Operators' per-km finances

[Gaelan]

Interesting! What source did you pull the numbers from? Are comparative figures for other operators also available?

Calculated in Excel from ORR table 7233. Here are the figures, all in pence per passenger km:

	GB Total	Caledonian Sleeper	Chiltern	Cross Country	East Anglia	East Coast (LNER)	East Midlands	Elizabeth line	Essex Thameside (c2c)	Great Western	London Overground	Merseyrail	Northern	ScotRail	South Eastern	South Western	Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (GTR)	TransPennine Express	Wales and Borders (TfW Rail)	West Coast	West Midlands
Fare income	16.3	16.0	16.3	16.4	18.7	12.1	15.3	22.6	16.3	16.8	19.9	8.6	12.8	12.9	20.0	19.1	17.9	13.5	13.2	16.3	13.5
Operating income (a)	17.5	16.5	17.5	16.5	21.0	13.0	16.4	24.2	17.5	17.8	22.5	16.2	13.6	13.4	21.1	20.3	19.4	14.2	15.8	17.3	14.9
Staff	7.2	7.2	5.7	4.7	5.6	2.9	6.2	8.8	5.2	6.6	12.0	13.3	15.3	14.0	8.1	8.4	7.4	6.4	18.9	3.2	7.8
Diesel fuel [note 1]	0.8	1.6	1.6	2.5	0.3	0.2	1.4	0.0	1.4	1.4	0.0	2.0	2.1	2.8	0.0	0.3	0.1	1.5	2.0	0.2	0.3
Rolling stock	6.0	4.9	1.8	7.6	3.9	6.6	2.6	4.7	7.0	9.6	3.6	2.9	7.4	6.6	6.0	3.0	6.5	5.0	4.9	7.2	4.3
Access charges	6.6	1.3	5.3	6.4	5.6	2.8	5.0	11.7	3.5	4.7	3.9	6.5	7.0	18.8	14.3	6.5	6.5	5.1	6.1	5.4	6.9
Other operating expenditure [note 1]	4.9	18.3	4.9	1.9	4.4	1.9	6.2	10.5	8.5	3.0	15.4	14.6	5.7	5.1	5.2	6.1	3.0	14.0	10.8	2.5	7.1
Operating expenditure (b)	25.5	33.2	19.2	23.2	19.7	14.3	21.4	35.8	25.6	25.2	34.9	39.3	37.5	47.3	33.6	24.2	23.4	31.9	42.6	18.4	26.4
Operating income less expenditure (a − b)	-8.1	-16.7	-1.7	-6.7	1.3	-1.3	-5.0	-11.7	-8.1	-7.5	-12.4	-23.1	-23.9	-34.0	-12.5	-3.9	-4.0	-17.6	-26.8	-1.2	-11.5

note 1 (from the ORR table) reads: These data are sourced from the train operating companies. There may be differences in how income and expenditure are divided between categories both between franchises and over time. This is especially the case for diesel fuel where an operator has a mix of diesel and electric trains. In some cases the two costs are not disaggregated in the source data, which results in the combined diesel and electricity costs being counted in other operating expenditure.

 

[800Travel]

Calculated in Excel from ORR table 7233. Here are the figures, all in pence per passenger km:

	GB Total	Caledonian Sleeper	Chiltern	Cross Country	East Anglia	East Coast (LNER)	East Midlands	Elizabeth line	Essex Thameside (c2c)	Great Western	London Overground	Merseyrail	Northern	ScotRail	South Eastern	South Western	Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (GTR)	TransPennine Express	Wales and Borders (TfW Rail)	West Coast	West Midlands
Fare income	16.3	16.0	16.3	16.4	18.7	12.1	15.3	22.6	16.3	16.8	19.9	8.6	12.8	12.9	20.0	19.1	17.9	13.5	13.2	16.3	13.5
Operating income (a)	17.5	16.5	17.5	16.5	21.0	13.0	16.4	24.2	17.5	17.8	22.5	16.2	13.6	13.4	21.1	20.3	19.4	14.2	15.8	17.3	14.9
Staff	7.2	7.2	5.7	4.7	5.6	2.9	6.2	8.8	5.2	6.6	12.0	13.3	15.3	14.0	8.1	8.4	7.4	6.4	18.9	3.2	7.8
Diesel fuel [note 1]	0.8	1.6	1.6	2.5	0.3	0.2	1.4	0.0	1.4	1.4	0.0	2.0	2.1	2.8	0.0	0.3	0.1	1.5	2.0	0.2	0.3
Rolling stock	6.0	4.9	1.8	7.6	3.9	6.6	2.6	4.7	7.0	9.6	3.6	2.9	7.4	6.6	6.0	3.0	6.5	5.0	4.9	7.2	4.3
Access charges	6.6	1.3	5.3	6.4	5.6	2.8	5.0	11.7	3.5	4.7	3.9	6.5	7.0	18.8	14.3	6.5	6.5	5.1	6.1	5.4	6.9
Other operating expenditure [note 1]	4.9	18.3	4.9	1.9	4.4	1.9	6.2	10.5	8.5	3.0	15.4	14.6	5.7	5.1	5.2	6.1	3.0	14.0	10.8	2.5	7.1
Operating expenditure (b)	25.5	33.2	19.2	23.2	19.7	14.3	21.4	35.8	25.6	25.2	34.9	39.3	37.5	47.3	33.6	24.2	23.4	31.9	42.6	18.4	26.4
Operating income less expenditure (a − b)	-8.1	-16.7	-1.7	-6.7	1.3	-1.3	-5.0	-11.7	-8.1	-7.5	-12.4	-23.1	-23.9	-34.0	-12.5	-3.9	-4.0	-17.6	-26.8	-1.2	-11.5

