Point to Point Passeneger numbers

[Clip]

So if you found out that on your particular journey there was 1 million journeys that took place solely between Brum and Leeds.

75% of those were returns the rest just singles - what would that tell and what could you plan?

Conversley you loot at the figures Leeds to Birmingham and you see that there were 1.25 million journeys from Leeds to Birmingham and a million of those were returns but figures showed that in July and december there was a much higher rate of return journey then the rest of the months in that year and higher than the average for the year too.

What would you think that was because of and what would it usefully let you plan and model?

You dont need them. Congratulations, other people who do different jobs do. Experience cant tell you everything when looking at regional transport patterns.

And if they do need them in their jobs then they are available to them if they ask. If it is not available to them then it has been decided they do not need it.

But unfortunately experience alone will not help you predict what will happen in the future. Having raw data to generate actual outputs and likely scenarios will. I'm sure most people will be able to plan days/weeks/months in advance, but if we're talking long term you need to be doing other things compared to relying solely on experience.

I know of events everywhere on the route me TOC serves at least once a year in advance and for all these events I keep an eye on them - especially london ones as these affect us more. I will then trhough experience roughly know who many extra if at all staff are needed for crowd control.

If its engineering works then once it gets agreed I will know and plan accordingly.

I am unsure how you manage to find this difficult to plan even without the information.
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Actually 142094 - go into work tomorrow and make the request for these figures that you want and come back and tell me what they say. And if they say no ask them why.

 

[YorkshireBear]

So if you found out that on your particular journey there was 1 million journeys that took place solely between Brum and Leeds.

75% of those were returns the rest just singles - what would that tell and what could you plan?

Conversley you loot at the figures Leeds to Birmingham and you see that there were 1.25 million journeys from Leeds to Birmingham and a million of those were returns but figures showed that in July and december there was a much higher rate of return journey then the rest of the months in that year and higher than the average for the year too.

What would you think that was because of and what would it usefully let you plan and model?



And if they do need them in their jobs then they are available to them if they ask. If it is not available to them then it has been decided they do not need it.



I know of events everywhere on the route me TOC serves at least once a year in advance and for all these events I keep an eye on them - especially london ones as these affect us more. I will then trhough experience roughly know who many extra if at all staff are needed for crowd control.

If its engineering works then once it gets agreed I will know and plan accordingly.

I am unsure how you manage to find this difficult to plan even without the information.

It gives me current yearly rail demand to base my service frequency on while accounting for increases caused by modal shift and improved journey times. On the level of design i am producing at the moment monthly variations do not matter.

We are not just using it for this though, you decide on staff numbers and i appreciate your knowledge about that but neither me or 142094 are doing that so i dont see how you can compare it. We are talking about infrastructure and service provision which you do not decide.

Do you calculate emergency timetables, and replacement bus provisions? Do you calculate demand for future service provisions? Do you calculate if chord is required to increase journey opprunities around manchester. WIth all due respect, no you do not.

 

[Clip]

Thats probably because I dont work or live around Manchester. Funnily enough I do actually sort out bus provisio0n when we do replacements and the staff at each station I manage to make sure that it all runs smoothly.

Emergency timetables are produced by our timetable planners - the clue is in the title - along with NR - I just ensure the staff are aware. Future provisions and any extra services are all produced in conjunction with both NR and DfT should it be deemed extra to the franchise. And this is all done in conjunction with people employed by the TOC to do just that. Not Uni students or many,if any, outside contractors.

Do you produce emergency timetables then? Who do you work for or are you still at uni so all this is theory.

And 142094 still hasnt said what they do, but as I have repeatedly said - that information is available to him should his TOC deem it necessary to his job. If its not, then he doesnt need it. Is this too difficult a concept for any of you to grasp?


