Anyone noticed anecdotally another uptick in passenger numbers

43066 · 18 May 2024

Bletchleyite said:
Partly. The return is in almost no case to a full week in the office. In particular almost nobody goes in on a Friday in professional jobs - that was to an extent the case before COVID but is much more obviously so now. I've been in our office on a Friday and it's been just me!

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (with its amusing acronym) is very much the norm for many now.

Yes that’s true, albeit (again based on a straw poll of those I know) with odd appearances on other days as and when meetings are held, also visits to client sites etc. which weren’t happening a year or two ago.

From memory I think you’re in IT, and were previously working from home on a permanent basis after others had started to return, so the fact you’re also now regularly(?) going back in is quite telling.

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Bletchleyite · 18 May 2024

43066 said:
From memory I think you’re in IT, and were previously working from home on a permanent basis after others had started to return, so the fact you’re also now regularly(?) going back in is quite telling.

I'm not, I'm still home-based with the option to go to the office if I want or if there's a business need, which I've reverted back to typically 1 day a week as I was doing before COVID, mostly to get out of the house. But I've been primarily remote for well over 10 years now.

Fridays are only if it's useful to me, e.g. because I'm going somewhere via London after work.

I'd be more than happy to attend an office more often if it brought actual value, i.e. I'd be sat at the same set of desks as the people I'm working with so we can bounce ideas off each other, but those people are in different locations depending on the project I'm on, which would mean a lot more cost than just London commuting, and customers have not shown a willingness to go back to paying for that* yet. I actually quite miss that approach to office working, but the nature of the job now makes it difficult.

* i.e. travel+hotel+food, or Anytime level train fares if daytripping, so upwards of £300 per day regardless of which is chosen.

43066 · 18 May 2024

Bletchleyite said:
I'm not, I'm still home-based with the option to go to the office if I want or if there's a business need, which I've reverted back to typically 1 day a week as I was doing before COVID, mostly to get out of the house.

Fridays are only if it's useful to me, e.g. because I'm going somewhere via London after work.

Well that’s IT for you

and you mention that was your pattern before. It makes sense for many roles in that industry, of course, although interestingly my brother is in that field (web app developer) and he now seems to be back in three days per week.

As an arguably more reflective bellwether of your typical London commuter, a good friend of mine is a consultant at Accenture (at a middle to senior level, where she’s still delivery focussed but also managing other consultants, the partners are still mostly at home!) and she’s gone from fully at home, to 4/5 days per week at home, to being back in three days per week plus trips around the UK and into Europe once per week to visit clients. Namely all the stuff we were told wouldn’t come back.

She’s currently working on a promotion business case, and that’s a crucial point in the corporate arena; in a world where personal branding and presenteeism is key, working from home when your colleagues are in the office isn’t the way to get ahead.

Bletchleyite said:
and customers have not shown a willingness to go back to paying for that* yet. I actually quite miss that approach to office working, but the nature of the job now makes it difficult.

Again, it varies by industry. From what said consultant has said, some blue chips have a fairly old fashioned culture and expect attendance from those they engage, despite paying through the nose by the hour for it.

Peter Sarf · 18 May 2024

43066 said:
Whatever may be happening in your workplace (out of interest, which industry are you in?), the general trend amongst those working in white collar/professional type roles in the London area is an increasing expectation that people return to the office, and that’s being reflected in commuting figures. That’s certainly also the experience of people in my circle.

The signs are that the Covid prompted move to unlimited home working was an aberration, rather than the permanent change some people thought (and hoped) it was!

To me its just how long it takes the Working From Home aberration to subside. Will the frequency of rail services hang on long enough to encourage that return to normal working ?.

Bletchleyite · 18 May 2024

43066 said:
Again, it varies by industry. From what said consultant has said, some blue chips have a fairly old fashioned culture and expect attendance from those they engage, despite paying through the nose by the hour for it.

