Rail passenger numbers are up! But is there more behind the headlines? | Ep 89

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Why is it the railway is always told it has to run like a business, but when it is sucessful, it gets told it has to cut costs rather than spend to expand like a business WOULD.

Richard, split ticketing started long before covid struck. The Didcot shuffle and at Peterborough, and likely Milton Keynes, too.

Elizabeth line and passengers from GE or GWR before the line opened and finished their journey by other means, possibly LT. So, how many of the statistics passenger journeys are new to the railway?

The LNER spokesman saying most people buy advance tickets.

That's because they are the cheapest, not what people want. If they really cared what the traveller wanted they'd know that.

Agree with Chis Green

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Hi all. The 99s look pretty and great. Caroline

I use Burnham station on the Elizabeth line now and then the usage is amazing compared to previously when e few passengers get on and off but now easily a hundred on a Saturday afterwards. If they built decent car parking out at the Berkshire stations usage would shoot up further.

On the headline rail ridership figures, I understand why the Elizabeth Line is stripped out, but it does mean a lot of people's commutes (including mine) were included in the pre-Covid figures but are excluded from the post-Covid figures, simply because we switched from the great western mainline, great eastern mainline or the north Kent line to the Elizabeth Line when the latter opened.

Surely a positive take on the decline of season tickets is that so much of that was into cities where people didn't have a choice, so passenger numbers recovering means people are choosing to use the railways for other types of journey, especially at weekends, where they've historically had a lower mode share, which is good at least for the planet, and maybe good the railway will have more passengers all the time not just rush hour?

This is also a semi-political aspect, but it is strong in my mind. At some point, expecting passengers to keep paying more to travel will actually reduce ridership and therefore revenue. Why should people get out of their cars to travel on a crowded, expensive and sometimes unreliable train service? The Treasury cannot in reality expect railways to break even - it is a public service that has many benefits. However, what they can do is create an atmosphere in which people who plan railway expenditure stop and say "is this really worth doing?" or "is this the best use of what money we have?"

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Do season ticket figures include newer flexi-season tickets e.g. 3 days in a week or 12 days in a month etc?

On the subject of busy trains, I've just completed a return trip from Inverness to Aberdeen midweek. I could not believe how busy it was, only two carriages and people standing, (on return). Why doesn't Scotrail put more carriages on at these busy times. 9am and 4pm on a Thursday.
Makes for an un- enjoyable journey.

Don't forget these are the figures for PAID journeys. Imagine how high they would be if the rife fare evasion was included!

Does "new to rail" include former underground travellers who've switched to Elizabeth Line but continued with much the same journey.

I would be happy if they abolished advance fares and just dropped the regular fare by 10-15%. On a sidenote Advance Fares also seem to really confuse foreign visitors because they are used to just buying in the station, and that perception that British fares are really high is hurting tourism.
I dont really hold out any hope that there will ever be a simplification that like other countries you just pay a fixed price per mile with a premium for limited stop and sometimes a larger premium for express trains.

hopefully the orr have told the heads of 10a that they are no different from any other toc running on the network and that they've been told straight up to either fit CDL to their mk1s or they don't get to use them on tours.
because if it's the opposite, it's a spit in the face to the likes of lsl, srps and vintage trains who have got on with it without a fuss, and it'd just make people question as to why wc are special snowflakes and above regulations.
reminder they've had 10+ years to do this and thought they could ride on the waves of exemptions for all eternity. now they can't.

Another brilliant episode!

🤔So, if the line that runs a public service from FW via Glenfinnan is taken out of public (GBR in due course) domain, and is maintained and badged as a heritage service (not sure what comparison with RH&D might be made) then CDL would not be mandatory? 🤔 There's a speed consideration too though that you'll readily put me right about 🫣

Thank you Richard for the analysis (and the "vegetable patch").. Excellent polite ribbing early on (nice analogy about "finding the tenner in the street"). Am I alone in thinking that "split-ticketing" is rather a minority occupation? Surely K.I.S.S. ?? In my "travelling on SWT" days, I calculated that the break-even point for my season ticket was efficient if I made more than 3.2 journeys in a seven-day period. Ah, happy days!

Have the Liz line figures been even more screwed as it has clearly taken travellers off the piccadilly and central lines, as well as the Heathrow Express?

See Emily Play, as she finishes tunnelling. :)

How about improving the first class product for more revenue? Has it seriously been looked at....

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Flying Scotsman to the Severn Valley on July 25th for the reopening of the full line. Tickets sold out in 3minutes apparently but, according to one website, more to be added nearer the time. Another great show thanks

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Get rid of railcards and flatten out the fares for everyone seems a fairer approach.

The fact that ridership has nearly recovered despite many fewer passengers travelling regularly enough to be getting season tickets is a great achievement, and suggests that people must be making a lot of new train journeys if it's nearly offsetting all those lost daily commuters.

Don’t you really mean, Rail replacement bus ridership is up……. 😴

I'm not sure the greater passenger numbers are really worth shouting about. Another reason passenger numbers have not recovered completely is the number of people who are no longer travelling to the office (and another variable which is reducing). These should be seen as a victory in environmental terms as there are fewer 'unnecessary' journeys.

