Putting this thread into context ... The headline and start of the article are as follows:
Great Western bidders 'not told true branch line demand'
Passenger levels on railway branch lines are being grossly underestimated in documents given to firms bidding for a franchise, the BBC» has learnt ...
People may recall December 2006 and the fiasco over the Trans Wilts, a situation which still exists, when it is alleged that historical data re passenger numbers was worked on and which were before Wessex built up an improved service and passenger numbers increased substantially.
Let me clarify the "TransWilts" comment on that.
Wessex improved the service in Summer 2001 - quite quietly rather than with a big fanfare, so that usage didn't take off with a bang the day after the new trains started - but it did grow anywhere between 9% and 35% compound per annum through to December 2006, depending on which particular measure you take.
Passenger number data was gathered for report use in the two years prior to Jacobs in 2004, so that was indeed as Phile says "before Wessex
built up an improved service" - it was after the new service was introduced, though, so the number were thinly spread over the trains. Fair enough, except that the report assumed a maximum annual growth on 1%.
If a service had 1000 customers in 2003 and grew by 1% per annum, by 2013 it would have 1093 customers
If a service had 1000 customers in 2003 and grew by 9% per annum, by 2013 it would have 2178 customers
If a service had 1000 customers in 2003 and grew by 35% per annum, by 2013 it would have 14894 customers
The TransWilts wasn't unique in having the 1% applies to it - this is why there were all the problems when Cardiff -> Portsmouth went back down to two coaches and other trains got altered / pulled. But it is unique in that a figure of 8% to 10% was pretty general elsewhere, whereas there were some of the TransWilts figure that were far higher.
There are similarities this time too. The growth rates that the rail industry is using for probable future growth are - in view of current experience - on the conservative side, and there's a real fear that if growth continues as it has been doing (and evidence and experience suggests that it will), there will be a significant shortfall in provision into the future. Yes - the railways are planning for growth. But not growth at the sort of rates it will probably happen.
I travelled home from Paddington to Melksham (connection to wife's car at Chippenham) on the 22:15 from Paddington last night. As we dragged our weary way along, I was chatting with the chap opposite and the chap and chapess across the aisle. It turns out that the other three, too, were getting off the train and taking to private motor vehicles ... the chap lived near another station further south that he could have reached had there been a transWilts connection, and the couple would have been saved a long drive had they been able to connect down the TransWilts, though they would still have needed to drive a bit as Dr B Ching detrained their town ...
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