And let me make one thing clear here. I have access to this information so that I can see and plan for future staffing needs at my stations if we see a noticable increase in certain journeys and at certain times. Thats why I am allowed access to it.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Thats probably because I dont work or live around Manchester. Funnily enough I do actually sort out bus provisio0n when we do replacements and the staff at each station I manage to make sure that it all runs smoothly.

Emergency timetables are produced by our timetable planners - the clue is in the title - along with NR - I just ensure the staff are aware. Future provisions and any extra services are all produced in conjunction with both NR and DfT should it be deemed extra to the franchise. And this is all done in conjunction with people employed by the TOC to do just that. Not Uni students or many,if any, outside contractors.

Do you produce emergency timetables then? Who do you work for or are you still at uni so all this is theory.

And 142094 still hasnt said what they do, but as I have repeatedly said - that information is available to him should his TOC deem it necessary to his job. If its not, then he doesnt need it. Is this too difficult a concept for any of you to grasp?


And let me make one thing clear here. I have access to this information so that I can see and plan for future staffing needs at my stations if we see a noticable increase in certain journeys and at certain times. Thats why I am allowed access to it.

I am not arguing that i need them for that reason, you appeared to be argueing that we do not need these figures at all? I was giving examples of people who do what i do (as in gradutes who do what i do) who will require the figures.

The people you mention in NR and the TOCs will use these figures, that is the point we are trying to make. You seemed to suggest these figures were no use to anyone in urban transport planning.

I imagine 142094 may have gone to bed as it quarter to 3, unlike some people he is not up because he has a project to finish.

 

[Clip]

We dont call them 'Urban transport planners' thanks. And you do not need the figures.

And Im pretty sure that any 'Urban transport planners' who do not work in the rail industry have any use for them either. Which is why they are not in the public domain.

If its too difficult a concept to grasp then, sorry, but its just not my problem and you should stick to your modelling using station figures that are released. Its probably what everyone else uses and the world ticks by just fine.

 

[YorkshireBear]

We dont call them 'Urban transport planners' thanks. And you do not need the figures.

And Im pretty sure that any 'Urban transport planners' who do not work in the rail industry have any use for them either. Which is why they are not in the public domain.

If its too difficult a concept to grasp then, sorry, but its just not my problem and you should stick to your modelling using station figures that are released. Its probably what everyone else uses and the world ticks by just fine.

You can call them whatever the hell you want. Im a civil engineer. Not aware it has an official title i was just being illustrative.

POINT TO POINT STATION FIGURES ARE USED IN THE INDUSTRY THAT IS WHY ATOC USES THEM IN ITS RESPONSE TO HS2.

How can you argue with this? they are need for transport planning decisions end of. Stations figures give you nothing except passenger numbers using that station, you need to know origins and destination figures.

People outside the rail industry do planning for the rail industry and they will use these figures.

 

[ian959]

Clip, I am afraid that you are starting to make yourself look a tad silly with your arguments. If you are responsible for staffing issues at a group of station, POINT TO POINT passenger numbers are not what you would be looking at surely? You would be looking at total arrival and departure passenger numbers per station split into hourly time frames or similar surely. Total passenger flow through is all you would be interested in, not where those passengers originally started their journey from.

Even to me as a non-technical type not working anywhere near the industry the sorts of Point to Point numbers that YorkshireBear is looking for would have significant use in a number of areas, not the least of which would be determining service stopping patterns and service frequenices I would imagine. It seems like common sense to me and perfectly rational numbers to seek for projecting traffic flows on a line.

 

[Clip]

You can call them whatever the hell you want. Im a civil engineer. Not aware it has an official title i was just being illustrative.

POINT TO POINT STATION FIGURES ARE USED IN THE INDUSTRY THAT IS WHY ATOC USES THEM IN ITS RESPONSE TO HS2.

How can you argue with this? they are need for transport planning decisions end of. Stations figures give you nothing except passenger numbers using that station, you need to know origins and destination figures.

People outside the rail industry do planning for the rail industry and they will use these figures.

