Apr 2023–Mar 2024 station / flow statistics

[A S Leib]

The ORR have published the most recent station usage statistics, and, going by the mention of the ten busiest flows nationally and outside London, flow statistics. The most-used stations are Liverpool Street (94.5 mn, of which 8.2 mn were to / from Tottenham Court Road), followed by Paddington, Tottenham Court Road, Waterloo, Stratford, Victoria, London Bridge, Farringdon, Bond Street and Euston. Birmingham New Street remains the busiest station outside London, and Denton (between Stockport and Stalybridge) is the least-used, with 54 journeys.

Interesting that St. Albans City barely overtook Watford Junction last year (5.57 vs 5.54 mn journeys) for the first time since at least 2018, but it's now 6.47 mn against 6.32 mn in Watford Junction's favour, with Shenfield having overtaken both. I would have expected Farringdon connections and contactless at St. Albans to keep it ahead of Watford Junction. I think in one year recently Watford Junction had also fallen behind Coventry, but it's back ahead by 3000, making it the busiest WCML station after Euston, Birmingham New Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Glasgow Central and Liverpool Lime Street (unless you count Willesden Junction).

 

[PGAT]

Took a very quick glance at the list and already see that Acton Main Line has doubled in usage since last year

 

[InOban]

Won't open on my Android tablet. Didn't have that issue previously

 

[stuu]

Interesting that St. Albans City barely overtook Watford Junction last year (5.57 vs 5.54 mn journeys) for the first time since at least 2018, but it's now 6.47 mn against 6.32 mn in Watford Junction's favour, with Shenfield having overtaken both. I would have expected Farringdon connections and contactless at St. Albans to keep it ahead of Watford Junction. I think in one year recently Watford Junction had also fallen behind Coventry, but it's back ahead by 3000, making it the busiest WCML station after Euston, Birmingham New Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Glasgow Central and Liverpool Lime Street (unless you count Willesden Junction).

There can't be very many people who have a choice between Watford and St Albans - it takes ages to go between the two places (St Albans Abbey branch isn't very useful). I would expect Watford to have more inbound passengers too as it's still a bigger commercial centre than St Albans

 

[A S Leib]

Won't open on my Android tablet. Didn't have that issue previously

I haven't tried the ODS sheet but the CSV one worked for me in Google Sheets.

There can't be very many people who have a choice between Watford and St Albans - it takes ages to go between the two places (St Albans Abbey branch isn't very useful). I would expect Watford to have more inbound passengers too as it's still a bigger commercial centre than St Albans

That's true; I meant that I'd have expected St. Albans to be more attractive for travelling into London at all, although I suppose the Overground service makes e.g. shopping trips to Watford easy in a way that it isn't for St. Albans.

Whilst on that area, it's interesting that Harrow-on-the-Hill rather than Marylebone's the most common destination for Rickmansworth, Chorleywood, Chalfont & Latimer and Amersham again, although that could just be a similar misallocation process between Marylebone and Baker Street etc. to that which led to e.g. Falkirk to Glasgow Central and Sheffield to King's Cross being supposedly large flows last year.

 

[Verulamius]

Watford Junction will have a significant Harry Potter flow as a lot of tourists use the train to go to the experience.

St Albans may also be more impacted by working from home?

 

[stuu]

Whilst on that area, it's interesting that Harrow-on-the-Hill rather than Marylebone's the most common destination for Rickmansworth, Chorleywood, Chalfont & Latimer and Amersham again, although that could just be a similar misallocation process between Marylebone and Baker Street etc. to that which led to e.g. Falkirk to Glasgow Central and Sheffield to King's Cross being supposedly large flows last year.

That is weird. Harrow surely isn't that useful a destination - unless people choose to change to the Met there?

 

[JW4]

National Rail journey planner labels St Albans Abbey and St Albans City as a 33 min walk so you’re very unlikely to see passengers opt to take that option

 

[DarloRich]

Taking my little station ( Fenny Stratford) as an example you can see the impact of the terrible service offered by LNWR over the last few years. Passenger numbers have crashed - they have been, literally, driven away.

