ORR Rail station usage

[absolutelymilk]

ORR Station Usage Statistics

Station Usage Statistics for 2014-15 are now out, enjoy!

 

[northwichcat]

Looks like overall growth has stalled on the Mid-Cheshire line, which isn't surprising really, for the previous 5 years some stations had seen an over 10% increase every year without any increase in services or any weekday strengthening. That trend couldn't continue forever with just a 2 car 142 or 150 every hour. Although, Navigation Rd and Lostock Gralam have seen healthy increases. They've suggested the increase in usage at Navigation Rd and decrease at Altrincham could be down to people avoiding Altrincham while the interchange works were ongoing.

 

[telstarbox]

Christmas come early!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
That's an impressive 300% increase for Teesside Airport

 

[Senex]

Interesting (for a York resident) to see that York retains a substantial lead over Newcstle amongst the ECML intermediate stations. York entries, exits, and interchanges 9,971,617; Newcastle ditto 8,475,555. You can't say it's all down to the Newcastle local traffic being on Metro because Newcastle does retain some heavy-rail local services and York doesn't have that many.

 

[absolutelymilk]

A quick calculation giving me an estimate of 4.5% growth, which sounds about right given the increase in the passenger rail figures

 

[crehld]

Good to see continued growth at the local stations to me. I do quite enjoy the explanation for Hellifield's increase.

Reason for change unclear - possibly tourist traffic

I wouldn't call Hellifield a tourist atttraction The reality is more likely to be an increase in people using the train to commute to Leeds and more rigourous attempts to sell tickets by on board staff. Also likely to be the reason behind Gargrave's increase.

 

[The Ham]

it's a shame that there appears to be no data for the reopened Borders line so we can't see how that has been doing after the first month.

 

[headshot119]

A few interesting ones

Wrexham Central
2013 / 2014 - 53142
2014 / 2015 - 73444
increase - 20302
% 38.20

Cardiff Bay
2013 / 2014 - 1019348
2014 / 2015 - 1143746
increase - 124398
% 12.20

Both are stations where revenue enforcement have taken place over the last 12 month, so although high growth trends, I'd say most of it could be attributed to cutting down on fare evasion.

 

[crehld]

it's a shame that there appears to be no data for the reopened Borders line so we can't see how that has been doing after the first month.

From the ORR report:

What are the start and end dates for the estimates of station usage?
They are based on a financial year – 1st April to 31st March.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the borders line wasn't opened until September???

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Looks like growth has stalled on the Mid-Cheshire line, which isn't surprising really, for the previous 5 years some stations had seen an over 10% increase every year without any increase in services or any weekday strengthening. That trend couldn't continue forever with just a 2 car 142 or 150 every hour.

Numbers in North Wales continue their slow decline, except at Bangor and Flint which are pretty much flat. Wrexham down 6%, Colwyn Bay down 3% .
I hope the campaigners for more/longer trains comprehend this.
If most of the country is going up 5% and you are down 5%, you are 10% off the curve.
Chester and Shrewsbury up 5%, Hooton up 10%.
Liverpool stations all up 5%-ish, Manchester stations up only fractionally.
That might reflect some of the big one-off events in Liverpool over this period.
Too early to measure the impact of electrification and "new" trains around Liverpool.

 

[headshot119]

Numbers in North Wales continue their slow decline, except at Bangor and Flint which are pretty much flat. Wrexham down 6%, Colwyn Bay down 3% .
I hope the campaigners for more/longer trains comprehend this.
If most of the country is going up 5% and you are down 5%, you are 10% off the curve.
Chester and Shrewsbury up 5%, Hooton up 10%.
Liverpool stations all up 5%-ish, Manchester stations up only fractionally.
That might reflect some of the big one-off events in Liverpool over this period.
Too early to measure the impact of electrification and "new" trains around Liverpool.

Wrexham General is down 6%, but Wrexham Central is up 38.2%.

Chester and Shrewsbury both had there gate line times extended for the year this data is taken from, likely to skew the results a fair bit.

 

[northwichcat]

Too early to measure the impact of electrification and "new" trains around Liverpool.

