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Rail Usage 2018-19 and 2019/20

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HH

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I understood that decline in young motorists is a trend observed over many years but am willing to stand corrected in light of new data. What have you seen to suggest that motoring is enjoying a second wind amongst the younger generation?
There was a news article a few days ago, but I can't recall where I saw it. A "second wind" might be pushing it, but it said the decline appeared to have been reversed.
 
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WatcherZero

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Governments forecast an increase as with lower unemployment people will have to travel further to find work. The actual figures are consistent though with around 20% less drivers/mileage across all metrics since the 90's, in the 90's 80% of people were drivers by the time they were 30 that figure has now slipped to 44 before 80% of the age group drive.
 

radamfi

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I've heard a few people boasting about how they buy an anytime and just keep using it until it's either invalid or is gripped. You can see why they come to that decision when you're so unlikely to be gripped on a peak time service on many routes.

So why do TOCs still continue to offer month return tickets?
 

Spartacus

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So why do TOCs still continue to offer month return tickets?

They're rather useful for people like me when working a night shift, I'd hate to have to buy two singles, in fact I'd almost certainly end up driving. There's also times I've been visiting people away and haven't had the certainty to be able to buy advances tying me to certain trains, or the cheapest advances have been sold out long before I had a chance to reserve them so that splitting was cheaper. There'd be no issue with them if they were properly checked.
 

radamfi

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They're rather useful for people like me when working a night shift, I'd hate to have to buy two singles, in fact I'd almost certainly end up driving. There's also times I've been visiting people away and haven't had the certainty to be able to buy advances tying me to certain trains, or the cheapest advances have been sold out long before I had a chance to reserve them so that splitting was cheaper. There'd be no issue with them if they were properly checked.

Where Anytime singles are around half the price of Anytime returns there is really no need for Anytime returns. Just replace them with singles half the price of the current return. Off-peak singles are often virtually the same price as Off-peak returns, and that badly needs sorting.
 

Spartacus

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Where Anytime singles are around half the price of Anytime returns there is really no need for Anytime returns. Just replace them with singles half the price of the current return. Off-peak singles are often virtually the same price as Off-peak returns, and that badly needs sorting.

You know what would happen though, withdrawal of the anytime return and retention of current single ticket prices. The result for me would be over 50% increase in price. Already there is in effect no off peak single fare on my route as the off peak single is the same price as the peak one!
 

squizzler

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Governments forecast an increase as with lower unemployment people will have to travel further to find work. The actual figures are consistent though with around 20% less drivers/mileage across all metrics since the 90's, in the 90's 80% of people were drivers by the time they were 30 that figure has now slipped to 44 before 80% of the age group drive.
Surely people have to travel further to find jobs when there are high rates of unemployment and people have to get "on their bike"?
 

WatcherZero

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You would think, but its one of those contrary to expectation things. Increased employment creates increased congestion and causes people to live further out of urban centres. Increasing employment rate by 1% increases average road mileage by 6%. Your also become more willing to travel further for a superior job.

E.g you might start at a job a couple of miles away and that then influences you to go for a job 10 miles away that you wouldnt have considered taking if you were unemployed as the distance would have put you off. You now see it as a marginal additional investment of your time.
 

squizzler

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E.g you might start at a job a couple of miles away and that then influences you to go for a job 10 miles away that you wouldnt have considered taking if you were unemployed as the distance would have put you off. You now see it as a marginal additional investment of your time.

If people are making longer commutes to better paid jobs, then that's going to favour rail. As per London which has the country's highest paid jobs, the furthest flung workers and the highest mode share for rail.
 

Edders23

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I've notice over the last 18 months that road traffic is significantly up so i suspect that the negative impact of train strikes and other woes in the news has persuaded people to use their cars.BUT people will get fed up of choked roads and go back to public transport if they perceive there has been improvements
 

SamYeager

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If people are making longer commutes to better paid jobs, then that's going to favour rail. As per London which has the country's highest paid jobs, the furthest flung workers and the highest mode share for rail.
Oddly enough I was just listening to Rachel Reeves MP for Leeds who apparently regularly drives from there to London and back. This was her excuse as to why she didn't have an electric car despite calling for more people to drive electric cars. Sadly the presenter didn't challenge her as to why she didn't take the train instead given that she would be reimbursed the train fare. :frown:
 

WatcherZero

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For a labour MP yes its questionable, at least if your a minister you have the excuse that your banned from taking red boxes on public transport.
 

absolutelymilk

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I'm pretty surprised that the May timetable changes only caused a 0.7% drop in Northern passengers. Given that it changed on 20 May, it covered about half of the period, so works out as around a 1.5% drop after the timetable change (assuming no growth otherwise). Given how bad it seemed, I was expecting more like a 5% drop!
 

Kite159

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Oddly enough I was just listening to Rachel Reeves MP for Leeds who apparently regularly drives from there to London and back. This was her excuse as to why she didn't have an electric car despite calling for more people to drive electric cars. Sadly the presenter didn't challenge her as to why she didn't take the train instead given that she would be reimbursed the train fare. :frown:

It depends if they are allowed to claim back business mileage, because at 45p a mile that will soon add up and probably profitable. Where as if they took the train they won't make any money back
 

w1bbl3

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The 45p allowance caps at 10k miles so whilst its not bad upto that point depending on the car your running beyond 10k and it basically just covers fuel.

