Rail usage

[freetoview33]

Where can you find the website that lists stations and the 100 most popular destinations for the year?
Tia

 

[I'm here now]

Where can you find the website that lists stations and the 100 most popular destinations for the year?
Tia

Railwaydata.co.uk does it in a good way.
See: https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/flows/gbr/
They have all sorts on there so if you want any regional system data it might be there.

 

[stadler]

Where can you find the website that lists stations and the 100 most popular destinations for the year?
Tia

There is a spreadsheet that is available on the ORR website where you can see the current annual station usage statistics:

Estimates of station usage | ORR Data Portal

You can easily sort the spreadsheet either alphabetically or by usage statistics to see the most used and least used stations.

 

[Magdalia]

Where can you find the website that lists stations and the 100 most popular destinations for the year?
Tia

The starting point is the Office for Rail and Road, they publish the data.

ORR do a news release with the headline numbers. 2023/24 was published on 21 November last year see here:

Estimates of station usage | ORR Data Portal

Estimates of station usage​

Annual estimates of the number of entries/exits and interchanges at each station in Great Britain. These estimates are based primarily on ticket sales and are produced by Steer on behalf of ORR. For details on how these statistics are compiled, please see our Estimates of station usage quality and methodology report. We have also produced a list of frequently asked questions. For any information on revisions, please see our Revisions log.

Data and reports that include previous statistical releases on Estimates of station usage can be found on the National Archives.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

If you require the published tables in an alternative file format or have any questions or feedback on these statistics, please contact rail.stats@orr.gov.uk

The origin destination matrix (ODM) that underpins our Estimates of station usage data is now freely available on the Rail Data Marketplace.

Railwaydata.co.uk does it in a good way.
See: https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/flows/gbr/
They have all sorts on there so if you want any regional system data it might be there.

I use railway data for quick access to the detailed station to station flows. I quote numbers from here quite frequently in my contributions to this forum.

Does anyone know when the 2024/25 data is due to be published?

 

[Stephen42]

I use railway data for quick access to the detailed station to station flows. I quote numbers from here quite frequently in my contributions to this forum.

Does anyone know when the 2024/25 data is due to be published?

Last year the ORR published the station usage numbers and the Origin Destination Matrix a day apart. This year the station usage numbers is slated for November again, but no confirmed date. Hopefully that means the Origin Destination Matrix with station to station flows would come out in November again this year as well.

 

[CMS1]

Are there any 'live' maps of freight movements similar to www.map.signalbox.io (or one that shows both)?

 

[Snow1964]

The next quarterly (covering April-June) ORR passenger rail usage data is due to be published on 2nd October (usually uploaded around 10 - 10:30am)

This is link to ORR, the Jan-March quarter is there, this will get superseded, and older one will be in earlier reports further down the page. Towards bottom right are loads of data tables in spreadsheet form with the quarterly figures, split by operator, going back 15-20 years

Passenger rail usage | ORR Data Portal

If you want freight, then it's this link (next update due 18 Sept)

Freight rail usage and performance | ORR Data Portal

 

[CMS1]

Are there any 'live' maps of freight movements similar to www.map.signalbox.io (or one that shows both)?

Does anyone know if this exists?

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Does anyone know if this exists?

https://raildar.co.uk/radar.html shows freight and passenger services, I can't seem to find any freight right now, but I've definitely seen freight on the old version (https://raildar.co.uk/map/MAN).
It seems to do the opposite of Signalbox
Signalbox assumes the train is still running as booked (or the same delay it had before), raildar waits for the update that the train has moved.

 

[CMS1]

Many thanks

 

[Snow1964]

Occasionally other rail data comes out, such as Rail delivery Group advising tourist media of this summers growth of rail travel to seaside.

25% growth in North East, compared to previous year June 2024
32% growth in South East
18% growth in East Anglia

The surge in rail traffic to seaside towns, particularly in regions like the North East, South East, and East Anglia, has sparked a significant boost in local economies, with millions spent on local goods and services.

