Do lucrative routes rely on other routes?

yorksrob said:

Indeed. Infact, I think there still needs to be a lot more work on the economic benefits that a railway passenger service brings to local areas as well as the social and environmental benefits. Too often in the debate, secondary routes are only viewed in terms of the subsidy they require, rather than the benefits they bring.

Click to expand...

Definitely. Although much has improved with regard to the understanding of social and environmental issues, there is still some way to go before th economic benefits are truly understood.

yorksrob said:

BR was probably right about the Taunton to Barnstaple line. It doesn‘t appear to serve anywhere particularly large along the way

Click to expand...

First I come out in favour of a re-opening (the low cost Tavistock - Bere Alston proposal), now you are coming out in favour of a historic closure... there must be something in the water - or maybe we've swapped medication?

yorksrob said:

With Leeds, the issues around parking in the City centre make it highly likely that a lot of people will have a journey to or from the hinterland by public transport. The convenience of West Yorkshire‘s local trains to InterCity travellers (as opposed to the bus services which are concentrated on a bus station a long way away) suggest that a lot of those onward travellers will use the train

Click to expand...

There is a fairly busy bus station right outside the train station for services to north/west Leeds (as well as frequent bus services stopping below the station at the Dark Arches for southern Leeds) - whilst the main bus station is the other side of the city centre, there's a good range of bus routes that stop a stone's throw from Leeds station.

yorksrob said:

I agree absolutely that ticket data won‘t tell the whole story. I regularly travel by train between West Yorkshire and Kent and it has been years since I‘ve bought a through ticket for this journey. That doesn‘t mean it‘s not a through journey

Click to expand...

This is a tricky one - what constitutes a journey - especially one where people are breaking it at intermediate points... no easy answer. I bet TOCs would love the kind of data that Oyster must provide (in terms of being able to track travel patterns).

jcollins said:

Could 20%+ less passenger numbers on Manchester-London or Birmingham-London have meant the recent increase in service frequencies wouldn't have gone ahead?

Click to expand...

Possibly, I don't know Virgin's maths, but it'd be interesting to know more - even if just to compare Piccadilly and New Street (in terms of the number of passengers starting their Euston journeys there, the number connecting by bus, the number connecting by local train, the number connecting by longer distance train).

jcollins said:

That's an interesting question and I'd add to that what happens about Advances?

I can get a £14 Knutsford-London Advance on selected services via Chester. An Off-Peak Day Single for Knutsford-Chester is £10.40, does that mean Virgin only make £3.60 off you or does it mean Northern get significantly less than £10.40 off a passenger travelling onwards to London? I suspect the latter.

Click to expand...

Again, don't know, but would be fascinating to know more.

This is why I suggested the Darnall to London example previously - if the local train doing the first couple of miles into the initial city (in this case, the Northern Pacer from Lincoln to Sheffield) isn't getting a fair share of the fair (try saying that after a couple of shandies...) then there's maybe an argument that the branchline is subsidising the main line (since the EMT service from Sheffield to London would gobble the majority of the revenue split).

Obviously "lucrative" routes rely on "quieter" routes to some extent (whether that's for 80% of passengers or for 20% of passengers, as long as there are some people connecting then you can make the case for a reliance between the two), but I'm more interested in whether one subsidises the other (in this modern world where everything has to be accounted for seperately - unlike the earlier BR days where it all went into the one farebox).

Greenback said:

I don't see how revenue can be shared based on distance, since distance based pricing was abolished almost fifty years ago, but I do believe that on a ticket such as Middlesbrough to Newquay, a very small amount of revenue gets allocated to the Par to Newquay section, certainly far less than a local fare between the two.

Interestingly, that line is probably a good example of one that doesn't generate a lot of local traffic, and relies on its main line connections for almost all of its business.

My question, though, is does the allocation fo revenue matter? In my example, FGW will receive a certain percentage of the fare, based on the likely usage of the ticket, not on the nominal operator of the branch. If we change the destination to Falmouth, then the complication of through services is removed, does this make a difference?

Click to expand...

Part of my reply to your comments is above in my reply to jcollins - but I think that the revenue split does matter, since it could be argued that the branchline isn't getting a fare share of the fair - which makes it look unprofitable if its only getting a quid from a long distance fare (e.g. if I go from Sheffield to Newquay then XC are going to take the lion's share, leaving FGW as cheif operator of the Newquay branch with a tiny amount - should that split be different?).

yorksrob said:

As tbtc says, you could concentrate on the "80%", however, as the network becomes less and less useful, it just ends up in a cycle of diminishing returns with that 80% becoming smaller and smaller (as happened with the railway in Britain up until 1982)

Click to expand...

