UK Rail Passenger Numbers Discussion

[tbtc]

Most people I know who work from home are drifting back a few days a week

It feels like people have been saying this for a couple of years now.

And whilst it’s no doubt true of some isolated cases (and loudly championed by various right wing figures who invested in commercial property etc!), the number of commuters doesn’t seem to be bouncing back very much - that income seems lost

The focus on revenue rather misses the wider economic picture

This government don’t care about all of the “bigger picture” / “holistic approach” / “unquantifiable social benefits” stuff though - they see things in black and white terms- and we’ve now got them in control of the whole railway

A relatively modest pay rise early on (for example 6% - in line with average wage growth and still below inflation) would have settled these disputes.

Would all of the Unions have accepted a real terms post cut like this?

I'm not sure where the RMT has left to go. They played their ace in December / January, caused huge disruption and some parts of the network to have greatly reduced or zero service for weeks on end and the Government's response was barely a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders.

Yup

TOCs were scared of strikes because they’d budgeted for certain levels of income over the duration of the franchise and any strike meant a big hole in those projected revenue figures - shareholders expected disruptions to be minimised - there was a financial incentive to keep the show on the road

unhappy staff could move to another TOC so it was in a TOCs interest to pay above inflation levels of increase each year (Rather the losing staff and having to spend money Training new employees)

The government aren’t scared though; they’ve been able to get away with poor pay rises for other public sector employees for a dozen years because where else will huge numbers of doctors/ teachers etc go? Now they can do the same on the railways

So congratulations Unions, you claimed that you wanted Nationalisation, you’ve got Nationalisation, and it turns out that you’ve ruined the bargaining power that you used to have for your members

 

[HSTEd]

So congratulations Unions, you claimed that you wanted Nationalisation, you’ve got Nationalisation, and it turns out that you’ve ruined the bargaining power that you used to have for your members

I don't want to endlessly relitigate this, but nationalisation is not the cause of this.

The cause of this is that the Government is no longer willing to pay huge sums to avoid politically damaging strike action.

If we still had the franchising system, we'd be in exactly the same place as we are now because the TOCs have no more money.

The TOCs would go to the Government for extra subsidy to cover the huge pay increases and would be told "no".

If they give the pay increases they avoid the strikes but then go bankrupt because it would destroy their financial assumptions.

Coronavirus has destroyed the political consensus that supplying a huge river of money, effectively no questions asked, to the railway is a good idea.

 

[12LDA28C]

Im not sure how to answer that question. Of course there were (and indeed are) enough drivers to run the timetable until something changed, but let’s not get into that again.

I'm fairly sure that at many TOCs 'enough drivers to run the timetable' does not mean that all depots have full establishments.
Enough drivers to run the timetable on RDW and overtime perhaps. But that is certainly not the same thing as employing enough drivers.

 

[43066]

I'm not sure where the RMT has left to go. They played their ace in December / January, caused huge disruption and some parts of the network to have greatly reduced or zero service for weeks on end and the Government's response was barely a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders.

ASLEF probably need to up their game.

I can see the NR deal being accepted but on the TOC side the RMT will probably be able to continue longer term, albeit less effective than the signallers going out.

This government don’t care about all of the “bigger picture” / “holistic approach” / “unquantifiable social benefits” stuff though - they see things in black and white terms- and we’ve now got them in control of the whole railway

Well that speak volumes about their competence. To be clear, they’re in control of it for the next two years. They’ll be gone by the end of the two year “deal” they’re currently proposing.

Would all of the Unions have

accepted a real terms post cut like this?

The evidence suggests it would based on what those same unions have accepted in areas not controlled by the DfT

 

[Trainbike46]

Im not sure how to answer that question. Of course there were (and indeed are) enough drivers to run the timetable until something changed, but let’s not get into that again.

