UK Rail Passenger Numbers Discussion

[Taunton]

I tend to agree. London is definitely an exception, and a large one at that.

I do get the impression with other business contacts that, outside Central London, things are back to five days a week in the office, to and fro by car. It's the public transport dominant London locations that have hung on to working at home for many or most days. It's a notable commentary about how people feel about the relative merits of both forms of lifestyle. One of my business contacts in the City had for years commuted daily from Basingstoke. From 2020 I've never seen them physically, always on Teams.

 

[Bald Rick]

I do get the impression with other business contacts that, outside Central London, things are back to five days a week in the office, to and fro by car.

That’s not the impression I get from my non railway, provincially living, office working friends. If anything they are in the office less than my London based friends.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Curtailing at Luton doesn’t actually save much money, and loses a lot more in revenue than the costs saved. It’s also not really possible in the timetable. However there’s plenty of other options available for Thameslinkand the wider GTR operation.

Interesting that it loses revenue given EMR are abstracting the Bedford traffic already off GTR although that is irrelevant in the grander scheme of things now of course but the service offering needs to be optimised around balancing the cost of providing that service and maximising revenue generation.

I also appreciate its not an overnight option but my novice amateur train planning assessment is it saves 2 700/1 diagrams although what you would do with surplus units im not so sure.

 

[Jozhua]

Talking to some people who work down in London and overhearing conversations on the train, generally seems like those who have the option of hybrid are moving further out of London and doing fewer longer trips, so they can get a foot on the housing ladder.

Lots of people taking advantage of hybrid to start working in cities they live a fair distance away from (mainly London). I have a feeling this is why LNER and EMR have recovered so well. I work in London periodically and the frequency with which I do this will probably increase as time goes on.

80% of 2019 levels would still be pretty significant and probably get us to something like 2012? However, issues around reliability and capacity on certain routes need to be resolved to recover further.

I don't know the actual figures, but it seems there are fewer commuters on the Swansea to Carmarthen route than pre-covid, but off peak trains seem busier. Is this the general pattern elsewhere?

Absolutely

Except that they can't always walk away and find an alternative mode.

For non-motorists, rail is often the only viable alternative for medium - long distance journeys.

This is very true!

 

[Bald Rick]

I also appreciate its not an overnight option but my novice amateur train planning assessment is it saves 2 700/1 diagrams although what you would do with surplus units im not so sure.

Halving the frequency at Leagrave, Harrington and Flitwick (currently around 3m passengers a year, 4m Pre Covid) would lose sufficient custom To make that worth several £million a year. The main issue though is that it doesn’t save much crew, as they’d mostly have to pass to / from Bedford.

I have a feeling this is why LNER and EMR have recovered so well.

EMRs recovery is mostly about the doubling of the Corby service, and the transfer (in ORCATs terms at least) of passengers from Thameslink.

 

[dk1]

EMRs recovery is mostly about the doubling of the Corby service, and the transfer (in ORCATs terms at least) of passengers from Thameslink.

Completely that. Not sure what others thought EMR had done otherwise.

 

[PGAT]

Halving the frequency at Leagrave, Harrington and Flitwick (currently around 3m passengers a year, 4m Pre Covid) would lose sufficient custom To make that worth several £million a year. The main issue though is that it doesn’t save much crew, as they’d mostly have to pass to / from Bedford.

And it would reduce terminating capacity at Luton for the peak Orpington services and late night Sutton loop line trains.

 

[LowLevel]

Completely that. Not sure what others thought EMR had done otherwise.

The Intercity trains are pretty busy throughout the day really, the 5 car 222s are a pain in the proverbial.

Regional side also busy but then that as a proportion of carriages operated isn't that high and of course it's been short of stock forever anyway.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Halving the frequency at Leagrave, Harrington and Flitwick (currently around 3m passengers a year, 4m Pre Covid) would lose sufficient custom To make that worth several £million a year. The main issue though is that it doesn’t save much crew, as they’d mostly have to pass to / from Bedford.

Fair enough knew Leagrave was busy although Harlington isn't anyhow is there recognised process to demonstrate to DfT why they shouldn't just take a hatchet to service frequency? Also i firmly believe DfT taking revenue risk is not giving the industry best outcome.

