Station Usage Figures - 09/10

[whole diary]

[The Tall Controller]

Great to see the Newquay and Falmouth lines on the up due to increase in services.

Plus anyone notice that Euston has now overtaken Paddington?

[old original]

In defence of Coombe, wasn't it in this period that it was closed for some time because the platform had partially collapsed?

[Andy]

It is heartening to see that the investment - by local groups as well as FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and Network Rail - in the West Country branch lines is yielding results in spite of the tough economic climate. I can't help but think that were the TransWilts, Portishead and Tavistock projects realised, we'd have similar success stories.



 

[Surrey 455]

Seems odd that most stations between Paddington & Slough recorded quite a big decrease. Where have all the passengers gone? Did the daily ticket inspections at these stations for several months frighten fare dodgers away?

Ah, having re-read some of the earlier posts I think this can possibly be explained.

The figures are ticket sales

Oyster^▸ (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) pay as you was introduced during the 09/10 period wasn't it? FGW^▸ (First Great Western) don't sell tickets on oyster so the reduced ticket sales at these FGW stations are probably the result of passengers topping up their ticket at their local corner shop.

Incidentally having moved away, my nearest FGW station is now Dorking Deepdene which isn't in the list above. Neither is Paddington unless I missed it.

[IndustryInsider]

Incidentally having moved away, my nearest FGW^▸ (First Great Western) station is now Dorking Deepdene which isn't in the list above. Neither is Paddington unless I missed it.

Not sure why I've missed Dorking Deepdene, but Paddington is missing due to it being a Network Rail run station, only FGW managed stations are in my list.  That was purely because it was easy to cut and paste the FGW stations but time consuming to do others.  If you need to refer to those other stations, then they are all contained in the official file linked to at the start of the thread.

[inspector_blakey]

Thanks for taking the time to make that mass of data a bit more digestible, II!

[tramway]

Wasn^t sure whether to make comments in the Filton RPO thread or start a new one, hopefully this is as good a home as any.

I note that the Filton figures have increased again by approx 11% in the latest stats, from 536,958 to 598,032, with no prospect of this level of increase diminishing in coming years either. And as most members are aware even these figures do not tell the full story due to the rampant fare dodging which occurs.

I suspect that the recent ticket check exercise will have revealed exactly how inaccurate the figures actually are, as (I understand) the level of uncollected revenue runs into the ^100,000^s. It^s difficult to estimate from that sort of figure the missing footfalls but it must be a fair percentage.

I would also be fairly confident in saying that passenger numbers are probably far beyond the original design capacity, certainly on platform 1 in the eve peak, so as a simple exercise I thought I would see what facilities were on offer at stations with similar usage figures to Filton, and chose 2 at random. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingatestone_railway_station

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margate_railway_station

I^m fully aware that comparisons are a touchy area, but it was interesting to note that surveyors were busy at Filton this morning. It is probably a bit soon after the ticket checks a few weeks ago to think that action has already been taken to look into station improvements.

I^ll not go into here what I think of the facilities at Trowbridge, and the sort of station a County town should have. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Leonards_Warrior_Square_railway_station 

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

yeoford is up 32% but is now a request stop so next year will be interesting

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

I am sure there are many varied reasons for the differences in station use from year to year that the compilers were unaware of.
However as my main interest was in the Cotswold Line stations use, I was pleasantly surprised how little the figures had declined in the report. In this year the Cotswold Line was closed for 3 weeks in the summer on the line between Moreton and Oxford and for 6 weeks between Moreton and Worcester whilst the preparation works were in progress for the redoubling project currently in full blown progress.
If you allow for this extended closure when ticket sales were much lower as you could very often use the replacement bus service without paying (and I know many did not because the bus drivers were not interested) then I think Cotswold Line use would have shown real greater use compared to many other lines.

[John R]

These were published today.

http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/station-usage-estimates

[DavidBrown]

These were published today.

http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/station-usage-estimates

Many thanks, John. Can't see the full figures as I don't have Excel, but the PDF report shows some fascinating figures. Most eye-catching, for me, is Digby & Sowton, which has seen a 98% increase in traffic. Nothing compared to Dorking West's 348,838% increase (no prizes for guessing how that figure came about!), but when you look at the increase as a physical number rather than a percentage, Digby has increased passenger numbers by 368,000 up to 742,000. That is just astonishing. The report puts it down to new housing in the area - I would say that the Exeter Chief's continuing success is a more significant factor.

[grahame]

New figures now added in to our station comparator ... http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/smr/

[grahame]

Year on year historic data for download - extra column added at http://www.wellho.net/data/railstats.xyz

[grahame]

Graphs for postcode areas at http://www.wellho.net/demo/railuse.php?place=SL

... E & O E with this lot - please let me know of any problems !

[John R]

At a cursory glance, the growth is much more patchy than in previous years. I'm seeing quite a few stations and areas where the figures look broadly unchanged or have even fallen.