 

[Horizon22]

Took a very quick glance at the list and already see that Acton Main Line has doubled in usage since last year

Not too surprising. Not only has there been new flats in the area but now it runs into C. London instead of Paddington (and a frequency increase) it has escapees from the Central line.

 

[Kite159]

Took a very quick glance at the list and already see that Acton Main Line has doubled in usage since last year

Benefit of increased service and having barriers to capture those who had previously not paid.

How can the ORR can determine usage at those Elizabeth line stations with a common gateline with LU or will it be another Dorking West situation of 'oops we messed up, we included everything which used those gates even if they only used LU services'

 

[Horizon22]

How can the ORR can determine usage at those Elizabeth line stations with a common gateline with LU or will it be another Dorking West situation of 'oops we messed up, we included everything which used those gates even if they only used LU services'

It's never going to be perfect but I imagine looking at point-to-point trips, exits and entrance data, matricies of journeys and confirming what they can with TfL will all help. Obviously the introduction of the Elizabeth line through running in late 2022 has not made data analysis easy, but there are data statisicians whose whole job is to make sense of complex data fields like this. That is not to say with such a dataset anomalies and mistakes won't appear.

 

[MentorMaster]

Has anyone done a deep dive into the stats to determine the least-used stations? Unfortunately I can't look myself at the moment but I'm always curious.

 

[Horizon22]

Has anyone done a deep dive into the stats to determine the least-used stations? Unfortunately I can't look myself at the moment but I'm always curious.

Kildonan​	240​
Elton and Orston​	212​
Clifton (Manchester)​	202​
Chapelton (Devon)​	186​
Coombe Junction Halt​	140​
Reddish South​	128​
Polesworth​	118​
Ince and Elton (Cheshire)​	86​
Shippea Hill​	70​
Denton​	54​

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Nov 2024 ==


Overall passenger numbers (2.85bn) are where they were about 10 years ago.

The Elizabeth line is so hugely noticeable on this, as is London & SE.

• Goodmayes is busier than Milton Keynes Central
• Manor Park is busier than Leicester
• Seven Kings is busier than Wolverhampton
• Maryland is busier than Birmigham International (I find this especially dubious as apparently Stratford is the main destination/origin pair which is a 10 minute walk away!)
• Abbey Wood is busier than Bristol TM
• Ealing Broadway is busier than Marylebone

Part of me thinks these numbers are slightly elevated but still it empahsises the passenger number impact on the line / the not as strong passenger recovery elsewhere. As always the ORR calls it "Estimates of station usage"

 

[Northern158170]

Every station on the Harrogate line (including York and Leeds) had an increase in numbers, as did Bentley (SY), Oxenholme and Penrith

Reston (increase) and East Linton had quite similar numbers despite East Linton only being open for 3 months

That’s what I’ve seen so far

 

[paulmch]

Corby has had a blistering year - after topping out at around 300,000 pre-Covid, it recorded 500,000 last year. The wires and more comprehensive service have worked wonders it would seem!

 

[Western Sunset]

Pilning must have had a good year, as it's not in the bottom ten...

 

[higthomas]

Maryland is busier than Birmigham International (I find this especially dubious as apparently Stratford is the main destination/origin pair which is a 10 minute walk away!)

Whilst I too doubt many people would make a journey of only Maryland-Stratford, that national rail journey will appear for any Maryland-Stratford-DLR/Tube destination, which I expect would be much more common given it wouldn't cost any more to start at/carry on to Maryland.

 

[Peter0124]

The Elizabeth Line (and covid) I think have decrowned Waterloo for good unless a new crossrail gets built. Even Tottenham Court Road beats it with just 2 platforms!

 

[cle]

The Elizabeth line is so hugely noticeable on this, as is London & SE.