TfGM have said recently they've estimated passenger numbers have increased by around 10% on Lime Street-Victoria services as a result of replacing 142s and 150s with 319s. However, I've not heard any claim about an increase in passenger numbers on Lime Street-Airport services which have had the 319s for longer.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Wrexham General is down 6%, but Wrexham Central is up 38.2%.

It's still a 20K (3%) overall net loss for Wrexham.
And all the long distance travel is from General.
The Borders Line stations seem flat so there is no great increase on the line.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

I'm surprised Grimsby Town hasn't lost half it's passengers.
There's been so many replacement buses this year thanks to First not having drivers, and service levels have got worse, plus there's the change at Doncaster now on a rush hour train.

 

[miami84]

My local Sankey for Penketh station has increased by a fair bit. I hope this appetite for rail usage continues when Warrington West opens.

 

[Grimsby town]

I'm surprised Grimsby Town hasn't lost half it's passengers.
There's been so many replacement buses this year thanks to First not having drivers, and service levels have got worse, plus there's the change at Doncaster now on a rush hour train.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a drop next year especially with the closure around Christmas. A lot of Sundays have seen rail replacement buses as well. One interesting statistic in the area is the increase in passengers at Great Coates, Healing and Stallingborough despite the service becoming worse as First abandon it at the first sign of trouble. Hopefully East Midlands will choose to stop some Lincoln trains there to try to encourage more growth.

 

[70014IronDuke]

HELP!?

What is wrong with me, my browser, my .....?

I've clicked on that link 20 times, and done a search for 2014 - 15 data - but all I get is the 2013 - 14 statistics.

anyone else have this trouble?

 

[northwichcat]

HELP!?

What is wrong with me, my browser, my .....?

I've clicked on that link 20 times, and done a search for 2014 - 15 data - but all I get is the 2013 - 14 statistics.

anyone else have this trouble?

Are you looking in column AA?

 

[telstarbox]

The link is the fourth bullet down: "Station usage 2014-15 data XLSX, 1,883 Kb"

 

[bunnahabhain]

Nice to see Skegness reverse a 10+ year decline and post a 30k increase, along with most of the other shacks along the Skegness route that have seen an increase (except, unsurprisingly, ELO and HUB!).

 

[absolutelymilk]

HELP!?

What is wrong with me, my browser, my .....?

I've clicked on that link 20 times, and done a search for 2014 - 15 data - but all I get is the 2013 - 14 statistics.

anyone else have this trouble?

You may have this link stored in your browser as the old page - try deleting all cached pages. Here is the link to the document (Excel) in case that doesn't work
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0019/20179/estimates-of-station-usage-2014-15.xlsx

 

[70014IronDuke]

The link is the fourth bullet down: "Station usage 2014-15 data XLSX, 1,883 Kb"

No, I could not see that.

Until 5 mins ago, all I could get was:

2013-14 report and data

Station usage 2013-14 methodological report pdf icon PDF, 680 Kb
Station usage 2013-14 data xls icon XLS, 994 Kb
Station usage 2013-14 time series xls icon XLS, 486 Kb
Station usage 2013-14 infographic pdf icon PDF, 1,702 Kb

Notes on the latest estimates of station usage data

BUT - now it has switched to 2014 - 15. Weird. :roll:

Thanks for your and JCollins' efforts to help.

 

[talldave]

HELP!?

What is wrong with me, my browser, my .....?

I've clicked on that link 20 times, and done a search for 2014 - 15 data - but all I get is the 2013 - 14 statistics.

anyone else have this trouble?

Yes, from my mobile. Only saw the new data when I used a desktop.

 

[backontrack]

Nobody else has posted them yet, so I have the great honour of naming the three least-used stations this year according to the new statistics. I won't make any jokes about Newhaven Marine - that was strangely absent from the columns this year, while stations such as Bury and Allerton appeared.

In third place was... Teesside Airport, or Tees-Side as it appears in the tables. 32 people used the station this year. As stated by another poster, that's an increase of 300% on the last two years' total of 8 people.

In second place was... Coombe Junction Halt. This had 26 passengers, just four more than the eventual winner. Last year it had 42, so that's a drop in usage by just over 38%.

But what was the winner? Was it Barry Links, Buckenham or Breich? Gainsborough Central or Golf Street? Denton or Dorking West?

In the end, it was ...drumroll please...

...SHIPPEA HILL!

