network, there is often easy interchange with mainline rail, rail cards being accepted. Cycles can be taken on board in the majority of cases, and existing railways can be used, rather than new light railways being built.

Unlike most light rail systems, only one ticket needs to be bought if a journey includes both mainline and urban rail. Urban rail usually has higher capacity than light rail because of longer trains (but often lower frequency), and higher average speed because of fewer stops.

In some cases, suburban railway networks have their own ticketing system, like in West Yorkshire.

A few urban railways offer service during peak times only, and others operate less frequent trains during the evenings and on Sundays.

Networks often encompass a few major stations in a large city, with other stations being medium or minor. Services can be provided by one train operating company operating exclusively on an urban rail network, such as in Merseyside, or by a company that also operates regional and national services, like in Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

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