• Goodmayes is busier than Milton Keynes Central
• Manor Park is busier than Leicester
• Seven Kings is busier than Wolverhampton
• Maryland is busier than Birmigham International (I find this especially dubious as apparently Stratford is the main destination/origin pair which is a 10 minute walk away!)
• Abbey Wood is busier than Bristol TM
• Ealing Broadway is busier than Marylebone

Part of me thinks these numbers are slightly elevated but still it empahsises the passenger number impact on the line / the not as strong passenger recovery elsewhere. As always the ORR calls it "Estimates of station usage"

What's not now apples to apples is how you treat the tube, re Crossrail. The Ealing-Bond St numbers won't know how people went. Ealing is basically NR now. You'd never add Marylebone's Bakerloo count in - for obvious reasons. Also you'd be double counting most people!

Liverpool St now records a huge number into the tube system and station who were previously 'up top'. Did they also take the Central from Stratford? Many still do. It's tricky.

Maryland was a backwater and nearly closed. Goes to show what a good service can do. Stratford is practically its own city these days with multiple stations.

 

[Sunil_P]

Ilford 13.16 million exits/entries, 35th place, busier than Liverpool Lime Street and Central!

 

[JonathanH]

Ilford 13.16 million exits/entries, 35th place, busier than Liverpool Lime Street and Central!

People will be asking for a direct train to the West Country off the back of that!

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Ilford 13.16 million exits/entries, 35th place, busier than Liverpool Lime Street and Central!

Is the data based on tickets/scans? Lime St has a large amount of ticketless travel given half it's platform doesn't have barriers. Far less true of a number compared to say New St or Man Pic

 

[Sunil_P]

What's not now apples to apples is how you treat the tube, re Crossrail. The Ealing-Bond St numbers won't know how people went. Ealing is basically NR now. You'd never add Marylebone's Bakerloo count in - for obvious reasons. Also you'd be double counting most people!

Liverpool St now records a huge number into the tube system and station who were previously 'up top'. Did they also take the Central from Stratford? Many still do. It's tricky.

Maryland was a backwater and nearly closed. Goes to show what a good service can do. Stratford is practically its own city these days with multiple stations.

Oh, hello:

From the "notes" on the Excel file:

For April 2023 to March 2024, we have not published estimates for interchanges taking place at London Liverpool Street and London Paddington. This is because we know that interchanges taking place to or from Elizabeth line services at these stations have not been included in the source file used to derive our interchange estimates. We would expect the magnitude of each of these interchanges to be large, but we are unable to confidently estimate this. It is possible that interchange estimates at other stations on the Elizabeth line route have been overestimated as they include some modelled interchanges that are likely to have actually taken place at London Liverpool Street or London Paddington.

 

[FlyingPotato]

Using Excel
Top 5 busiest interchange stations outside of London
Birmingham New Street
Reading (may be inflated, however reading has been at this position before COVID)
Glasgow Central
Leeds
Manchester Piccadilly

 

[Dr Hoo]

Corby has had a blistering year - after topping out at around 300,000 pre-Covid, it recorded 500,000 last year. The wires and more comprehensive service have worked wonders it would seem!

Quite. Nevertheless I’m sure that the usual suspects who love to play at MML re-timetabling will continue their comments that the station is ‘over served’, ‘should be transferred to Thameslink’ (with 25’ extension of journey time), ‘should be diverted onto the Slow Lines north of Bedford/Sharnbrook’, ‘only be served by a shuttle from Kettering’ and so on.

 

[Julia]

Now wondering about the two season-ticket holders at Berney Arms...

 

[JW4]

Pilning must have had a good year, as it's not in the bottom ten...

330, down 8 from last time

 

[stuu]

What's not now apples to apples is how you treat the tube, re Crossrail. The Ealing-Bond St numbers won't know how people went.

TfL track the wifi on peoples' phones, so they have a pretty good idea

 

[JW4]

Maryland was a backwater and nearly closed. Goes to show what a good service can do.

It’s got ten times the passenger numbers it had back in 2010