What I mean is, is the allegation made upthread that the DfT has prevented TOCs from employing sufficient staff to run the timetable accurate while they use business cases to select cuts is also accurate, or is the allegation upthread inaccurate?

Sorry if that was unclear in the first instance. The reason I ask you, is because you tend to have accurate knowledge of what is going on.

 

[The Ham]

They are.

Based on what though?

The total cost to government (akin to reopening but in reverse)?

The cost to the TOC (bearing in mind that the reopening report for Tavistock has that being brining in more income than costs for GWR and I'd imagine that a lot of services would likely be better than that line)?

The cost to the DfT (bearing in mind that there's at least the NR loan costs which DfT have to account for, but they don't for investment made by National Highways, and as such arguably should bypass DfT)?

The last two are likely to overlap, as (unless you can close a line) long as an individual service increases income more than it costs the TOC (including any negative impact on other services) there's unlikely to be many cases where that then doesn't offset NR costs and therefore reduce DfT total costs.

Unless there's something which means that it doesn't work that way (whilst I accept that the NR costs would increase between 1tph and 2tph, it's unlikely to be as much as 50% more, yet NR get an extra 100% of the track access rights - which whilst may not cover all variable costs should get fairly close).

Ah I should have been more careful - revenue is possibly the same, but I believe costs aren't?

Given the tracker shows for general inflation (+46%) that's quite a lot of other costs which have increased over that timeframe to result in a much worse picture.

Do you have any idea as to what those extra costs are?

I don't want to endlessly relitigate this, but nationalisation is not the cause of this.

The cause of this is that the Government is no longer willing to pay huge sums to avoid politically damaging strike action.

If we still had the franchising system, we'd be in exactly the same place as we are now because the TOCs have no more money.

The TOCs would go to the Government for extra subsidy to cover the huge pay increases and would be told "no".

If they give the pay increases they avoid the strikes but then go bankrupt because it would destroy their financial assumptions.

Coronavirus has destroyed the political consensus that supplying a huge river of money, effectively no questions asked, to the railway is a good idea.

It depends on what the pay demand are.

If the outcome is RPI + (say) 2% then that's costing the TOC more, however if the outcome is RPI - (say) 4% (so a circa 7% pay rise) then in theory whilst pay had gone up actually in real terms it's gone down (maybe not as fast as the government may have liked but it's still lower in real terms).

 

[squizzler]

DfT usage figures updated today and available here with a graphical chart and 4th Order Polynomial trend / forecast below.

90%+ of pre-COVID journeys likely once the strikes end. Give the TOCs an incentive to grow revenue (simple contract addendum) and I believe the £2bn gap can be reduced. At a minimum, I would ditch the current Advance fare structure and give freedom on pricing pre-booked e-tickets on all routes.

View attachment 126817

Very interesting chart (link in quote above). Are we supposed to believe, if passenger growth follows the extrapolated line which has recently steepened, it will just suddenly flatline once the 90% figure has been reached on the turn of the tax year? It is on course to pass 100% by October.

I remain very optimistic for the rail network going forward, and this chart illustrates clearly the cause for that optimism.

 

[HSTEd]

I remain very optimistic for the rail network going forward, and this chart illustrates clearly the cause for that optimism.

Not quite that simple, a significant fraction of all Network Rail journeys are on Crossrail - which was not in the stats pre coronavirus.

 

[ar10642]

Well then the action needs to continue for as long it takes until the government is forced to care, and agree a sensible deal.

Sounds like the definition of madness to me: trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

 

[Xavi]

Not quite that simple, a significant fraction of all Network Rail journeys are on Crossrail - which was not in the stats pre coronavirus.

Good point, for clarity the new ‘Crossrail’ infrastructure wasn’t in the 2019 data, whilst Reading / Heathrow - Paddington and Liverpool Street - Shenfield were.

Could mean a reported 100%+ is a reality in the future.

 

[The Ham]

Not quite that simple, a significant fraction of all Network Rail journeys are on Crossrail - which was not in the stats pre coronavirus.

