Post Covid Passenger Rebound

[modernrail]

British passenger rail numbers reach 80% of pre-Covid levels

RIA has welcomed figures from the DfT showing that passenger levels reached 80% of pre-pandemic levels on March 18.

www.railjournal.com

I find the speed of this rebound to be astonishing. Bearing in mind about 1 in 15 of the population has Covid, that might well be the missing 20%.

Lots of things flow from this, such as,

1. What is the case for the DfT forcing operators to cut services?
2. Where is this usage in the day? How are the commuter flows looking. If they are down is something else up?
2. Could we actually be in for more than 100% usage and if so why - are very high fuel prices causing people to turn to the railways?
3. How even is this spread. I have a strong feeling the weak link in the new world is the super expensive morning and evening services. People can now swerve them by using video conferencing for early meetings or travelling off peak. Is it finally time to consign this lunacy to the bin and have more even pricing throughout the day.

I would personally rather they stick a fiver on every long distance fare and reduce the peak fares down near that level. A bit of a supplement, fine, but more like 20% than 200%.

 

[JonathanH]

1. What is the case for the DfT forcing operators to cut services?

The issue is revenue, more than passenger numbers.

 

[skyhigh]

1. What is the case for the DfT forcing operators to cut services?

80% of passenger numbers does not equal 80% of revenue.

More people on off-peak tickets, less on the more expensive anytimes.

 

[JonathanH]

Is it finally time to consign this lunacy to the bin and have more even pricing throughout the day.

Increasing revenue across the day - eg higher off-peak prices is another way of getting more even prices.

 

[L401CJF]

Leisure market up my end is definitely booming, I haven't been on a Saturday journey in months that hasn't been rammed. The weekday commute journeys on Merseyrails Chester services (which I use) are nowhere near as full as they were, but still get quite busy at certain times.

 

[DarloRich]

The findings of the linked report and my own ( albeit anecdotal experiance) do not tally. There is no way we are back to 80% usage on WCML south. Trains to and from London at peak periods are still very empty.

Leisure travel is buoyant and weekend trains are very busy but they are not busy during the week.

 

[modernrail]

80% of passenger numbers does not equal 80% of revenue.

More people on off-peak tickets, less on the more expensive

The findings of the linked report and my own ( albeit anecdotal experiance) do not tally. There is no way we are back to 80% usage on WCML south. Trains to and from London at peak periods are still very empty.

Leisure travel is buoyant and weekend trains are very busy but they are not busy during the week.

Some of them are very busy. I only just got on my Herne Hill to (currently curtailed) at Blackfriars the other day. Then a load of us had to go and try and squeeze on to the next northbound Thameslink through the core. The whole thing added 15 minutes to my journey as well because my original train did not go through the core. Same situation southbound although was travelling off peak and so not so busy.

 

[DarloRich]

@modernrail - as I said: anecdotal evidence based on my journeys between MKC & Euston.

Usage is going up albeit slowly but nowhere near 80% in my opinion. Even though the weekends are very busy I cant see that levelling off the quiet ( based on pre covid days) peak services.

However, by comparison , I would say LNER is doing really well getting passengers back and thier trains have bene really well loaded.

 

[modernrail]

Increasing revenue across the day - eg higher off-peak prices is another way of getting more even prices.

As I have said for years, raise some advance fares, add a bit on to off-peak fares and massively reduce peak fares. Let’s also stop calling them Anytime fares when they are open fares rebranded - and never originally intended for that purpose. That nonsense was introduced with privatisation. They are peak fares. Most people use them on a day return basis.

This chicken was always going to come home to roost as it was a rip off. The question now is how imaginative the bean counters and marketing people are at setting the new rules of the game. So far, so bad.

 

[yorksrob]

I wonder if a lot of people commuting part time through the week now, were already doing so prior to the pandemic ?

Regional services are feeling as busy, if not busier than they've always been. Even my morning commute yesterday, I had to sit next to someone from my origin station (on a 158). Prior to the pandemic, I would almost always get a double seat on the 3 carriage 144.

 

[Dr Day]

The question now is how imaginative the bean counters and marketing people are at setting the new rules of the game. So far, so bad.

The questions may be more on the lines of, to better balance the books:

How high can the 'off peak' fares go to maximise revenue - ie how elastic are they?
Should off peak fare regulation (which provides a cap) go out of the window, with more variable fare Advance-type products to enable demand to be spread to balance loadings and maximise revenue?
What times of day/days of week should now be classified 'off peak' with an associated discount from the 'peak'?

One size is unlikely to fit all across the network.

Plus lots of questions on the other side of the financial equation around reducing costs and moving the supply to where the demand is both geographically and by time of day, which have been discussed elsewhere.

