-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Rail Usage 2018-19 and 2019/20
- Thread starter Jorge Da Silva
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
3141
Established Member
I think their problem is that if their bid was based on growing passenger numbers, they hoped to have reached a certain position by now. If numbers actually dropped during 2017/18, then even though they may now be picking up, they won't have reached the position they were expected to be in at this time. But the premiums agreed for the franchise will still have to be paid. Revenue is likely always to be lagging behind the level it was planned to be. Once you slip behind it requires a massive increase to get back to where you'd intended. (An example from another area: you buy shares at £100 each. Their price falls 40% to £60. To get back to £100 you now need a 66.666% increase. It requires a lot of optimism to expect that to happen.)
squizzler
Established Member
The new figures are out and the good news is passenger miles are increasing at their fastest rate since the 2013 - 2014 period.
https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/1482/passenger-rail-usage-2019-20-q1.pdf
https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/1482/passenger-rail-usage-2019-20-q1.pdf
My own thoughts:
- At HS2 gets underway, on the great North - South routes VTWC grew by 3.2%, LNER by 4.4% and Caledonian sleepier by 19.9%.
- GWR, with the class 800s now in place registered a growth of 5% in passenger miles despite a drop in journeys overall due to losing some commuter operations to TfL Rail.
- Northern, with a step change in fleet quality still to come and with the worst of its timetable travails past it, recorded double digit growth.
How is that not good? New services (tgus train kilometres) are introduced to cater for many years growth, not just one.
The instructive figure is really the year-on-year passenger figure. They've been losing passengers since the end of 16-17, down from 107.7 million to 101.3 million in 2 years.
The quarterly trend in this release doesn't show us any convincing evidence that that's going to be reversed for 19-20, but we've still got half of it to go. More time for it to turn around. December seems to me to be a big month for Northern, so if this December goes well that might indicate recovery.
It's their best Q1 on that chart, there are clear seasonal demand fluctuations. They have run a lot more trains and probably spent a lot more money to achieve that relatively modest increase though.
All the costs are introduced immediately.
Wonder whether they are trying to massage the figures upwards with all these loss leading 10p ticket and newspaper offers?
Jorge Da Silva
Established Member
Thanks for posting that.
Seems like SWR and London Overground are still down as well as GWR (largely due to to TfL). SWR are due to strikes. London Overground is apparently due to Euston works which may explain the dip. I also suspect GOBLIN reduction and reliability issues and the fact it only recovered in June 2019 may be factor so London Overground may recover in Q2.
Last edited:
Well, the newspaper offers are a long running thing anyway, however even if they are it's probably a good thing. In the politicised railway, bums on seats are a powerful tool.
Exactly. There's hardly any change compared with the Q1 2016. I would have expected 3 years to produce significant uplift given temhe franchise terms.
I wondered this too. 80,000 isn't much, though.
tbtc
Veteran Member
Good sobering points.
My wholly unscientific anecdotal view of local services is that, whilst capacity has increased (longer trains - e.g. three coach 170s... Pacers being replaced by longer Sprinters... the increase in passenger numbers hasn't been noticeable enough yet... there's always going to be a lag, of course, but the TOC has to spend some time paying for the additional services/ longer trains before they start getting the increased revenue... whilst it's perhaps understandable that things aren't transformed overnight, a lot of people on here seem to assume that we'll see that kind of sudden increase when other routes get longer trains - e.g. the complaints that TPE are "only replacing the 3x23m 185s with 5x26m 802s (why oh why aren't they starting off with even longer trains since there's apparently a huge untapped demand that will be clamouring to use these longer trains from day one yada yada)
But I'm mainly Yorkshire based (and mainly South Yorkshire based), so I can't comment on whether the EMUs around Manchester/ Liverpool (or the increased services in places like Harrogate) or the shiny new 195s are paying off yet.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happier with 170s replacing Sprinters and Sprinters replacing Pacers, but it might be a long way until we get to the point where the percentage increase in passenger kilometres matches the percentage increase in train kilometres (notwithstanding that other expenses will be going up too, with the cost of longer trains, given the four coach EMUs and three coach DMUs replacing short Pacers/153s... and that the farebox may be going up by even less than that, given the ten pence giveaways and the petty competition on a handful of routes)... and for Northern to properly bounce back they need to be increasing passenger kilometres much faster than train kilometres.
I think some people have too rosy an assumption about "untapped demand" and how people would be keen to use trains if only we could start to replace Pacers... it's taking a long time to turn things around, and it feels like we're not turning things around as fast as we should have - three and a half years into the franchise... struggling to deliver a lot of the things that they promised... I've not seen any 769s running under their own power yet... I'm sure that the strikes will have had an impact but at the moment it feels like taking a school that was in Special Measures a few years ago and it still being at "Requires Improvement" (rather than "Good" or the "Outstanding" that we were promised by now).
All true, but there are also lines where the previous years saw disruption (but we are quick to forget lines affected by strikes/engineering etc in previous years when the most recent figures apparently show a huge increase in passenger numbers). Not a personal criticism, just tempering some of the excitement we'll have in twelve months time when people jump on an apparent big increase in SWR/ Overground (ignoring the fact that the "old" figures for SWR/ Overground were lower than they would have been due to the issues you've mentioned above).
I think the relevance of untapped demand for Northern is very limited in the West. The service probably needs to stabilise and try to recoup some reputation before it can generate new growth. But this thread is about much more than that. And every Sunday the service still collapses.
squizzler
Established Member
There is an ongoing modal shift to rail. As a nation we are buying increasing numbers of new trains, but the number of cars purchased continues to see year on year decline. I think the 10% modal share will be exceeded during this year, even though we are yet to see Crossrail.