And you are neither and you have no need for them which has been my point all along and which is one of the reasons the information is not in the public realm. Let alone competition issues between TOCs who use the same track and stop at the same stations whether regularly or intermittently.

Clip, I am afraid that you are starting to make yourself look a tad silly with your arguments. If you are responsible for staffing issues at a group of station, POINT TO POINT passenger numbers are not what you would be looking at surely? You would be looking at total arrival and departure passenger numbers per station split into hourly time frames or similar surely. Total passenger flow through is all you would be interested in, not where those passengers originally started their journey from.

I dont think so. I look at and use all passenger figures and use them all to plan ahead.

Lets have a scecnario of engineering works. I know from using POINT TO POINT passenger numbers that on a saturday I have,in the past I a rather frequent amount of people who turn up on the day wanting to go from A to London Terminal. I can then add on a few more passengers who will already hold a season for how many express buses I may need and whether or not I will need extra staff to marshall them onto the correct bus.

But also I find out from other stations that some people dont go into London terminal and there is quite a lot of POINT TO POINT tickets between station A/C/E/G and then to London Terminal I can plan on how many semi fast buses we should use.

Then we look at POINT TO POINT tickets from all the rest of the stations inbetween that may be small usage and plan accordingly with a stopping service for them also.


We can and do plan for this for every station that is affected during engineering works so for you to say that I have no need for the information is quite false.
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And just to add yorkshire bear, I've glanced back through the thread and I have never once said that people within the industry don't use the figures so I have no idea why you wrote that nor why you done it in capitals.

What I have written is that those who work in the industry and have a need for such data already have access to it. And if they don't then they are deemed as not needing it for their job.

So one thinks you're inventing what I have said. Mind you it is late and I'm very tired so maybe I missed the post where I claimed that.

 

[YorkshireBear]

5:45 arguement we arnt doing bad here Clip.

Yeah but i am doing work at uni which is an example of what i would do in the industry so that doesnt mean the figures arnt useful to me? it simply means i havent got a job in industry yet.

I do fear this is going round in circles though so i am going to vote for an agree to disagree clip?

 

[cle]

These are quite commonly included in RUS documents, so I would trawl through those.

Not hugely commercially sensitive either.

 

[tbtc]

It would be interesting to see the figures, to get an idea for how large a number of journeys are (just) between two big cities, since that's what HS2 is catering for.

It would also answer a few arguments on here if we had access to the number of people who actually use some "through" services (like Holyhead to Cardiff or Liverpool to Norwich or Aberdeen to Penzance or Inverness to London).

It's also help to see how a direct train affects demand (e.g. you may expect that there'd be the same latent demand from Ipswich to Liverpool as there is from Norwich to Liverpool, but the fact that the latter has a direct train service must give rail a better share of that market than the Ipswich market - since Ipswich passengers have to change).

But, in answer to YorkshireBear's question - no, I don't know, sorry.

 

[Goatboy]

And you are neither and you have no need for them which has been my point all along and which is one of the reasons the information is not in the public realm. Let alone competition issues between TOCs who use the same track and stop at the same stations whether regularly or intermittently.

Let my start by saying that I can see your point and, largely, agree with it. Despite the other twos best efforts to convince everyone how important it is for them to access the data they want, it isn't important. Academic research is very honourable, but it's not 'important' enough to mean that you truly NEED data like this.

However..

Do members of the public NEED detailed information on the number of vehicles in the councils refuse truck fleet? Do they NEED detailed detailed information on how many staff work in which bits of the local fire service? Do they NEED to know who provides IT services to ABC Borough Council (now that one IS commercially sensitive!)

No, they do not. However they are all legally entitled to request that information and it will usually be provided as a result under the Freedom of Information Act, which is based on the principle that publically funded organisations should be accountable to the taxpayer.