 

[Geezertronic]

The findings of the linked report and my own ( albeit anecdotal experiance) do not tally. There is no way we are back to 80% usage on WCML south. Trains to and from London at peak periods are still very empty.

Leisure travel is buoyant and weekend trains are very busy but they are not busy during the week.

I've noticed that the Avanti Birmingham trains in the morning are half full and you can have two seats to yourself, but if I have the misfortune to catch a "via Birmingham" Avanti service home (such as to Crewe, Blackpool etc...) then they are heavily loaded especially if they stop at Milton Keynes Central

The LNWR trains are also quite busy too, particularly the ones via Northampton but also the fasts to Crewe (that I use on occasion to change at Rugby)

 

[Andy Pacer]

I would've said perhaps its an April fool except it was written two days ago!

 

[modernrail]

deleted

I would've said perhaps its an April fool except it was written two days ago!

Why? There is a real risk here that everybody has been sat around saying how bad it is going to be and it will be nothing of the sort in terms of numbers, just in terms of changes in usage patterns. Everybody I know with a job is back on the trains very regularly. People are commuting generally for most of the week. Those who thought they would work from home all the time are starting to realise they are missing out on some of the action if not in those meetings physically with the other person who is pushing for promotion.

There will be changes, but they might be much more nuanced than many have assumed.

For years planners have dreamed of a world where load can be spread outside the peaks and so we avoid having to right size capacity for super peaks. Now we might have that world so let’s get on the front foot in terms of designing the supporting systems to help passengers make good choices and get on trains rather than get stuck in expensive traffic.

 

[RPI]

An internal memo at GWR this week quoted Mark Hopwood as saying that Off-Peak journeys (on GWR) are back to 99% of pre pandemic numbers but overall revenue is down 30%.

 

[modernrail]

An internal memo at GWR this week quoted Mark Hopwood as saying that Off-Peak journeys (on GWR) are back to 99% of pre pandemic numbers but overall revenue is down 30%.

That is maths that can definitely be worked through. It is not the Armageddon scenario lots of people have been predicting.

I would love to know what GWRs peak numbers are. I suspect some of that off peak usage is usage that is purposely avoiding the peak but would prefer to travel in the peak with sane pricing. Just a guess. I personally know of people who are doing just that when coming in from Bath and Bristol.

And…. This is at a time when we have extremely high amounts of absence and self-isolating because of what are now our highest ever Covid numbers.

 

[ar10642]

As I have said for years, raise some advance fares, add a bit on to off-peak fares and massively reduce peak fares. Let’s also stop calling them Anytime fares when they are open fares rebranded - and never originally intended for that purpose. That nonsense was introduced with privatisation. They are peak fares. Most people use them on a day return basis.

This chicken was always going to come home to roost as it was a rip off. The question now is how imaginative the bean counters and marketing people are at setting the new rules of the game. So far, so bad.

Adding anything onto *any* fares is a non starter if we don't want to push even more people into cars IMO. Rail already can't compete with the cost of fuel here on a railcard discounted return for just me travelling, other than Thameslink only fares to London.

 

[Andy Pacer]

deleted


Why?

Due to today being 01/04/22

 

[dastocks]

I travel into London once or twice per week - not during peak hours - and traffic from/to Gatwick Airport has definitely seen a jump since the South Terminal reopened.

A Gatwick Express flavoured service resumes next week. The off peak fares from Brighton don't change, but I believe the GX fare between Gatwick and London will be at a premium to TL and SN so it'll be mildly interesting to see if passengers transfer away from the GX service.

 

[modernrail]

Due to today being 01/04/22

Do you assume everything said before midday on April 1st is an April Fools? I sort of got that bit, I just don’t find the article remotely surprising.

Now if I had posted that Northern has learned how to clean a train….

Adding anything onto *any* fares is a non starter if we don't want to push even more people into cars IMO. Rail already can't compete with the cost of fuel here on a railcard discounted return for just me travelling, other than Thameslink only fares to London.

I am suggesting the opposite.

 

[Andy Pacer]

Do you assume everything said before midday on April 1st is an April Fools? I sort of got that bit, I just don’t find the article remotely surprising.

Now if I had posted that Northern has learned how to clean a train….

Haha, possibly a "Northern introduce enhanced cleaning regime" could be passable!

 

[ar10642]

Do you assume everything said before midday on April 1st is an April Fools? I sort of got that bit, I just don’t find the article remotely surprising.

Now if I had posted that Northern has learned how to clean a train….


I am suggesting the opposite.

OK, I thought you meant to raise off peak fares in order to reduce Anytime. Anytime should not even be a thing if you ask me, and fares across the board need to be reduced or at least not increased.

 

[irish_rail]

An internal memo at GWR this week quoted Mark Hopwood as saying that Off-Peak journeys (on GWR) are back to 99% of pre pandemic numbers but overall revenue is down 30%.

