New DfT rail usage figures, big increase

[ScotGG]

Three TOCs are very poor performers: SWR, C2C and Southeastern. The heavy commuter base hasn’t returned and Southeastern has probably also been affected by competition from the Elizabeth Line. But I am not sure why these particular TOCs would be disproportionally affected by home working - they have quite different demographic profiles.

So the recovery of Govia Thameslink and Greater Anglia is quite remarkable in that context given that they also have a heavy commuter base. Maybe in these cases reduced demand as a result of home working is balanced out by booming demand for leisure travel to the South Coast, Cambridge and airports?

Not that simple I'd say? SWR have been running short trains and reduced services in part due to 701 delays.

SE still havn't restored many cut services and whilst the Liz line may impact some passenger journey it's doesn't stop near the vast majority of SE lines. Limited or no use to those on Orpington, Hayes, Sidcup and Bexleyheath lines in the Metro area. If the Lizzie is such a big factor why are other transport modes nearby like the DLR and London Overground serving much of the same areas as the EL able to recover much quicker? It says to me cuts on SE are hurting much like on SWR.

GA havn't cut anywhere near the same amount as SE and SWR and unlike the old 455s and 465s have nice new trains and are well staffed.

Taking a step back many TOCs will have pockets of growth and other parts stagnant particularly those with a wide type of journeys eg - and this is hypothetical - SWR could seeing poor numbers on Exeter services or to the stockbroker belt in Surrey but a lot of latent demand or busy trains in inner London where cuts have been pretty big on the Hounslow Loop to give one example. Same on SE with HS1, long distance and services in, say, inner London at Brixton or Deptford. The numbers only tell us so much without further break down by urban/mid distance/long distance and fast like HS1 and all stoppers.

 

[Energy]

And Chiltern haven't tried (been allowed to try?) to stay particularly competitive on time with GWR and Avanti post-Covid.

Competition between TOCs isn't really a thing now all revenue goes to the DfT. It makes more sense to let GWR and Avanti take the long-distance passengers, and let Chiltern handle intermediate stations.

 

[Haywain]

Competition between TOCs isn't really a thing now all revenue goes to the DfT.

Except that it is a thing and all the TOCs are, rightly, judged on how they perform.

 

[Energy]

Except that it is a thing and all the TOCs are, rightly, judged on how they perform.

By competition, I mean: in the franchising era, Chiltern tried to compete with (then) Virgin Trains for passengers on Birmingham - London.

Competition between TOCs now for performance isn't as public-facing as Chiltern's old advertising.

 

[Haywain]

By competition, I mean: in the franchising era, Chiltern tried to compete with (then) Virgin Trains for passengers on Birmingham - London.

And they still provide that competition through fares and restrictions, if not journey times. What has changed is that WMT are far better at providing competition for Avanti than their predecessors ever were.

 

[A S Leib]

And they still provide that competition through fares and restrictions, if not journey times. What has changed is that WMT are far better at providing competition for Avanti than their predecessors ever were.

And Avanti, with the caveat that I can see the benefits to some of the changes, worse at providing a service than Virgin (e.g. being slow at restoring Euston – Birmingham to 3tph (still missing an 11:10 and 12:10 Euston to Coventry nonstop), fast Manchester via Stoke / Crewe services consistently calling at Nuneaton / Rugby) making it easier for LNR to match the intercity offer in some respects.

 

[dk1]

And Avanti, with the caveat that I can see the benefits to some of the changes, worse at providing a service than Virgin (e.g. being slow at restoring Euston – Birmingham to 3tph (still missing an 11:10 and 12:10 Euston to Coventry nonstop), fast Manchester via Stoke / Crewe services consistently calling at Nuneaton / Rugby) making it easier for LNR to match the intercity offer in some respects.

From what I read in MR magazine a month or two back, the full 3tph will resume in September I think it was. Surprised me it wasn’t December. West Midlands stakeholders are keen to see it’s resumption.

 

[Bald Rick]

From what I read in MR magazine a month or two back, the full 3tph will resume in September I think it was. Surprised me it wasn’t December. West Midlands stakeholders are keen to see it’s resumption.

Reintroduction of services has been very carefully phased to ensure it can be resourced.

 

[dk1]

Reintroduction of services has been very carefully phased to ensure it can be resourced.

Such a shame Avanti ended up in that embarrassing situation.

 

[Bald Rick]

Such a shame Avanti ended up in that embarrassing situation.

Well its what happens if the asumptions the business has worked with, and have held true, for 30 odd years suddenly don’t hold true. They are by no means the only operstor in thst position, albeit they are almost out of it now.

 

[Krokodil]

Well its what happens if the asumptions the business has worked with, and have held true, for 30 odd years suddenly don’t hold true. They are by no means the only operstor in thst position, albeit they are almost out of it now.

