11-12 station usage: Welsh context

[jones_bangor]

Yes good point, that makes the Wrexham General pax per train very high as well,especially on the Chester/Salop run. One will have to see what the redoubling & its supposed extra 4 trains an hour bring in (6 in place of 2 an hour as stated by Mike Bagshaw)

A 150 doing a Chester - Wrexham - Shrewsbury shuttle would be popular I'm sure!!

 

[cymro inside]

most of the increase at LLandudno Junction and LLandudno can be attributed to local journeys between the two places since the service frequency was upped to minimum of 2 tph,also train fare about fifty per cent cheaper than arriva buses since bus company withdrew return tickets.Bangor doing well considering that the new car park was only up and running for 8 weeks of these figures.The revenue protection clampdown has yet to begin in earnest and will produce some interesting results especially at non barriered stations.as far as the next set of figures in twelve months time are concerned the ones to watch are Bangor-growth maintained. Prestatyn- upward trend due to new shopping centre and Rhyl-shoppers migrated to Prestatyn. on the branches the one to watch is Tal Y cafn where business is up by 40 per cent since opening of new cafe and farm shop down the road.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Cardiff Bay -

"Cardiff stations" being apportioned probably counts for it.

 

[Swirlz]

A 150 doing a Chester - Wrexham - Shrewsbury shuttle would be popular I'm sure!!

A Birkenhead North-Bidston-Wrexham-Shrewsbury service would be even more popular IMO!

 

[Gareth Marston]

Good point re number of trains. Aber and Carmarthen are similar size towns and, yes, Carmarthen has about 90k more passengers a year but with many MANY more trains!!

But Aber alone up by 5%

Borth's footfall went down but there's been problems with fare dodging and collection for years into/out of Aber. Aber has a ticket office but no barriers it only takes a couple of students /hippy types/or Uni staff to ask the conductor for a return to somewhere expensive and produce a debit card with baked bean stains on it and the 10 minute or so to Borth is soon gone before checking half the back carriage and with Aber getting busier more time is taken getting round the train. Not unusual for 20 odd people to pile off at Borth without being checked. Conductors have been known to hide in rear cab on the late night runs back to Mach as well.

 

[merlodlliw]

A 150 doing a Chester - Wrexham - Shrewsbury shuttle would be popular I'm sure!!

Yes it would,the markets there,with Arriva Bus Wales putting on new Premier services between Wrexham and Chester Rail Stn this month to supplement its already 12 minute shuttles.
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A Birkenhead North-Bidston-Wrexham-Shrewsbury service would be even more popular IMO!

Chester is the key, thats where the pax want to go for onward connections.
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Cardiff Bay -

"Cardiff stations" being apportioned probably counts for it.

To me its always Butetown or Tiger Bay

 

[jones_bangor]

Bangor doing well considering that the new car park was only up and running for 8 weeks of these figures.The revenue protection clampdown has yet to begin in earnest and will produce some interesting results especially at non barriered stations.as far as the next set of figures in twelve months time are concerned the ones to watch are Bangor-growth maintained. Prestatyn.

Bangor is now the No 1 destination in North Wales (more than Wrexham Central and General combined) - it will be interesting to see the impact of the fantastic new car park,seems to be increasingly busy!!....

 

[6Gman]

Anybody have figures for the bottom[/I twenty?

 

[OxtedL]

Station > 11/12 > 10/11 > Line (for those to whom this is all just a long series of consonants)
Sugar Loaf 120 84 Heart Of Wales
Dolgarrog 612 472 Conwy Valley
Roman Bridge 780 636 Conwy
Llangynllo 1,048 1,032 HOW
Cynghordy 1,166 1,628 HOW
North Llanrwst 1,272 1,236 Conwy
Garth (Powys) 1,280 1,032 HOW
Dovey Junction 1,296 1,482 Cambrian
Tal-y-Cafn 1,356 988 Conwy
Llandecwyn 1,418 1,906 Cambrian
Tygwyn 1,422 2,048 Cambrian
Pont-y-Pant 1,426 1,472 Conwy
Bynea 1,430 1,376 HOW
Llanbister Road 1,554 1,172 HOW
Pen-Y-Bont 1,654 1,490 HOW
Dolau 1,658 2,430 HOW
Abererch 1,786 1,620 Cambrian
Cilmeri 1,830 1,690 HOW
Llangennech 2,004 1,834 HOW
Pensarn 2,016 2,084 Cambrian