In which case its time to start investing in our long distance fleets. Put spending for commuter stock in the north on hold and let's build some extra carriages to extend some 5 car IETs up to full length.

 

[modernrail]

In which case its time to start investing in our long distance fleets. Put spending for commuter stock in the north on hold and let's build some extra carriages to extend some 5 car IETs up to full length.

Why commuter stock in the north??? That has been chronically underinvested in for years. There are also massive pockets of severe road congestion where decent rail alternatives could make inroads in modal shift.

I suspect the fresh air problem will be concentrated in areas like Surrey that were previously responsible for massive inflows into London but could easily see some more significant sticking of changed patterns.

 

[yorksrob]

In which case its time to start investing in our long distance fleets. Put spending for commuter stock in the north on hold and let's build some extra carriages to extend some 5 car IETs up to full length.

Commuter stock (which is also leisure stock) in the North has always been under-resourced and does not have much variation in capacity to begin with, so this is not an area to cut back on.

The South East commuter market has traditionally had a higher variation in rolling stock and infrastructure capacity between peak and off-peak, therefore it might be worth putting some peak enhancements there on hold instead.

I agree with getting longer distance services up to capacity though (also no scrapping of HST's in particular).

 

[modernrail]

OK, I thought you meant to raise off peak fares in order to reduce Anytime. Anytime should not even be a thing if you ask me, and fares across the board need to be reduced or at least not increased.

Sorry - I do mean raise some Advance fares and off peak fares by a modest amount to bring Anytime/peak fares down. The books do need to balance to some extent. How much of that balancing can come from better spreading of load across available capacity is I suspect the difficult to answer question at the moment.

 

[181]

If the figures indicate that revenue per passenger is lower than pre-Covid, I don't dispute that, and I can see that there will be fewer long-distance business travellers having their Anytime fares paid for them (I wonder whether reducing these fares might increase revenue if it meant that some people might pay them out of their own pockets rather than seeing them as a de facto ban on travelling at those times).

But for commuter routes it puzzles me. A 7-day season ticket from my local station to London Terminals costs £126.30, which for 5 journeys per week works out at £25.26 per journey; the base rate for 1-12 month seasons is almost the same at £126.10. An off-peak day return is £25.80. This suggests that a leisure journey and a commuting journey should generate about the same revenue; my understanding is that this is typical for commuter routes.

Although many regular leisure travellers will have railcards (a Network Railcard if ineligible for others), on the other hand, if I remember rightly, annual season tickets are somewhat cheaper than shorter ones (is it something like 10/12 of the monthly rate?), and part-time commuters will be paying more per journey (a flexi season giving 8 days' travel out of 28 is £365.60, or £45.70 per journey; an Anytime day return is £52.20). So on routes like this I'm not sure where the revenue gap comes from.

 

[modernrail]

I hate to say this as I use it but I would bin the Network Railcard as part of moving things around. I am not sure why it has even been offered, the off peak fare should be the off peak fare and only the South East has them. It seems to be a card available with the only qualifying requirement being ability to get on a train which doesn’t really fit with the general purpose of railcards which is to help particular user groups.

 

[yorksrob]

I hate to say this as I use it but I would bin the Network Railcard as part of moving things around. I am not sure why it has even been offered, the off peak fare should be the off peak fare and only the South East has them. It seems to be a card available with the only qualifying requirement being ability to get on a train which doesn’t really fit with the general purpose of railcards which is to help particular user groups.

I would say it ought to be replaced with a proper national railcard scheme instead.

 

[mike57]

In our area (East Coast Yorkshire) Lesuire journeys seem to be very busy and commuting/business travel is down:

Some examples, We had a trip to London last Friday, lesiure trip, we wanted first class advance tickets, Plenty of tickets for the Friday, nothing for the Saturday. Saturday trains are packed. Yesterday I was out on a work trip starting from Scarborough, trains were nowhere near as busy as pre covid. Prior to Covid I would be doing a longer trip once/twice a week, now its maybe once a month, I only go in person if I need to interact with the hardware. All the meetings and discussions to get to that point are virtual.

I cannot be alone, and I cannot see it changing. Covid was the catalyst to speed up something which was starting to happen anyway. The difference covid made was that now most people have the hardware they need to make a video call. From a business point of view it makes no sense to send me on a 3 hour journey each way across the country, cost to the business is 6 hours x my hourly rate + fares, where as a video call is just my time on the call

In the same way that previous historical events made changes which were never reversed so covid has made an impact.

The railways will need to adapt to the new situation, more discretionary travel means the market will be more fickle, if a TOC doesn't deliver a reasonable service then people will not use them. For a lot of people pre covid rail was the only way of getting to work, so were a captive market.