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UK rail passenger figures 2015/16

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absolutelymilk

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The BBC has reported that passengers increased by 3.7% to 1.7 billion. They said this came from the Rail Delivery Group, who apparently got it direct from the "industry's central ticketing system".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36234984

Rail passengers in Britain made about 1.7 billion train journeys during the past year, according to the Rail Delivery Group.

The figures are a 3.7% rise on the previous 12 months, with journeys in London and south-east England increasing by 4.2% to 1.2 billion.

As a result, passenger revenue grew by more than 5% to £9.3bn in 2015-16

The RDG's Paul Plummer said it was "vital that we invest and plan long-term for this ever-growing demand".

The RDG, which represents firms in the rail industry, calculated the figures using data from the industry's central ticketing system for the period between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.

During that time, long distance routes grew by 3.3% to 139 million, with regional journeys up 2.3% to 379 million....
However I can't find anywhere on the RDG site that they have released this information and obviously it is not the official ORR figure. Is the ORR figure likely to be different?
 
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dquebec

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If it's from the central ticketing system then a couple of things strike me:

1) The number of tickets sold does not necessarily equate to number of passenger journeys.

2) Non recordable ticketed journeys, particularly in the PTE areas, will not be accounted for.
 

Flamingo

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If it's from the central ticketing system then a couple of things strike me:

1) The number of tickets sold does not necessarily equate to number of passenger journeys.

2) Non recordable ticketed journeys, particularly in the PTE areas, will not be accounted for.
True. Split tickets, for example, will count as numerous single journey's, but are really just one. Season tickets will just be guess-work!

My oft-quoted example of passenger numbers to and from Grangetown station (look it up on Wikipedia) shows how a bare count of tickets sold is not a reflection of numbers travelled.
 

30907

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If it's from the central ticketing system then a couple of things strike me:

1) The number of tickets sold does not necessarily equate to number of passenger journeys.

2) Non recordable ticketed journeys, particularly in the PTE areas, will not be accounted for.

True if we are looking for an absolute number, but a good enough guide to the increase - assuming there has been no massive shift in passenger behaviour.
 

Andrew1395

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Season tickets are not guess work as the industry systems allocate a set number of journeys for each season ticket. Part of the process of trickling the money to TOC accounts
 

WatcherZero

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Orr data due to be published in a couple of weeks I think, looks like RDG has jumped the gun and sent a press release. RMT has also picked up on it doing the usual things would be better if nationalised press release.
 
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Deerfold

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Season tickets are not guess work as the industry systems allocate a set number of journeys for each season ticket. Part of the process of trickling the money to TOC accounts

In what way is that not a guess or estimate? It's certainly not a count.
 

Andrew1395

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It is consistent. ORCATS is a model, and Season Ticket journey calculations follow a model. I personally see a difference between a consistent assumption and a guess. None of the official figures are actual passenger counts. Why would a ticket with a break of journey only be one journey when it is really two journeys A-C & C-B but it will be recorded as one journey.
 
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swt_passenger

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Spilt tickets and BOJ will be irrelevant noise compared to overall numbers. They may even partially cancel each other out...
 

greaterwest

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Season tickets are not guess work as the industry systems allocate a set number of journeys for each season ticket. Part of the process of trickling the money to TOC accounts

Automatic ticket barriers will be able to feed back their usage data, which may go towards the statistics.
 

Taunton

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It is consistent. ORCATS is a model, and Season Ticket journey calculations follow a model. I personally see a difference between a consistent assumption and a guess. ney.
The models regularly show as nonsense. Good examples are the comparisons of station passenger numbers from one year to the next. The Merseyrail numbers last time round on the West Kirby line had a huge decrease in numbers at the terminus, West Kirby, and large increases at the following intermediate stations. As personal experience showed things were little changed in practice, it can only be because the allocation model has been substantially changed. Which was wrong, the old or the new? Who knows.

And Orcats is a model to fiddle in an Orcats Raid.
 

