Apr 2023–Mar 2024 station / flow statistics

[ainsworth74]

Surely if you want to be historic it should be the North Riding.

Yes I suppose so to be fair! I think we should just abolish counties all together and do away with this nonsense. But that's probably a topic for a different thread

 

[A S Leib]

Some countries/counties' least used station has changed. These being:

Country/County	Previously	Now	Notes
Kent	Snowdown, was also Kemsing the year before	Swale	Swale was least used every year until 2021/22
Shropshire	Broome	Hopton Heath	These two halts on the Heart of Wales tend to swap around each year. This year it was only a matter of 8 passengers!
Durham	Teesside Airport / Redcar British Steel	Heighington	Teesside Airport and Redcar British Steel are now de facto closed
Wales	Sugar Loaf	Roman Bridge	Sugar Loaf has some amount of tourists and hikers. Roman Bridge is in an unpopulated valley off a main road.
Scotland	Scotscalder	Kildonan	Will most likely be Altnabreac next year if things don't progress
Buckinghamshire	Little Kimble	Fenny Stratford	Only if you count Milton Keynes as part of Buckinghamshire. This is the first time Little Kimble's been overthown since the last round of station closures many years ago. Shows the stability (if nothing else) of Chiltern, while the Marston Vale Line deteriorates further.

Apart from Hertfordshire (St. Albans City –> Watford Junction), has the busiest station in any county changed?

 

[Magdalia]

Apart from Hertfordshire (St. Albans City –> Watford Junction), has the busiest station in any county changed?

Cambridge is still the busiest station in Cambridgeshire and it has just crept back over 10 million entries and exits.

Cambridge-Kings Cross is now up to 8th in the list of highest flows including a station outside London, overtaking Chelmsford-Liverpool Street and Birmingham New Street-Euston.

Another interesting feature is that there were more than 1 million journeys Ely-Cambridge.

 

[paulmch]

Cambridge is still the busiest station in Cambridgeshire and it has just crept back over 10 million entries and exits.

Cambridge-Kings Cross is now up to 8th in the list of highest flows including a station outside London, overtaking Chelmsford-Liverpool Street and Birmingham New Street-Euston.

Another interesting feature is that there were more than 1 million journeys Ely-Cambridge.

Cambridge North provided another 1.2 million journeys which pushes the city's recovery to around 90%. It'll be interesting to see how much untapped demand Cambridge South will unlock!

 

[stuu]

There are pink readers at Whitechapel on the Overground platforms. Not sure if there are any on the District/H&C - and also not sure if the methodology would count an Overground-Elizabeth Line journey as 1 or 2 journeys.

More generally, there must be some serious guesswork involved in these stats. Yesterday I had the option of Jubilee + Northern or Overground + Elizabeth Line from Canada Water to Tottenham Court Road; J+N was marginally quicker according to Citymapper but O+EL is obviously a nicer journey. No need to tap pink readers as fare is the same both routes. Getting reliable numbers for how many passengers are likely to choose a particular route (for that and many other similar journeys) must be nigh-on impossible.

I answered that in post #46. By using the WiFi data, very comprehensive

 

[showchaser]

I am sorry to ask, and to revive this thread: how would I see flow data between individual stations, not just the top ones. For example, Heathrow Terminals 2&3 to Gatwick Airport?

 

[Magdalia]

I am sorry to ask, and to revive this thread: how would I see flow data between individual stations, not just the top ones. For example, Heathrow Terminals 2&3 to Gatwick Airport?

They can be accessed via the Office of Rail and Road website, but it requires registration.

I have used this for 2022/23 data but I have yet to find anything similar for 2023/24:

Labs - Flow Statistics

Estimations (symmetrical) of total passenger journeys made between station pairs as published by the Office of Road and Rail

railalefan.co.uk

Flow Statistics​

Estimations (symmetrical) of total passenger journeys made between station pairs for the financial year 2022-2023 as published by the Office of Road and Rail.

 

[A S Leib]

I am sorry to ask, and to revive this thread: how would I see flow data between individual stations, not just the top ones. For example, Heathrow Terminals 2&3 to Gatwick Airport?

https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/odm/gbr/ has an easily manageable portal, although it doesn't (didn't, when I last checked) show recently-opened stations so for e.g. Brent Cross West to St. Pancras, you'd need to look for St. Pancras instead.

 

[Northern158170]

https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/odm/gbr/ has an easily manageable portal, although it doesn't (didn't, when I last checked) show recently-opened stations so for e.g. Brent Cross West to St. Pancras, you'd need to look for St. Pancras instead.

It will show them but you have to access it via the station page (if not possible editing the URL should do it)

 

[showchaser]

Thank you all! The ORR seem to keep this data from tap-in point to tap-in point, while I think I recall that TfL tries to generate flow statistics between origin and final destination. I have had a good look and cannot find how to obtain that data from two different given stations, please may I ask how to do that for TfL data—if it is indeed origin to final destination?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

A lot of electrified routes in the busiest station flows data. Not a big surprise I suppose- sparks effect and all that.