 

[Deerfold]

It can't be denied that 793,368 is a huge number for an unstaffed station - nowhere else comes even close (to my knowledge anyway). Many stations in even London are smaller than it. However...

Did you just mean that nowhere in Wales comes close?
If not, my local station at Steeton & Silsden has 750,688 with roughly 20% fewer trains.
Unstaffed, 1 card-only TVM.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I actually checked this on the Spreadsheet - top is Queenstown Rd (though that has an active gateline and RPIs), but if you deem that staffed (I believe officially it isn't) then next is Isleworth. Both serve well in excess of 1,000,000 passenger a year.

 

[Ivo]

Cardiff Bay doesn't even have a TVM does it? Do the others mentioned here not have one?

I actually checked this on the Spreadsheet - top is Queenstown Rd (though that has an active gateline and RPIs), but if you deem that staffed (I believe officially it isn't) then next is Isleworth. Both serve well in excess of 1,000,000 passenger a year.

Wow. Someone at SWT explain Isleworth please! Queenstown Road I can just about understand as it wouldn't have enough of a commuter force of its own to justify selling tickets there by hand - most traffic is inbound commuting I would assume?

The amount you know about staffing still amazes me sometimes!

Did you just mean that nowhere in Wales comes close?
If not, my local station at Steeton & Silsden has 750,688 with roughly 20% fewer trains.
Unstaffed, 1 card-only TVM.

I had meant all of GB - because I wasn't aware of anything else close.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

The quietest (again!) is Carstairs for anyone wondering, followed by Wick.

As relatively few Welsh stations are staffed nowadays, I'm not certain of the quietest there that is staffed, but I would hazard a guess at Chepstow or Severn Tunnel Jn. The busiest unstaffed is certainly Cardiff Bay.

 

[OxtedL]

Here's a reasonably useless graph. (Turns out Welsh stations obey the same kind of distribution shape as income and lots of other things. This isn't especially surprising.)

 

[Ivo]

Not the first you've provided

Is it safe to say that Whitchurch (yet again) wins the "award" for Least Accurate Patronage Record?

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Using OxtedL's graph, it turns out Milford Haven is the quietest staffed station in Wales, though IIRC it's provided by a local travel agent or similar, and not the TOC.

 

[krus_aragon]

Cardiff Bay -

"Cardiff stations" being apportioned probably counts for it.

But there's no such group any more, is there? They're a group for routing, but not for fares. I seem to recall a disagreement over the proportion of a 'Cardiff Stations - London' ticket that would be paid to the valleys operator for the Queen St - Central leg on whatever proportion of the tickets sold. At one point a few years back I noted there was a 5p difference in fares for some GWML locations for Queen St.

 

[swcovas]

The quietest (again!) is Carstairs for anyone wondering, followed by Wick.

As relatively few Welsh stations are staffed nowadays, I'm not certain of the quietest there that is staffed, but I would hazard a guess at Chepstow or Severn Tunnel Jn. The busiest unstaffed is certainly Cardiff Bay.

Llandrindod? Is it staffed by ATW? In appearances it would seem so but I'm not sure.

 

[merlodlliw]

Llandrindod? Is it staffed by ATW? In appearances it would seem so but I'm not sure.

Yes the Swansea platform is manned by ATW(booking office)

The Shrewsbury platform is Network Rails area office,manned by them.