 

[Killingworth]

That’s not the impression I get from my non railway, provincially living, office working friends. If anything they are in the office less than my London based friends.

I drove past my old office block in Sheffield last week. When I worked there the car park was full and roads all around were jam packed. Not any more. I gather a significant number are now working from home.

Across the nation we're seeing some very busy trains. Rail travel characteristics have changed. Many of those previously busy commuter trains are far more lightly used today.

The Hope Valley line has had a few mentions. Pre-Covid there were many white collar commuters from Sheffield to Manchester, many with season tickets. When TPE failed to send out a 6 car train there could be standing first class passengers. Not any more. The combined effect of Covid and dire TPE performance has probably reduced that commuter market down to about 30/40% of what it once was - on good days. Recovery is possible with a reliable service but I'd not expect that to gather momentum until the strikes are over and the current engineering work is completed to remove bottlenecks. Maybe 60% of pre-Covid might be achievable by 2025/26.

For leisure the future is much brighter, particularly for Northern's stopping service. From this month all Northern trains are to stop at all stations every hour. No more being stranded at Edale for 3 hours when one train is cancelled, only to watch 3 trains an hour flash by without stopping! What's more they should all have at least 3 coaches and this will help to boost traffic to and from the Hope Valley. (Operating 3 car 195s instead of 4 car 15x combinations should help revenue protection. Many will deliberately join the front half of a 4 car 15x to avoid payment.)

Of course ticket pricing plays a part. An Advance single between Sheffield (or Dore) and Manchester on Northern, without Railcard, can cost as little as £4.70 (travelling on 25th January). It costs more the nearer to the date of departure, e.g on 29th December 'fast' trains taking between 59 and 77 minutes might cost £24 against a stopper taking 78 minutes for £9.50. Somewhat naturally some commuters currently take the time hit and enjoy a more reliable and cheaper ride. Increasing numbers of end to end leisure users are doing the same. TPE, especially, and EMR may not get a lot of them back. (Subject for another thread but the rationale for a 3rd hourly fast service on this route seems to have gone at present - in favour of a second slow/semi-fast stopper!)

Consequently total passenger numbers on Northern trains are up, but overall line revenue will be substantially down.

Looking at the recently released passenger numbers for Hope Valley stations there's reason to be optimistic. All stations have recovered fairly well since 2020-21, previously Manchester commuter dominated Dore worst of all. 3 stations set records with increases over previous highs in 2019-20. I can believe that for Edale and Bamford, but Grindleford really stands out - 46% up on 2019-20?

Split ticketing! It's now well known that Grindleford may be a good place to split. Whether that will continue we can't know. I recently heard a Hathersage resident describe how he and his wife had gone down to Cornwall with about 40 split tickets between them. Apparently Dore was the first/last place to split on that particular journey.

I pose a question. The user above buys 40 tickets for 2 people to make a return journey averaging 10 tickets each for an end to end one way trip instead of 1, or possibly 2 tickets. Is the fairly recent fashion for splitting tickets making the numbers of passengers look higher, and the length of journeys look shorter?

Are we drawing over optimistic impressions of rail passenger recovery? Are we counting the same passengers multiple times for what are essentially single longer distance trips?

 

[yorksrob]

Curtailing at Luton doesn’t actually save much money, and loses a lot more in revenue than the costs saved. It’s also not really possible in the timetable. However there’s plenty of other options available for Thameslinkand the wider GTR operation.




That’s exactly what the TL timetable is, north of the river at least.




I tend to agree. London is definitely an exception, and a large one at that.




That’s not correct. The type of passengers that have ‘rebounded’ the most are short distance leisure/off peak traffic. That’s well above Pre Covid levels, and the Rebound is nationwide including London (which has a much higher base, so the rebound affects the total figure disproportionately)

Long distance leisure /off peak traffic is below Pre covid, and has never been above it (since covid, obviously) There is wide variation between individual lines of route, naturally.

EMR, Hull Trains, Grand Central, EMR are rebounding, suggesting long distance leisure travel is (let's face it, it's not long distance business travel that is).

Perhaps the poor performance of XC, Avanti and TPE is skewing the picture.