 

[showchaser]

These statistics are terrible! They suggest that far fewer than 100 people a day go from Canary Wharf to all Heathrow stations. Apparently flow to Bond Street, Farringdon, etc is essentially negligible.

 

[splashoutradio]

https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/odm/gbr/ has an easily manageable portal, although it doesn't (didn't, when I last checked) show recently-opened stations so for e.g. Brent Cross West to St. Pancras, you'd need to look for St. Pancras instead.

This is a known issue and one that will be fixed soon. We're currently working on adding train loadings - when this goes live, the Origin Destination Matrix pages will also be refreshed with new stations included

These statistics are terrible! They suggest that far fewer than 100 people a day go from Canary Wharf to all Heathrow stations. Apparently flow to Bond Street, Farringdon, etc is essentially negligible.

There are number of quality limitations with the ODM data. The following is a quote from from the RDG's (the data producer) documentation.

"The data are estimates. Accuracy varies by O/D pair. They are primarily based on tickets sales, sourced from LENNON (the rail industry’s ticketing and revenue system) and local ticketing data. These data sources and the methodology used provide the best approach possible given Great Britain does not have a fully gated rail network or robust count data for every station. However, this data does have weaknesses when utilised for this purpose and, although some of these are catered for in the methodology the user should be aware of these acknowledged limitations and bear these in mind when using the data."

TfL have a very good equivalent of this data for thier networks, including rail within the TfL fare zones. I can query that, if there's any specific flows you're interested in.

 

[Northern158170]

We're currently working on adding train loadings

The answer may be obvious, but what exactly is this?

 

[splashoutradio]

Train loadings are the amount of passengers that are on board a train, at a point in its journey. In other words, it'll be possible to select a train and view average number of people who board, alight, and travel through each station on its journey. (hopefully this makes some sort of sense )

 

[Northern158170]

Train loadings are the amount of passengers that are on board a train, at a point in its journey. In other words, it'll be possible to select a train and view average number of people who board, alight, and travel through each station on its journey. (hopefully this makes some sort of sense )

Sounds very interesting. Looking forward to looking at it! I tried doing that a little myself but the complexity of it meant I could only do a few branch lines

 

[showchaser]

This is a known issue and one that will be fixed soon. We're currently working on adding train loadings - when this goes live, the Origin Destination Matrix pages will also be refreshed with new stations included


There are number of quality limitations with the ODM data. The following is a quote from from the RDG's (the data producer) documentation.

"The data are estimates. Accuracy varies by O/D pair. They are primarily based on tickets sales, sourced from LENNON (the rail industry’s ticketing and revenue system) and local ticketing data. These data sources and the methodology used provide the best approach possible given Great Britain does not have a fully gated rail network or robust count data for every station. However, this data does have weaknesses when utilised for this purpose and, although some of these are catered for in the methodology the user should be aware of these acknowledged limitations and bear these in mind when using the data."

TfL have a very good equivalent of this data for thier networks, including rail within the TfL fare zones. I can query that, if there's any specific flows you're interested in.

Please can I emphasise that my criticism was of the ORR and their collection methods, and not this tool—I am extremely grateful for the tool.

I apologise if it seemed like I was criticising your work!

Thanks so much for the offer to load some data queries.

Please would it be possible to ask for the following specific flows:
Heathrow Group to Gatwick Airport
Heathrow Group minus Piccadilly Line to Gatwick Airport
Heathrow Group to Clapham Junction
Heathrow Group minus Piccadilly Line to Clapham Junction

 

[splashoutradio]

Sounds very interesting. Looking forward to looking at it! I tried doing that a little myself but the complexity of it meant I could only do a few branch lines

Kudos for doing what you have with the branch lines. It's not an easy set of data to work with.

Please can I emphasise that my criticism was of the ORR and their collection methods, and not this tool—I am extremely grateful for the tool.

I apologise if it seemed like I was criticising your work!

Thanks so much for the offer to load some data queries.

Please would it be possible to ask for the following specific flows:
Heathrow Group to Gatwick Airport
Heathrow Group minus Piccadilly Line to Gatwick Airport
Heathrow Group to Clapham Junction
Heathrow Group minus Piccadilly Line to Clapham Junction

No need to apologise @showchaser. It didn't come across as a criticism.

I've not got the data to hand at the moment, but shall run some queries on it this afternoon

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Jan 2025 ==

https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/odm/gbr/ has an easily manageable portal, although it doesn't (didn't, when I last checked) show recently-opened stations so for e.g. Brent Cross West to St. Pancras, you'd need to look for St. Pancras instead.

Should it be of any use, new stations (upto those made available in the 2023-24 dataset) should now be searchable. The ODM system has been updated, hopefully for the better, and will automatically add stations to the list when they become available in future data releases.

Please would it be possible to ask for the following specific flows:
Heathrow Group to Gatwick Airport
Heathrow Group minus Piccadilly Line to Gatwick Airport
Heathrow Group to Clapham Junction
Heathrow Group minus Piccadilly Line to Clapham Junction

Apologies Showchaser, I've not forgotten about these. Haven't yet been on a machine with the relevent data. Shall definitely dig it out though.