North Wales coast passenger count slumps 7% from 2012-3 to 2016-7

[Envoy]

Some might say if the trains are full and standing, passengers accept the fare price, therefore it is not too high.

Probably the people who are using these trains are the people who have no choice and don’t have cars? It seems to me that due to lack of capacity, that the public on such routes are not only having overcrowded trains but also having to pay high fares.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Truly an advert then for the innovations and marketing enterprise of "privatised" rail services.

(I fondly recall "deeply inefficient" BR selling in the late 1970's , Cambrian Coast evening rovers after 1700 for about 60 pence and £7 day returns to London - First class too for that price. Even in the dark days of a railway under threat , they were assiduously trying to get some - any money into the system. Not just on the Celtic fringes either - 66p all day rover on the (threatened) Broad Street to Richmond route.)

But presumably there were some empty seats to fill back in the day?
If you have been awarded a longish ‘no growth’ franchise, there are no spare DMUs and many trains are already full at high fares why would you make much of an effort on marketing?
Although I would never press my views on Welsh matters with those who know them much better than I do my impression has always been that far more of everybody’s attention is focussed on South Wales.

 

[Gareth Marston]

• Reduce walk-up and season fares to, from and within North Wales by 10% to encourage travel.

From https://tfw.gov.wales/news-events

Not sure how much this will help!

 

[pemma]

I think you should look at a long term range of figures when making assessments. For instance, did usage go up a lot as people opted for 'staycations' and has it dropped as that trend has declined?

 

[al78]

Probably the people who are using these trains are the people who have no choice and don’t have cars? It seems to me that due to lack of capacity, that the public on such routes are not only having overcrowded trains but also having to pay high fares.

I doubt that is the majority, if it is then the railway theoretically has them over a barrel, there is less incentive to make improvements to a service if the people using that service are doing so by force, rather than genuine choice. Normally that is the idea of privatisation, competition provides an incentive for companies to innovate and improve, or else their customers will go elsewhere for a better product or service.

 

[underbank]

I doubt that is the majority, if it is then the railway theoretically has them over a barrel, there is less incentive to make improvements to a service if the people using that service are doing so by force, rather than genuine choice. Normally that is the idea of privatisation, competition provides an incentive for companies to innovate and improve, or else their customers will go elsewhere for a better product or service.

Which is why the current pseudo-privatised model doesn't work. When TOCs can't choose routes, fares, rolling stock, etc. which are hog-tied by the franchise agreement, there is very limited ability to innovate, even moreso when the TOC may not get all fare revenue from passengers using their services (i.e. the dreaded fare sharing arrangements between TOCs).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Which is why the current pseudo-privatised model doesn't work. When TOCs can't choose routes, fares, rolling stock, etc. which are hog-tied by the franchise agreement, there is very limited ability to innovate, even moreso when the TOC may not get all fare revenue from passengers using their services (i.e. the dreaded fare sharing arrangements between TOCs).

Realistically that innovation takes place at the time of franchising, not at the point of use.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Which is why the current pseudo-privatised model doesn't work. When TOCs can't choose routes, fares, rolling stock, etc. which are hog-tied by the franchise agreement, there is very limited ability to innovate, even moreso when the TOC may not get all fare revenue from passengers using their services (i.e. the dreaded fare sharing arrangements between TOCs).

At the beginning of privatisation, there was the prospect of competition between North Wales and London with NWT (GWH)'s plans for a separate service to Virgin's.
The original intention was for the 175/180 fleet to run to Euston (much like the NWT Blackpool/Rochdale/Man Airport-Euston services, which did run briefly).
However, NWT got its sums wrong and abandoned all the London plans, so under FNW the 175s were limited to local services and the 180s confined to FGW.
We never got to find out how such services would have survived on the tilting WCML.
The main problem with North Wales-London services is the turnback of most 221s at Chester in the off-peak.
They should extend to Llandudno/Bangor every two hours or so.
But there is no 221 stock for this (actually there is, but it's running Euston-Scotland under the wires because of lack of 390s).