 

[RPI]

EMR, Hull Trains, Grand Central, EMR are rebounding, suggesting long distance leisure travel is (let's face it, it's not long distance business travel that is).

Perhaps the poor performance of XC, Avanti and TPE is skewing the picture.

I'd say so, the Paddington to West of England services are generally very well loaded still, admittedly this is mostly leisure travellers.

 

[OrangeJuice]

Split ticketing! It's now well known that Grindleford may be a good place to split. Whether that will continue we can't know. I recently heard a Hathersage resident describe how he and his wife had gone down to Cornwall with about 40 split tickets between them. Apparently Dore was the first/last place to split on that particular journey.

Are we drawing over optimistic impressions of rail passenger recovery? Are we counting the same passengers multiple times for what are essentially single longer distance trips?

This was my question from a while ago when I commonly used split tickets on XC for peak/off peak journeys. However, the average punter probably isn't aware of how much they can save by using split ticketing sites. Admittedly since Trainline started doing split save this is increasing the usage and knowledge of splitting so that may have some impact. I'm not sure how we could reliably see the impacts as I don't think the fares data is available for that.

 

[yorksrob]

I'd say so, the Paddington to West of England services are generally very well loaded still, admittedly this is mostly leisure travellers.

Yes, that doesn't surprise me at all.

 

[Bald Rick]

anyhow is there recognised process to demonstrate to DfT why they shouldn't just take a hatchet to service frequency?

There is, it’s the Annual Business Plan process, and the TOCs are right in the middle of it.

EMR, Hull Trains, Grand Central, EMR are rebounding, suggesting long distance leisure travel is

EMR rebounding well because you’re counting them twice?

 

[yorksrob]

There is, it’s the Annual Business Plan process, and the TOCs are right in the middle of it.




EMR rebounding well because you’re counting them twice?

Comparatively speaking, yes, it's in the right bit of the graphs.

Particularly for a company that's had its flagship train fleet taken away

 

[baz962]

Comparatively speaking, yes, it's in the right bit of the graphs.

Particularly for a company that's had its flagship train fleet taken away

It's not just the Corby service or because EMR are poaching Thameslink customers either. Those St pancras to Nottingham/Sheffield trains are quite often packed. I couldn't get a seat on a ten car a couple of weeks ago and it wasn't a strike day .

 

[yorksrob]

It's not just the Corby service or because EMR are poaching Thameslink customers either. Those St pancras to Nottingham/Sheffield trains are quite often packed. I couldn't get a seat on a ten car a couple of weeks ago and it wasn't a strike day .

Yes, I've experienced some very busy London - Sheffield services over the past couple of years.

 

[tbtc]

EMR, Hull Trains, Grand Central, EMR are rebounding, suggesting long distance leisure travel is (let's face it, it's not long distance business travel that is).

Perhaps the poor performance of XC, Avanti and TPE is skewing the picture.

As has been pointed out a few times, EMR are doing well because they are running longer and more frequent EMUs on the Corby service (making them more attractive to the Bedford/ Luton/ Airport passengers, certainly compared to the four coach DMUs that only ran hourly)

Part of the other EMR figures may be improved by the two/ three coach 170s replacing the single 153s/ two coach 156s on series inside the East Midlands - given the pent up demand caused by the regrettable decision to chop two coach 155s into single coach units back in the 1980s - Obviously that was back in the dark day of public sector control when cuts were being made to the Provincial network, unlike nowadays when… oh!

If you want to spin that as a “long distance leisure travel” boom then fair enough but you might as well claim that it’s because the swanky 180s are much more popular than the life expired HSTs if we are going to disingenuously cherry pick data!

Hull Trains/ GC are a handful of services a day, essentially a rounding error when compared to full franchises , not something I’d base any concrete plans on

Again though, you’re pointing out that more “long distance” TOCs are underperforming (whilst only one true long distance TOC is doing well) and coming up with the answer that there must be a long distance leisure boom, it’s just that somehow more long distance TOCs aren’t following that pattern!

