Q3 Passenger Journeys Up 6.7%

[Chris125]

The data for Q3 (October-December) 2014/15 is now available:


Passenger journeys up 6.7% on Q3 2013/14

Passenger km up 6.5%

Revenue up 9.0%



L&SE Passenger Journeys up 8.0% / Passenger km up 6.8% / Revenue up 9.6%

Regional Passenger Journeys up 3.1% / Passenger km up 5.0% / Revenue up 8.3%

Long Distance Passenger Journeys up 5.1% / Passenger km up 6.9% / Revenue up 8.5%

Non-franchised Passenger km up 17.0%

 

[dk1]

Very good to see. Just imagine the possibilities if the UK Railways got good press ha ha.

 

[DelayRepay]

Non-franchised Passenger km up 17.0%

Does this mean Open Access operators, or something else?

 

[Oliver]

Total passenger-km up from 59.1 billion to 61.8 billion. Total revenue up from 7707 million to 8203 million. Average cost per km up from 13.04p to 13.27p , an increase of 1.8%. This indicates (unsurprisingly) that much of the growth is from people buying discounted tickets, and that contrary to the Daily Mail (and RMT) view of the world increasing fares have not stopped passenger growth.

 

[yorksrob]

Total passenger-km up from 59.1 billion to 61.8 billion. Total revenue up from 7707 million to 8203 million. Average cost per km up from 13.04p to 13.27p , an increase of 1.8%. This indicates (unsurprisingly) that much of the growth is from people buying discounted tickets, and that contrary to the Daily Mail (and RMT) view of the world increasing fares have not stopped passenger growth.

Is this not a bit of a contradiction - that higher fares are not putting people off travel, but most of the growth is in cheap(er) advanced fares? Certainly it seems to suggest that high walk on fares aren't contributing to growth of railway business.

Investigating return fares from Leeds to London yesterday, I was a bit disappointed to discover that even the off-peak was over £100. Is there really no other way, other than advanced purchase, to manage demand whilst maintaining affordable travel?

 

[bramling]

Very good to see. Just imagine the possibilities if the UK Railways got good press ha ha.

It's hard to see it as "good", bearing in mind the provision of increased capacity is simply not keeping up with this growth. So in reality this means more crowded trains (and stations), and where more services are provided this may well result in slower journeys through the railway being used to capacity.

 

[The Ham]

Very good to see. Just imagine the possibilities if the UK Railways got good press ha ha.

...or if there had been a lot of new rolling stock and/or new services started. (just 0.5% more Timetabled Train Kilometres)

If passenger numbers keep going up at 5% we could hit the numbers of passengers expected in 2030 by HS2 (2.5% growth year on year from 2009) in 2020.

 

[dk1]

It's hard to see it as "good", bearing in mind the provision of increased capacity is simply not keeping up with this growth. So in reality this means more crowded trains (and stations), and where more services are provided this may well result in slower journeys through the railway being used to capacity.

It makes me happy to see continuing growth. Whatever party is in power after the election needs to pull its finger out.

 

[bramling]

It makes me happy to see continuing growth. Whatever party is in power after the election needs to pull its finger out.

Until that happens, the reality is that with most places not having seen any capacity uplift (my local service has seen no additional services or lengthened existing services in that time), growth means more crowding, less chance of a seat, and generally more chance of a less pleasant all-round journey experience. So this level of growth is *not* good for users.

 

[ScotGG]

The govt are in a tricky spot with huge population and passenger growth and at the same time the deficit is still sky high and transport budgets could see 40% cuts after 2015. Years of mismanagement by all parties have led to this.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

If Network Rail costs were "controlled" - the ability of the railway to break even would be very , very likely.....

 

[samuelmorris]

Good news in a way, but I wonder what the proportional increase in capacity is by comparison! While in some areas improving capacity will be straightforward if there's now the passenger volume to justify it, there are definitely going to be some issues in the future in certain areas where there isn't room for any additional services...