 

[Teithiwr]

The fares are a major disincentive. The cost of a single Prestatyn - Flint for example at £8.50 for 12 miles or so must be among the most expensive anywhere.
And yet, the trains are often full and standing. The new franchise has a major opportunity here, I believe that high fares have been used as to (1) be a cash cow (2) suppress demand to avoid having to make investments. Too many people have no alternative but to tackle the A55 to make affordable journeys in the region.

 

[Meole]

The senior population which is significant and increasing in proportion may prefer free bus travel between towns.

 

[Teithiwr]

Possibly...

But using my example, the bus takes over an hour for the same journey (another issue here)
Rail very expensive

Solution (for most people) is to drive. Its the only realistic viable option for the vast majority.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The senior population which is significant and increasing in proportion may prefer free bus travel between towns.

I do wonder if Wales might consider more widely introducing off-peak rail validity on their passes, as they did on the Conwy Valley, much to the dislike and whining of the convicted fraudster[1] whose company Express Motors used to run the parallel X1, something I didn't find in the slightest bit of a shame.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ys-kevin-eric-wyn-jones-gwynedd-a8611876.html

 

[gazthomas]

An economically deprived area and people are screwed

 

[ChiefPlanner]

At the beginning of privatisation, there was the prospect of competition between North Wales and London with NWT (GWH)'s plans for a separate service to Virgin's.
The original intention was for the 175/180 fleet to run to Euston (much like the NWT Blackpool/Rochdale/Man Airport-Euston services, which did run briefly).
However, NWT got its sums wrong and abandoned all the London plans, so under FNW the 175s were limited to local services and the 180s confined to FGW.
We never got to find out how such services would have survived on the tilting WCML.
The main problem with North Wales-London services is the turnback of most 221s at Chester in the off-peak.
They should extend to Llandudno/Bangor every two hours or so.
But there is no 221 stock for this (actually there is, but it's running Euston-Scotland under the wires because of lack of 390s).

I think FNW had access right proposals for 4 TPD from Holyhead to Euston in the glory days of 1996 , and the Rochdale / Man Airport - FNW services to Euston (which did run - for a relatively short time were instead of- and before the 175's) - they would have fared very badly under PUG2 , let alone the period of getting there for the September 2004 timetable on West Coast. All history now.

Of course , I think Wales and West had a Cardiff - Holyhead daily service - before "Wales and Borders" .....

 

[dk1]

Yet some VTWC services can be F&S from Bangor heading up road.

 

[Parallel]

The fairs are expensive and have been like that for years, I used to use the train occasionally between Bangor and Chester around 2009, and can remember it being around £30 return then!

Add to that the absolutely dire state the 175s are in (ATWs internal cleaning reigime was awful) and you have a recipe for declining numbers. Shame really.

The 1tp2h that runs Holyhead to Birmingham International will be usually worked by a 158 and Machynlleth do a great job maintaining these. They are clean, bright and generally pleasant to travel on. The problem is that these are only 2 coaches and get overcrowded.

175s offer better capacity and great leg room but I agree with them feeling extremely run down and tired internally.

 

[Class37.4]

strikes that it might be helpful to go back to offering a better through service to Crewe rather than the Cardiff nonsense. a suspect that Crewe for connections is where more people actually want to go.

 

[Bletchleyite]

strikes that it might be helpful to go back to offering a better through service to Crewe rather than the Cardiff nonsense. a suspect that Crewe for connections is where more people actually want to go.

I'd like to see the future WCML franchisee operating hourly to Holyhead/Bangor/Llandudno which would solve that a different way.

But yes, I agree, few people want to go to Cardiff from North Wales. North Wales cares about Chester, Liverpool and Manchester, not Cardiff.

 

[frodshamfella]

I don't think short trains helps and the service is far from reliable. My daughter lives in Prestatyn and as had a few rail journeys disrupted due to trains skipping some stations, to make up lost time.