 

[yorksrob]

As has been pointed out a few times, EMR are doing well because they are running longer and more frequent EMUs on the Corby service (making them more attractive to the Bedford/ Luton/ Airport passengers, certainly compared to the four coach DMUs that only ran hourly)

Part of the other EMR figures may be improved by the two/ three coach 170s replacing the single 153s/ two coach 156s on series inside the East Midlands - given the pent up demand caused by the regrettable decision to chop two coach 155s into single coach units back in the 1980s - Obviously that was back in the dark day of public sector control when cuts were being made to the Provincial network, unlike nowadays when… oh!

If you want to spin that as a “long distance leisure travel” boom then fair enough but you might as well claim that it’s because the swanky 180s are much more popular than the life expired HSTs if we are going to disingenuously cherry pick data!

Hull Trains/ GC are a handful of services a day, essentially a rounding error when compared to full franchises , not something I’d base any concrete plans on

Again though, you’re pointing out that more “long distance” TOCs are underperforming (whilst only one true long distance TOC is doing well) and coming up with the answer that there must be a long distance leisure boom, it’s just that somehow more long distance TOCs aren’t following that pattern!

EMR's regional service is still a bit ropey, and if anything will likely be pulling its statistics in the opposite direction.

I think some on here are taking the figures for a few very poorly performing long distance TOC's and trying to manufacture an argument that there isn't a resurgent demand for long distance leisure travel

 

[43074]

If you want to spin that as a “long distance leisure travel” boom then fair enough but you might as well claim that it’s because the swanky 180s are much more popular than the life expired HSTs if we are going to disingenuously cherry pick data!

You've been debunked on this before, there is a leisure travel boom. And not just on the Whitby branch, but certain flows like London to Edinburgh are doing very well.

 

[stuu]

I'd say so, the Paddington to West of England services are generally very well loaded still, admittedly this is mostly leisure travellers.

The ones I have been on midweek in the last couple of months haven't been. I have done Taunton to London return at least 8 times since the middle of October and I only had someone sitting next to me between Reading and London. One time there were only about 5 people on the carriage leaving Taunton.

In the past there would be people standing in the aisles to Reading in the evenings, I haven't seen that at all

 

[Stephen42]

This was my question from a while ago when I commonly used split tickets on XC for peak/off peak journeys. However, the average punter probably isn't aware of how much they can save by using split ticketing sites. Admittedly since Trainline started doing split save this is increasing the usage and knowledge of splitting so that may have some impact. I'm not sure how we could reliably see the impacts as I don't think the fares data is available for that.

Yes it's hard to tell from the publicly available data, particular as longer distance journeys will have different recovery to shorter ones. As part of the graph in post 206 I checked my version of the ORR graph looked the same so have included the table of percentage change in journeys (by tickets) and change in passenger km comparing July-Sep 2022 to 2019.

​

Avanti​

c2c​

CS​

Chiltern​

CrossCountry​

East Mids​

GTR​

GWR​

GA​

LNER​

LO​

Merseyrail​

NT​

ScotRail​

SWR​

SE​

TfW​

TPE​

WMT​

GC​

HX​

HT​

Total​

​

Elizabeth line​

Passenger Journey Change​

-35.5%​

-29.8%​

-24.7%​

-31.9%​

-31.8%​

-0.1%​

-28.9%​

-24.3%​

-22.5%​

5.7%​

-17.1%​

-13.3%​

-26.9%​

-33.0%​

-33.6%​

-34.4%​

-28.3%​

-36.2%​

-28.6%​

7.9%​

-30.1%​

2.0%​

-19.7%​

​

226.4%​

Passenger Km Change​

-38.2%​

-35.8%​

-24.2%​

-33.9%​

-35.7%​

-4.7%​

-26.6%​

-13.5%​

-26.8%​

-2.9%​

-15.5%​

-15.8%​

-17.6%​

-28.6%​

-30.4%​

-30.6%​

-17.7%​

-33.1%​

-27.8%​

5.9%​

-26.8%​

-2.0%​

-22.6%​

​

118.5%​

London Overground the passenger km is unlikely to be due to split tickets and GWR will be impacted by transfer to Elizabeth line. Some operators the difference could be partially be splits and the ORR publication makes clear that split tickets aren't accounted for in how the passenger journey change is calculated.

 

[Bald Rick]

Yes it's hard to tell from the publicly available data, particular as longer distance journeys will have different recovery to shorter ones. As part of the graph in post 206 I checked my version of the ORR graph looked the same so have included the table of percentage change in journeys (by tickets) and change in passenger km comparing July-Sep 2022 to 2019.

