Chester Station Passenger Increase

[joshy212]

Hey everyone,

First time on this forum, working on a project at the moment and was hoping someone might be able to help me...

Back in 2012, Chester station saw a significant rise in passenger numbers, see office of rail regulation survey 2014.

Any ideas why there was such an increase?

Hope one of you can answer!!

 

[yorkie]

Ticket barriers, at a guess, would have something to do with it.

And maybe ludicrous fare increases and more knowledge of "split ticketing" causing people to 'split' at Chester?

Increased congestion and cost of motoring (including car parking?) causing more people to travel by train?

Increase in patronage due to the increase from 2tph to 4tph on Merseyrail services to Chester?

 

[headshot119]

Ticket barriers, at a guess, would have something to do with it.

Ticket barriers have been at Chester since before 2010, the hours of manning have changed very little.

And maybe ludicrous fare increases and more knowledge of "split ticketing" causing people to 'split' at Chester?

If anything round there splitting at Chester is not a good idea, I can think of some other local stations that I've largely increased the patronage of, as have many of my friends. Then again people may not do so much research as I do.

Increased congestion and cost of motoring (including car parking?) causing more people to travel by train?

Increase in patronage due to the increase from 2tph to 4tph on Merseyrail services to Chester?

It was 3TPH to 4TPH

 

[6Gman]

Ticket barriers, at a guess, would have something to do with it.

And maybe ludicrous fare increases and more knowledge of "split ticketing" causing people to 'split' at Chester?

Increased congestion and cost of motoring (including car parking?) causing more people to travel by train?

Increase in patronage due to the increase from 2tph to 4tph on Merseyrail services to Chester?

I think the barriers have been there for quite a long time!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

From memory, that is in fact around the time barriers were introduced at Chester so Yorkie has very likely hit the nail square on the head. ( Was it really as long ago as 2010 as someone just said??? ).

Do remember, though, the barriers may not have been operation immediately upon installation.

 

[headshot119]

From memory, that is in fact around the time barriers were introduced at Chester so Yorkie has very likely hit the nail square on the head. ( Was it really as long ago as 2010 as someone just said??? ).

Do remember, though, the barriers may not have been operation immediately upon installation.

Barriers have definitely been there since at least February 2010 and in operation at that point, though I have a feeling they where in long before that.

 

[swt_passenger]

The notes to this years figures explain that Chester's 39% increase is predominantly due to better recording of PTE figures.

Chester has already been discussed in the general thread on the 2013/14 figures.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I wouldn't rely on gate figures at Chester.
They are left open much of the time.

 

[merlodlliw]

I wouldn't rely on gate figures at Chester.
They are left open much of the time.

That is correct, whenever I use the station in the evening,the gates are open.

The figures will no doubt increase from Monday when more trains will start at Chester, I am aware of at least two new ATW services commencing at Chester,one in the morning and one in the evening, whereas before they started elsewhere.
I presume some of the figures amount to numbers of trains starting at Chester,like Merseyrail 15 minute service.

 

[jamesst]

Ticket barriers have been at Chester since before 2010, the hours of manning have changed very little.


If anything round there splitting at Chester is not a good idea, I can think of some other local stations that I've largely increased the patronage of, as have many of my friends. Then again people may not do so much research as I do.


It was 3TPH to 4TPH

It wasn't,went from 2tph to 4

 

[Tracky]

Don't forget Virgin went hourly at about that time.

The gate figures can't be relied on. For some reason the wide gate is left open a lot now and many people just wonder through. They also go on later than they should and off earlier.

 

[pablo]

Statistics and lies. I use the station a lot and never go through the gates.

 

[headshot119]

The number of times the gates are used doesn't effect the figures, that's not how they are generated. They are generated by ticket sales, by adding barriers to a station you generally increase the number of tickets sold, and hence the figures go up.