True, although according to table 1223 if you remove the Elizabeth Line numbers Q2 was 359 whilst Q2 2011/12 was 356.

As such whilst the Elizabeth Line carries 44 million in Q2 (12.2% of the total, although some is a shif from GWR and GWR is about 6 million behind pre Covid levels - so it's that actually above or below due to the shift to the Elizabeth Line?), so it depends on how you define significant. I'd also question if it is a fair comparison given that some TOC are running 2/3 services.

Remove the strikes and there's a good chance that excluding the Elizabeth Line we'd still be close to 2019 levels, maybe even a small amount of growth.

Whilst this will be behind expected 2023 numbers (due to 4 years of lost growth) there does tend to be a shifting of goal posts to show that the railways are in a bad place whenever there's data put forwards to show that it's not as bad as thought.

 

[Snow1964]

Not quite that simple, a significant fraction of all Network Rail journeys are on Crossrail - which was not in the stats pre coronavirus.

The London data store has all the TfL journeys (bus, tube etc), and includes overground and TfL Rail. In the periods before Covid TfL Rail was running about 4.9m journeys per 4 week accounting period. It is now typically 12-13m which is a growth of about 2m journeys per week

Public Transport Journeys by Type of Transport

Number of journeys on the public transport network by TFL reporting period, by type of transport. Data is broken down by bus, underground, DLR, tram, Overground and cable car. Period lengths are diff…

data.london.gov.uk

The historic column is headed TfL rail, but is now presumably Elizabeth line. But clearly 3m journeys per week is nearer a modest fraction than significant fraction of passengers nationally

 

[HSTEd]

The historic column is headed TfL rail, but is now presumably Elizabeth line. But clearly 3m journeys per week is nearer a modest fraction than significant fraction of passengers nationally

3 million journeys a week is 6 million entries and exits, or approximately 300 million a year.

Which is about ten percent of all entries and exits on Network Rail.

 

[43074]

That isn't borne out by the data, otherwise we wouldn't be in this mess we are currently in. Nobody has suggested that across a normal week there is 100% of pre-Covid passengers. Some weekends yes - and even above 100% in places - but not overall.

I was referring to LNER specifically - industry wide is still at 70% yes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I was referring to LNER specifically - industry wide is still at 70% yes.

Avanti West Coast would be a bit higher if they didn't keep turning them away by blocking bookings. I know weekday afternoons are about as quiet as it gets but I had the entire of Coach A of a Pendolino to myself this afternoon from Crewe to MKC. Meanwhile Sunday is STILL blocked entirely on all AWC services. This of course means it'll be nice and quiet for me on Sunday, but I don't actually want to see that because I want the railway to be viable.

 

[12LDA28C]

What I mean is, is the allegation made upthread that the DfT has prevented TOCs from employing sufficient staff to run the timetable accurate while they use business cases to select cuts is also accurate, or is the allegation upthread inaccurate?

The 'allegation' is not inaccurate, merely a statement of fact.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I don't want to endlessly relitigate this, but nationalisation is not the cause of this.

The cause of this is that the Government is no longer willing to pay huge sums to avoid politically damaging strike action.

If we still had the franchising system, we'd be in exactly the same place as we are now because the TOCs have no more money.

Maybe but even if the TOCs were given more money they would have then been left to get on with it with the incentive to maximise revenue and balance off the costs to deliver and in the round cost the taxpayer less. The DfT has no idea of delivering in a free market and Torys know this and have spent the last 50 years telling us the market knows best so put the incentive back on the operators.

I still standby scrapping the franchises without considering the consequences is what is going to hurt the industry

 

[Horizon22]

That's a good thing, which means customers are smarter and getting less ripped off my extortionate prices.

