The issue is that the Elizabeth Line has likely abstracted some traffic from TfL. So if you count that traffic in National Rail stats, do you then consider it equally valid to say that TfL is very much down? If there was a combined measure then it would perhaps be fair to consider that.
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UK Rail Passenger Numbers Discussion
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Wishful thinking, but the industry/ DfT can’t keep referring to ‘what it was meant to be’. Budgets, subsidies, fares etc need a reset at the same time as recognition that the economy and tax revenues are worse without rail (current usage / size of system and more).
Costs in 2019/20 (the Financial Year concluding just as Covid got going) was £20.2bn
Costs two years later (last full year available) was £22.8bn; that’s 113% of 2019.
I’d expect costs for the year about to conclude to be higher than this, due to various contracts that rise by inflation, fuel costs, and pay rises (for those that have had them). Educated guess - costs will now be in the region of 118% of ‘Pre Covid’. A reminder that revenue is at 82%.
Part of the reason for separating it out was the significant number of short trips undertaken in it, which is you compared km increases with trip increases significantly skewed the data to imply that trips were up by 45% whist km was only up by 30%.
Which would imply that there's a LOT of splitting of tickets, when in reality no one would split their travel on the Elizabeth Line yet that was where a lot of short trips were made.
I was also mindful that the Elizabeth Line had been where there's been a lot of growth, so by highlighting that from Q2 to Q2 growth excluding it was still up by about 1/3 indicates that it's not only the Elizabeth Line which has seen some fairly good growth over that period.
It's unlikely to continue at that rate of growth, however even almost no change between Q2 to Q3 would likely mean a reasonable rate of growth when comparing Q3 with Q3. Whilst the data isn't publicly available, the Covid data doors indicate that Q3 is likely to be similar to Q2 in useage. If it wasn't for the strikes around Christmas it would have likely been higher.
Whilst the start of Q4 (other than the strike days) the usage is looking fairly reasonable, with a fair chance of increased use over Q2 or Q3 and certainly over the previous Q4.
Snow1964
Established Member
As part of the consultation on minimum strike levels (discussed in another thread), there is an annex on service levels during recent strikes which might be relevant to this discussion (it is an ODS (open data source) spreadsheet, so best opened in excel etc
www.gov.uk
Minimum service levels for passenger rail during strike action
A consultation on implementing minimum service levels for passenger rail services during periods of strike action.
dk1
Veteran Member
As part of the consultation on minimum strike levels (discussed in another thread), there is an annex on service levels during recent strikes which might be relevant to this discussion (it is an ODS (open data source) spreadsheet, so best opened in excel etc
Minimum service levels for passenger rail during strike action
A consultation on implementing minimum service levels for passenger rail services during periods of strike action.
Still can’t understand how this is going to be implemented on the railway if it ever does. Time will tell.
In all fairness to GWR and Avanti from my home station Appledore, Plymouth is about the same distance as Lancaster or Northallerton. With a railcard the cheapest flexible off peak return is Plymouth £83.65, Lancaster £90 or Northallerton £109. Through LNER advances to the Kent coast do exist but theyre rare as rocking horse ****. Once you split in London you are already looking at £30 for the southern leg so to match the equivalent GWR fare on a London to Northallerton advance Im looking at no more than £25 each way.
Has anyone else noticed that Saturdays are proportionally more heavily targeted by strike action because the weekend leisure market is the most important area of growth, yet at the same time, scheduled engineering works are still targeted on weekends because the weekend leisure market is supposedly not as important as weekday business travel.
If the railway could perhaps between itself, make its mind up which one is true, passengers would have a better chance of getting where they need to be on a weekend.
If the railway could perhaps between itself, make its mind up which one is true, passengers would have a better chance of getting where they need to be on a weekend.
87015
Established Member
Where has that been stated as solely why Saturdays are being taken? it’s equal Thursdays and Saturdays in the current round anyway.
Saturdays are more heavily targeted by strike action because no one *really* likes the baggage that comes with working Saturdays and that includes the contingency staff. They're less likely to agree to work (in the week on standard working days they have less choice in the matter) and the sweetener for the striking staff is not having to deal with Saturday crowd.
If it was "equal", Saturdays would only be one in every seven strike days.
My post is not to reopen a strike debate, rather there seems to be disagreement on the importance of weekend leisure travel (and weekend leisure travellers get the mucky end of the stick as a result).
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That's probably true, but not particularly good from a service point of view.
I've often wondered that myself. I think business travel has always been considered more important. Hence why holiday and leisure routes tend to get 2nd class treatment. You`ve only got to look at the WCML Midland and East coast in comparison to the GWR mainline to guess that. Offending their business clients with constant rail replacement buses god forbid.
Indeed. Although if the reports are anything to go by, the traditional expense account business traveller is now as extinct as the dodo !
Rail replacement buses are much less available on weekdays, due to school bus commitments.
Maybe unions targeting weekend leisure customers causes more people making short distance trips to be affected hence more political pressure whereas the industry planning looks more at where the total revenue is and how the actual engineering work can be most efficiently delivered, including sourcing buses?