Bob

 

[WelshBluebird]

In terms of some of the valley lines stations, some of those figures can be put down to the fact fares are operate in an almost zonal way. For example a ticket from Ystrad Rhondda to Cardiff Central is identical in price to a ticket from Treherbert to Cardiff Central, so quite often guards will sell the ticket that covers the most distance (so in the above example quite often you'd be sold a Treherbert to Cardiff Central ticket in both cases).

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Yes the Swansea platform is manned by ATW(booking office)

The Shrewsbury platform is Network Rails area office,manned by them.


Bob

Llandrindod was an agency , manned by 2 brothers (who also ran the trolley service twixt there and Llanwrtyd) - licensed by ATW and W&West.

Though Milford's aggregate numbers are not high - the average ticket value is very good (indicating it's regional catchment area) - numbers are not everything (but a good start)
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In terms of some of the valley lines stations, some of those figures can be put down to the fact fares are operate in an almost zonal way. For example a ticket from Ystrad Rhondda to Cardiff Central is identical in price to a ticket from Treherbert to Cardiff Central, so quite often guards will sell the ticket that covers the most distance (so in the above example quite often you'd be sold a Treherbert to Cardiff Central ticket in both cases).

Part of the Arriva franchise - hence the good journeys /price Llantwit to Bridgend - one zone might have been as low as £1 to begin with.

 

[tbtc]

Though Milford's aggregate numbers are not high - the average ticket value is very good (indicating it's regional catchment area) - numbers are not everything (but a good start)

This is the problem with such threads, there's no "quality" to the numbers, just quantity. We could be seeing a thousand commuters on expensive "peak" tickets/ long distance passengers replacing an equal number of pensioners on subsidised local authority tickets (or vice versa) without it impacting upon the number of passengers counted.

I'd wager that the 675,748 Bangor journeys (bring a lot more revenue to the railway than the 911,800 Trefforest journeys.

The thing that stands out for me is that (ignoring the readjustment between Trefforest/ Pontypridd that seems a "zero sum game") the numbers are down at some "big" stations (Swansea, Newport, Bridgend) and up at some "little" stations.

This may be good for ATW (lower numbers at stations where FGW provide a large amount of capacity and presumably where FGW receive a large amount of the ORCATS share) or bad news (fewer lucrative long distance passengers at the mainline stations but an increase in cheap tickets to "local" stations on the Valley Lines etc).

Devil is in the detail!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

This is the problem with such threads, there's no "quality" to the numbers, just quantity. We could be seeing a thousand commuters on expensive "peak" tickets/ long distance passengers replacing an equal number of pensioners on subsidised local authority tickets (or vice versa) without it impacting upon the number of passengers counted.

I'd wager that the 675,748 Bangor journeys (bring a lot more revenue to the railway than the 911,800 Trefforest journeys.

The thing that stands out for me is that (ignoring the readjustment between Trefforest/ Pontypridd that seems a "zero sum game") the numbers are down at some "big" stations (Swansea, Newport, Bridgend) and up at some "little" stations.

This may be good for ATW (lower numbers at stations where FGW provide a large amount of capacity and presumably where FGW receive a large amount of the ORCATS share) or bad news (fewer lucrative long distance passengers at the mainline stations but an increase in cheap tickets to "local" stations on the Valley Lines etc).

Devil is in the detail!

Spot on - its not just about ORCATS share (though important that is for aggregate finances - things like trends - AVANTIX downloads are really interesting to show how , for example how branch line takings can be influenced by through bookings - I recall how the St Albans branch crews used to "sell" the ability to through book, so a single to Watford could turn into a single to Llandudno Junction. Top 30 flows from stations are valuable - on Liverpool you found the best selling ticket was to Birkenhead - but the value of flow no 43 to London Euston was what really made the money. Trouble is there is too much data available at some levels ......(and not enough people or time to analyse the trends)

 

[merlodlliw]

Llandrindod was an agency , manned by 2 brothers (who also ran the trolley service twixt there and Llanwrtyd) - licensed by ATW and W&West.