Sure, but there needs to be a balance. If trains are overcrowded on the weekend - presuming no service disruption - the price point is probably a bit too low. I'd love for the railway to have bigger subsidies and think it is of it a societal good if it did, but you always have to look at things in the wider context of all the other stuff being funded in the country.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2023 ==

Given the tracker shows for general inflation (+46%) that's quite a lot of other costs which have increased over that timeframe to result in a much worse picture.

Do you have any idea as to what those extra costs are?

I don't but I trust those with more expertise who have said that they've really shot up over the last 10-15 years. I'd hazard a guess at overly expensive-per-mile costs for electrification, leasing costs and probably some staffing in as well. I'm not sure what the easy answer to that is, but the DfT seem to be focussed on slashing costs in a rather simple way as opposed to a true review of which is needed.

Lots of times in the railway I see actions undertaken that might save money in the short-term but end up being more expensive in the medium-term.

 

[dk1]

Trains on the Norwich-Liverpool St route where very busy today as where car parks along the route. One guard I was chatting with counted 239 on a service this morning on departure from Norwich. Train was F&S after Manningtree.

 

[JonathanH]

I'm not sure where the RMT has left to go. They played their ace in December / January, caused huge disruption and some parts of the network to have greatly reduced or zero service for weeks on end and the Government's response was barely a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders.

A permanent overtime ban showed promise as the next strategic move.

I can see the NR deal being accepted but on the TOC side the RMT will probably be able to continue longer term, albeit less effective than the signallers going out.

The RMT really needs the signallers to stay out to keep the strikes effective. Contingency guards and driver only operation means that RMT guard strikes have limited effectiveness on their own on large parts of the network.

The cause of this is that the Government is no longer willing to pay huge sums to avoid politically damaging strike action.

To some extent it is no longer politically damaging. I have heard some talk that former commuters are actually in favour of more strike action as it means they have a good excuse to work from home.

 

[Bald Rick]

Enough drivers to run the timetable on RDW and overtime perhaps. But that is certainly not the same thing as employing enough drivers.

Enough drivers to run the timetable isn’t the same as employing enough drivers?
Put it this way, Avanti employed enough drivers to run 9 or 10 trains an hour out of Euston on a consistent basis in 2019, but they’ve now added 100 drivers and it’s not enough. Try explaining that to the man on the Euston omnibus!

What I mean is, is the allegation made upthread that the DfT has prevented TOCs from employing sufficient staff to run the timetable accurate while they use business cases to select cuts is also accurate, or is the allegation upthread inaccurate?

I’m not aware of any proposal to employ more traincrew that has been rejected by the DfT, but I am aware of several proposals to do so that have been approved, and at least two where it has been the DfT that has proposed / required it of the TOC. Of course I’m not aware of all the examples.

Based on what though?

Net cost to the DfT budget.

Could mean a reported 100%+ is a reality in the future.

That’s a certainty. 3-5 years away. Of course by then we should have been at around 125% of Pre Covid passenger numbers.

The RMT really needs the signallers to stay out to keep the strikes effective.

Every signaller I know, and I know a lot, has had enough. Lots came back to work last week. Some have resigned their RMT membership.

 

[Thirteen]

The Elizabeth Line exceeding expectations is important for TfL as it's a key revenue generator which will likely help them get back on level footing financially.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Enough drivers to run the timetable isn’t the same as employing enough drivers?
Put it this way, Avanti employed enough drivers to run 9 or 10 trains an hour out of Euston on a consistent basis in 2019, but they’ve now added 100 drivers and it’s not enough. Try explaining that to the man on the Euston omnibus!

Well they do seem to have upped their game this week with all the other distractions removed!

Every signaller I know, and I know a lot, has had enough. Lots came back to work last week. Some have resigned their RMT membership.

Good but when will NR be a bit bolder then and expand the level of service they can support should we get more strike days. Thats how the miners strike folded bit by bit miners trickled back and got on with the job.

 

[Bald Rick]

Good but when will NR be a bit bolder then and expand the level of service they can support should we get more strike days.