It helps if management don't "lose the changing room"

 

[The Ham]

FYI the passenger km for 2024/25 were 95% of the pre-Covid record, whereas passenger numbers were 99% of the record (presumably due to both split ticketing and the Elizabeth line massively increasing passenger numbers but not having so much of an effect on passenger km)

Probably more to do with Elizabeth Line (where journeys are short) rather than split ticketing (although it will be a factor).

The reason for this thinking is that GWR had seen the opposite happen due to having lost it's stoppers to the Elizabeth Line (passenger numbers circa 89% yet kms circa 102%).

 

[Sad Sprinter]

So what we’re basically at 2015 levels of passenger numbers now?

 

[Killingworth]

So what we’re basically at 2015 levels of passenger numbers now?

Very variable, nationwide. Elizabeth line is the obvious front runner but others are also up and some substantially down.

I'm sure there'll be many examples. The line and services I use most frequently are Northern between Sheffield and the Hope Valley or TPE to Manchester.

Loadings at smaller Northern stations up to Edale are all substantially up since Covid - leisure. Loadings on the same trains west of Edale are well down - commuting. The net result is probably an overall reduction as there were a lot more daily commuters.

It's hard to know loadings on TPE and EMR services between Manchester and Sheffield but observation suggests regular commuter numbers remain substantially down but irregular leisure use is up. Again the net result is probably still below what it was.

And so it will be across the nation. If TOCs could provide longer and more reliable trains the recovery would be better - like XC!

 

[FenMan]

If TOCs could provide longer and more reliable trains the recovery would be better - like XC!

The perennial problem. Clearly, the industry is "leaving money on the table", to use an Americanism. The industry (not to mention HM Treasury) will look at the cost of improving reliability / increasing capacity in each case and then decide what's best for the taxpayer/industry, with passengers way down the list of priorities.

This cheese-paring approach, and the lack of focus of why railways exist and how to get the best out of them for the good of the country, is sub-optimal. Will it ever change?

 

[The Ham]

The perennial problem. Clearly, the industry is "leaving money on the table", to use an Americanism. The industry (not to mention HM Treasury) will look at the cost of improving reliability / increasing capacity in each case and then decide what's best for the taxpayer/industry, with passengers way down the list of priorities.

This cheese-paring approach, and the lack of focus of why railways exist and how to get the best out of them for the good of the country, is sub-optimal. Will it ever change?

The issue is that we are currently setting double digit growth, now that's likely to start to slow, however that's still likely to run up against capacity constraints.

Let's look at XC, over the last few years the rate of growth has been (passenger numbers)

2022/23 - 35%
2023/24 - 18%
2024/25 - 15%

It therefore only need around 7.6% of growth next year to reach the pre COVID peak. That's quite achievable given the rates of growth seen.

As such it's not likely to be long before XC really need more capacity. Yes there's a couple of extra 221's which are currently spare, but that's not likely to make much of a difference.

It would be entirely possible to give XC a significant capacity uplift by providing 12 nine coach 80x's, however to limit the extra ninety of coaches they need to pay for it's probably worth (once at least some are starting to be run in service) starting a program to reduce the overall number of 22x units but have them all as 6 coach units (circa 325 seats, whilst two of them in service together would have a similar capacity as a 9 coach 802/1).

By doing so you reduce the need for extra staff (as there'll be fewer pairs needed) yet the total number of coaches being leased would only increase from 312 to 366. Which whilst an increase (of 54) isn't actually that much more than if the 6 spare 221's were to enter service (30) yet would have a larger number of seats across the fleet (circa 22,000 seats vs circa 17,700, so about 30% more seats for an increase in coaches of 7%).

The problem you have is that it's likely to take 3 years for that to be fully delivered, by which time we could have seen rail growth of 10%, 7% and 4% (+22.4%) and putting XC at 46.25 million passengers (pre COVID it was 40.6).

 

[ScotGG]

As ever the treasury also don't consider the wider economic benefits to improvements.

Always looking at the near term and not the mid-long. Then they wonder why productivity is poor and the deficit so high. Penny wise, pound foolish.

 

[JonathanH]

As ever the treasury also don't consider the wider economic benefits to improvements.

It appears that the DfT / Treasury needs a compelling case to be made to them. Clearly rail funding is finite, so extra costs somewhere need to be offset by lower costs elsewhere. We know, for example, that the changes to GWR's North Downs timetable required operational cost savings to be made in the Oxford area - see https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/december-2023-timetable-change.252754/page-19#post-6398145

The best chance of additional funding being released for some of the routes being discussed in this thread is evidence that the additional capacity being brought in as a first step doesn't simply add more costs, and does, in fact, bring in revenue. Otherwise, where is the funding meant to come from?

 

[redreni]

SE still havn't restored many cut services and whilst the Liz line may impact some passenger journey it's doesn't stop near the vast majority of SE lines. Limited or no use to those on Orpington, Hayes, Sidcup and Bexleyheath lines in the Metro area. If the Lizzie is such a big factor why are other transport modes nearby like the DLR and London Overground serving much of the same areas as the EL able to recover much quicker? It says to me cuts on SE are hurting much like on SWR.