I wish they would to be honest. I'm not massively up for daily London commuting, I did it once for a couple of years and nearly had a breakdown because of the lack of sleep creating stress, but I do miss actual business travel and would love a bit of it back!

trebor79 · 19 May 2024

I've recently started a new role which is London based (but with travel to sites). I made clear that as I live in Norfolk 100% in the office wasn't going to be sustainable, even though that's what they firmly said they want/expect.
In reality everyone does at least some WFH. I haven't actually seen on colleague as she's only been in the office one day since the start of the month (a day I wasn't there) and someone else has just declared he's WFH for the next 4 weeks as he's having a bathroom fitted.
Seems quite chilled, we managed our own time.

Adrian1980uk · 19 May 2024

trebor79 said:
I've recently started a new role which is London based (but with travel to sites). I made clear that as I live in Norfolk 100% in the office wasn't going to be sustainable, even though that's what they firmly said they want/expect.
In reality everyone does at least some WFH. I haven't actually seen on colleague as she's only been in the office one day since the start of the month (a day I wasn't there) and someone else has just declared he's WFH for the next 4 weeks as he's having a bathroom fitted.
Seems quite chilled, we managed our own time.

That's the plus point of the pandemic and WFH, I'm London based and live in Norfolk, 2 days a week commute is fine but 5 days would be unsustainable. Catering for this is probably where the TOCs have been slow to adapt their ticketing for. I didn't really travel peak time before the pandemic but given how busy the trains are now I can't imagine they're that short. Difficult measure because we now have 1 less peak service each way but longer trains.

My concern is the thinking being still how to cut costs rather than how to provide the required capacity and increase revenue. Increased frequency of service is the sure fire way of increasing passengers.

trebor79 · 19 May 2024

Adrian1980uk said:
That's the plus point of the pandemic and WFH, I'm London based and live in Norfolk, 2 days a week commute is fine but 5 days would be unsustainable. Catering for this is probably where the TOCs have been slow to adapt their ticketing for. I didn't really travel peak time before the pandemic but given how busy the trains are now I can't imagine they're that short. Difficult measure because we now have 1 less peak service each way but longer trains.

My concern is the thinking being still how to cut costs rather than how to provide the required capacity and increase revenue. Increased frequency of service is the sure fire way of increasing passengers.

TBH I don't get the train. £120 Vs £4.50 "fuel" for my Tesla and £8 parking for a similar door to door travel time.
I'd prefer the train massively, but it's literally 20 times more expensive. I can't justify that and it's money I can spend on other things or save.

43066 · 19 May 2024

Bletchleyite said:
I did it once for a couple of years and nearly had a breakdown because of the lack of sleep creating stress,

Well, that’s certainly not good. When something is affecting your mental health to that extent, that’s time to change it.

For me the realisation I enjoyed the journey to work on a crush loaded networker more than my working day, and looking with envy into the drivers’ cab (and the obvious lack of office politics), was what made me leave the shiny office with the view of Tower Bridge, for one with an even better view and (generally) way less stress

.

The industrial dispute has made things harder, but I still have no regrets. I genuinely love what I do. Training others has added to that, recently.

43066 · 19 May 2024

trebor79 said:
TBH I don't get the train. £120 Vs £4.50 "fuel" for my Tesla and £8 parking for a similar door to door travel time.
I'd prefer the train massively, but it's literally 20 times more expensive. I can't justify that and it's money I can spend on other things or save.

Electrification is clearly the way forward. My Tesla driving Uber driver the other day confirmed he could beat my age of steam era beemer to 60 in his model 3, which can do it in 4 seconds dead. The bi turbo BMW straight six is a truly sonorous thing to be appreciated while we still can, though.

stuu · 19 May 2024

Peter Sarf said:
To me its just how long it takes the Working From Home aberration to subside. Will the frequency of rail services hang on long enough to encourage that return to normal working ?.

I would be astonished if there is ever a return to the expectation of every hour being in an office. I work for a big 4 accountant and the current demand is two days a week in the office. Two or three days in the office seems to be pretty much standard in professional services, and new employees have that written into their contracts. Office space has been significantly reduced as well, which again I have heard about in other similar firms, and that rules out a full time return for every employee for at least the medium term

Snow1964 · 20 May 2024

The next official ORR figures covering Jan-Mar are scheduled to be released on 13th June.

The figures are both quantity of journeys and journey km and last quarter there were some operators with big average journey length. My local operator (GWR) was about 14% longer journey than same quarter pre pandemic.