The stop had just 22 passengers using it this year. That's still ten more people than last year, when usage plummeted from 50 to just twelve people. That's really quite surprising!

So what do you guys think?

 

[WatcherZero]

No, I could not see that.

Until 5 mins ago, all I could get was:

2013-14 report and data

Station usage 2013-14 methodological report pdf icon PDF, 680 Kb
Station usage 2013-14 data xls icon XLS, 994 Kb
Station usage 2013-14 time series xls icon XLS, 486 Kb
Station usage 2013-14 infographic pdf icon PDF, 1,702 Kb

Notes on the latest estimates of station usage data

BUT - now it has switched to 2014 - 15. Weird. :roll:

Thanks for your and JCollins' efforts to help.

Likely your ISP was serving you a cached version of the page rather than a live version until they notice the page has been updated.

 

[Essexman]

The three least used stations - I would guess that most of the users are enthusiasts and usage could easily fluctuate year to year with such small numbers.
Last time I travelled on the Looe branch the guard told me that enthusiasts wanting a ticket with the station name were the only people he saw using Coombe Junction.
I assume that these figures are still based on ticket sales, so for example anyone with a Cornwall Ranger ticket wouldn't count at Coombe, so the actual usage is probably a bit higher.

 

[WatcherZero]

10 Largest Increases:

1. Energlyn & Churchill Park (15,939 to 69,390) 335% Newly opened Dec 2013
2. Pevensey Bay (6,838 to 25,464) 272%, Tourist activity
3. Manea (3,694 to 10,794) 192% increased services from Jan 2014
4. Prittlewell* (163,802 to 424,804) Up 159% Change in Southend branch methodology
5. Blaydon (5,014 to 11,880) Up 137% timetable improvements
6. Newark Castle* (240,454 to 538,503) Up 124% change in allocation of group stations
7. Melksham (23,930 to 51,858) Up 117% New service introduced in 2013
8. Dalmarnock (100,360 to 217,120) Up 116% station refurbishment and introduction of Sunday services
9. Stewartby (16,012 to 32,330) Up 102% New college opened nearby with progressively increasing intake
10. South Bank (12,544 to 22,860) Up 82% on trend


10 largest falls:
1. Southend Victoria* (3,726,876 to 1,358,773) Down 64% change in Southend branch methodology
2. Bicester Town (207,900 to 88,440) Down 57% Station temporarily closed though they were still selling tickets to it.
3. Garth (26,292 to 14,810) Down 44% -Anomalous spike on Maestag line returned to normal
4. Sunderland* (793,418 to 465,784) Down 41% Change in Tyne and Wear PTE Methodology
5. Worcester Shrub Hill* (968,834 to 595,402) Down 39% Change in allocation of group stations
6. Reading West (610,814 to 385,332) Down 37% reversal in growth trend following station improvement
7. Prestwick International Airport (453,998 to 293,888) Down 35% -Fall in airport passengers
8. Moston (125,902 to 82,486) Down 34% reduction in services
9. Park Street (31,734 to 90,944) Down 34% closed for upgrades of Abbey Line
10. IBM Halt (71,128 to 47,376) Down 33% continuing trend

 

[nickswift99]

I suspect Reading West's decline is the increased activity in ticket enforcement at Reading. This should have reduced the excess fare claimers.

 

[Quakkerillo]

Always nice to read such things, but can somebody explain me the following drops:

(1) Uckfield: usage dropped 4.5% overall, most stations dropped
(2) Manchester area: Around Hyde -2.5%, Hadfield line: -5%, Roses Lines -1.5%, Wigan-Manchester -5%, and Manc Airport-Manchester -7% (although new Metrolink to the Airport is partially responsible here).

 

[simonw]

The three least used stations - I would guess that most of the users are enthusiasts and usage could easily fluctuate year to year with such small numbers.
Last time I travelled on the Looe branch the guard told me that enthusiasts wanting a ticket with the station name were the only people he saw using Coombe Junction.
I assume that these figures are still based on ticket sales, so for example anyone with a Cornwall Ranger ticket wouldn't count at Coombe, so the actual usage is probably a bit higher.

If you read the paper which sets out the methodology they do attempt to deal with ranger tickets and the like, although the results will always contain an element of estimation.