12 April 2012

Station Usage Figures 2010-11

The very latest data showing how busy our rail stations are has been released by the Office of Rail Regulation. The data covers the financial year ending March 2011. As ever, we summarise the data below, though full analysis of all 65 stations in the LEYTR area will appear in the next edition.

The Top 10 Busiest Stations are (position in last year's table is denoted in brackets):
  1. London Waterloo: 91,750,382 (1)
  2. London Victoria: 73,573,492 (2)
  3. London Liverpool Street: 55,769,423 (3)
  4. London Bridge: 51,478,131 (4)
  5. London Charing Cross: 37,222,298 (5)
  6. London Euston: 34,073,413 (6)
  7. London Paddington: 32,200,316 (7)
  8. London King's Cross: 26,254,644 (9)
  9. Glasgow Central: 24,950,987 (10)
  10. Birmingham New Street: 24,686,632 (8)

All stations with the exception of Birmingham New Street saw growth. London Waterloo saw the highest increase in usage - around 5 million additional entries and exits. The same 10 stations featured in the Top 10 last year, though only the last three were in a different order, primarily due to the drop in patronage at Birmingham.

The Top 10 Least-Used Stations are (* - denotes an appearance on last year's least-used rank):

  1. Tees-side Airport: 18 *
  2. Dorking West: 22
  3. Coombe: 38 *
  4. Denton: 52 *
  5. Breich: 68 *
  6. Reddish South: 68 *
  7. Barry Links: 74 *
  8. Sampford Courtenay: 76
  9. Elton & Orston: 84
  10. Sugar Loaf: 84 *

As with last year, the main reason why 7 of the ten stations remained in the bottom ten is because they serve either such tiny populations that treble figure usage is almost impossible, or as a result of the number of trains calling per week being so low, generating decent usage is very difficult. The ORR doesn't claim the data is accurate, merely the best it can produce and a useful insight. I'd agree!

The Top 10 Most-Used Interchange Stations:
  1. Clapham Junction: 20,667,636
  2. London Bridge: 7,346,732
  3. East Croydon: 7,113,300
  4. London Waterloo: 5,772,501
  5. London Victoria: 4,800,979
  6. Birmingham New Street: 4,319,983
  7. Reading: 2,898,671
  8. Glasgow Central: 2,641,171
  9. Manchester Piccadilly: 2,624,292
  10. London St. Pancras: 2,158,903

Fewer interchanges were made at London Victoria. St. Pancras features for the first time, at the expense of its next door neighbour, King's Cross. Finsbury Park has been knocked out and Manchester Piccadilly features in its place.

Finally, we end with the Top Ten Busiest Stations Outside London:
  1. Glasgow Central: 24,950,987
  2. Birmingham New Street: 24,686,632
  3. Leeds: 24,491,616
  4. Manchester Piccadilly: 21,279,140
  5. Edinburgh: 19,957,346
  6. Glasgow Queen Street: 19,742,406
  7. Liverpool Central: 17,958,028
  8. Brighton: 14,493,010
  9. Reading: 14,400,405
  10. Gatwick Airport: 13,128,956

The same ten appear here from last year - and in the same order, with the exception being Brighton and Reading being the other way round. Only Birmingham and Liverpool saw reduced usage, with all the others seeing growth - Leeds the most, around 2.5 million more entries and exists being recorded. Outside London, this is the station that has seen the highest increase in usage.

2009-10 data
2008-9 data
2007-8 data
2006-7 data
ORR's guidance on data

9 comments:

strawbrick said...

There was a news item recently which said that the TOC's did not know how many passengers were on the trains. How then does anyone know how many people "used" each station? Is it tickets bought at the station, tickets showing to & fro? Passengers walking into the station and being counted (never seen any counters, except a couple of times on the Tube)? How do they count "interchange passengers", especially in London where I use a Travel Card for e.g. Home - Euston - walk to Kings Cross - Finsbury Park? How do they seperate LO and LU passengers at e.g Harrow & Wealdstone?

LEYTR said...

Best estimates is what the ORR claim. Actual ticket sales form the body for the data and a formula is applied to grouped stations, such as all those forming Birmingham Stations or Manchester Stations.

The rest is more formulae for all the other ticket types that are accepted for travel at various stations though not issued there or indeed indicated on the ticket at all.

The main page for the Station Usage Data on the ORR's website offers a link to a file showing how the data is compiled and calculated.

G. Tingey said...

The other way, usually done at only the busier stations, is to do a physical count.
I've become involved in this in the past year, and very interesting it is too!

One word.
Liverpool Street is becomeing "less busy" because of the numbers of people transferring at Stratford, to the Central/Jubilee/DLR routes.

Also, I don't believe that Stratford is NOT in the top-10 interchange stations list - there is an obvious error, right there ....
I'd put it smoewhwere about No3 in the list.
But, of course, interchange is barrier-free there, isn't it?

whitehorsepilgrim said...

There is at least one absurdity in the 'least used' data. I've used Dorking West a couple of times in the last year and on each occasion several passengers boarded. Clearly it's used by far more than 22 people a year. However most tickets are issued to/from 'Dorking Stations' so the traffic is attributed to the other station in Dorking on the North Downs Line, Deepdene. Presumably there will be other systematic bias in the data. Let's hope that flawed data isn't used to drive closure of smaller stations.

LEYTR said...

@whitehorsepilgrim: yes, I'd agree with you there. In the LEYTR area, Gainsborough Central fell foul of this as it forms part of the 'Gainsborough Stations' group. After a couple of years with ridiculously low figures, the system appeared to right itself to more realistic numbers for a Satuday-only service. But I suspect the ORR still guesses when distributing numbers at grouped stations.

Petras409 said...

I would agree with the last commentator. Something has definitely gone squiffy with the Dorking West figure to have dropped from 1810 in the previous year to 22 this time. Not so long ago, this station was called Dorking Town (indeed its code is still DKT), underlining its closer proximity to the town centre than both Deepdene and Dorking North. And it's served by a better than hourly train service (2 per hour for many hours).

However, a look on Google Streetview for Dorking West Station shows up how hideously inconspicuous it has become. The TOC ought to do something about it, but a badly apportioned patronage figure isn't doing it any favours.

As always with statistics, there are other gremlins in the batch. One of the peculiarities that jumped out at me was the fact that we have a new entry into the Interchanges class. It would appear that Corby - a terminus - had 615 Interchanges. With what?, I'm struggling to ask.

Anonymous said...

There is one Corby-Derby train in the morning I think.
Stratford will be low on interchange because it only covers interchange between 'big' trains.

Anonymous said...

Remember that at the bottom of the scale "souvenir" ticket purchases have an impact. Perhaps for places like Sugar Loaf summit. It doesn't follow anyone actually went there.

Melvyn said...

Teeside Airport only has trains on a Saturday thesedays.These Station groups can muck up figures like you can buy tickets for
Ashford Interntional and Ashford (kent) but it is the same Station.