​

Avanti​

c2c​

CS​

Chiltern​

CrossCountry​

East Mids​

GTR​

GWR​

GA​

LNER​

LO​

Merseyrail​

NT​

ScotRail​

SWR​

SE​

TfW​

TPE​

WMT​

GC​

HX​

HT​

Total​

​

Elizabeth line​

Passenger Journey Change​

-35.5%​

-29.8%​

-24.7%​

-31.9%​

-31.8%​

-0.1%​

-28.9%​

-24.3%​

-22.5%​

5.7%​

-17.1%​

-13.3%​

-26.9%​

-33.0%​

-33.6%​

-34.4%​

-28.3%​

-36.2%​

-28.6%​

7.9%​

-30.1%​

2.0%​

-19.7%​

​

226.4%​

Passenger Km Change​

-38.2%​

-35.8%​

-24.2%​

-33.9%​

-35.7%​

-4.7%​

-26.6%​

-13.5%​

-26.8%​

-2.9%​

-15.5%​

-15.8%​

-17.6%​

-28.6%​

-30.4%​

-30.6%​

-17.7%​

-33.1%​

-27.8%​

5.9%​

-26.8%​

-2.0%​

-22.6%​

​

118.5%​

London Overground the passenger km is unlikely to be due to split tickets and GWR will be impacted by transfer to Elizabeth line. Some operators the difference could be partially be splits and the ORR publication makes clear that split tickets aren't accounted for in how the passenger journey change is calculated.

That table is good evidence that whilst leisure travel is now above Pre covid levels, short distance is performing much better than long distance. (As passenger km is is down for most TOCs. The outlier - GWR - is explained by their suburban London market has been transferred to the EL.

 

[yorksrob]

That table is good evidence that whilst leisure travel is now above Pre covid levels, short distance is performing much better than long distance. (As passenger km is is down for most TOCs. The outlier - GWR - is explained by their suburban London market has been transferred to the EL.

But the passenger km is down by a far smaller extent on the well performing long distance TOC's than on the others.

 

[stuu]

If passenger journeys are down by less than passenger km, then average journeys have got shorter

 

[tbtc]

The type of passengers that have ‘rebounded’ the most are short distance leisure/off peak traffic. That’s well above Pre Covid levels

Long distance leisure /off peak traffic is below Pre covid, and has never been above it (since covid, obviously) There is wide variation between individual lines of route, naturally.

You've been debunked on this before, there is a leisure travel boom. And not just on the Whitby branch, but certain flows like London to Edinburgh are doing very well

Certain flows are doing well, on a very uneven national pattern, of course, but I prefer to listen to the experts (e.g. @Bald Rick ’s quotes above) rather than the enthusiasts making claims that they’d like to believe in

Given the thousands of flows, it’s always going to be possible to point to selected data as beating the average, but we seem to be focusing too much on a handful of very positive figures (e.g. Grindleford) and dismiss any inconvenient data that doesn’t fit the patterns we want to claim

EMR's regional service is still a bit ropey, and if anything will likely be pulling its statistics in the opposite direction

You really think that replacing a single carriage cramped 153 with a significantly longer 170 will have caused passenger number to drop?

I think some on here are taking the figures for a few very poorly performing long distance TOC's and trying to manufacture an argument that there isn't a resurgent demand for long distance leisure travel

It’s funny that the “few very poorly performing long distance TOCs” seem to run significantly more services than the ones that bucked the trend (which is, erm, basically LNER, since HT/GC are so small)…

…so one out of the four long distance TOCs is above average and you’re complaining that people are focusing too much on the seventy five percent of poorly performing long distance TOCs to suggest that there isn’t the boom that you’d like there to be

 

[Wyrleybart]

And screw those who live in Leagrave, Harlington and Flitwick? Thameslink North of STP forgets about anyone North of Luton (or St Albans during disruption) enough without timetabling it to!

