I went to Parkway this morning, in fact I purchased the first ticket to Parkway that the Shrub Hill ticket office had sold this morning. The station was relatively busy, mainly enthusiasts, but there were several batches of people who had come from St Peters in south Worcester. The consensus amongst them was that Parkway is just as close to them as the two Worcester stations, and so if they needed to go to Birmingham they would go there rather than into town.
There are a few issues with the station, all of which can probably be fixed:
1. Only two toilets for the entire station. They are both accessible cubicles, which is great, but that's all there is.
2. No seating at all inside the station building. Each platform has a few sparse seats, but some of them are right at the far end of the platforms where no one will ever go.
3. Each platform only has a single bus shelter construction for cover, located around a third of the way along. There is very little protection from the elements. The high level platform in particular was like a wind tunnel today, it's extremely exposed to the elements. What this means is that if it's chucking it down people will stay within the station building, rather than spreading out along the platform, and so will all be boarding the trains at the door closest to that end of the platform.
4. Each platform only has one info display screen, located right at the point where you join the platform, again encouraging people to all cluster at that end of the platform, rather than spreading out along it.
5. Car park machines do not take cash. Perhaps in London and the bigger cities this is the norm, but not in Worcester, and several people were caught short by it today.