New DfT rail usage figures, big increase

[Clarence Yard]

Each TOC will have an overall revenue budget set by the DfT but there are no incentives given out to meet that target.

 

[Krokodil]

Also, XC keep all the money from such a ticket. The walk up ticket will be split between operators.

Yes, technically all revenue goes to the DfT these days.

Most of the idiotic complexity in rail fares ultimately boils down to this. By knocking 10p off of a price the pricing manager can keep 100% of what's left on their spreadsheet instead of sharing it with other TOCs. It's ridiculous that this persists when the money all ends up in the same place. Muggins meanwhile has to have the argument with the passengers who didn't pay attention to the pre-departure announcements and are on the wrong train.

 

[Jan Mayen]

Indeed. But some people want more and / or quicker services, and that does not always equal boringly reliable!

Using London - Norwich as an example, one of the reasons it is now so reliable is that the schedules have plenty of time in them that enables recovery from minor incidents. You could take that time out, and reduce journey times to Norwich, but it would be less punctual.

They took away the restaurant coaches Therefore, I don't go to Norwich.

 

[Dr Day]

Each TOC will have an overall revenue budget set by the DfT but there are no incentives given out to meet that target.

Out of interest what happens to TfW revenue earned in England (eg Shrewsbury-Birmingham, Chester-Manchester)? Does that effectively go to Welsh Government hence there could be incentives to keep more of it?

 

[dk1]

They took away the restaurant coaches Therefore, I don't go to Norwich.

Blimey, that was 16 years ago now.

 

[Jan Mayen]

Blimey, that was 16 years ago now.

Good grief! I didn't realise it was that long. I suppose I'll just need to stock up before boarding, and visit the North Norfolk anyway. And Buckenham. And other places...

 

[dk1]

Good grief! I didn't realise it was that long. I suppose I'll just need to stock up before boarding, and visit the North Norfolk anyway. And Buckenham. And other places...

We’ve still got a cafe bar &/or trolley on most.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Out of interest what happens to TfW revenue earned in England (eg Shrewsbury-Birmingham, Chester-Manchester)? Does that effectively go to Welsh Government hence there could be incentives to keep more of it?

Depends on the ticket - if it is dedicated, it will all go to TFW, if it is inter-available, it will be divided up by ORCATS.

Some TOCs have teamed up to offer joint dedicated through tickets, sharing the proceeds through agreed percentages.

Pure inter-available singles and returns now form a very small part of the overall revenue take in UK rail.

 

[Andrew1395]

ORCATS allocations are used to apportion the overwhelming majority of ticket sales. When you subtract the biggest agreed allocation factors in Lennon like Oyster/PAYG the number of TOCs that have significant numbers of agreed allocations for rail products will probably be just the open access operators like LUMO and Hull Trains. Even then, open access operators are keen to fully understand how ORCATS allocations impact their business. Even when GBR replace ORCATS with a different process for inter available apportionment, agreed allocations will be a very small proportion of the total.

 

[Dr Day]

Depends on the ticket - if it is dedicated, it will all go to TFW, if it is inter-available, it will be divided up by ORCATS.

So basically there could still be plenty of scope for TfW ie Welsh Government to be incentivised ti compete against GBR, even on flows wholly within England.

 

[tomuk]

So basically there could still be plenty of scope for TfW ie Welsh Government to be incentivised ti compete against GBR, even on flows wholly within England.

Yes. Why do you think the number of TfW specific fares has rocketed since TfW took over from ATW.

 

[alistairlees]

So basically there could still be plenty of scope for TfW ie Welsh Government to be incentivised ti compete against GBR, even on flows wholly within England.

There is no concept of a Wales / England border within fares data. Each flow has an owner, which could be an organisation based in either country / nation (delete as preferred).

 

[Dr Day]

There is no concept of a Wales / England border within fares data. Each flow has an owner, which could be an organisation based in either country / nation (delete as preferred).

So in response to an earlier post by @Krokodil the money doesn’t all end up in the same place, and the customer issues with TOC specific fares on the North Wales coast, for example, will remain and potentially worsen.

 

[paul1609]

Wondered what others think, especially when some operators eg SWR are running half hourly 8car trains (which 5 years ago were every 15 minutes and 10cars). Yesterday my local line had some 2car Cardiff-Portsmouth trains at evening peak hour (which 5 years ago were 5car), all seems inconsistent with average usage of upto 98% of pre covid.

The Portsmouth to cardiff service has always been dire going back to semi derelict Mk1s and 33s. I dont think it has ever had sufficient rolling stock in the 50 years Ive been travelling on it and observing it. it sorely needs wrenching from Western control of whatever variety.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

We’ve still got a cafe bar &/or trolley on most.

I was sitting on Stansted express unit the other day (scheduled as IC set) thinking it would be a bit of a disappointment at 7am if you thought you were going to buy a bacon roll, especially if you had paid extra for first class as well.. I was having neither so didn't affect me. I think they are causing themselves problems with the cafe bar as most will get Costa before boarding especially if been caught out.
I have sat there and thought if they had a restaurant car I might get breakfast but realistically it would be way too expensive to cater for the occasion that I think that.

Having said that, it's a very minor gripe compared with the reliability of GA, 18 months and 2 real delays

 

[Krokodil]

So in response to an earlier post by @Krokodil the money doesn’t all end up in the same place, and the customer issues with TOC specific fares on the North Wales coast, for example, will remain and potentially worsen.

