Stations with peak usage a couple of years prior to the pandemic (blue in Map 2)
London commuter belt (shift to home working predated pandemic?)
Do you remember that just before Covid, and the swapping of franchise agreements for EMAs,
SWR» (then under Mark Hopwood) were threatening
DfT» they'd walk away from their contract, taking a loss, unless they got a management contract to replace it? They had been complaining about how the profit share was evolving since the end of 2018 - less than two years into the term.
Their problem (also affecting
GA▸ ) was the Central London Employment measure used to set the base level for passenger numbers. That had been going up, but passenger numbers going down. So SWR were having to pay more to DfT out of a smaller farebox.
Various commentators suggested the deterioration of the service was putting people off commuting, but you could also call it remote working. This move away from going to work to work had been predicted for several years, but not turned up in the passenger figures before 2018. Some evidence suggested employees were not keen on it even where it was offered. So maybe SWR's poor service was the push they needed - followed by a much bigger shove from Covid.
Looking at SWR-land, most of the commuter towns outside London saw a small drop from 2018, and the levels have not returned anywhere near those for 2019.
Click on the map to explore geographics
