Passenger Surveys - 16th to 18th July 2016

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From Saturday 16th July to Monday 18th July inclusive, we (TransWilts CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership)) will be leading in a passenger survey with Wiltshire Council and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).   We've not done a survey since October 2014 (though several counts since), and we'll be looking over the three days to learn somewhat more than we can get from passenger counts and ticket data.   

Of particular interest are how people get to and from the station, availability of a car as an alternative, what they would do without this train, why are they travelling in the first place, what information sources they look to, how they found out about the service, how they would like to be kept informed, and what improvements they would like to see.   There's also a 'write in' section for any other ideas or comments.

The purpose of these surveys is to learn more about (changing?) use and requirements so that all partners can be better informed for the future. With electrification of the line through Swindon, then later through Chippenham, timetables will change.  With stock cascades, things will change too. So it's really important for all parties to understand passenger use and aspirations.

If YOU are available for a 'shift' or two - 4 to 6 hours - over the three days, please send me a personal message or email.  We need people to count passengers on and off,  and to hand out and collect forms (and pens  ) .   We will have an experienced team lead on each shift - if you've done a similar job before you're welcome to let me know you can be lead; if you're new to this, you won't be lead and it will be 'no prior knowledge required'

Safety and non-interference with operation is key. We'll provide CRP IDs, a short briefing paper, etc.   The questionnaire is yet to be finalised, but will be almost identical to the one we used in October 2014 which you can see at http://atrebatia.info/trainquestion2.pdf  ... slight changes proposed to questions 20 and 21 (do we ask about changes in last 6 months or year?)  and 25 (a note to say we may anonymously quote comments and suggestions made)

[Chris from Nailsea]

I'll need to check the dates and times of my own 'shifts', grahame, but I may be able to offer my services as a surveyor that weekend.

[grahame]

A very interesting first day, but I choose the word "interesting" carefully!

Due to signalling problems (axle counter failure on up one) between Chippenham and Swindon, one round trip was cancelled and two further ones only operated between Westbury and Chippenham.  Some delays (up to half an hour) meaning missed connections and appointments, with difficult compromised between getting to Westbury on time for ongoing connections and waiting at Chippenham for passengers arriving from Swindon and beyond on the next main line service.   At one point, gaps / missed connections filled by road transport.

Having outlined the operation issues, (and glossing over the 'fun' it caused getting people to survey / count in the right place at the right time), we has a lot of trains that were pretty busy, a lot of people happy with the services, and most passengers ready. willing and able to fill in our survey.  I'm going to leave the results that vague at the moment; the sheets aren't all back yet and I don't have totals - indeed it's going to be a very interesting discussion as how much the count can be extrapolated and how much it's unique to yesterday in the circumstances.   Some excellent qualitative data and indication of trends though, and (I love these) a couple of "I would not have thought of that"s.

Big "Thank you" to our team of volunteers; the data gathered, even though for an unusual Saturday, is very useful indeed.   Some tremendous work put in.   Yes, some overstaffed trains (the three crews out in the afternoon all ended up travelling on the same service due to the cancellation ... classic!) and some l-o-n-g waits at Westbury and Swindon, but all with great humour and so much learned by us all.

Big "Thank you" to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) crew too. The last thing they needed when sorting out connections and operations is a survey - but our survey leads and experienced member were, to a degree, able to help / re-assure people nd help work out onward journeys.

And so to day 2 ...

[grahame]

Sunday and Monday also "interesting" ... with trains not running quite as they were scheduled at times    Huge amounts of data gathered and very useful data ... analysis will be a bit task.  A great deal of feedback / answering passenger questions too.  Much more on all of this to follow within the TransWilts CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) / friends area.

[grahame]

We missed trains on each of Saturday, Sunday and Monday .... little choice as they were cancelled.   In order to fill in figures,  I'm noting the missed trains as and when I get a chance.