The service is still unreliable with Transport for Wales, still plenty of late running services I've experienced. The fares are also quite high.

 

[Meole]

TfW exists to provide service for Wales not Manchester or Liverpool, the airport for all of Wales is Cardiff, the administrative centre of Wales is Cardiff, train services should correctly go through Shrewsbury not Crewe.

 

[6Gman]

TfW exists to provide service for Wales not Manchester or Liverpool, the airport for all of Wales is Cardiff, the administrative centre of Wales is Cardiff, train services should correctly go through Shrewsbury not Crewe.

TfW exists to provide service for the people of Wales (and visitors thereto) based on their needs and wishes, not on the basis of the wishes of politicians or civil servants (or their consultants). I doubt that Cardiff is "the airport for all of Wales". I suspect North Walians use Manchester or Liverpool far more than Cardiff. Yes, Cardiff is "the administrative centre of Wales" but so what? How often does the average person need to visit their national administrative centre?

 

[6Gman]

As a totally random exercise, I decided to look at the ORR passenger counts for the years 2013-4 to 2016-7 on the NWales coast route.
(I have been over the route - 30+ years ago, but it is not a route I know at all.)

To my amazement, all major stations along the route have seen a slump in passenger entries+exits in the last 5 years of published figures. In brief (taken off the wikipedia entries for the stations)

Rly Statn - 2016-7 pax %change (on 2012-3)
Holyhead - 211,000 - - 11%
Bangor 657,000 - 3.4%
Conway 48,832 + 26.0% (the one station with positive growth, but small numbers)
LLadno Jcn 320,000 - 7.2%
Colwyn Bay 278,000 - 10.3%
Rhyl 534,000 - 12.4%
Prestatyn 345,000 - 4.7%
Flint 261,000 - 3.7%

TOTAL reduction from 2,855,410 to 2,654,800 or 200,600/2855410 = - 7.0%

Apologies if this has come up on here before, but I haven't noticed it.This seems a serious fall in traffic. Considering most services have seen a rise in passenger counts - what is behind the falls on the NW coast? I was under the impression that the service has been improved.

Just for the complete picture - these last two are not 'pure' NW Coast (of course)
Shotton 234,124 - 4.9%
Chester 4.65 million + 54.0%

Apols for any mistakes in the calculations - I've only done them once.

I note that the big falls are Holyhead (reflecting the steady decline in "classic" ferry use?), Rhyl and Colwyn Bay (both declining resorts that have become less and less attractive as destinations).

 

[Harbornite]

TfW exists to provide service for Wales not Manchester or Liverpool, the airport for all of Wales is Cardiff, the administrative centre of Wales is Cardiff, train services should correctly go through Shrewsbury not Crewe.

Is this a serious post?

 

[tbtc]

Worth pointing out that most of the justifications/ excuses discussed here are things that haven't changed since 2012/2013 - we can blame high fares/ free bus passes for the pensioners/ the obsession with through services to Cardiff/ short trains/ lack of through tickets to Chester Zoo/ poor late night services etc but things haven't changed that much in that timescale - other routes in the UK have seen ticketing validity changes (so that cheaper "day" tickets are scrapped, forcing people to buy more expensive "period" returns... or "off peak" services suddenly become "peak"), so this isn't unique to the coast.

Rather than glibly waiving away any apparent reduction in demand as due to fares putting people off and/or ticketless travel (which also happen on other lines), it'd be interesting to see what is specific to this line and this time period.

It's still generally the same frequency/ stock as it was in 2012 - about the only real change I can think of (as an outsider) is the direct services to Manchester Airport (which should increase passenger numbers, rather than decrease them - unless the people of Llandudno are holding out for a direct service to Rhoose International, since they are too patriotic to fly from an English airport?). The WAG Express has been running since 2008, unless the changes to "premium" service is responsible for the drop in passenger numbers? The ATW "clock face" timetable and the VHF timetable have been fairly consistent during this period.