note 1 (from the ORR table) reads: These data are sourced from the train operating companies. There may be differences in how income and expenditure are divided between categories both between franchises and over time. This is especially the case for diesel fuel where an operator has a mix of diesel and electric trains. In some cases the two costs are not disaggregated in the source data, which results in the combined diesel and electricity costs being counted in other operating expenditure.

I might have misunderstood, but is this saying that all TOCs other than East Anglia are operating at a loss? @Gaelan

 

[Gaelan]

I might have misunderstood, but is this saying that all TOCs other than East Anglia are operating at a loss? @Gaelan

Yes - or more precisely, they're part-funded by government subsidy, which is not shown in these figures.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Yes - or more precisely, they're part-funded by government subsidy, which is not shown in these figures.

Of course technically they all run at a loss as NR direct grants aren't shown either

 

[Adrian1980uk]

It does show some interesting figures, this is where the DFT should be taking note, the more successful TOCs should have more freedom to increase services and costs. Shout me down but if we all agree a subsidy is required/ preferred for TOCs then a target loss per a mile should be set and investment encouraged for TOCs with minimal subsidy per a mile

 

[fishwomp]

Calculated in Excel from ORR table 7233. Here are the figures, all in pence per passenger km:

	GB Total	Caledonian Sleeper	Chiltern	Cross Country	East Anglia	East Coast (LNER)	East Midlands	Elizabeth line	Essex Thameside (c2c)	Great Western	London Overground	Merseyrail	Northern	ScotRail	South Eastern	South Western	Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (GTR)	TransPennine Express	Wales and Borders (TfW Rail)	West Coast	West Midlands
Operating income (a)	17.5	16.5	17.5	16.5	21.0	13.0	16.4	24.2	17.5	17.8	22.5	16.2	13.6	13.4	21.1	20.3	19.4	14.2	15.8	17.3	14.9
Staff	7.2	7.2	5.7	4.7	5.6	2.9	6.2	8.8	5.2	6.6	12.0	13.3	15.3	14.0	8.1	8.4	7.4	6.4	18.9	3.2	7.8
Rolling stock	6.0	4.9	1.8	7.6	3.9	6.6	2.6	4.7	7.0	9.6	3.6	2.9	7.4	6.6	6.0	3.0	6.5	5.0	4.9	7.2	4.3
Access charges	6.6	1.3	5.3	6.4	5.6	2.8	5.0	11.7	3.5	4.7	3.9	6.5	7.0	18.8	14.3	6.5	6.5	5.1	6.1	5.4	6.9
Other operating expenditure [note 1]	4.9	18.3	4.9	1.9	4.4	1.9	6.2	10.5	8.5	3.0	15.4	14.6	5.7	5.1	5.2	6.1	3.0	14.0	10.8	2.5	7.1

Blimey, you are Roger Ford and I claim my five pounds!

Superb. Snipped a few of the lines for focus:

• There's at least broadly similar per passenger km revenue - 13.4-22.5p
• Staff - sometimes cost more than the passenger km revenue. Northern, Scotrail and TFW. Ouch.
• Rolling stock - could be either new stock higher leasing costs or many empty seats per passenger - GWR and XC are the highest.
• Access charges - if these are fixed per vehicle type and mile rather than varied per route..? high here => many empty seats per passenger.. South Eastern will have HS1 premium. Scotrail, what the..?
• "other" - the data's too ill-defined for any analysis but massive for TPE - is almost same as revenue.

