Station Usage Figures - 09/10

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

Released by the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) today.

Available to download at: http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1529

Many fascinating statistics which I'm sure you'll all enjoy analysing.  One in particular answering my own question of this time last year:

I'll be interested to see Bicester Town's figures for next year after the full impact of the 'Bicester Link' branding has taken effect, as numbers have swelled considerably since then!

The answer is a rise from 60000 to 105000 per annum.  I make than an increase of 75%.  Staggering what a bit of advertising and the odd extra train can do - even with a route that only has a 30 or 40mph speed limit!

[ChrisB]

Errr....thats 75%.....?

[IndustryInsider]

Errr....thats 75%.....?

Good point, Chris - now corrected in my original post.  A combination of being darn useless at maths and getting all excited and carried away with myself!  Still very impressive though, huh?

[ChrisB]

Indeed, now whether they can compete with the bus *and* make money on the route.....? Be interesting to see what / how Chiltern do pre closure.

[Brucey]

Top 15 least used stations

Coombe
Tees-Side Airport
Reddish South
Barry Links
Sugar Loaf
Breich
Buckenham
Altnabreac
Chapelton
Elton & Orston
Pilning
Scotscalder
Golf Street
Achanalt
Falls Of Cruachan

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) scoring highly with three of the top fifteen.

27% increase in footfall at Pilning - always good news

A very sharp drop at Melksham (27,656 to 10,028) along with "No obvious reason to explain change in usage".  Well I can think of something obvious - how about the incredibly poor undeserved service provided to this town.

[ChrisB]

But doesn't help in getting a decent service restored.

[grahame]

A very sharp drop at Melksham (27,656 to 10,028) along with "No obvious reason to explain change in usage".  Well I can think of something obvious - how about the incredibly poor undeserved service provided to this town.

But doesn't help in getting a decent service restored.

The 10,028 is indeed explained by the service level, and the timing of the two trains that there are away from peak commuter times.  The report states:

"No obvious reason to explain change in usage"  which can be looked at two ways

a) There is no change in station usage!  The figures are ticket sales, which were distorted in past years because of "Melksham Specials".

b) The use of the wording "no obvious reason" is hurtful.  It indicates that our campaign and inputs have not reached the consultant that the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) employed as their expert ... we've ben shouting about the skewed stats for years, and I'm delighted to report that the GWRUS^▸ (Great Western Route Utilisation Strategy) made an adjustment, as have figures / work done by Wiltshire Council who are also very much aware.

There's an old thread on "Melksham Specials" here:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1569.0
and the same thing applied to Bradford-on-Avon and Chippenham too.

Yet, curiously, there's good news for the TransWilts in these figures - the examples already quoted of how things grew at Bicester.  And looking at Melksham in comparison to the nearest similar (better served) town, we see:
* Warminster - 312000 (15.6 journeys per catchment area inhabitant)
* Melksham - 10000 (0.45 journeys per catchment area inhabitant)
Which is an indicator of potential.  So - good in parts; sure, I would rather see many more on the existing services, but people don't want to leave the town at 06:40 in the morning ... only getting back at 19:47 ... on a daily basis. So it's a hard sell.  Double the services, you'll quadruple the traffic.  Run a service at a similar level to Warminster's and - given a year or two to work in - you'll have traffic levels approaching theirs from just this one stations.

There's a huge danger of turning the TransWilts into just "The Melksham story" .  It isn't to the Melksham loadings, which could be 300,000 a year by 2015, you need to add the loadings of all the other flows too and you'll be nudging a million journeys a year - that's somewhere just shy of 3,000 journeys per day, or 150 per train on a 10-train service.  Let's see - a 150 has 150 seats - perfect case 

[Brucey]

BRISTOL BR^▸ (British Rail(ways))

Did no-one tell the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) that this hasn't existed since 1989?

[Steve Bray]

Colwall is an interchange?

And how come Deepdene isn't referred to as Dorking Deepdene? At least Dorking West's figures are a little more realistic (still doesn't reflect true numbers)

[TJ]

Unless I have had a glass of wine too many the 09/10 entry and exit figures are absolutely identical. Surely not!

TJ

[inspector_blakey]

You're absolutely right that the figures quoted in table 3-1 of the report are identical for exits and entries, but remember that they're only quoted to six significant figures and we're dealing with numbers of the order of a billion. So saying 1,065.39 million is the equivalent of saying 1,065,390,000: the numbers have in effect been rounded to the nearest ten thousand.

But having said that, I just opened the spreadsheet and summed the column for total entries and the column for total exits... Those numbers are 1,065,386,249 and 1,065,386,260 respectively, for a total difference of a whole eleven passengers which still seems implausibly small!

[IndustryInsider]

With the full file a bit daunting with all its columns, colours and data, I thought I'd do a simplified version just extracting the First Great Western managed stations, as it makes it clearer to see the trends.

There's two sets of data below, split over three images each.  The first is listed alphabetically, the second is listed by the highest percentage increase.  Noticeable that as well as Bicester Town, Islip also makes the top ten.  If you ignore Dorking West (which is obviously not accurate) and the small base for Quintrel Downs, the next obvious trend is for the Cornish branch lines - with large increases especially on the Falmouth branch, reflecting the improved service frequency.  There's some good increases on the Severn Beach route too. 

Of the large stations (1 million or more a year), Oxford showed very strong growth of 6.8%.  A good year for Cheltenham and Truro, too.  All whilst the country was going through a financial downturn!







And listed by percentage increases and decreases...








At least Coombe spared Melksham's blushes (respecting the fact that Melksham's figures are dubious to say the least!).

[old original]

It'll be interesting to see the impact the barriers at Exeter Central and Truro have on future figures

[vacman]

Apparently Truro has unearthed 600 journeys per week that were going free......

[John R]

600 journeys a week represents 1200 entries and exits, so around 6% of Truro's footfall.

Note that the Devon and Cornish branchline figures are understated, as Rover and Ranger tickets are not included, as it is not possible to attribute starting or ending points for the journey. Thus Lelant Saltings has only 622 entries and exits all year, whereas I guess it might see that much traffic in a day in August. It's a shame, as it completely misrepresents the value of the branch (and I'm guessing the Looe branch amongst others as well).

But having said that, I just opened the spreadsheet and summed the column for total entries and the column for total exits... Those numbers are 1,065,386,249 and 1,065,386,260 respectively, for a total difference of a whole eleven passengers which still seems implausibly small!

But everyone who starts a journey (entries) has to finish it somewhere (exits),  so in theory the answers would be identical. If it were significantly different then it would show that the methodology used to estimate journeys in travelcard areas was not working correctly.