The turn around from BR days is remarkable but a many, many, faceted diamond. Population is higher, the network is bigger and different, ticket prices have risen overall, population centres have moved... the apples for apples comment is a truism - nothing is the same!

Edit to add... the idea of re-nationalising the network doesn't fit with the Chancellor's idea of the railways 'washing their face'. Only the USA operates a system where the passengers foot the bill in a similar manner to the UK. Everywhere else operating a passenger network accepts that there is a need to support the railways as part of a contiguous transport network across a country or region. Accept it and pay! It is the only option for a forward moving wider transport system.

Great show lads as usual, ans goodness the WHL needs a hair cut badly.

Re the piece in the news section on the 1st freight train on East West rail could I mention that there has already been some Rail tour charters over this route carrying fare paying passengers of which I've done a couple.

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The interesting point of which nobody seems to want to address, is that whilst annual season ticket holders pay a lot of money upfront, they only do this as it is the cheapest way to get a years travel. A yearly season ticket used to be (may still be, I dont know) the equivalent of 9 monthly tickets, i.e., they are being carted around for FREE for 3 months of the year!!! The same applies to weekly tickets, which used to be equal to something like 2 1/2 days travel. Therefore, if you can sell cheaper tickets to more passengers, but they are paying for every day that they travel, revenue could very quickly match/exceed pre-pandemic amounts, but with less passengers. Also, depsite Nigel appearing to defend 'passengers who have made a genuine error' (in a previous episode), from experience around Revenue Protection, ALL passengers (even the blantant fare evaders) have a 'reason' why they couldnt buy a ticket/the correct ticket. It is time for fare evasion to be given the proper level of staffing to make a difference, rather than a 'can't see, so it isn't happening' accountant balance sheet mindset. That in itself would yield an awful lot of money for the network.

Someone get Richard a big calendar with all the Saturdays highlighted.😉

Accepting the figures for ticket types quoted, is it not the case that there are increased novel options with flexible and multi-modal ticketing? Here (Brighton & Hove) our buses now offer TOTO (Tap On Tap Off) fares, which enjoy a daily cap. Whilst that does, by definition, limit the amount of income taken from each passenger, if it increases ridership sufficiently, the overall take is increased, as is seat occupancy. Given the seatimg capacity is often there, whether embummed or vacant, better network utilisation is surely an overall plus

In the example quoted, where Sunday Intercity services are beyond capacity, I do not believe such off-peak demand exceeds that of peak hour traffic, for which sufficient stock IS provided. Two words occur .... MULTIPLE OPERATION.

So pax numbers are about 1.60bn adjusted for XR and splits. So about 10% lower than rail year 2020. Revenue is about 12% down. Unless my mental arithmetic has failed me? So yield actually isn't that much worse. Worth mentioning that season tickets are very seriously discounted especially the longer distance ones that are more likely to be affected by WFH patterns - to the extent that the yield of a journey on an annual season can be about the same as a off-peak leisure ticket. And in theory if demand has spread more evenly then some of the high costs for providing high peak capacity can be reduced.... If we wanted to go back to pre-COVID levels of crowding.

Ok lots of assumptions and I'm not actually looking at the data in front of me, so I've probably missed something.

Oh, also how does PAYG affect seasons, for a short journey, seasons aren't really discounted, so even if you're traveling 5 days a week, then why get a season?

And there were some splits in the base year. And with XR accounting for a sixth of journeys, journey length is likely to go down.

The issue with the new trains for EMR is their propensity to set on fire due to too much wiring cramped into too small a space.

great show lads....

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Is East west rail not going to be electrified?

Nigel - the reason why Southbound freight trains tend not to go round the Up avoider is the layout at Skelton Bridge or Skelton Jns mean that a suitable margin has to be found. They arrive via the Up Slow, then have to cross the Up Fast and the Down Fast at the same time and equally stay clear of the Harrogate line trains in both directions. To get a clear margin on all of those routes at the SAME time is almost impossible and that is why the better solution is often to be routed Up Slow to Up Fast and then around the curves through York station, often Platform Three. Remember that also most of the
freights are destined via the Up Normanton through Ulleskelf and Church Fenton thence the S and K. So that would mean yet another crossing move at Holgate Jn or Colton South Jn so with the cumulative crossings moves would have a major effect on capacity. I hope that helps

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Great show as always.

How about tracking passenger*miles (like ton *miles for freight) vs journeys? Also, any data on freight traffic and rail market share vs other modes?

Cheers from Canada

Thanks to Richard’s analysis, I took a look at the ORR report myself. Three other points stood out:
- ridership might not be quite back at pre-Covid 2019/20 levels but even with the caveats, it looks to be higher now than it was 10 years ago;
- highest growth on TfW, TPE and Cross-Country services. The Cross-Country is incomparable to that of 60 years ago. Overcrowding on Voyagers is going to have to be tackled soon;
- Decline of Lumo and, to a lesser extent, Grand Central. LNER, however, has grown its customer base. Has LNER won its lost customers back?