it hasn’t ended. You still need the allocations out of ORCATS to show which routes / times / markets etc are recovering , and which aren’t.
Except CrossCountry seem to be actively suppressing demand by removing calls at stations (only to, have extra dwell time at the following stop), skewing this data beyond much useful purpose.
It's even worse than that. The service used to be 3tp2h, as alternate Newcastle-Reading services would continue on to Southampton. The current 1tp2h service represents a reduction of two thirds on pre-Covid.
And in fact XC have even cancelled some of those 1tp2h, as a result of the withdrawal of Rest Day Working. Flows like these are amongst the worst affected across the country, seeing a total decimation in service levels. Not to mention the continuing nonsense of dropping stops at Winchester, Brockenhurst etc.
This is beyond ridiculous as they operated a full hourly service from Bournemouth to Manchester throughout the first lockdown, then afterwards when demand
increased they reduced it to two-hourly and started skipping stops justified as being for "social distancing," which ended long ago yet is still happening. They're still using roughly the same number of units and staff but providing a much worse service for everyone.
In May there will still be no service at all on the Southampton-Newcastle route, and less than a third of the pre-Covid service south of Reading. These services appeared consistently busy in my experience, and the skipping of stops likely isn't saving anything overall. It may not suit some of the objectives of the treasury, but the DFT need to step in here. I can't see the minimal savings possibly providing value compared with the loss of frequency and through journeys.