The tables 1223 and 1233 effectively allow journey length to be calculated, so for a mainly commuter operator eg SWR, can see if longer distance commuting is returning.

Can also check if trains are busier by comparing the passenger km to rail vehicle km (ORR only does comparison to last year on report, but tables allow comparison to earlier years eg 2019 (pre pandemic), or back 10-12 years ago (before Friday home working was common)

My gut feeling is if proper comparisons to pre pandemic were included in report then would be easy to see number of passenger km per vehicle km to show how many operators trains are now busier (average passenger per vehicle, adjusted for distance travelled).

Quite why ORR only do annual changes on the report, then leave lots of blank space at side of table and can't also add change compared to pre pandemic 2019 into the blank space is rather beyond me.

Peter Sarf · 20 May 2024

stuu said:
I would be astonished if there is ever a return to the expectation of every hour being in an office. I work for a big 4 accountant and the current demand is two days a week in the office. Two or three days in the office seems to be pretty much standard in professional services, and new employees have that written into their contracts. Office space has been significantly reduced as well, which again I have heard about in other similar firms, and that rules out a full time return for every employee for at least the medium term

Personally I would never want to return to office working 5 days a week. I would not want to waste my time, energy and money on that ordeal again. The genie is out of the bottle. Like @43066 I had some jobs where the politics was unbelievable - a lot more obvious once I had got out of it. It really will depend on what the employer can cope with - the cost savings and staff morale might be two big positives of working from home but all the cross fertilisation of ideas and experience plus actually watching how your staff work will be the pull towards the office. I would miss the social interaction (not strictly working !).

I wonder how much reduced provision of rail services (and other public transport ?) will stifle any recovery ?.

I wonder how much of the longer distance figures will be British people going on domestic holidays as I have read somewhere that foreign travel has reduced.

railfan99 · 22 May 2024

43066 said:
...she’s gone from fully at home, to 4/5 days per week at home, to being back in three days per week plus trips around the UK and into Europe once per week to visit clients. Namely all the stuff we were told wouldn’t come back...

She’s currently working on a promotion business case, and that’s a crucial point in the corporate arena; in a world where personal branding and presenteeism is key, working from home when your colleagues are in the office isn’t the way to get ahead...

What's the situation in the UK re business travel by rail?

I don't mean 'commuting', but business trips where partners/CEOs/employees/contractors travel by rail from office to office, or office to meeting(s) with clients, and sometimes even stay overnight, or have a multi-night trip?

It's been 'depressed' from what I've read compared to pre-Covid 2019: are there any signs of green shoots or is this type of rail user likely to remain a much diminished species?

Snow1964 · 22 May 2024

railfan99 said:
What's the situation in the UK re business travel by rail?

I don't mean 'commuting', but business trips where partners/CEOs/employees/contractors travel by rail from office to office, or office to meeting(s) with clients, and sometimes even stay overnight, or have a multi-night trip?

It's been 'depressed' from what I've read compared to pre-Covid 2019: are there any signs of green shoots or is this type of rail user likely to remain a much diminished species?

Anecdotally I think it is down overall, certainly down to/from London.

But down here in South West seems to be plenty on business visiting offices in Bristol and Cardiff. So possibly travel to regional offices has recovered, but no idea about further north.

However we don't really have regional express trains down here (something like Cardiff-Portsmouth will have a 30+ year old diesel set with no catering and no First class and no tables for laptops) so not going to get any premium fares revenue.

So yes there is business travel in west, but unlike London services, dont seem to have realised world has moved on in last few years, and not really providing levels of train comfort and speed needed to grow it between regional offices.

Bald Rick · 22 May 2024

railfan99 said:
What's the situation in the UK re business travel by rail?

I don't mean 'commuting', but business trips where partners/CEOs/employees/contractors travel by rail from office to office, or office to meeting(s) with clients, and sometimes even stay overnight, or have a multi-night trip?

It's been 'depressed' from what I've read compared to pre-Covid 2019: are there any signs of green shoots or is this type of rail user likely to remain a much diminished species?

Down by more than half, but increasing rapidly. But it was by a long way the smallest ‘sector’.

