SOUTH Western Railway (SWR) must drop its “discredited” plans to slash hundreds of services, transport union RMT says.

The union has revealed that market research underpinning the proposed cuts was undertaken at the height of the coronavirus pandemic – when most people were instructed not to travel – and that a detailed study by Network Rail indicating the need to increase services was ignored.

RMT says that franchisee SWR commissioned three separate pieces of market research, all conducted between May 2020 and January this year, when the government was specifically instructing passengers to avoid rail travel if possible.