As has been said elsewhere - the only variables are the income and the staff, with not much that can be done on rolling stock given leasing contracts, but a carriage in the sidings doesn't run up the access charges.

Wondering what a non-strike year will look like.. X% more passengers means those other numbers go down by X% (assuming no extra rolling stock).

 

[158801]

How can LNER have a staff coast of 2.9 when there may be up to 6 members of staff on a train yet Northern have a staff cost of 15.3 with only two of them ?

 

[lkpridgeon]

How can LNER have a staff coast of 2.9 when there may be up to 6 members of staff on a train yet Northern have a staff cost of 15.3 with only two of them ?

Per passenger/km. Longer trains and higher average loadings over all their routes. The same can be seen with the London commuter operators where they operate 8-10 carriages on most routes. Distance and speed might also help due to needing less staff to service 1km vs a stopper.

 

[WatcherZero]

Exactly two staff on a two or three car train vs an 8 or even 12 car train with the same means a lot more staff expense for the same number of seats provided.
You can measure capacity during an hour (e.g. it would be cheaper to operate one 8-car train than two 4-car) but customer demand also increases with frequency, you will get a lot more people wanting to use a frequent service than an hourly one. The magic number is around 4tph or every 15 minutes which most people consider a turn up and go service that they dont need to check the schedule in advance for at which point its then worth building out length again over trying to operate a higher frequency. However you encounter the limitation of what the infrastructure was designed to handle, if longer trains exceed siding/platform/signal length then it may still be worthwhile from an infrastructure providers point of view to add more services to meet demand even though from an operators point of view of service cost-efficiency it likely wouldnt.

 

[racyrich]

How can LNER have a staff coast of 2.9 when there may be up to 6 members of staff on a train yet Northern have a staff cost of 15.3 with only two of them ?

Presumably it's not just train staff in the figures but all staff.

Looking at my local line, c2c, I'm puzzled as to how it incurs a diesel cost. I'm also surprised the lease costs for its 357s are not lower.

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

Apparently, also LNER have the 2nd lowest revenue per pass-km of all of the TOCs in the table (and 25% lower than Avanti's). Even with some business travel and high peak fares. So Advance fares are providing both significant volume and revenue compared to other TOCs!

 

[Skie]

Merseyrail having a value for Diesel Fuel is a bit odd given they only run EMUs

 

[Sussex Ben]

Interesting to see how poorly the two TfL concessions perform against other London & South East TOCs in this regard, and means more Government scrutiny of TfLs finances are perhaps unsurprising. That said, it'll be interesting to see if next years figures show a large difference those of the Elizabeth line as it's now fully open...

 

[WatcherZero]

Presumably it's not just train staff in the figures but all staff.

Looking at my local line, c2c, I'm puzzled as to how it incurs a diesel cost. I'm also surprised the lease costs for its 357s are not lower.

LNER only manage 11 stations despite calling at 55 so quite low in that respect.

 

[HSTEd]

Looking at my local line, c2c, I'm puzzled as to how it incurs a diesel cost. I'm also surprised the lease costs for its 357s are not lower.

Probably use of road vehicles in support of operations.

Do they have a diesel shunter in a depot somewhere?

Interesting to see how poorly the two TfL concessions perform against other London & South East TOCs in this regard, and means more Government scrutiny of TfLs finances are perhaps unsurprising. That said, it'll be interesting to see if next years figures show a large difference those of the Elizabeth line as it's now fully open...

Well fully staffed stations at short spacings and slow moving services will always suffer really badly on this passenger-km metric.

LNER can go from London to Edinburgh with nine or ten cars in 4 hours. How far does Overground get with a train crew in that time?

 

[northwichcat]

Northern's rolling stock figure is very high. Is this down to most of their fleet being 1980s Sprinter trains? I also notice their staff cost is the second highest for all operators. Presumably that's in part down to them having guards on every service and operating stopping services. But still surprising it's the second highest.

Merseyrail having a value for Diesel Fuel is a bit odd given they only run EMUs

I wonder if it's a figure for Merseytravel PTE sponsored services, rather than Merseyrail franchise services?

 

[Trainbike46]

Probably use of road vehicles in support of operations.

Do they have a diesel shunter in a depot somewhere?

It is still very odd that northern has almost the same diesel fuel cost per passenger-km as Merseyrail, despite the former having a significant diesel operation whereas merseyrail is all EMU - it suggests that the definitions of diesel fuel costs aren't comparable (e.g. one including road travel and the other not, for example)

 

[Clarence Yard]

It is far more likely that traction fuel and EC4T are being included in the same category.

