Modal shift? Increase in passengers in West Wilts outstrip population growth

[whole diary]

[grahame]

It's very interesting to see just how much rail traffic in West Wilts has grown over the past 10 years (80%) when compared to population (11%), road use and bus use.  In regards to a TransWilts issue, I was writing this us the other day and included the graph from Wiltshire Council - reproduced with their permission.   Graph and supporting article:

http://www.wellho.net/mouth/3728_The-future-needs-for-rail-services-to-Melksham-change-needed-current-service-an-insult.html

The article concentrates on TransWilts, but the numbers used to produce the graph are absolute numbers and so the majority of the growth shown will be on the Cardiff / Portsmouth line, Heart of Wessex, and other services from Bristol to and via Westbury.

[Rhydgaled]

That graph is... staggering.

What on earth happened in 2007 to send rail demand skyrocketing and bus demand (which had been growing faster than road) to plummit? Going from the graph, it appeares road demand also started a very slow decline in that year).

This is very concerning for those who want to see a strong shift to more sustainable modes of transport. In Whiltshire, where at least there is rail infrastructure, the obvious solution is to boost the presently useless rail service to attract travelers out of their cars. However, what of those areas that, unlike the Trans Wilts, have lost not just a useable train service but the tracks as well? Obviously there is some scope for rail re-opennings, but in many cases the only viable public transport is only ever going to be buses. So why is the train attracting passengers but buses are not?

Wales' TrawsCambria bus network does not appear to have suffered the same blow in 2007. Patronage increased on all six routes from 2007/8 to 2008/9. However, from then to 2009/10, patronage on some routes fell. The two north-Wales routes (X94 Wrexham - Barmouth and X32 Aberystwyth - Bangor) fell to lower than 2007/8 levels of use and the busiest route (X40 Aberystwyth - Carmarthen) rose compared to 2007/8 useage in 2009/10 but dropped about 10,000 from the previous year. This data table appears here: http://www.trawscymru.info/history-of-traws-cambria/. Use of the remaining three routes continued to grow.

I also read recently of a telephone survey in the mid-Wales TraCC area which (among other things) asked how often respondents used the bus. http://www.tracc.gov.uk/uploads/media/RTP_Annual_Progress_Report_2010-11_Appendix_A.pdf Obviously the sample was limited (to 1000 respondants), but 58.7% answered never. In comparison, the percentage who never used the train was in the region of 51.6%, and this in an area with only the Cambrian line and the slow, infrequent, Heart Of Wales Line.

[grahame]

Hi, Rhydgaled

Some elements of the data are indeed a surprise. The graph indeed looks spectacular, but for those of us who used services such as the Portsmouth to Cardiff when it was a class 33 diesel and four or five carriages, five times a day, and got whole compartments to ourself, it's no shock.

In some ways, this sort of growth is fantastic news.  But is should also be a warning to government, and the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) in particular - a pointer to show just where things may go traffic-wise.   The current Great Western Franchise was let, based on a projected growth rate of just uner 1% per annum, and in seven short years we've seen the overcrowding and issues that have been caused by growth figures actually achieved of around 8%.   It's not exactly as if rail travel has been "oversold" to cause that growth either; fare rises above inflation, trains so crowded that you'll rarely get a seat on certain journeys, and carriage interiors re-engineered to provide less room per seated passenger. No - it's truely a demand for travel, and travel by rail.

If you look forward to a 15 year franchise, the prediction figure is even more vital (or you need some sort of adjustment mechanism built in).  Let's take a 3 car service, with 200 passengers on board.  Perhaps in our area that's a 150 + 153 combination with nearly every seat taken.  If the growth rate for the next 15 years is 1% per annum, you'll be looking at 234 passengers on that same train by 2028.  But if the growth rate for 15 years is 8%, you'll be conveying no fewer that 634 passengers by 2028. I make that a 9 or 10 car train rather than 3 cars.

Did the SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) get it so seriously wrong at the last franchise that they used the figure 1%, or did they just decide to err on the side of caution, not wanting to risk a contract that provided for services which then didn't fill?   They could be forgiven for this cautious underprovision on a seven year franchise, with less historic evidence than they have now.  But the stakes are much higher for the next period.  It's twice as long which means that things have a lot longer to go wrong, and they have a whole raft of further evidence of continued growth.