WatcherZero

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Wasn't any change in Merseyrail statistics last year, if your talking year before then read the accompanying notes. They changed from the 2008/9 infill model to one based on Merseytravels own manual counts and sales data (leading to 10.8m more passengers than under the old model for the same year as Merseytravel sold tickets from stations outside the Merseyrail network like Chester). It also wasn't a decrease at terminus and increase on the line it was other way round, a 314% increase at West Kirby and similar at other terminus to reflect manual counts showing people were interchanging with other rail services and bus services rather than starting and ending their journey solely on the Merseyrail network.
 
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absolutelymilk

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The models regularly show as nonsense. Good examples are the comparisons of station passenger numbers from one year to the next. The Merseyrail numbers last time round on the West Kirby line had a huge decrease in numbers at the terminus, West Kirby, and large increases at the following intermediate stations. As personal experience showed things were little changed in practice, it can only be because the allocation model has been substantially changed. Which was wrong, the old or the new? Who knows.

And Orcats is a model to fiddle in an Orcats Raid.

Just because the allocation between stations can change by large amounts doesn't mean that the overall number is inaccurate.
 

MedwayValiant

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The figures will presumably overcount by including tickets bought and paid for but not actually used, but also undercount by excluding naughty people who failed to pay for their journeys.

The first group won't be especially large and can probably be ignored - much as I did only use one half of a day return which I bought on Saturday - but the second can't be. Do the published figures incorporate an estimate for journeys that were never paid for? Does the industry have any real idea as to what proportion of total journeys are made by fare avoiders?
 

absolutelymilk

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Passenger Rail Usage 2015-16 Q4 Statistical Release

Passenger journeys in Great Britain reached 1.69 billion in 2015-16, the highest recorded figure since the series began and an increase of 129.8% from the 735.1 million recorded at privatisation in 1994-95. Franchised passenger journeys saw an increase of 2.0% on the 1.65 billion recorded in 2014-15.

So only an increase of 2.0%. What caused the discrepancy I wonder?
 

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LeeLivery

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GA services moving to London Overground?

I see that GA had largest fall in train km due to that. Southeastern had second largest drop. At first I thought due to some moving to Thameslink, but that was year before. Reduction in paths due to London Bridge work likely the cause.

But London Overground is classed as a franchised National Rail operator. West Anglia routes has seen constant increases in usage for years.
 

telstarbox

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Does this explain it?

ORR said:
From 2015-16 Q3 we have replaced timetabled train kilometres (TTKM) with passenger train kilometres. We believe this is a better measure as it reflects the volume of traffic actually travelling on the network rather than that which is timetabled but does not necessarily run.
 

absolutelymilk

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Does this explain it?

No, passenger journeys is a completely different measure. The different measures they use are:

Passenger journeys - the number of journeys that passengers take, so if I go from King's Cross to Newcastle that is one journey

Passenger-km - the number of km that passengers travel. So if I make a trip that is 10 km long, that counts as 10 passenger km

Passenger train km - the number of km that trains travel. Each train movement for 1 km counts as 1 passenger train km. This changed as you said from timetabled train km. The timetabled train km did not correspond to the actual passenger train km as sometimes trains are cancelled, which would should up in the passenger train km but not the timetabled train km.
 

Deerfold

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No, passenger journeys is a completely different measure. The different measures they use are:

Passenger journeys - the number of journeys that passengers take, so if I go from King's Cross to Newcastle that is one journey

Passenger-km - the number of km that passengers travel. So if I make a trip that is 10 km long, that counts as 10 passenger km

Passenger train km - the number of km that trains travel. Each train movement for 1 km counts as 1 passenger train km. This changed as you said from timetabled train km. The timetabled train km did not correspond to the actual passenger train km as sometimes trains are cancelled, which would should up in the passenger train km but not the timetabled train km.

I think Telstarbox was explaining Southeastern's drop in measured km.
 

absolutelymilk

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ORR 2016-17 Q1 Passenger rail usage

Passenger journeys in Great Britain reached 418.5 million in 2016-
17 Q1, an increase of 1.6% from the 412.0 million recorded in 2015-
16 Q1.