Leeds to London and return is 384 miles so you can only make 26 return trips at 45p per mile before the rate reduces to 25p. Then you have to add for parking which in central London say westminster can easily run to £40 per day.
 

philthetube

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This works out at £172.80, when you calculate actual costs of running a car I really would not want to spend all that time on the M1 for what is left.
 

daccer

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Interesting numbers that do tend to throw shade on any premise that rail growth has stagnated or even reversed. I am always interested that folks seem fixated on the passenger number when I am sure the Govt and Dft etc are more interested in the revenue growth which can then be reflected in the diminishing level of Govt support in proportion to the passengers' share.

Over the next two years there is going to be a massive influx of new vehciles, many of them in areas that have traditionally had poor rolling stock and capacity restraints. I can only see the growth figure increasing as these areas start to benefit from new trains and services.
 

bramling

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I must admit I was shocked to see GoVia Thameslink numbers up considering how poor Thameslink / Great Northern are. I guess as other have said the number of users on the now strike less Southern means that it isn’t impacting ridership as much. I guess as well Southern are recovering from loss of revenue due to the strike.

Good it is generally positive.

How would the figures account for someone who already has an annual season ticket, but after May finds themselves using the service considerably less due to the disruption? (i.e. going by car, or simply not making non-essential journeys).

I certainly know a number of people in that position.

For the average passenger I think the May meltdown took many people by surprise. The publicity about the changes was minimal, so it was literally a case of overnight turning up at the station and finding the service had been changed for the worse. Even those of us who correctly predicted doom and failure were surprised just *how bad* it turned out to be.
 

matacaster

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The day I am most likely to travel for leisure purposes is probably Saturday. Around 18.00, went to a really nice restaurant on Northern train. I hadn't realised that Northern services simply stop at 19.00 on strike days. If Northern are not providing the advertised service that they contracted to in the franchise agreement, do they not have any liability for failing to provide that service, whether advertised as such or not in advance? Strike action must have put lots of people off on Saturdays when they have no prospect of making there intended late evening return journey.
 

HH

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The day I am most likely to travel for leisure purposes is probably Saturday. Around 18.00, went to a really nice restaurant on Northern train. I hadn't realised that Northern services simply stop at 19.00 on strike days. If Northern are not providing the advertised service that they contracted to in the franchise agreement, do they not have any liability for failing to provide that service, whether advertised as such or not in advance? Strike action must have put lots of people off on Saturdays when they have no prospect of making there intended late evening return journey.
They do not have a liability when they advise passengers beforehand. Well, except that they are permanently losing custom.

P.S. I can tell the members of this forum that DfT are losing appetite for this struggle.
 

47421

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Railfuture East Anglia have put out a nice PDF

https://www.railfuture.org.uk/east/...-usage-estimates-2017-18-from-ORR-figures.pdf

One remarkable increase is that at Stansted Airport - 8,934,250 up 17% on 2017 and a huge 142% on 2013. Makes it busiest Anglia station outside London other than Cambridge. LivSt service will be fine with the new 12 car Stadlers, but shows the inadequacy of the CrossCountry service, which surely needs to be run as 4 cars ASAP, are there any 170s coming off lease that XC can have? And no doubt the Norwich - Camb will be a success from day 1 after it is extended to Stansted if they can make the timetable work.
 

kieron

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Oddly enough I was just listening to Rachel Reeves MP for Leeds who apparently regularly drives from there to London and back. This was her excuse as to why she didn't have an electric car despite calling for more people to drive electric cars. Sadly the presenter didn't challenge her as to why she didn't take the train instead given that she would be reimbursed the train fare. :frown:
Looking at the ISPA site, Rachel Reeves claimed £1629 in 2017-18 for driving, and £2982.70 for rail travel. I suspect the presenter didn't ask her because the answer wouldn't be that interesting to the audience.
 

Jorge Da Silva

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Usage up in Q3 with passenger numbers at 1.74 billion in the year up to December 2018.

https://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/40652/passenger-rail-usage-2018-19-q3.pdf

Doing some calculations adding the 3 quarters so far makes 1.314 billion so far in 2018-19.

4.5% increase in the London and South East sector.

Rail passenger journeys in Great Britain in 2018-19 Q3 increased by 2.9% compared to 2017-18 Q3, reaching a record high of 451 million. The number of journeys for the 12 months to the end of December 2018 was 1.74 billion.
 
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BluePenguin

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They're rather useful for people like me when working a night shift, I'd hate to have to buy two singles, in fact I'd almost certainly end up driving. There's also times I've been visiting people away and haven't had the certainty to be able to buy advances tying me to certain trains, or the cheapest advances have been sold out long before I had a chance to reserve them so that splitting was cheaper. There'd be no issue with them if they were properly checked.
I am not sure when you finish but tickets are valid until 04:29 the next morning, in case you don't know
 

Jorge Da Silva

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absolutelymilk

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4% improvement in Q4 is excellent - hopefully back on the right track after last year....
 
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