Yesterday (21st July 2016).  17:36 from Swindon.  Left Swindon with 70 passengers. 7 off and 33 on at Chippenham. 36 off an 9 on at Melksham.   Regular passenger remarkably accepting of the issues on Monday evening that lead to this train being cancelled. 105/45, and I make that 69 on to Trowbridge;  I didn't carry on but educated guess would be 45 off and 5 on there.  Guessing that makes no difference to the journey numbers on the section unique to the TransWilts.

Big pile of log sheets and huge pile of surveys to be entered!

[grahame]

From last Friday's Wiltshire Times (letter not [yet?] online)

[grahame]

A more general update on the TransWilts / written for national newsletter coverage but posted here as it says a bit more about the survey

Passenger counts on the TransWilts Community Rail Service (Westbury to Swindon via Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham) in late July showed a continuing growth with a run rate of passenger journeys of about a quarter of a million a year - that's up from around 18,000 in 2012. The improvement is due to the provision of an additional single carriage shuttle train running an extra 6 round trips a day (4 on Sundays), funded for a three year trial / build up under a Local Sustainable Transport Fund grant.

Passenger surveys undertaken in parallel with the counts are still to be fully entered and analysed. Early indications show a good level of satisfaction with the service, with it now being core to many passengers daily and weekly routines. Traffic is a healthy combinations of commuter, education, business, persaol business and leisure, and the service is combining local passenger flows between stations with a significant longer distance traffic, with trains connecting into and out of other national network services.  On the first day of the survey along, some 40 different national rail stations were passenger's sources or destinations.  One of the strengths of the service is, indeed, that the same train is catering for all rail journeys to and from he town of Melksham (population 25,000) and also for other major flows such as Swindon to the county town of Trowbridge - now available through the day as a direct service with a shorter journey time.

Passenger desires include longer trains (there are regularly many people standing on the shuttle train) additional services (there are currently several gaps of over 2 and a half hours, even at peak time),  a later evening train, and a continuation of the train south from Westbury integrtating it with other services via Salisbury to Southampton.

Such has been the success of the service that improvements have been made by Great Western even while the LSTF^▸ (Local Sustainable Transport Fund) trial is underway.  An extra service in the middle of the day started in May to plug one of the longer gaps and is already loading well.  Several trains have been retimed to improve connections at Westbury, even though this makes for additional shunt moves due to limited platform capacity there. A trip has been extended to Frome on the Heart of Wessex line - another town of 25,000, plugging a service gap there.  And the Wiltshire community and Great Western continue to look at other ideas where a small change might make a big difference.

For the first two years of the trial service, the community team has concentrated on building up regular (repeating) traffic, bearing in mind limited team resources.  For the summer of 2016, though, we're looking much more to the leisure and occasional user, with press, social media, and leaflet coverage of day trip out opportunities to encourage newcomers to rail who live in our area to try rail for the first time ... and we hope they'll then come back.  Such marketing is typically away from the railway itself, as we look to wider the market and is (responsibly) targetted at off peak trains. For the 2017 season, we're also looking to promote the TransWilts service as an access to leisure destinations in Wiltshire.

On 9th September, Graham Ellis (Community Rail Officer for the TransWilts CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership)) will be talking about the past, present and future of the service at the Railway Inn, near Westbury Station, at 19:00 for 19:30, at the invite of the West Wilts Rail User Group.  On 5th October, the Melksham Rail User Group meets at Well House Manor on Spa Road, Melksham from 18:30 to celebrate a 20 fold increase in passenger journeys since the group (known as the "Melksham Rail Developemnt Group" until earlier this year) was set up 20 years ago, and to look forward to a potential 5 times further growth (that's 35% compound) over the next five years which our analysis indicates is realistically achievable.  Paul Johnson, chair of the CRP, is talking to the Severnside branch of RailFuture on Saturday November 19th at 2pm at the Pulteney Room, Manvers Street Baptist Church, Bath, BA1 1JW.

All are welcome to these events - all free of charge.  Details - grahamellis @ transwilts.org or 0845 459 0153.   We will also be shouting on line and in the press.