Rail passenger numbers and crowding on weekdays in major cities in England and Wales: 2014
Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics in several major cities in England and Wales during 2014.
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This release presents information about rail passenger numbers on trains throughout the day in several major cities, as well as the levels of peak crowding in 2014.
These statistics are based on passenger counts carried out by franchised train operators of the numbers of passengers using their services in the autumn period and represent passenger numbers on a ‘typical weekday’. They cover national rail services only.
The overall level of crowding across the 11 cities included in the statistics has increased, and it is clear that much of the growth has been on routes that are already very busy.
On a typical autumn weekday in 2014:
- overall peak crowding was higher in London than in other cities, with 4.1% of passengers in excess of capacity (PiXC) in London compared to 1.4% PiXC across the other 10 cities. The city with the most crowding outside of London was Manchester with 3.3% PiXC
- 139,000 passengers were standing at trains’ busiest points on arrival into London in the morning peak, 22% of all passengers. 26% of morning peak trains were over capacity and in total 59% had passengers standing
- in the morning peak, 563,000 passengers arrived by rail into central London (Zone 1 of the travelcard area), a 3% increase from the year before. Just over 1 million passengers arrived into central London by rail across the whole day
- the city outside London with the highest number of passengers was Birmingham, with 39,000 passengers on board trains arriving into the city centre in the morning peak. Manchester had 31,000 morning peak arrivals and Leeds 26,000
Background information on the rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics and how they are collected can be found in the notes and definitions
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