If passenger numbers are going up, as they have been during the period since around 1982, then there are going to be some main line services that are going to be busy enough regardless of whether there are branches there to "feed" them.

I take your point though.

tbtc said:

Part of my reply to your comments is above in my reply to jcollins - but I think that the revenue split does matter, since it could be argued that the branchline isn't getting a fare share of the fair - which makes it look unprofitable if its only getting a quid from a long distance fare (e.g. if I go from Sheffield to Newquay then XC are going to take the lion's share, leaving FGW as cheif operator of the Newquay branch with a tiny amount - should that split be different?).

Click to expand...

Oh, I see. That's a consequence of splitting revenue by TOC rather than by route, and I think the latter would be just as difficult as revenue allocation by distance.

It's also because of the long distance tapering effect. I remember this beign discussed at privatisation, when this argument was put forward, and the only solution that could be found was to force passengers to rebook, which would not only be inconvenient, but also force people to pay far higher fares than if through fares were retained. Sensibly, any such ideas were quickly dropped!

But there are bound to be compromises made in order to ensure that the rail system performs as a network. Perhaps an unfair allocation of revenue that is attributable to a branch is one of those. The ORCATS system is a long way from perfect, but the principle of it is probably as good as we're going to get.

As far as I can see, no one is proposing that any branch lines close because of poor revenue, which is why I asked if it matters. I think usage figures are a far better indication of how valuable a branch line is than some notional 'value' put on individual tickets adn collated to give an idea of how much a particular line 'earns'. It should be clear to see, as well, the pattern of usage ie how many tickets sold to Newquay are from the local area, and how many are from further away.

Regarding revenue division between connecting services, I don't know the rail industry calculation but I can tell you that the "standard" approach in international air travel, which was devised by their international trade association IATA, is to divide the total fare proportionately to the SQUARE ROOT of the mileages, which gives some extra benefit to the shorter sector recognising that some of the costs, like your departure and arrival stations, are fixed regardless of the mileage done.

So, considering this £14 Knutsford to London Advance, the mileages are 23 Knutsford to Chester and 179 Chester to London, total mileage 202. If you divide the £14 strictly on mileage you would get £12.40 for Virgin and £1.60 for Northern. Using this square root method you get £10.31 for Virgin and £3.69 for Northern.

To save you getting your calculators out the square root of 23 is 4.8, and the square root of 179 is 13.4, total 18.2.

The concept of permitted routes will always be a major barrier to distance based fares and revenue allocation.

Greenback said:

The concept of permitted routes will always be a major barrier to distance based fares and revenue allocation.

Click to expand...

For some tickets there is only one permitted route and the train can't even divert off the usual route but for others e.g. Manchester-Liverpool there are multiple ones. In the case of Manchester-Liverpool the proportion of people travelling on the Chat Moss route is probably lower than on the CLC route but that will likely change gradually over the next few years (with TPE using Chat Moss.)

jcollins said:

For some tickets there is only one permitted route and the train can't even divert off the usual route but for others e.g. Manchester-Liverpool there are multiple ones. In the case of Manchester-Liverpool the proportion of people travelling on the Chat Moss route is probably lower than on the CLC route but that will likely change gradually over the next few years (with TPE using Chat Moss.)

Click to expand...

That's true, of course, but I would hazard a guess that out of all the possible millions of flows, more than half will have some sort of choice of route, even if it's not immedaitely obvious or attractive!

Leeds station is difficult to get to by any mode, especially during peak times. I wonder how accessible the proposed HS2 station is going to be from the CC and further afield.......?

tbtc said:

First I come out in favour of a re-opening (the low cost Tavistock - Bere Alston proposal), now you are coming out in favour of a historic closure... there must be something in the water - or maybe we've swapped medication?

Click to expand...

Indeed, we'll both have to start retaking our medication again

tbtc said:

There is a fairly busy bus station right outside the train station for services to north/west Leeds (as well as frequent bus services stopping below the station at the Dark Arches for southern Leeds) - whilst the main bus station is the other side of the city centre, there's a good range of bus routes that stop a stone's throw from Leeds station.

Click to expand...

True, bus services have got better than previously.

I used to commute by bus from NW Leeds to Bradford, and it used to be about two buses along headrow to the bus station (neither use nor ornament) as opposed to one to City Square (and the station) for my onward journey to Bradford.

The connecting rail services to the station are very handy, and as someone who lives along one of them, it makes it much easier to get further afield.