In principle, then, how is the rail industry any different? They too are funded by the taxpayer in the form of huge subsidises - as you are aware rail now receives more public funding that any point in its history. Therefore it's not unreasonable for some people to feel they should be able to access data in similar ways to which they are already able to access data from other similarly highly publically funded organisations. Why do you think we have Open timetable/train running data etc etc? Why do you think the DVLA will now tell you the exact numbers of every single model of car registered on UK roads right down to month of registration? Because releasing it proactively is better than waiting for and dealing with the inevitable flood of FOI requests.

Comparisons with other private companies are irrelevant. How many people Virgin Atlantic carried to Newark last year is the business of Virgin Atlantic alone. The taxpayer doesn't prop them up, it's commercially private information. It's not the same thing as rail at all.

Infact the only reason not to supply the data right now is because they are not currently covered by FOI - that’s it. Questioning why people need it is irrelevant, nobody asks why when you ask the local council how many trees they cut down last year.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

In the same way, getting pax and yield numbers for airlines on any given flow is notoriously difficult; as this helps competitors identify market opportunities.

I guess this is more of an issue with long distance rail operators (and open access).

But the CAA does produce traffic statistics (monthly I think) from each UK airport to each country and airport.
This is by route, not by airline. You can see trends on, say, Manchester to Frankfurt or Paris or Amsterdam.
Eurostar produces annual passenger statistics as well on its few routes.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect public statistics on point-to-point rail flows in the UK.
Then we could find out what real growth has ocurred (or not) on various routes.
TOC overall revenue figures are pretty meaningless for this.
Station usage is a good start, but does not help to analyse the "post-code lottery" of whether investment and subsidy is being spent in the right growth areas.
Revenue is clearly commercially sensitive, but passenger statistics are not.
It's down to the ORR to add this to its reported statistics.
Maybe they could start with selected flows which cover a sample of metro/regional/inter-city flows round the country.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Let my start by saying that I can see your point and, largely, agree with it. Despite the other twos best efforts to convince everyone how important it is for them to access the data they want, it isn't important. Academic research is very honourable, but it's not 'important' enough to mean that you truly NEED data like this.

I think at some point there was a misunderstanding in the arguement, i thought clip was argueing that no one else should ever have access to them and that they were useless. I wasnt trying to argue that I needed them desperately, as stated earlier in the thread i said its not actually that important to my work it was just something that would have helped. Nor was i saying my research was very important, i am sorry if it came across that way.

I was argueing why people (not me) involved in developing policies for infrastrucutre and service provision should have access to the data for their work. I believe clip was saying only TOC staff shoudl get them whereas i believe they have uase to the wider planning community.

So just to be clear, i am only doing a project and at no point did i mean to put across my reprot is the best ever, nor was i trying to say acedmeic research is better than someone else. Simply that it is different and often can not rely on experience. Think you got the wrong end of my stick.

 

[LE Greys]

It would be interesting to see the figures, to get an idea for how large a number of journeys are (just) between two big cities, since that's what HS2 is catering for.

It would also answer a few arguments on here if we had access to the number of people who actually use some "through" services (like Holyhead to Cardiff or Liverpool to Norwich or Aberdeen to Penzance or Inverness to London).

It's also help to see how a direct train affects demand (e.g. you may expect that there'd be the same latent demand from Ipswich to Liverpool as there is from Norwich to Liverpool, but the fact that the latter has a direct train service must give rail a better share of that market than the Ipswich market - since Ipswich passengers have to change).

I agree. As I'm sure many people here know, I'm a great advocate of direct trains as opposed to changes and often talk abou this kind of suppressed demand. Looking at the throughflow of (say) Birmingham New Street, to see how many inter-city passengers pass through without getting off, should be very informative for long-term planning.

One question does arise, how much would split-ticketing affect this?

 

[tbtc]

I agree. As I'm sure many people here know, I'm a great advocate of direct trains as opposed to changes and often talk abou this kind of suppressed demand. Looking at the throughflow of (say) Birmingham New Street, to see how many inter-city passengers pass through without getting off, should be very informative for long-term planning.

