Great Western Coffee Shop

I have signed the Coffee Shop up for recently available data under an Open Government License; lots of stuff there including passenger flow data.  I have downloaded 200Mb of journey flow data - the 2018-2019 year which was the last year not affected by Covid and the 2021-2022 year which is a year in which recovery had started.  That still data that's nearly 2 years old now, so needs to be treated with caution, but still fascinating.

With a million lines in each file, this is BIG data and I'm at an early experiment stage - it's taking significant compute resource to produce each of these displays, so I'm not able to share a public URL at present. But please ask for any specific extra station.

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Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
License at http://www.passenger.chat/OGM_license.pdf

Thanks for this. A small matter leapt out - Warminster previously had far more of a flow to Waterloo than it did in 21-22 and something killed it.

Mark

At Westbury - Waterloo down from 2106 to 304
At Trowbridge - Waterloo down from 2348 to 322
At B-o-A - Waterloo down from 2082 to 248
At Bath Spa - Wateroo down from 8852 to 884
At Keynsham - Waterloo down from 274 to 14
At Bristol Temple Meads - Waterloo down from 5110 to 546

None of the falls in passengers to W'loo appear to be accompanied by a rise in the number of passengers to Paddington. These have also fallen - so there does does not seem to have been much/any transfer of passengers from the (removed) W'loo services to the Paddington route. A loss of passengers, and revenue, to the TOCs..................more cars on the roads too ??
Many people still think there are no trains at all from Warminster to Waterloo after the Temple Meads services were cancelled. One has to say the TOCs just don't seem to care any more !

I think you'll find hybrid/home working has a lot to do with it.

I'm confident that that would be only a very small part of the drop in those figures. Recalling the mix of people on the trains, that service was nothing to do with daily communting for work purposes and everything to do with people travelling for all the various other reasons that people use the train.

It may be that the cessation of the through trains to Waterloo has resulted in a bit of modal shift to car / former travellers by rail being given a lift in a car - and also people simply no longer travelling by train to London. It's certainly notable if there's not been a comparable upturn in travel from some of those stations to London via Paddington.

Mark

Interesting to see the position of Didcot in these tables.  Presumably a large number of split tickets.

The data is a goldmine of information and a fertile seedbed for raising possibilities on which I have only just started scratching the surface.    The overall ORR figures per station feel high for Didcot compared to what you may see there, and indeed the specialist report comments on split tickets.   As the data we now have on individual flows adds up to those ORR figures, the journeys much come from somewhere and big flows from Swindon and West thereof may indicate splitting - however, there also local flows into Didcot (up to Harwell).

Yes, too far and slow for a sensible commute.  Westbury, the closest of those listed, was two hours away from Waterloo by direct train.  Not many people tackled a daily 4+ hour commute.

Journeys over such distances might have actually become more desirable for a hybrid working pattern if anything - cheaper property prices and going to a London office two days a week with an overnight stop.

It's really stunning that SWR chose to cut sensible services that performed outside peak hours, rather than, say, reducing Guildford via Cobham to a Parliamentary service, as its ridership fell and still only existed for two hours a day.

We have lots of background as to what happened - sadly much of it gathered far too late in the day to make any difference.  Government secrecy that's revealed by a freedom of information after the horse has bolted is a wonderful thing.

As I read it, the Bristol to Waterloo was basically a political decision to demonstrate the removal of services run by two operators on a line to save money.  To stress the importance of commuter and school traffic (and there was little of either going across Salisbury) those services were protected for their short term riders, and services that thrived on "leisure" journeys such as people travelling to and from college and visiting relatives were canned.

It will be interesting to see the figures when they come in next year for the various flows now that GWR are running extra trains from Bristol all the way to Salibsury.   I've not had aan answer as to why these new extra service can't be run though Salisbury as the Salisbury to Waterloo service.  It looks like the canning of the through services was a pretty pointless exercise in terms of train efficiency and saving train mileage.

Thanks for this. I hadn't thought of it like that but it chimes with a comment from someone in Warminster who had moved to the town on the basis that the rail service supported travel to London and then found the through service ceased within a few weeks of their arrival.

Mark

I have downloaded the intermediate years and imported all the data into a database - 5 million records now available for analysis - http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html - starts you at Melksham but you can follow links to there stations ... things like

http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html?stn=3899 for Cardiff Central
http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html?stn=3410 for Exeter St Davids
http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html?stn=5932 for Southampton Central
http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html?stn=5837 for Templecombe
http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html?stn=5042 for Winchelsea
http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html?stn=8680 for Wick
http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html?stn=9707 for Chatelherault   

If I understand it right this is a goldmine of information, yes?

Mark

I believe so 5 million records of it ... and there are plenty more display options to add.

This may not be based on ticket sales. Just looked at Pershore data. Worcester forgate street and Shrub hill are shown as seperate flows.

Tickets used to be to Worcester stations and are now to Worcester Shrub Hill/Forgate street.

None of these stations have barriers so not based on entrance/exit ether.

It always amazed me the distance/time people did commute; Yarmouth (IoW) to Waterloo on the first ferry in the morning always springs to mind. Not sure whether they were hardy souls (bit nippy in winter) or earning a substantial salary.

Yep, mine was 3.5+ hours daily for a number of years - train + 2 tubes each way, 5 (occasionally 6) days a week - hybrid working + the Elizabeth Line have been transformational for me and so many others.

I have a lot of friends/colleagues who topped 4 hours daily, and not necessarily in return for a substantial salary, more about affordability of housing and very slow trains!

Long commutes are/were also tolerated in return for living in a nicer, more rural area, better schools, cleaner air etc

Yes, good point about the tubes - and of course getting to and from the origin station - so it would be more like a five or six hour commute into a London office via Waterloo from Westbury, Trowbridge, and B-o-A.

Mark A knows a lot more about the specifics of those through services than either of us, perhaps he can jog our memories as to how often and at what times they operated?  I seem to remember there being more of them on a Saturday, which might tell us all we need to know.