At the Transport Select Committee today Tim Shoveller hinted that was on the cards.

Well they do seem to have upped their game this week with all the other distractions removed!

What, you mean the new, increased, Avanti timetable seems to have substantially reduced train crew cancellations? Who’d have thought

 

[The Ham]

3 million journeys a week is 6 million entries and exits, or approximately 300 million a year.

Which is about ten percent of all entries and exits on Network Rail.

As I pointed out earlier ORR (based on the last quarter) was about 12.5% in the last quarter of rail used (ORR data) however I also questioned if there had been any shift from GWR.

As before the opening of the central section few would have swapped from Reading heading to Paddington, however following the opening some may make the journey to central stations from Reading to avoid changing at Paddington. Whilst this adds 30 minutes to the journey time, some of this would be recovered by not needing to change trains.

If the net saving is (say) 12 minutes but by boarding at Reading you can ensure a seat for the duration of your journey, some may be willing to accept that. Which may have some impact.

I don't but I trust those with more expertise who have said that they've really shot up over the last 10-15 years. I'd hazard a guess at overly expensive-per-mile costs for electrification, leasing costs and probably some staffing in as well. I'm not sure what the easy answer to that is, but the DfT seem to be focussed on slashing costs in a rather simple way as opposed to a true review of which is needed.

Enhancements (such as electrification) should be easy to remove from the numbers (and arguably should be a separate support figure to the day to day support figure).

As to staff costs, NR accounts give the following data:

2007 staff costs £1,401 million for 33,446 (£41,863 average cost per person)

2022 staff costs £2,975 million for 44,255 (£67,224)

That's an average cost per staff increase of 60.5% whilst that's above the RPI rate of 46% that's the difference between 2.57% (RPI) and 3.21% (staff cost increases).

However minimum wage inflation had been about 72% over the same time period, whilst median salary has grown by about 40%.

As such whilst it's likely that NR staff have seen their pay increase more than others, not by a excessive amount. It's likely that a similar pattern could be seen across the wider rail industry.

 

[GoneSouth]

Sounds like the definition of madness to me: trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

So the same tactic on both sides then?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

As to staff costs, NR accounts give the following data:

2007 staff costs £1,401 million for 33,446 (£41,863 average cost per person)

2022 staff costs £2,975 million for 44,255 (£67,224)

That's an average cost per staff increase of 60.5% whilst that's above the RPI rate of 46% that's the difference between 2.57% (RPI) and 3.21% (staff cost increases).

However minimum wage inflation had been about 72% over the same time period, whilst median salary has grown by about 40%.

As such whilst it's likely that NR staff have seen their pay increase more than others, not by a excessive amount. It's likely that a similar pattern could be seen across the wider rail industry.

NR mgt became bloated over that period for sure and there was grade creep mainly in the Band 1 & 2 levels substantially driven by non operating roles especially in the projects group. One of the greatest travesties of privatisation was in the projects side where BR had capably delivered routine renewal projects out of the regional engineering groups with industry partners successfully yet Railtrack substantially disregarded all that expertise and set out on the road of using consultants with high levels of man marking. More often than not these position were filled by agency staff and then along came NR and at various times there missions to convert agency staff to permanent NR staff but to match their salary aspirations the jobs had to be graded appropriately so salary offers could be made.
@Bald Rick has referenced on other threads that NR has hacked back management grades through VS worth about 100m/year off the salary bill i recollect.

 

[Bald Rick]

@Bald Rick has referenced on other threads that NR has hacked back management grades through VS worth about 100m/year off the salary bill i recollect

Headcount is well under 40,000 now, most of the reduction is in management grades.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Headcount is well under 40,000 now, most of the reduction is in management grades.

Wow that is a drop which must be helping the DfT's target.

 

[ar10642]

So the same tactic on both sides then?

Well yes, I don't think anyone could accuse this government of being competent.