 

[leyland1725]

The barriers at Chester will have little effect on passenger numbers, beacuse as previous posts have stated, they are manned later than than they should be in a morning, then get opened up far earlier than they should be at night. Also the wide gate is left open all day and the staff spend most of their time texting or not even being there anyway.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Interestingly the cheap day return ticket from Chester to Birmingham via Crewe was discontinued a couple of years ago. So when travelling from Ellesmere Port to Birmingham and beyond, I now buy a Wrexham General to Birmingham via Any permitted CDR which is valid by Chester (as well as an E. Port - Chester CDR). I know many people in Chester itself who also book from Wrexham. Wouldn't this distort the figures downwards?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Interestingly the cheap day return ticket from Chester to Birmingham via Crewe was discontinued a couple of years ago. So when travelling from Ellesmere Port to Birmingham and beyond, I now buy a Wrexham General to Birmingham via Any permitted CDR which is valid by Chester (as well as an E. Port - Chester CDR). I know many people in Chester itself who also book from Wrexham. Wouldn't this distort the figures downwards?

It can't have had much effect as the numbers at Wrexham Gen have gone down!

 

[northwichcat]

From memory, that is in fact around the time barriers were introduced at Chester so Yorkie has very likely hit the nail square on the head. ( Was it really as long ago as 2010 as someone just said??? ).

Ticket barriers have been at Chester since before 2010, the hours of manning have changed very little.

I think my first experience of ticket barriers at Chester was in 2007, they were installed soon after ticket gates had appeared on Merseyrail Wirral line stations. Anyway as already concluded the barriers won't have any connection to the current increase.

One thing I can think of which may have contributed to the increase is it used to be cheaper from certain Mid-Cheshire line stations to buy a ticket to Helsby/Frodsham than Chester. This is no longer the case.

EDIT: According to Wikipedia Chester's had ticket barriers since mid-2006. A newspaper article from 2005 makes reference to new ticket barriers coming to Chester: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/mar/03/arrivabusiness so that date is probably correct.

 

[Taunton]

It's not only Chester, several of the other end stations on Merseyrail are the same. West Kirby is up by 62% whereas at the next stations, Hoylake is down by 16% and Meols down by 32%. Ellesmere Port is up by 65%, Bromborough down by 28%. Ormskirk is up by 183% (727,000 to over 2 million!) whereas Maghull is no change. Add all together along each route and you generally get a gentle decline.

Unfortunately it seems either the previous figures and split between stations, or the current ones, are nonsense somewhere along the line.

 

[merlodlliw]

It can't have had much effect as the numbers at Wrexham Gen have gone down!

That does surprise me, what are the figures LNW GW out of interest,however they will sky rocket in a couple of years time.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

That does surprise me, what are the figures LNW GW out of interest,however they will sky rocket in a couple of years time.

Bob,
General 590,968 (was 615,306 last year).
Central 53,142 (was 41,746).
So overall down 12K or so.

Pretty much every North Wales stations went down, also stations to Shrewsbury.
Contrariwise the Wrexham-Bidston line mostly went up a bit.
What happened at Chester doesn't inspire confidence in the methodology though (3.0m to 4.2m, apparently down to better Merseyrail zonal ticket redistribution).

Data on the ORR site: http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/station-usage-estimates

 

[TDK]

It's not only Chester, several of the other end stations on Merseyrail are the same. West Kirby is up by 62% whereas at the next stations, Hoylake is down by 16% and Meols down by 32%. Ellesmere Port is up by 65%, Bromborough down by 28%. Ormskirk is up by 183% (727,000 to over 2 million!) whereas Maghull is no change. Add all together along each route and you generally get a gentle decline.

Unfortunately it seems either the previous figures and split between stations, or the current ones, are nonsense somewhere along the line.

You cannot really gauge a route by percentage as every station has a different number of passengers for instance one station may have 100,000 and one may have 1,000,000 10% increase/decrease would be the difference of 90,000 passengers!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That does surprise me, what are the figures LNW GW out of interest,however they will sky rocket in a couple of years time.