United Kingdom Sees Explosive Growth in Coastal Tourism as Rail Travel Surges Amid Record-Breaking Summer Heat - Travel And Tour World

In 2025, the United Kingdom is witnessing an unparalleled surge in coastal tourism, driven by a combination of record-breaking summer temperatures and the growing popularity of rail travel.

www.travelandtourworld.com

Of course, just because passengers are travelling more, doesn't necessarily mean the railway is doing its part to absorb the growth, as figures like this suggest if a 4car unit was sufficient last year, now needs to be a 5car unit etc.

 

[Magdalia]

Occasionally other rail data comes out, such as Rail delivery Group advising tourist media of this summers growth of rail travel to seaside.

25% growth in North East, compared to previous year June 2024
32% growth in South East
18% growth in East Anglia

The source of this data isn't very clear, and it will be a while before it can be corroborated by the ORR data.

In East Anglia the coastal branches have done well since the pandemic, but it is the new trains that have been the most significant factor.

And just because usage is increasing doesn't mean that more tourists are visiting the seaside. In East Anglia I suspect it is more a case of residents of the seaside towns using the trains more to get out, particularly to Norwich.

 

[Snow1964]

Dft has updated its usage figures since Covid
Figures are ratio of pre covid

Most recent few days
Rail 1.08, 1.13, 1.12, 1.06, 1.07, 1.07, 1.07
Rail (excluding Elizabeth line) 0.97, 1.01, 0.95, 0.96, 0.96, 0.96, 0.96

So on certain days back to pre covid volumes
But ticket values might be different if different mix of journey types, classes, type of ticket etc.

Daily domestic transport use by mode

Daily usage of selected domestic transport by mode for Great Britain.

www.gov.uk

 

[zwk500]

Does anyone know if this exists?

you can also see freight on Traksy, OpenTrainTime, Signalmaps.com, et al although they're not geographically faithful if that is what you were after.

 

[Snow1964]

Some updated figures from TfL ahead of TfL Board finance committee meeting.

Period 5 (5 x 4 week periods from 1st April)

Page 20 : Elizabeth line journeys 8% higher than last year
revenue £280m, operating costs £229m,
£51m profit before capital renewals etc.

page 21 : Rail journeys 3% up on last year
Overground journeys up 4.7% on last year like for like basis

https://board.tfl.gov.uk/documents/s24854/Appendix%201%20Finance%20Report.pdf

 

[Snow1964]

Report from C2C saying strong return to commuting.
Passengers now over 80% of pre 2020 levels
Season tickets down from over 40% to 15%
Peak journeys up 5% this year

Local rail operator c2c Railway has seen a robust resurgence in commuter travel following the launch of Pay as you Go with contactless ticketing across the entire line in February 2025.

Despite modern working from home trends, c2c passenger volumes have recovered to over 80% of pre-2020 levels, while commuter habits have evolved significantly. Season tickets, which accounted for over 40% of c2c journeys in 2019, now represent circa 15%.

Eleni Jordan, c2c Commercial and Interim Customer Director
Instead, passengers are opting for the flexibility off-peak daily tickets, reflecting the shift in working patterns in the UK. Mondays and Fridays continue to grow year-on-year, with in-peak journeys across the week growing at around 5% in 2024/25.

In February, c2c became the first railway operator to offer pay as you go (PAYG/contactless) across its entire network in the UK, simplifying customer journeys and offering a more seamless way to travel. The expansion of PAYG has seen over 60,000 additional contactless taps each week.

Eleni Jordan, c2c Commercial and Interim Customer Director, said: “We launched PAYG with contactless ticketing in February 2025 and it has been incredibly successful with over one million taps since the launch.

“It provides our customers with another seamless way of using the c2c route, by simply tapping in and tapping out. This provides an easy-to-use solution which offers speed and convenience for every journey – with c2c seeing over 60,000 additional contactless taps each week as a result.

“We realised the challenges of 2025 are different to those that existed before 2020, which is why we have had to evolve to a new way of thinking and embrace the change in customer needs,” she added.