 

[WatcherZero]

Merseyrail spent £9m on diesel/fuel in 2022 Merseyrail had previously spent zero on fuel between 2016 and 2022 (despite having four diesel shunters).
Meanwhile Northern spent £52m on fuel last year whereas in the previous five years they had averaged between £30m and £38m fluctuating with oil prices except for 2020 where they only spent £20m probably as fewer trains running.

Wonder if Merseyrail instituted new diesel powered backup generation or previously classed diesel/fuel oil powered infrastructure as general facilities utility costs?

 

[HSTEd]

Road fuel is something approaching double the price of diesel for traction purposes, so is likely a disproportionate portion of the cost.

 

[Clarence Yard]

The diesel fuel line in the accounts also should have traction electricity (EC4T) included - it has nothing to do with road fuel at all. It is all explained in the Quality and methodology report on the ORR website.

But there is the health warning (Note 1) and if they can’t split it out cleanly, some/all traction fuel/EC4T costs will remain in other expenditure.

 

[Stephen42]

Interesting to see how poorly the two TfL concessions perform against other London & South East TOCs in this regard, and means more Government scrutiny of TfLs finances are perhaps unsurprising. That said, it'll be interesting to see if next years figures show a large difference those of the Elizabeth line as it's now fully open...

The figures will be very different next year. Jumping a year back Elizabeth line was the worst at 74.9 pence per passenger km, now down to 11.9 pence per passenger km subsidy for 2022 to 2023 (slight different calculation method compared to first post). TfL journey figures for the year so far on track to be 50% higher than last year, expecting it to be profit rather than loss and maybe top of the pile for 2023 to 2024.

 

[Gaelan]

Realized I never explicitly specified: these figures are April 2022 to March 2023. So yes, it'll have been the first year or so of EL operation.

 

[HSTEd]

The diesel fuel line in the accounts also should have traction electricity (EC4T) included - it has nothing to do with road fuel at all. It is all explained in the Quality and methodology report on the ORR website.

But there is the health warning (Note 1) and if they can’t split it out cleanly, some/all traction fuel/EC4T costs will remain in other expenditure.

If it's explained in that report, it's incredibly badly explained. I can't find an explicit statement to this effect anywhere in the report.

Indeed, its not even clear why that line is called "diesel fuel" in that case.
My interpretation of the Note given in the table is that that line is just diesel costs, and for some operators it is zero because they can't split electricity/diesel costs and thus the total remains in "other costs".

After all, very few if any train operators actually purchase electricity.

 

[Clarence Yard]

I quote from the bullet points in page 8 of that report. The bullet points are directly comparable to the headings - third bullet : “Fuel and electricity costs, this includes electricity costs that train operators pay to Network Rail”.

The ORR has tried to identify the EC4T from the TOC and NR accounts and allocated it, where possible, to this line. It is just very poorly titled in the ORR tables.

If you look at, say Lumo, in Table 7233 for 2022/23, you will see a sum of £5m for diesel fuel - that equates to the 2022/23 EC4T charge for Lumo. Definitely, without a doubt, that’s what it is.

How do I know this? I’m looking at their detailed internal P13 accounts for 2022/23 now.

 

[hwl]

The diesel fuel line in the accounts also should have traction electricity (EC4T) included - it has nothing to do with road fuel at all. It is all explained in the Quality and methodology report on the ORR website.

But there is the health warning (Note 1) and if they can’t split it out cleanly, some/all traction fuel/EC4T costs will remain in other expenditure.

Up until a few years ago ORR did manage to include road diesel usage in the rail figures. Then just after the annual figures were released one of the FOCs inquired where ORR had got their numbers from as the FOC didn't recognise their own fuel usage figures (or the entire rail freight sector).
It turned out that ORR had been getting diesel consumption data by company from HMRC but they didn't both checking the split of whether it was red (duty @ ~10p/l) or white diesel (duty @ ~52p/l) and had been including the diesel use of a fleet of several hundred HGV tractor units operated by the FOC in the FOCs rail diesel figures.

ORR ended up restating a decades worth of fuel consumptions figures (as far back as they could refresh the data) within 10 days of that stats release. Railfreight diesel usage fell by a double digit % after the revisions.

There has been a significant turnover in ORR stats staff since then... with noticeable improvements in quality.

I'll prepare some electricity and diesel usage numbers by operator over the next few days when I get the chance.