What we can't tell is if that was Gross revenue, or net revenue after subtracting refunds for hot weather cancellations and delay repay refunds, and suspensions due to accidents.
In these the key factor isn't ownership, it is London commuting.
Bit more nuanced than that. LO is near back to 100 per cent as it didn't take an axe to services. Nat Rail services like SWR did.
I'd suggest it is the other way around: LO had to maintain services because usage didn't fall in the same way that it did on longer distance commuting routes.
The hare should be ahead of the hounds!
Absolutely, when comparing passenger figures to pre-Covid, the service levels being provided should also be compared. Its no different to the way that the Elizabeth Line is excluded from a lot of data because Paddington to Abbey Wood wasn't open before Covid.
Agreed but we also have to remember with every year that passes it becomes less relevant as we are in a very different world now.
So despite Cross Countrys mediocre performance it still manages to put on a decent showing along with Avanti.
And LNER has seen a decrease in the number of passengers!
Will be many reasons such as ongoing engineering works. No doubt will be a shining light in the next quarter.
These figures are very high level and trends impact operators differently, plus there will be a lot of sub operator and time factors that influence the numbers. The heatwave end of June was more intense down south and many London offices will have relaxed their work in office policies for those dates.
Interestingly while number of passengers has decreased, passenger km increased by 2.2% and is the largest passenger km figure they've had in a single quarter.
May be the timetable change has moved some short distance passengers to other operators (eg London to Stevenage)
I did wonder that too. Possibly engineering works in this period which had effect. GC seems to have seen decline.
Which suggests less split tickets, especially with the hourly fast Edinburgh only calling at York & Newcastle, reducing the ability to split at somewhere random like Darlington.
Actually can divide the figures in the tables, 1223, 1233 etc and get average distance travelled. (passenger km divided by passenger numbers). And can do it by operator too. I did a sample and change in average distance varies by operator.
There isnt a measure though of how utilised timetabled capacity is. I know ORR give a top 10 of loaded trains and i guess each operator has a reasonable idea of loadings so each operator can adjust capacity within available rolling stock allocation.
I thought it would be worth comparing these numbers with the change in kilometres operated in the same timeframe.
GWR total passenger numbers are still at 95% of 2019 Q1 figures so why would they need more trains? Your also assuming the trains were all full in 2019 which is clearly not the case and that GWR, or any operator, is aiming to avoid any standing/overcrowding which their not. GWR may yet get some exTfW 158's but beyond that there's no tender out for GWR stock unless they pick up on the back of the Northern tender.
While I totally agree, the argument of cause and effect as to which way round it is, less services=less passengers Vs less passengers= less services. My only issue has been since COVID before nationalisation the incentive to increase passengers hasn't been there and even since nationalisation there isn't the same incentive as before COVID.
It is the other way around. Operators are not reversing the service cuts because passenger numbers are not returning to pre Covid levels. That particularly applies to London commuting.
Most of the cuts were made between 2020-2022, i.e. during the lockdowns or just as life was beginning to return to "normal", so the cuts were made before there was really much evidence of a permanent reduction in passenger numbers.
As I mentioned above, most of the cuts were made before passenger numbers had a chance to return to normal. In most cases, passenger numbers are not suddenly going to return to pre-Covid levels whilst service levels are much lower, as evidenced by the data I posted earlier.
C2C would appear to be the operator that still has too much capacity vs its post covid demand. Although another test would be some sort of measure that assess seat capacity say vs passenger demand to to see well utilised the stock is. Or is it that its still a classic pre covid commuting operating with high peak usage.
Many of the service reductions made during the lockdowns were completely different to the permanent reductions subsequently made.
To be fair my reading of @London Trains post was exactly this, that this is the wrong way around. High-quality, high-performing services inevitably work the other way around. Of course we don't have those things really so we simply make do. It's the British way.
