National statistics

Rail passenger numbers and crowding on weekdays in major cities in England and Wales: 2015 (revised)

Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics in several major cities in England and Wales during 2015.

Documents

Rail passenger numbers and crowding on weekdays in major cities in England and Wales: 2015 tables (revised)

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Details

Revision of 2015 Rail passenger numbers and crowding publication

Following a change of methodology minor revisions have been made to the back-series of PiXC statistics from 2011 to 2014. The change has not affected PiXC percentages in 2015, but there have been revisions to the publication to some year-on-year percentage point changes.

Statistics on rail passenger numbers on trains throughout the day in several major cities, as well as the levels of peak crowding in 2015.

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 2015:

  • there were 581,400 passengers arriving into London during the morning peak, an increase of 3.2% since 2014.
  • crowding levels at major cities, as measured by the PiXC statistic, rose by 0.4 percentage points in the morning peak to 5.0% PiXC, and 0.2 percentage points in the afternoon peak to 2.4% PiXC
  • morning peak PiXC was greatest at London, at 5.8% PiXC, followed by Manchester with 3.7% PiXC and Birmingham with 2.4% PiXC
  • London Blackfriars (via Elephant and Castle) had the largest increase in morning peak PiXC between 2014 and 2015 of all major London stations, and in 2015 had the highest crowding level of all major London stations, at 14.7% PiXC

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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Published 28 July 2016
Last updated 9 February 2017 + show all updates
  1. Revised data.

  2. First published.