One question does arise, how much would split-ticketing affect this?

I guess that split ticketing would show that there are a lot of people travelling to Cheltenham! (to pick one convenient "splitting" place)

At the moment a lot of arguments on here are based on hunches - e.g. saying that you can't cut a certain service because then there'd be no direct link between two random places/ town x deserves a London link because it'd mean more passengers.

 

[LE Greys]

I guess that split ticketing would show that there are a lot of people travelling to Cheltenham! (to pick one convenient "splitting" place)

At the moment a lot of arguments on here are based on hunches - e.g. saying that you can't cut a certain service because then there'd be no direct link between two random places/ town x deserves a London link because it'd mean more passengers.

That's exactly what I mean, my guesses on suppressed demand are essentially based on 'reading the tea leaves'. Actual data would make it much easier to work with this. For instance, Newcastle and various places north of Edinburgh are linked by the Aberdeen-London expresses. I've observed that this gets a lot of use, but that is neither very systematic nor a representative sample. It would be useful to either back this up or disprove it.

Extrapolating to (say) your earlier Ipswich example would then be reasonable.

 

[gerryuk]

Searching has led me nowhere, is there anywhere that gives passeneger numbers for say, birmingham to leeds. Etc rather than just station useage figures?

Any help appreciated. I have searched all the usual places.

Ask Network Rail for the information, if they refuse you could always go down the ‘Freedom of Information Act’ route.
As the taxpayer is still subsidising the railway’s wont Network Rail have to supply you with this information by law?

 

[yorkie]

Ask Network Rail for the information, if they refuse you could always go down the ‘Freedom of Information Act’ route.
As the taxpayer is still subsidising the railway’s wont Network Rail have to supply you with this information by law?

This won't be Network Rail surely? The data will be held by ATOC and they will not want to release it and are not subject to FOI. The closest we get on the TOC side is EC, so you might be able to ask about EC flows, but I suspect they will refuse on the grounds of "commercially sensitive information".

 

[Pumbaa]

This won't be Network Rail surely? The data will be held by ATOC and they will not want to release it and are not subject to FOI. The closest we get on the TOC side is EC, so you might be able to ask about EC flows, but I suspect they will refuse on the grounds of "commercially sensitive information".

NR has the info, but it comes from ATOC. Wouldn't be able to model otherwise!

 

[tbtc]

That's exactly what I mean, my guesses on suppressed demand are essentially based on 'reading the tea leaves'. Actual data would make it much easier to work with this. For instance, Newcastle and various places north of Edinburgh are linked by the Aberdeen-London expresses. I've observed that this gets a lot of use, but that is neither very systematic nor a representative sample. It would be useful to either back this up or disprove it.

Extrapolating to (say) your earlier Ipswich example would then be reasonable.

About the only "evidence" I can really give is based on the reserved tickets that you see on board, but then ticket reservations are heavily biased towards people travelling long distance (and to people travelling on business/ advanced tickets).

This begs the question of the "busiest" point-to-point demand that isn't directly served - maybe that should be the subject of a separate thread though

 

[John55]

Searching has led me nowhere, is there anywhere that gives passeneger numbers for say, birmingham to leeds. Etc rather than just station useage figures?

Any help appreciated. I have searched all the usual places.

If you go to the Network Rail website and the section devoted the Route Utilisation Studies (RUSs) you will find some information if it hasn't been removed by now.

The information you want is not in the RUSs themselves but in the background papers which usually appear with the draft version of the RUS.

This information is not consistently given nor is it up to date as most RUSs are now more historical than contemporary as the world has moved on. However it is something and there may be some useful references buried in there.

Another source of info are the Regional data sets in section 7 of the National Rail Trends Yearbook http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/nrt-yearbook-2010-11.pdf