The strikes are more often targeted on Saturdays because….
… and not because the weekend leisure market is the most important area of growth. (Not least because the weekend leisure market isn’t the most important area of growth).
weekends, and especially Sundays, are used for engineering works because that is (on most lines) the least busy time on the rails, and the works affect the fewest people. If the work can’t be done in one day, and two adjoining days are needed, then Saturday / Sunday affect fewer people than Sunday / Monday.
Out of interest, what is the most important area of growth at the mo ? Where I am, mid-week commuting seems quite busy.
Getting commuters in on Mondays and Fridays, especially medium distance into London. Huge opportunity there.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It does seem (from experience of going into the office on a Monday) that the entertainingly abbreviated Tuesday, Wednesday And Thursday commuters are the bulk of the returnees.
The railway here is between the providers / operators and the unions who haven't been able to "make up their mind" for the last 12 months so hardly surprising!
Also Saturdays (as others have alluded to) are not always much fun for train crew, especially if they don't have to work the following Sunday.
The issue with engineering works on a weekday is always that there's still a core contingent who have to work Monday-Friday and the majority of traffic on the weekend is leisure-based. It's just much harder to prevent people commuting - even if those numbers are reduced - than it is to limit leisure journeys. Might be fine for one week with enough warning, but I just cannot see a way that most engineering works will ever not be on a weekend regularly.
Potentially you can do Friday-Monday as an "extended" weekend given the lower commuter based on Mondays and Fridays, but leisure travel is still pretty high on the Friday. The network has to be disrupted somehow and it's how best to do that. We're getting to the point now where engineering works are now being scheduled which a much greater understanding of the new travel patterns (Given the long horizon, many works happening now were arranged in 2020/2021) and there's been a few more full week closures.
Mmmm. Do they want to go in though !
I often go in Mondays and Fridays, but I know a lot who just prefer the flex lifestyle.
evidently some don’t, especially on Fridays. My trains on Friday mornings have less than half the passengers of a Thursday morning.
Hence the cheaper ticket trial for Mon / Fri.
I think it might be a noble but pointless endeavour though.
It's got to the point that for many, the flexibility of working from home, not commuting 2+ hours every day, improved work-life balance etc. is a bigger attractor. Therefore weighing all these WFH benefits up versus let's say 20-30% off their commute (because it might be 100% off currently!) is probably a no-brainer and might appear like desperation on part of the railway which hybrid commuters will just scoff at. Of course if they are trvaelling 3 times a week, its more marginal as if you go for the 4th or 5th day, weekly seasons start to become more attractive again, especially if they might use it on the weekend now.
Anecdotally one reason there is more people travelling on the weekend for leisure purposes is because all the WFH, white-collar commuters no longer have to take it for the previous 5 days and its a bit more attractive and there's a different image of rail as opposed to packed, expensive peak travel!
I agree with all of that.
anecdotally, many WFHers also have more leisuretime at the weekend, as they can get some of the jobs at home done in the week while working, rather than having to do them at the weekend.
Snow1964
Established Member
That's not strictly true, holiday routes historically tended to be seasonal for weekend works. Big works used to be scheduled November to March avoiding summer weekends.
I remember back in 1970s and 1980s would have all the engineering works on my local line (Waterloo-Bournemouth/Weymouth) off season, they did secondary lines at other times, and commuter branches in summer.
Closing a seaside route on a summer weekend creates its own challenges, if weather is good might suddenly need loads more buses. I think there have been some big bustitution overcrowding problems at Three Bridges-Brighton in recent years where this was not factored in.
SussexSeagull
Member
I think that is all fair comment, although when I was commuting to London five days a week pre-lockdown it meant if I wanted to go north of London at the weekend for a football match the Durrington-London bit was free and Delay Repay's heavily subsidised the rest of the journey.
Thanks. But yes when you get closer to 5 days a week, the other marginal benefits are better because you can utilise those things but does it really trump everything else? I think if you did a straw poll of 50 previous M-F, 9-5 commuters you'd get an overwhelming "no".
The cat's out of the bag and it's probably never going back in. Of course natural growth will see the railway return to where it was in 5-6 years, but it's a different landscape now.
Greybeard33
Established Member
In the Rail North Committee meeting on 22 February, Nick Donovan (Northern MD) said demand across Northern is now just above 90% of pre-Covid, but with revenue 102-103% (because of a different market mix).
The webcast can be viewed at https://transportforthenorth.com/calendar/rail-north-committee-meeting-22-feb-2023/
The webcast can be viewed at https://transportforthenorth.com/calendar/rail-north-committee-meeting-22-feb-2023/
Well that rather busts the "what about the revenue" protestations in favour of proposed cuts to services. Obviously things will be different in NSE land, but there's no excuse for cutbacks in the north.
Not really, because Northern's revenue has never come anywhere near covering it's costs, and even at 103% pre COVID given the intervening cost increases since no doubt it is as far away from doing so as ever.
I entirely agree with the sentiment by the way - the Northern railway is busy and needs encouraging and supporting - but it has to remembered that these operators will never be anything other than dependent on external support.
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