With these figures and the 2015-16 figures, passenger journeys seem to be growing at a rate of around 2%, rather than around 4% previously. Have we reached a point where large-scale growth is over and won't continue without capacity increases, such as Crossrail/Thameslink/electrification?
 

WatcherZero

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ORR 2016-17 Q1 Passenger rail usage

With these figures and the 2015-16 figures, passenger journeys seem to be growing at a rate of around 2%, rather than around 4% previously. Have we reached a point where large-scale growth is over and won't continue without capacity increases, such as Crossrail/Thameslink/electrification?


Its mainly a slowdown in London growth which had been growing faster than the others until recently and also where passenger numbers were growing faster than revenue due to cheaper tickets.

The complete statistics are:
London and South East +1.1%
Regional +2.5%
Long Distance +2.9%
OAO -1.3%

Abellio Greater Anglia, London Overground and South West Trains reported a fall in usage together they make up 25% of rail journeys.

GTR +4.3%
SWT -1.3%
Southeastern +2.9%
LOROL -3.4%
GWT +1.7%
Northern +9.4%
Scotrail -0.3%
London Midland +8.8%
Greater Anglia -33.9%
C2C +8.7%
Merseyrail +3.8%
TFL Rail N/A
XC +5.9%
VTWC +4.7%
ATW +2.8%
EMT +4.1%
TPE -10.2%
Chiltern Rail +6.4%
VTEC +4.3%
Caledonian -0.4%
GC -4.1%
Hull +3.0%

*12.7% of TPE services moved to Northern suggesting they had like for like growth of around 1.5% while a 5.8% addition to Northern suggests like for like growth of around 3.8%. Chiltern had a new route open, Lorol somehow managed to have a 3.4% decline in passengers at the same time as a 20.4% increase in service km operated.

Passenger KM
London and South East +2.1% (this is bucking Londons recent trend and possibly suggests decline in commuters being offset by rise in leisure journeys)
Regional +2.7%
Long Distance +2.1%

Passenger Revenue
London and South East +2.2%
Regional +4%
Long Distance +5.4%

If that revenue trend continues next year then Regional and Long distance will overtake London and South East which currently has 50.1% of revenue, (70% of passenger journeys and 47% of passenger km travelled).

Anytime fare revenue +6.9%
Advance fare revenue +5.6%
Season ticket revenue -0.6% (first time two consecutive quarters of falls in six years)
 
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yorksrob

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ORR 2016-17 Q1 Passenger rail usage



With these figures and the 2015-16 figures, passenger journeys seem to be growing at a rate of around 2%, rather than around 4% previously. Have we reached a point where large-scale growth is over and won't continue without capacity increases, such as Crossrail/Thameslink/electrification?

I suppose there is a limit as to what you can squeeze in where. Anecdotally, a lot of services I've been using on and off over the past few years seem more crowded than they used to be.

When the new trains start being introduced in Northern land, and hopefully old trains will be doubled up/extended more often, maybe that will release some more capacity. From the above post, it appears that Northern could probably do with it!

Still, that said, I don't think 2% is bad at all, in a mature economy with economic performance that has been mixed since 2008.
 
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plcd1

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Assuming the numbers reflect the impact of engineering works then the LOROL numbers could be affected by the blockade on the Barking - Gospel Oak works. This may also affect some travel on the NLL as people may have temporarily switched to the Underground with only a limited connection at Gospel Oak. I'd expect numbers to drop again with the full blockade being reflected from Q3 onwards.

TfL Rail's numbers will also be pulled down a bit as will AGA because of the long periods of weekend engineering works on the Liverpool St - Shenfield section.
 

ScotGG

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The small drop in London could be due to people shifting to cycling which is growing quickly at the moment.

And things like the DLR. About 10% annual growth there as Southeastern woes cause shifts in behaviour. Anecdotally MANY people have switched that I know.
 
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