As of July, c2c has recorded over 1,000,000 taps across the line and has added another level in the ease of making a c2c journey. Today, c2c plays a central role in helping millions of commuters from south Essex and east London reach their workplaces every year.

c2c sees strong return to commuting - Rail UK

c2c sees strong return to commuting - Travel

railuk.com

 

[Goldfish62]

Report from C2C saying strong return to commuting.
Passengers now over 80% of pre 2020 levels
Season tickets down from over 40% to 15%
Peak journeys up 5% this year

c2c sees strong return to commuting - Rail UK

c2c sees strong return to commuting - Travel

railuk.com

That's a load of spin in that press release. 20% fewer passengers than in 2019 (without Covid you'd be expecting more than in 2019) and a 63% decrease in season ticket sales, the TOC's largest revenue generator.

 

[dk1]

That's a load of spin in that press release. 20% fewer passengers than in 2019 (without Covid you'd be expecting more than in 2019) and a 63% decrease in season ticket sales, the TOC's largest revenue generator.

Doesn’t that often mean that buying anytime tickets for 3-4 days is often similar to or more expensive than season tickets?

 

[Bald Rick]

As all of c2c is in the contactless area, they will have had a big switch from season tickets to contactless even where that works out more expensive for individual passengers.

 

[Snow1964]

DfT has updated its post Covid transport usage spreadsheet
Compares against pre covid levels

Most recent 7 days to 2 October
Column G (Rail) is 105% 103% 103% 103% 103% 102% 101% (average 103%)
Column H (excluding Elizabeth line) 94% 93% 93% 93% 92% 92% 91% (average 93.3%)

Last 2 entries are 3rd, 4th October (during storm Amy)
Column G 97% 98%
Column H 88% 89%
so storm cut rail usage by 4-8% (some lines were blocked by fallen trees, although how many of those trees were on railway land and were thus directly due to lack of proactive vegetation management isn't known

Excluding storm weekend, usage is now only around 6-7% down on pre-covid, but we know some London area commuter operators are apparently down 15-20% which suggests some other operators are now consistently above 110% (maybe locally lot more) to make the average work.

Daily domestic transport use by mode

Daily usage of selected domestic transport by mode for Great Britain.

www.gov.uk

 

[The exile]

Excluding storm weekend, usage is now only around 6-7% down on pre-covid, but we know some London are commuter operators are apparently down 15-20% which suggests some other operators are now consistently above 110% (maybe locally lot more) to make the average work.

If these are raw passenger numbers, it’s going to take much larger % rises outside of London to counterbalance losses of 15-20% on London commuter franchises. If it’s passenger km then good performances on longer distance operators will do the same thing much easier (can’t open the stats on my phone)

 

[zwk500]

If these are raw passenger numbers, it’s going to take much larger % rises outside of London to counterbalance losses of 15-20% on London commuter franchises. If it’s passenger km then good performances on longer distance operators will do the same thing much easier (can’t open the stats on my phone)

Alternative, if a certain London operator is seeing a *very* large increase on passenger numbers because a rather important bit of it wasn't open until after COVID that would go some way to offsetting it.

 

[Snow1964]

If these are raw passenger numbers, it’s going to take much larger % rises outside of London to counterbalance losses of 15-20% on London commuter franchises. If it’s passenger km then good performances on longer distance operators will do the same thing much easier (can’t open the stats on my phone)

I did wonder about that, was going to look at ORR quarterly figures, but not yet available, whereas last year April-June was published 3rd October, this year they seem to be holding back the numbers until end of October, then their publication schedule says following quarter will be 7 weeks later.

Not sure why ORR are publishing quarterly usage numbers by operator at such random intervals, my intrguied side thinks they are hiding something.

 

[The exile]

Alternative, if a certain London operator is seeing a *very* large increase on passenger numbers because a rather important bit of it wasn't open until after COVID that would go some way to offsetting it.