Though Milford's aggregate numbers are not high - the average ticket value is very good (indicating it's regional catchment area) - numbers are not everything (but a good start)
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Part of the Arriva franchise - hence the good journeys /price Llantwit to Bridgend - one zone might have been as low as £1 to begin with.

Yes Llandod was an agency like Gobowen is today,current I have seen ATW staff present late last year, is this still the case?

 

[Gareth Marston]

[QUOTE]
I'd wager that the 675,748 Bangor journeys (bring a lot more revenue to the railway than the 911,800 Trefforest journeys.[/QUOTE]

You could also argue that the 911,800 @ treforest are mainly peak hours commuters that keep the A470 free of traffic whereas the 675,748 at Bangor are mainly students who would have made their journeys off peak on the A55 expressway.

 

[jones_bangor]

You could also argue that the 911,800 @ treforest are mainly peak hours commuters that keep the A470 free of traffic whereas the 675,748 at Bangor are mainly students who would have made their journeys off peak on the A55 expressway.

You could argue that, but it isn't the case in my experience. I'm sure a fair proportion of the travellers are students, but the peak hour trains leaving Bangor are always busy with people on business for. London, Cardiff, Birmingham etc.

 

[Greenback]

I think that tbtc ha smade a good point about how the station usage figures show only part of the picture, yet the statistics are pored over every year and used to come to all sorts of conclusions!

My own view is that they are of limited value; the best they can do is to provide a very rough indication of trends.

It's clear that both Bangor and Trefforest are very useful stations, though possibly for different reasons and markets. Similarly, Llanelli station is a vital facility for the town despite not being in the top 20!

 

[Markdvdman]

I think that tbtc ha smade a good point about how the station usage figures show only part of the picture, yet the statistics are pored over every year and used to come to all sorts of conclusions!

My own view is that they are of limited value; the best they can do is to provide a very rough indication of trends.

It's clear that both Bangor and Trefforest are very useful stations, though possibly for different reasons and markets. Similarly, Llanelli station is a vital facility for the town despite not being in the top 20!

Llanelli is indeed vital, I use it every Monday and Fridays frequently. It is not as well used as Merthyr probably due to less frequency.

The fact is the figures are 'loose' and not 100% due to the way tickets are duistributed. Zones etc cause this!

 

[tbtc]

The fact is the figures are 'loose' and not 100% due to the way tickets are duistributed. Zones etc cause this!

This is a problem - people pore over these figures (as Greenback says) and claim whatever "victories" they can find to back their local causes - but when you use the same figures as evidence that a certain station only sees a handful of passengers the argument suddenly switches to "well, these figures are never 100% accurate - there's a lot of undocumented travel/ rovers/ railcards/ ticketless passengers at my local station, so its much busier than the figures suggest". Happens all over the country (not a dig at anyone in particular).

The figures are useful, but more useful in comparing one year with another, rather than comparing one commuter station with an Intercity station (since the naked figures are apples/ oranges)

 

[Greenback]

The fact is the figures are 'loose' and not 100% due to the way tickets are duistributed. Zones etc cause this!

Other factors also come into play. i understand, for instance, that season tickets are counted as being used for two journeys a day, five days a week for 40 weeks of the year, and against the origin and destination tickets on the tickets.

However, I use my annual ticket on Saturday seven or eight times a year at least, and also during my leave weeks (though not so regularly).

Also, although it is between Llanelli and Swansea I used to use it for additional journeys to and from gowerton, which would not have been recorded at all as usage at that station!

The figures are useful, but more useful in comparing one year with another, rather than comparing one commuter station with an Intercity station (since the naked figures are apples/ oranges)

Quite right. It has to be recognised that comparing one station with anothe ris pointless without context - usually the level of service, the geographical catchment area, and goodness knows what else!