Is this due to the UK economy slowly growing (so that people, who started cutting back and replacing their foreign holidays with something cheaper like a caravan at Colwyn Bay, are now able to afford overseas trips again, thus there was a rise in the first few years after 2008 that has been "corrected" as people go back to their Spanish flights)?

Has reliability of Wales n Borders services really got that much worse over the five years discussed? People seem to have been complaining about it for almost fifteen years, so I can't recall boasts about how perfect the reliability was in 2012?

We had Ryanair taking a big chunk of the "Irish" market in 2012 too, so that's not a new development.

I'm not aware of any huge improvements in the parallel Arriva bus services along the coast - unless anyone can tell me otherwise?

Maybe, instead of complaining about the "no growth" franchise from 2004, people should be grateful that it was let on a "no cuts" basis?

 

[Starmill]

TfW exists to provide service for Wales not Manchester or Liverpool,

Who told you that? Manchester commuters, and long-distance passengers to and from Greater Manchester are some of their most significant markets. Also, they run local services entirety in England, as this is the most efficient way to provide said local trains.

the airport for all of Wales is Cardiff,

Who told you that? Manchester Airport and to a lesser extent Birmingham Airport and Liverpool JL Airport are the most significant airports for much of Wales.

the administrative centre of Wales is Cardiff, train services should correctly go through Shrewsbury not Crewe.

train services between where and where? A large number of Transport for Wales servcies go to both Shrewsbury and Crewe. Just a reminder that neither are in Wales!

 

[yorksrob]

Maybe, instead of complaining about the "no growth" franchise from 2004, people should be grateful that it was let on a "no cuts" basis?

Since passenger numbers weren't falling in 2004, why would anyone expect it not to be let on a no cuts basis ?

The process of elimination outlined by yourself leaves us with the well above inflation price hike.

 

[Bletchleyite]

TfW exists to provide service for Wales not Manchester or Liverpool, the airport for all of Wales is Cardiff, the administrative centre of Wales is Cardiff, train services should correctly go through Shrewsbury not Crewe.

TfW exists to provide transport services for Welsh people to take them where they wish to go, and to provide services to people outside Wales who may wish to go to Wales to boost its economy.

The demand for both of these is much greater to/from the North West cities than Cardiff.

Wales is very much a divided country in a practical sense, and no number of posh LHCS trains half empty between Chester and Shrewsbury is going to change that. Its identity as one country is more about culture than practical travel need. Really, North Wales associates to Liverpool, Manchester and Chester, the middle bit to Birmingham and the bottom bit to Cardiff and Bristol. There are very good reasons why the lines providing services connecting in that way are the ones that survived.

 

[NLondonlurker]

From experience of travelling the route several times a year I would say the short trains (try cramming onto the 2 carriages together with a load of passengers with big suitcases, a regular occurrence) are a disincentive to more leisure users travelling on the line. Is this likely to change under the new TfW franchise?

 

[Starmill]

TfW exists to provide transport services for Welsh people to take them where they wish to go, and to provide services to people outside Wales who may wish to go to Wales to boost its economy.

It does? Whose job is it to provide regional services from Shropshire and Herefordshire to Manchester (a significant flow from very many large and small towns, to one of Britain's biggest cites and third busiest Airport) then? As far as I can see this has nothing to do with Wales?

 

[driver_m]

I think Meole has been suitably burned for his ridiculous post that seems to wifully ignore the strong connections between North Wales and North West England. Hopefully I can give some reasons for some of the decline es in traffic numbers. Whether they are truly relevant is hard to say, but our services were subject to quite a few booked terminations at Crewe for things like Weekend blockades on the WCML, Any blockades on the WCML thst required service revisions meant Holyhead- Eustons would terminate at Crewe. IIRC there was strike action on Arriva Wales not that long ago which could have skewed the figures, just like it's going to affect Northerns for now, when they're released. The ferry services have significantly changed too, the Catamaran stopped running in that timescale too