The figures that show a drop are excluding the Elizabeth Line, if that’s the operator you mean. The figures including it are also there…

 

[zwk500]

The figures that show a drop are excluding the Elizabeth Line, if that’s the operator you mean. The figures including it are also there…

Yes it was EL. The figures including it are regularly c.10% higher recently than those excluding it. Suggests that EL is doing a fair bit of the heavy lifting.

 

[The exile]

Yes it was EL. The figures including it are regularly c.10% higher recently than those excluding it. Suggests that EL is doing a fair bit of the heavy lifting.

Inevitable - particularly if it is raw passenger numbers rather than passenger kms.

 

[Stephen42]

I did wonder about that, was going to look at ORR quarterly figures, but not yet available, whereas last year April-June was published 3rd October, this year they seem to be holding back the numbers until end of October, then their publication schedule says following quarter will be 7 weeks later.

Not sure why ORR are publishing quarterly usage numbers by operator at such random intervals, my intrguied side thinks they are hiding something.

The original intended date of publication was 2nd October which has been pushed back by 4 weeks. The stats function won't have much incentive to hide anything and from stats functions elsewhere there's roughly two camps for delays. For avoidance of doubt no knowledge of what the ORR team are doing and the below are just examples.

The boring stuff. e.g. The data is increasingly being enhanced by non-Lennon sources and if any third party doesn't provide their data on time that can delay the whole release. Lack of staff time requiring more elapsed time to do the same activities. Validation checks threw up unexpected results requiring more time to check if the data is suitable to publish. Problems with other data collections or releases taking time away from future releases.

Extra time required as doing something new. There was a delay previously when sorting out the Elizabeth line data as Lennon wasn't a realistic model of those journeys. The recent releases have flagged split ticketing as an issue. It's possible this might be the first release with the first iteration of trying to adjust for that. That would be accompanied with historic alterations to use the new methodology on past data which will take longer to perform and validate. It's been "as soon as possible" for a while so it's optimistic to think it will be this time around.

 

[Snow1964]

ORR has released latest quarterly usage today 30th October

Table 1.1 operators showing increases from 2% to 15% on year ago

Table 2.2 passenger km increased for all operators with West Midlands highest at 19%

Table 4 train km and Table 5 show a few operators have cut their operations (even though passenger numbers up). Comparing percentage changes for table 4 and table 5 show some operators have cut average train length.

Lots of data by operator

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/mf4hzaeb/passenger-rail-usage-apr-jun-2025.pdf

 

[Goldfish62]

ORR has released latest quarterly usage today 30th October

Table 1.1 operators showing increases from 2% to 15% on year ago

Table 2.2 passenger km increased for all operators with West Midlands highest at 19%

Table 4 train km and Table 5 show a few operators have cut their operations (even though passenger numbers up). Comparing percentage changes for table 4 and table 5 show some operators have cut average train length.

Lots of data by operator

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/mf4hzaeb/passenger-rail-usage-apr-jun-2025.pdf

Thanks for posting this.

The headline for me is that while passenger journeys have increased by 7%, revenue has increased by 6%, so that's less revenue per passenger journey than the same time last year. That isn't great news when the government is intent on reducing subsidy to the railways. You really want revenue growth to be ahead of passenger journey growth, otherwise the railways are going to get to the position of needing to put on longer trains or increase services to cater for demand, but can't afford to do so.

 

[The exile]

Thanks for posting this.

The headline for me is that while passenger journeys have increased by 7%, revenue has increased by 6%, so that's less revenue per passenger journey than the same time last year. That isn't great news when the government is intent on reducing subsidy to the railways. You really want revenue growth to be ahead of passenger journey growth, otherwise the railways are going to get to the position of needing to put on longer trains or increase services to cater for demand, but can't afford to do so.

Very true - but given the leap in the sale of advances hardly surprising. In that context a 1% lag is probably just "noise" unless repeated year after year. Ironically any "return to the office" may well exacerbate this trend - increasing the proportion of short-distance journeys made (even if they are at full fare)