I really don't know but I am guessing there is a drivers depot at Bedford and has quite established rosters. Caning most of the service at Luton would surely rip apart the efficiency of the Bedford rosters with drivers having to book on earlier and travel, or travel back and book off later. Apart from the fact that the only GTR trains between Bedford and Luton for drivers to travel pass on would be the ones which are hewn from the timetable. It takes a very long time, in fact many timetables, to establish a successful and productive traincrew depot, so considerable long term thought needs to be applied, and longterm thought is not an easy bedfellow to DfT.

 

[43074]

Certain flows are doing well, on a very uneven national pattern, of course, but I prefer to listen to the experts (e.g. @Bald Rick ’s quotes above) rather than the enthusiasts making claims that they’d like to believe in

I'll bear the patronising "enthusiasts" sneer in mind when I'm working on the May 2023 timetable next week, thanks

Also if the long distance TOCs on the East Coast and Midland lines can recover their passenger numbers when running a relatively reliable service, it follows that long distance passenger numbers on XC and Avanti are being suppressed by the current reduced/chronically unreliable services on both?

 

[mandub]

I drove past my old office block in Sheffield last week. When I worked there the car park was full and roads all around were jam packed. Not any more. I gather a significant number are now working from home.

Across the nation we're seeing some very busy trains. Rail travel characteristics have changed. Many of those previously busy commuter trains are far more lightly used today.

The Hope Valley line has had a few mentions. Pre-Covid there were many white collar commuters from Sheffield to Manchester, many with season tickets. When TPE failed to send out a 6 car train there could be standing first class passengers. Not any more. The combined effect of Covid and dire TPE performance has probably reduced that commuter market down to about 30/40% of what it once was - on good days. Recovery is possible with a reliable service but I'd not expect that to gather momentum until the strikes are over and the current engineering work is completed to remove bottlenecks. Maybe 60% of pre-Covid might be achievable by 2025/26.

For leisure the future is much brighter, particularly for Northern's stopping service. From this month all Northern trains are to stop at all stations every hour. No more being stranded at Edale for 3 hours when one train is cancelled, only to watch 3 trains an hour flash by without stopping! What's more they should all have at least 3 coaches and this will help to boost traffic to and from the Hope Valley. (Operating 3 car 195s instead of 4 car 15x combinations should help revenue protection. Many will deliberately join the front half of a 4 car 15x to avoid payment.)

Of course ticket pricing plays a part. An Advance single between Sheffield (or Dore) and Manchester on Northern, without Railcard, can cost as little as £4.70 (travelling on 25th January). It costs more the nearer to the date of departure, e.g on 29th December 'fast' trains taking between 59 and 77 minutes might cost £24 against a stopper taking 78 minutes for £9.50. Somewhat naturally some commuters currently take the time hit and enjoy a more reliable and cheaper ride. Increasing numbers of end to end leisure users are doing the same. TPE, especially, and EMR may not get a lot of them back. (Subject for another thread but the rationale for a 3rd hourly fast service on this route seems to have gone at present - in favour of a second slow/semi-fast stopper!)

Consequently total passenger numbers on Northern trains are up, but overall line revenue will be substantially down.

Looking at the recently released passenger numbers for Hope Valley stations there's reason to be optimistic. All stations have recovered fairly well since 2020-21, previously Manchester commuter dominated Dore worst of all. 3 stations set records with increases over previous highs in 2019-20. I can believe that for Edale and Bamford, but Grindleford really stands out - 46% up on 2019-20?

Split ticketing! It's now well known that Grindleford may be a good place to split. Whether that will continue we can't know. I recently heard a Hathersage resident describe how he and his wife had gone down to Cornwall with about 40 split tickets between them. Apparently Dore was the first/last place to split on that particular journey.

I pose a question. The user above buys 40 tickets for 2 people to make a return journey averaging 10 tickets each for an end to end one way trip instead of 1, or possibly 2 tickets. Is the fairly recent fashion for splitting tickets making the numbers of passengers look higher, and the length of journeys look shorter?

Are we drawing over optimistic impressions of rail passenger recovery? Are we counting the same passengers multiple times for what are essentially single longer distance trips?

Northern Rail had their 3rd highest revenue week ever recently.
As reported by Jen Williams - https://twitter.com/JenWilliams_FT/status/1604163614541504512?t=R_Q5V-Yxpzu3g7sKGvrgJA&s=19