Rail Crowding DfT report 22nd September

[The Ham]

Totally this thread sums up the difficulties in trying to compare Pre and post pandemic, too many variables for direct comparison. Avanti and transpenine need to be discounted as a start as they're not running even similar timetables. Across the board TOCs aren't running Pre pandemic timetables and obviously overcrowding isn't as predictable as before as working patterns have changed and I still don't think future work patterns are settled.

Indeed, even a single strike days within a month is going to alter flows, by how much is hard to predict.

Rail use is always going to be slower to return then road travel.

Whilst still inaccurate comparing rail use by year had advantages. For example a 15% fall in rail passenger numbers sounds like the industry is potentially in a dire straits. However saying passenger numbers as it was in 2019, shows that it's fallen, however, to a point which wasn't that alien to most that it's not outside their lifespan (i.e. unless they are still in full time education they are likely to be able to remember something about that year).

 

[Horizon22]

Indeed, even a single strike days within a month is going to alter flows, by how much is hard to predict.

Rail use is always going to be slower to return then road travel.

Whilst still inaccurate comparing rail use by year had advantages. For example a 15% fall in rail passenger numbers sounds like the industry is potentially in a dire straits. However saying passenger numbers as it was in 2019, shows that it's fallen, however, to a point which wasn't that alien to most that it's not outside their lifespan (i.e. unless they are still in full time education they are likely to be able to remember something about that year).

That’s not awful for revenue, both the flip side is costs which have somewhat risen or at least remained flat.

 

[Krokodil]

It has to be remembered that 2019 was at the end of a sustained period of continuous growth. The latest release was for Q2 (July-Sept 2022). Pax are 20% down on the same quarter in 2019, but only 12% down compared with 2014, which wasn't all that long ago (don't forget to factor in that seven days disrupted by strikes in this period will have knocked off a few percent). You wouldn't have to go very far back in time (though further than the figures I found went) before you find an equal number of passengers to the present day. So you've got to make some efficiencies (peak extras in the former NSE area would seem a prime candidate, and were probably never reinstated post-pandemic in many cases) but wholesale cuts would be a DafT thing to do. Long distance and regional operators seem to be booming compared with pre-pandemic, the government needs to get on and make a sensible offer to resolve this dispute so that the TOCs have a chance to build a customer base again.