ChiefPlanner · 22 May 2024

Friend boarded a southbound XC heading for Bournemouth and found a good number of suit clad laptop tappers in the 1st class this am - noteworthy he said.

railfan99 · 22 May 2024

Bald Rick said:
Down by more than half, but increasing rapidly. But it was by a long way the smallest ‘sector’.

A friend was on a c.1000 departure (GWR) from Paddington to St Erth a couple of days ago: full in standard class and where he travelled in first, albeit the latter having a small number of seats. He said the branch 'unit' to St Ives was also busy. I didn't ask how many looked to be travelling for business but irrespective, great to see high patronage.

Very pleasing that the trend for business travel is upwards.

Snow1964 · Wednesday at 19:08

DfT have updated their spreadsheet on usage since outbreak of covid, compared to pre-pandemic

Latest 5 days for rail (Wednesday, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sunday 29 May - Jun) are :
column G rail (including Elizabeth line) 100%, 100%, 103%, 101% 100%
column H rail (excluding Elizabeth line) 89%, 89%, 93%, 91%, 91%

Daily domestic transport use by mode

Daily usage of selected domestic transport by mode for Great Britain

www.gov.uk

For comparison, nearest Wednesday-Sunday year ago (column H) was 80%, 80%, 77%, 69%, 68%

So whilst midweek has gone up about 12%, Fridays and weekends have gained over 20% in a year, and are now getting close to pre-pandemic levels

Tomorrow should get ORR data, anyone wanting to bet some operators not yet back to 89-93% of vehicle km.

Bald Rick · Wednesday at 20:00

Snow1964 said:
DfT have updated their spreadsheet on usage since outbreak of covid, compared to pre-pandemic

Latest 5 days for rail (Wednesday, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sunday 29 May - Jun) are :
column G rail (including Elizabeth line) 100%, 100%, 103%, 101% 100%
column H rail (excluding Elizabeth line) 89%, 89%, 93%, 91%, 91%

Daily domestic transport use by mode

Daily usage of selected domestic transport by mode for Great Britain

www.gov.uk

For comparison, nearest Wednesday-Sunday year ago (column H) was 80%, 80%, 77%, 69%, 68%

So whilst midweek has gone up about 12%, Fridays and weekends have gained over 20% in a year, and are now getting close to pre-pandemic levels

Tomorrow should get ORR data, anyone wanting to bet some operators not yet back to 89-93% of vehicle km.

I cant see the data for some reason, but beware that comparisons with the same time last year run into potential ‘apples and pears’ due to the timing of half term and strikes.

Adrian1980uk · Wednesday at 20:08

Bald Rick said:
I cant see the data for some reason, but beware that comparisons with the same time last year run into potential ‘apples and pears’ due to the timing of half term and strikes.

That is the problem with comparisons over a limited time period, I would suggest though the doom and gloom about passenger numbers maybe starting to lift.

Bald Rick · Wednesday at 20:36

Adrian1980uk said:
That is the problem with comparisons over a limited time period, I would suggest though the doom and gloom about passenger numbers maybe starting to lift.

For passenger numbers perhaps*, but for revenue there is still a big, multi-billion sized gap.

*Some TOCs are still way down on pre Covid, and yield is suffering across the board through the reduction in business travel and commuting. Plus there is the Elizabeth Line effect - essentially the additional traffic on the Elizabeth Line (largely paying small fares) is offsetting the lost traffic on some very high value flows.

Krokodil · Wednesday at 20:46

It would be interesting to see what proportion of passengers are eligible for Delay Repay. It occurs to me that Avanti for one would have a better bottom line if they didn't have to compensate everyone left, right and centre - whether the disruption is down to the infrastructure or their own lack of staff.

Watershed · Wednesday at 21:34

Krokodil said:
It would be interesting to see what proportion of passengers are eligible for Delay Repay. It occurs to me that Avanti for one would have a better bottom line if they didn't have to compensate everyone left, right and centre - whether the disruption is down to the infrastructure or their own lack of staff.

Indeed. I have claimed Delay Repay for every Avanti journey I have made in the last 3 weeks...

Snow1964 · Wednesday at 22:10

Bald Rick said:
I cant see the data for some reason, but beware that comparisons with the same time last year run into potential ‘apples and pears’ due to the timing of half term and strikes.