How do you work out the sky rocket?

 

[pablo]

Letting the prisoners out.....

 

[TDK]

Letting the prisoners out.....

The prison will not make a blind bit of difference as most will drive there as there is ample parking

 

[merlodlliw]

The prison will not make a blind bit of difference as most will drive there as there is ample parking

Not all prisoner families have cars, Addiewell new prison in Scotland for example showed am increase from 15K to 25K NR figures , this is a village station,Addiewell prison also has ample parking for the 500 inmates, Wrexham prison will have 2100 inmates, to say it will hardly make any difference to Wrexham General is speculation, and certainly not the case elsewhere.

 

[Welshman]

Not all prisoner families have cars, Addiewell new prison in Scotland for example showed am increase from 15K to 25K NR figures , this is a village station,Addiewell prison also has ample parking for the 500 inmates, Wrexham prison will have 2100 inmates, to say it will hardly make any difference to Wrexham General is speculation, and certainly not the case elsewhere.

I realise than in these more enlightened times, prisoners are allowed some little luxuries, but, really.....?

 

[6Gman]

Not all prisoner families have cars, Addiewell new prison in Scotland for example showed am increase from 15K to 25K NR figures , this is a village station,Addiewell prison also has ample parking for the 500 inmates, Wrexham prison will have 2100 inmates, to say it will hardly make any difference to Wrexham General is speculation, and certainly not the case elsewhere.

Users of Crewe station at lunchtime on Saturdays will be familiar with the gaggle of people who appear weekly - mostly female, and generally aged either 16-20 or 35-50 - who then board a coach.

They are the girlfriends/ mothers of inmates at a Young Offenders Institute in Shropshire.

If a relatively small YOI in Shropshire has that effect then we can probably assume a modest upturn in such traffic to Wrexham.

 

[TDK]

Not all prisoner families have cars, Addiewell new prison in Scotland for example showed am increase from 15K to 25K NR figures , this is a village station,Addiewell prison also has ample parking for the 500 inmates, Wrexham prison will have 2100 inmates, to say it will hardly make any difference to Wrexham General is speculation, and certainly not the case elsewhere.

Maybe not all families of the prisoners have cars, also some will not have the money for a taxi either. I really can't see a huge increase in passenger numbers you may get 1 or 2% at max Bob.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Users of Crewe station at lunchtime on Saturdays will be familiar with the gaggle of people who appear weekly - mostly female, and generally aged either 16-20 or 35-50 - who then board a coach.

They are the girlfriends/ mothers of inmates at a Young Offenders Institute in Shropshire.

If a relatively small YOI in Shropshire has that effect then we can probably assume a modest upturn in such traffic to Wrexham.

When you say a gaggle how many are you looking at?

 

[HowardGWR]

Users of Crewe station at lunchtime on Saturdays will be familiar with the gaggle of people who appear weekly - mostly female, and generally aged either 16-20 or 35-50 - who then board a coach.

They are the girlfriends/ mothers of inmates at a Young Offenders Institute in Shropshire.

If a relatively small YOI in Shropshire has that effect then we can probably assume a modest upturn in such traffic to Wrexham.

Does anyone else agree with me that putting prisons in remote areas is not exactly the most environmentally-friendly policy that one could devise?

 

[6Gman]

Maybe not all families of the prisoners have cars, also some will not have the money for a taxi either. I really can't see a huge increase in passenger numbers you may get 1 or 2% at max Bob.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


When you say a gaggle how many are you looking at?

It varies. Usually between, say, 10 and 25.

 

[WatcherZero]

Does anyone else agree with me that putting prisons in remote areas is not exactly the most environmentally-friendly policy that one could devise?

Of course not, but how many people want a Prison in their neighbourhood?
If nuclear power stations were in cities it would be more environmentally friendly as there would be less transmission losses, people aren't exactly going to welcome one though