The discussion point in the consultation for the next franchise - "Start off at the current service level" - was the only sensible starting point they could have chosen across the area as a whole.  But the next franchise MUST allow for service growth at a level of what has become the established norm, and also to allow for growth to similar levels of passengers per head of population in their catchment at new / revived stations such as Portishead, Melksham and Tavistock. That's around 900,000 / 950,000 / 450,000 single journeys per annum, or having Portishead and Melksham each almost as busy as Newton Abbott is today.  Failure to make such provision would be - in my view - dereliction of duty.  They can't say they've not been shown the signs!

The whole pricing / affordability / expansion thing is an interesting one - for a further follow up.

[tramway]

The phrase 'There is no such thing as bad publicity' springs to mind regarding the 2007 date.

There was probably more press coverage for/against/about rail in the Greater Bristol area than there had been for decades possibly. Followed with a further campaign by FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to say what they were doing to make everyone happy again, albeit almost back to Wessex levels in these parts.

Word of mouth probably also helps as reliability improved and the refresh tidied up the stock so there were improvements of sorts to relay to friends who scoffed.

As many on here are aware the nightmare that commuting into Bristol by car can be makes even a slightly crowded train a joy.

[grahame]

Followed with a further campaign by FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to say what they were doing to make everyone happy again, albeit almost back to Wessex levels in these parts.

As many on here are aware the nightmare that commuting into Bristol by car can be makes even a slightly crowded train a joy.

It's wedged, even on Sundays.   From my mailbox:

Took the bike to Cardiff last Sunday. First (through) train out of BoA^» (Bradford-on-Avon - next trains) at 11:11, was 20 mins late and completely wedged (3 car) - couldn't even get on it let alone take the bike! Waited for next one (2 car to Bristol) and managed to get on that, but had 2 changes to get to Cardiff via Parkway and was nearly 2pm by the time I got there! Better coming back as I didn't leave until 19:08.

Glad you added "almost" to your comment about FGW ... at my local station we're still well down.
2005 - to Swindon at 05:52, 07:45, 13:35, 17:02 and 21:33.
2012 - to Swindon at 07:20 and 19:47
which is worse that "just 40% of services".  Early morning for work day in London lost.  Lunchtime and late afternoon services with London connections lost and that kills of business visitors to the town. Commuter service to Swindon (arrival there around 08:15, return at 17:45) lost - commuter days would now be 90 minutes longer and people have made other plans including giving up their jobs.

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

2007 was when the city financiers started to go down hill and from then through to 2009, the city shed thousands of workers. This resulted in FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s travellers from Reading to London being especially hit with fewer commuters and in particular fewer ist class travellers as corporate pockets tightened. However further west from London I think it has been rather different and there seems to have been a more or less unbroken increase in rail use. That has ceretainly been the case on the Cotswold Line and I suspect in other areas probably helped by the substantial increase in the costs of running a private car. However, as GrahamE, has pointed out, projections of future rail use should be calculated from current levels as a base, not from out dated historic levels.

[grahame]

The whole pricing / affordability / expansion thing is an interesting one - for a further follow up.

And here is a further follow up.

What an odd system we have where an increase in business seems to result in increased costs that are so high that they lead to an increase in the loss that is made / subsidy that is required to keep them going.  And yet - at face value - that appears to be what has happened in the last couple of years of the current franchise.  I'm thinking of an increase in the number of carriages on FGW^▸ (First Great Western) trains, with the addition of extra vehicles (ex buffet cars) into HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), and the return of six additional 5-car trains of class 180, at a cost to the taxpayer of 29 million pounds. 

It's not quite that simple of course [Hey - this is rail, so nothing is simple!].  Firstly, the cost of conversion / refurbishment and other startup costs (like retraining drivers on the 180s) have to be met, and can't be recouped from the new operator after April of next year - a scant 11 months of operation to pull back the capital investment.  Secondly, as I understand it the 180s and extra buffet cars are not providing a new service, but simply letting existing services have more carriages.  And as such, under "cap and collar", around 80% of the extra farebox income the services generate goes straight to the government anyway.  And, thirdly, new traffic will actually be rather limited.   Replace a 3 coach train that's 150% loaded (1 person standing for every 2 seats) with a 5 coach train, and you're still going to have a train that's got 90% of its seats taken. Chances are the you may persuade the commuters served by the line to vote for you in the next election, but you've just replaced a train that costs a lot to hire and run in network charges with one that's 66% more expensive on those aspects, but won't have 150 more people (the number of extra seats) or 225 more people (the extra capacity using that 150% figure) paying to travel on it.