In SE London there's a major culture of commuters being dropped off and picked up by car, as well as a fair amount of drive & park. Abbey Wood is an absolute magnet for these cars, many of which would previously have gone to stations on the Bexleyheath and Sidcup lines. A lot of people from the Bexleyheath area take the bus to Abbey Wood these days, too.

I'll have a go at a speculative answer to your question, too: as a person who moved to SE London in anticipation of Crossrail opening who had to rely on Southeastern while Crossrail was under construction, I can tell you it is by comparison with the Elizabeth Line extremely slow, lacking in punctuality in the peaks, expensive and unpleasant to use. This probably makes it more vulnerable to people switching to a better alternative once one becomes available. Because Southeastern is on the National Rail rather than the TfL PAYG fare scale, people are incentivised to take a bus or ponce a lift to Abbey Wood to avoid the mixed-mode fare. There's no similar incentive to stop people served by London Overground or DLR continuing to use those modes, even if they then change onto the Elizabeth Line during their journey.

 

[The Ham]

The best chance of additional funding being released for some of the routes being discussed in this thread is evidence that the additional capacity being brought in as a first step doesn't simply add more costs, and does, in fact, bring in revenue. Otherwise, where is the funding meant to come from?

The point with XC is that it may well see growth of 22% over the next three years, however 17.4% growth could be achieved with an average of 5.5% year in year growth (remembering XC saw 15% last year).

Either is going to result in the trains (as 7.6% would reach the peak) being busier than pre COVID and it's not like XC had an excess of capacity at that point.

 

[Trainbike46]

The point with XC is that it may well see growth of 22% over the next three years, however 17.4% growth could be achieved with an average of 5.5% year in year growth (remembering XC saw 15% last year).

Either is going to result in the trains (as 7.6% would reach the peak) being busier than pre COVID and it's not like XC had an excess of capacity at that point.

I think XC capacity has increased a little bit, as the number of voyagers cascaded from Avanti is slightly larger than the capacity lost by whithdrawing the HSTs.

However, with current growth patterns that little bit of extra capacity will soon be fully used.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

I think XC capacity has increased a little bit, as the number of voyagers cascaded from Avanti is slightly larger than the capacity lost by whithdrawing the HSTs.

However, with current growth patterns that little bit of extra capacity will soon be fully used.

There's a point where you can't increase passengers without the capacity, if people can't get a seat they're likely to be lost to another form of transport

 

[Trainbike46]

There's a point where you can't increase passengers without the capacity, if people can't get a seat they're likely to be lost to another form of transport

Exactly. Therefore the need to increase capacity further (and ideally use the capacity they have better - no more locking units out of use!)

 

[The Ham]

Exactly. Therefore the need to increase capacity further (and ideally use the capacity they have better - no more locking units out of use!)

Indeed, and at that point there also wouldn't be a need for cuts to find extra capacity as the extra passengers would be able to fund it.

The thing with XC is if there was a plan to buy some longer units (such as 9 coach 80x's) in the short term you could send off lease some of the 22x's to keep the costs down. As growth continued you could either reinstate those units or use them to reform the retained units to longer trains (but fewer of them).

The issue is there's currently no plan if we see another 2 years of 10% or more growth.

 

[Dr Day]

Indeed, and at that point there also wouldn't be a need for cuts to find extra capacity as the extra passengers would be able to fund it.

But does the marginal revenue from those extra passengers fully cover the marginal costs of the extra capacity?

 

[The Ham]

But does the marginal revenue from those extra passengers fully cover the marginal costs of the extra capacity?

It depends, if you try running 4+4 coach trains then you it only have more lease costs but also more staff costs.

If you had a train with 625 seats (9 coaches) vs a train with 10 coaches (5+5) which only has 512 seats but had a similar least cost but needs three staff rather than two then chances are you could cover the cost of the longer trains.

Likewise if you could invest the fleet's seating capacity by 30% but only increase the number of coaches by 17%, then there's a fairly good chance you would cover the costs.

 

[The exile]

But does the marginal revenue from those extra passengers fully cover the marginal costs of the extra capacity?

At certain critical points, clearly not (and the chances are that those critical points are all the Treasury bean counters will see).

 

[Class 170101]

If the capacity is desperately needed is there a technical reason the Voyagers must run with three staff or is it just down to agreements?

 

[The exile]

If the capacity is desperately needed is there a technical reason the Voyagers must run with three staff or is it just down to agreements?

Technical is probably easier and cheaper to resolve than are union agreements. Sad really as a growing railway would probably actually mean more potential members for a union (which is their “bottom line”)

 

[Bamford]

At certain critical points, clearly not (and the chances are that those critical points are all the Treasury bean counters will see).

Absolutely baffling if it doesn't considering the high cost of fares on XC