The DfT data is on an ODS spreadsheet, I can't open it on my IPad, but my cronky old desktop opens it perfectly.

Last week in May and first few days of June were school half term last year and this year.

But getting to 93% recently (or 103% if include Elizabeth line) suggests volumes are nearly back to normal.

I realise it varies by operator but last quarterly ORR passenger and passenger Km figures were showing my local operator GWR that average journeys are 13% further than 6 years ago. Basic maths will tell you that if volumes are 93% and people travel 13% further then usage is about 106%. (but don't get me started on comparing this to the larger GWR fleet size 6 years ago, fleet down, usage up)

Stephen42 · Wednesday at 23:01

Snow1964 said:
DfT have updated their spreadsheet on usage since outbreak of covid, compared to pre-pandemic

Latest 5 days for rail (Wednesday, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sunday 29 May - Jun) are :
column G rail (including Elizabeth line) 100%, 100%, 103%, 101% 100%
column H rail (excluding Elizabeth line) 89%, 89%, 93%, 91%, 91%

Daily domestic transport use by mode

Daily usage of selected domestic transport by mode for Great Britain

www.gov.uk

For comparison, nearest Wednesday-Sunday year ago (column H) was 80%, 80%, 77%, 69%, 68%

So whilst midweek has gone up about 12%, Fridays and weekends have gained over 20% in a year, and are now getting close to pre-pandemic levels

Tomorrow should get ORR data, anyone wanting to bet some operators not yet back to 89-93% of vehicle km.

You need to look at the methodology notes in addition to the spreadsheet, the key part for National Rail is the periodicity "Rolling weekly total for week ending today". The day of the week is absolutely meaningless as they are all averaged across a week. Tube data in comparison is daily against equivalent day in 2019 which does show a much more consistent day of the week pattern compared to the National Rail ones.

Even with the rolling comparison there is significant volatility of 10% within many weeks which strongly suggests either timing differences or other temporary effects. Averaging across significantly longer time periods might ease out some of the volatility, but I wouldn't recommend trying to any precise conclusions from that National Rail data set as the data quality isn't high enough to give sensible conclusions.

Iskra · Thursday at 07:03

Krokodil said:
It would be interesting to see what proportion of passengers are eligible for Delay Repay. It occurs to me that Avanti for one would have a better bottom line if they didn't have to compensate everyone left, right and centre - whether the disruption is down to the infrastructure or their own lack of staff.

A number of TOC’s seem to be wising up to this and inserting generous amounts of recovery time into their schedules to avoid paying out.

Another TOC seems to have a policy of declining all claims in the hope that passengers just give up rather than appeal.

Snow1964 · Thursday at 07:08

Stephen42 said:
You need to look at the methodology notes in addition to the spreadsheet, the key part for National Rail is the periodicity "Rolling weekly total for week ending today". The day of the week is absolutely meaningless as they are all averaged across a week. Tube data in comparison is daily against equivalent day in 2019 which does show a much more consistent day of the week pattern compared to the National Rail ones.

Even with the rolling comparison there is significant volatility of 10% within many weeks which strongly suggests either timing differences or other temporary effects. Averaging across significantly longer time periods might ease out some of the volatility, but I wouldn't recommend trying to any precise conclusions from that National Rail data set as the data quality isn't high enough to give sensible conclusions.

Point noted, and I accept that might have distorted the comparison to last year

However those most recent 5 days (in range 89-93%) are also a week clear of a rail strike week, which suggests to me that is probably fair indication of what we are back to when there are no strikes on

railfan99 · Thursday at 07:09

Adrian1980uk said:
That is the problem with comparisons over a limited time period, I would suggest though the doom and gloom about passenger numbers maybe starting to lift.

Notwithstanding the Elizabeth Line data 'capture from others', and revenue reductions, overall given WFH this is excellent news.

Well done, England!

railfan99 · Thursday at 07:09

Iskra said:
A number of TOC’s seem to be wising up to this and inserting generous amounts of recovery time into their schedules to avoid paying out.

Another TOC seems to have a policy of declining all claims in the hope that passengers just give up rather than appeal.

Please name them, as Maggie once said.

Anyone noticed anecdotally another uptick in passenger numbers

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