Now - that's a short term view.  Looking at the longer term (and I'm sure the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) did this), the conversions have been done, the drivers trained, and you have an investment in stock and people to take you through the first years of the new franchise without the capital costs.  I'm going to assume that the new frachisee will use the existing operational team.  You have - I hope - a franchise that doesn't have the same cap and collar financing arrangements which has supressed any innovation and put off commercial building for the future under the current franchise for years.  And you have an ability to take a longer term view of traffic, looking at the growth figures earlier in this thread and saying that - yes - the users will grow to fill (and, once again overfill!) the longer train. So that 29 million is really "seeding" capital and because of the franchise change in April 2013 has had to be paid for by the government up front, rather than being amortised by the franchise holder over a period of, say, 10 years.

Taking, then, a view that the current financial thing on strengthing trains is a "glitch", correcting some other financial issues (ticketing, rampant costs in some areas such as blame attribution and subcontracting, etc), it should be possible to come up with a really positive but achievable development plan.  In the longer term (15 year) plan, you're looking at ten years through which there's potential for good balance between investment and running costs by the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) as well as by Network Rail, and indeed that's needed with the step change on electrification, and another step change being logical in around 2020 / 2021 as the 125, 142 and 143 units are declared no longer safe enough to run (!).  I differ on that safety issue, by the way - can't understand why somethings that's safe in 2019 isn't safe in 2021, and with seats, a decent service and sensible prices people will happily use older trains.

OK - so we can come up with a system under which enhancements can be provided without it appearing to be an unacceptable public subsidy of 29 million quid in the future.   How should we do those enhancements?   In order of costs (answering Rhydgaled on re-opening lines) it has to be:

1. Get people to travel at marginal times
Rather than parking up spare carriages during the day - but this is already attempted so not from a clean start

2. Using existing infrastructure
There are some places / lines when there's capacity for extra services - if they will be used, provide them.
In my own home territory, the TransWilts falls into this category. Others need to speak for their own areas; I'm not an expert at pinch points

3. Minor enhancements (signalling changes, etc)
Little things like allowing two trains into a bay platform, and adding in intermediate signals on a single line section so 2 trains can follow

4. Stations
Our own area, I can mention Royal Wootton Bassett (On Chippenham line) and Staverton.

5. Loops, laybys, layouts and bays. Also redoubling and bringing freight to passenger standards
Again - some local examples; Redoubling Swindon to Kemble
Double junctions at Thingley and Bradford in order to let trains wait off the main line for robustness
Bay platform at Chippenham; extra track alongside spare face at Westbury
Relay West to East curve at Bradford
Okehampton?

6. Electrification
Fill-in Newbury -> Westbury, Swindon -> Westbury, Bath Spa -> Westbury for example

7. Relay / reopen lines
And here is where your Portishead and Tavistock come in. YES, but there so much more infill to do too - see above

I'm not knowlegeable enough out of my own area to make comments about Carmathen to Aberystwyth (looks logical on a map. But sheep country?)

Yikes - still writing and I want to come back and comment more about Bus v Train v Multimodal ...

[Tim]

"What an odd system we have where an increase in business seems to result in increased costs that are so high that they lead to an increase in the loss that is made / subsidy that is required to keep them going."

it is odd. 

The part of the McNulty report that struck me the most was the comparison between the frieght and passenger railway.  The frieght railway has seen huge investment halving unit frieght costs.  Longer trains, heavier trucks, more powerful locos and changes to working practices mean that coal has never travlled more cheaply.   

Unit costs in the passenger railway have stayed the same.  The basic advantage of the railway is that one driver (or one driver and one guard) can carry hundreds of passengers.   You can't do that on any other mode.  But we have squandered that advantage by making trains shorter.

With rising passenger numbers we have a golden opportunity to lengthen trains without having to cut frequences at the same time.   

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

GrahamE is quite correct about the economics of providing more seats. There really ought to be some incentive to reduce overcrowding of trains, i.e. some form of penalty on TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) that increases as overcrowding increases. However if there was some finacial penalty in such circumstances TOCs would instead of providing more seating capacity, find some way of getting rid of the overcrowding by discouraging the increased use. Its probably a no win situation.