The recent statistics run from April to June and thus will not show the CAF units coming into service. The next set of figures will coincide with their ramping up of numbers. GWR's performance is illustrative of what to expect, being a year or two further down the road of of fleet renewal and pacer elimination, yet still with electrification and other works required before the full service transformation can occur.
The recent statistics run from April to June and thus will not show the CAF units coming into service. The next set of figures will coincide with their ramping up of numbers. GWR's performance is illustrative of what to expect, being a year or two further down the road of of fleet renewal and pacer elimination, yet still with electrification and other works required before the full service transformation can occur.
If companies can push up the price of a product and still get decent demand, they will. Nothing to do with expenses.
Why should staff pay for workplace-imposed expenses outside of commuting out of their own pocket? I hate externalised costs.
I'm not at all convinced that this is a good metric.
We were also looking at Q1 of 2019 which shows little change.
GWR's long-distance market on which their new trains run is entirely unlike Northern's.
squizzler
Established Member
Sorry to spoil your riposte but I consider my factoid to be an indicator rather than a metric - that would be modal share.
I am not sure what you are trying to say here.
You might have said that in Northern territory TPE, LNER and VTEC - not forgetting Caledonian Sleeper! - offer long distance express services akin to those on the GWML proper. That leaves a lot of other stuff that is comparable. Leaving aside the 387s are doing similar work to many of Northern's electric diagrams, the new trains and electrification have led to a cascade of stock to the less prestigious routes. Without getting distracted by what route is comparable with which in GWR and Northern territories, my takeaway point is that they took on a massive influx of new trains and electrification starting from an earlier point than Northern and are further down that particular road. Fact stands GWR have surrendered routes and passenger numbers to TfL but managed to grow their passenger miles.
Anglia is another case where a similar magnitude of change is in the offing: they will in a year or so have the opportunity to recast their entire offering around the Flirt and Aventras.
Last edited:
squizzler
Established Member
I disagree that longer trains nessasarily mean a great increase in running costs. You need the same number of staff to keep the show on the road, whether you are running a single dog-box or an 8 car people-eater, so the wages bill remains constant. The variables are leasing costs and track access charges.
I would imagine that the example you give where a four coach EMU replaces a (say) 2 coach DMU might even be cost negative, as a cascaded EMU such as a 319 might have lower losing costs than the DMU it replaces, electricity is cheaper than diesel, and the maintenance is less..
I subscribe to the 'all publicity is good publicity' adage. In the bad ol' days when rail was in a period of decline strikes would serve to illustrate that train travel was irrelevant to many. Nowadays the disruption caused by strikes illustrates how important it is to the smooth functioning of cities and regions, and how many people are choosing the train. People talk about their train journeys in the home and workplace whereas they might not if everything goes to plan. Every time people talk about train problems, even keen motorists will be becoming more 'rail-minded' and building up greater savvy about travel choices. In a few years time when they move jobs they might consider the train for commuting, whereas before it might never have occurred to them.
That isn’t going to happen if they have come to associate trains only with ‘late again’ and ‘no trains due to strikes again’
WatcherZero
Established Member
- Joined
- 25 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 10,272
The train km can be new routes/increased frequency but is usually predominantly lengthening of services. 23% increase in capacity and only 10% increase in ridership may initially look like that capacity isn't being immediately taken up but it means that people that were previously standing on services are now getting seats, at least until demand rises and they start becoming overcrowded again.
tbtc
Veteran Member
I agree that EMUs are cheaper to run than DMUs of equivalent length, and that staffing costs ought to be unchanged, but Northern's bills will still be going up - four coach 319/331s, three coach 170/195/331s, additional services (and extensions to some other services)... the subsidy level was high enough in the first place but costs have increased since then (with income not rising as fast just yet)
I admire the optimism but rail still is an irrelevance to most people - probably over half of the population who don't use the train each year (certainly outside of London) - rail is pretty much essential to 5% of the population but it's not even an option for most journeys - but I certainly know from colleagues who do use rail that people are quick to complain about a bad journey and tell several people about it - rail's reputation amongst "normal" people isn't great
EMUs are also lighter, cheaper to run (fuel, maintenance) and cheaper to buy than their DMU equivalents.
When all things are considered (lease, fuel, maintenance) wouldn’t be surprised if a 4 car 319 is actually cheaper to operate than a 2 car Sprinter on a like for like usage / mileage basis.
However Northern’s bills will be going up - longer routes, longer DMUs and more services. And retraining all the drivers / guards / maintenance teams for the new stock will have cost a lot of money.
Class 170101
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Mar 2014
- Messages
- 7,932
The passenger kilometres have increased slower than the train kilometres but thats no surprise to me. You are adding trains / capacity immediately but demand or modal switch doesn't happen at the same rate and never will.
I think that around 4 - 5 years ago, there was definitely awareness amongst the non-enthusiasts that I associate with, of the train as a generally decent way to get about, particularly for leisure.
That's taken a battering recently with the reliability and industrial relations problems, however it might return with a prolonged period of stability and improvement.
squizzler
Established Member
Nonetheless there seems to be a ratchet effect where ridership rises during the periods when the industry enjoys good publicity, and stays the same during bad publicity. This suggests that when people start using rail, they don't go away during bad spells. But people won't think to try the train if rail does not occupy public mind-share. Hence my assertion that all publicity is good publicity.
I agree it has to be there in peoples consciousness, however if they have continual experience of overcrowding, cancellations etc, they'll give up.
- Status