It was the Northern/TPE silliness I had in mind

 

[DynamicSpirit]

What I mean is, even laving aside split ticketing, one passenger travelling from Darlington to Peterborough, and another from Peterborough to London, is still only an increase of one on any given section of route. If more passengers taking shorter journeys were hypothetically taking place, but the actual increase on any given section of route was a small number, to count all of those passengers individually, and say 'business is booming. We need more trains' would be misleading,

But does that even matter? I would have thought the meaningful statistic for how well used the railways are isn't number of passenger-journeys but number of passenger-miles. If you're counting passenger-miles then whether a passenger used split ticketing makes no difference.

 

[The exile]

But does that even matter? I would have thought the meaningful statistic for how well used the railways are isn't number of passenger-journeys but number of passenger-miles. If you're counting passenger-miles then whether a passenger used split ticketing makes no difference.

It’s a bit of both though. One passenger making a 500 mile journey requires only 1 seat; 500 passengers making the same 1 mile journey require a whole train (if they’re all doing it at the same time).

 

[Krokodil]

It’s a bit of both though. One passenger making a 500 mile journey requires only 1 seat; 500 passengers making the same 1 mile journey require a whole train (if they’re all doing it at the same time).

It also feeds in to stopping patterns. Splits may lead planners to believe that there is greater demand for intermediate stops than actually exists.

 

[Class 170101]

It also feeds in to stopping patterns. Splits may lead planners to believe that there is greater demand for intermediate stops than actually exists.

But train counting data should help to get round this

 

[Krokodil]

But train counting data should help to get round this

I think that you're overestimating the sophistication of the systems we have.

 

[Meerkat]

But train counting data should help to get round this

How? Can the count work out how many have got on and off, or just the current total? If the latter it wont help much in spotting splits

 

[Snow1964]

New ORR figures published 20th March
covers Oct - Dec 2024

446m journeys (up 7% on previous year)
Biggest increase Transpennine Express (up 16%)
Heathrow Express biggest of 3 fallers (down 18%)

Table 2 says passenger kilometers up 7%, but at 93% of pre-covid 5 years ago
table 2.2 has it by operator, most seeing average journey distance increase. Transpennine Express biggest at 17% distance

Table 2.3 season tickets biggest rise by ticket type

Table 3.1 regional services saw biggest revenue percentage increase

Table 4.1. Passenger train km increased for all but 2 operators

Table 5 vehicle km 785m which is 96% of 816m from 5 years ago. Although it doesn't say so a handful of operators have introduced bigger capacity carriages, whilst some have cut seats during refurbs so unclear how Seat capacity changed

Table 5.1 two operators (Elizabeth line and Northern) cut vehicle km, all others up.

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/voqeicwn/passenger-rail-usage-oct-dec-2024.pdf

 

[John R]

(Just beaten to it by @Snow1964!)

The third quarter data (Oct to Dec) from ORR has just been published.

Key figures are:

Passenger journeys up 6.9% on prior year.
Passenger km up 7.2% on prior year.
Fare income up 8.1% on prior year.

The Heathrow Express figures continue to underwhelm, and the pre-COVID trend is now clearly continuing, if you smooth out the COVID years.

 

[Snow1964]

Comparing (quickly) the new ORR figures suggests some operators have grown much faster than others.

Won't have time (for few days) to open up the data spreadsheets on my desktop and do the fun comparisons to 5 years ago by operator. Then divide the passenger km to vehicle km to get busyness change, or average journey length change etc.

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/voqeicwn/passenger-rail-usage-oct-dec-2024.pdf

When I did it last time was finding massive inconsistencies in average number of passengers per vehicle by operator, and made me wonder how Heathrow Express can still justify paths on crowded lines instead of trains to Cotswolds and South West etc.

 

[John R]

When I did it last time was finding massive inconsistencies in average number of passengers per vehicle by operator, and made me wonder how Heathrow Express can still justify paths on crowded lines instead of trains to Cotswolds and South West etc.

I started a thread on this subject following the Q2 figures, which after 8 pages was not unreasonably closed. But the more quickly its passengers fall, the more difficult it will be to justify retention after its track access agreement runs out in a few years.

Heathrow Express use continuing to decline

The latest ORR quarterly passenger numbers figures show that HEx use is continuing to fall. It's down 8% on the previous year, accelerating a trend we've seen this year in previous quarterly figures. When you adjust for the change in airport passenger numbers pre-COVID with now (which are 4.6%...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Annetts key]

New ORR figures published 20th May
covers Oct - Dec 2024

Can I please borrow your time machine?

 

[Lewisham2221]

But train counting data should help to get round this

How? Can the count work out how many have got on and off, or just the current total? If the latter it wont help much in spotting splits

I think that you're overestimating the sophistication of the systems we have.

@Krokodil has it right on the head. I've seen plenty of instances where a full and standing train apparently only has single digit passenger numbers on board.

 

[Krokodil]

@Krokodil has it right on the head. I've seen plenty of instances where a full and standing train apparently only has single digit passenger numbers on board.

Yes, I've also seen the reverse where an empty train must have 80 people hiding in the toilet because they're certainly not in the seats!

 

[Class 170101]

How? Can the count work out how many have got on and off, or just the current total? If the latter it wont help much in spotting splits

Depends on the train of course but I have seen data that pertains to do just that

I think that you're overestimating the sophistication of the systems we have.

Possibly but there are no guarantees with anything in life. However it is something the industry should aspire to achieve simply because it will assist in placing the corect number of carriages in the right place so that over provision and overcrowding should happen less.