Rail passenger numbers and crowding on weekdays in major cities in England and Wales: 2021 (revised)
Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics in several major cities in England and Wales during 2021.
Applies to England and Wales
Documents
Details
A revision of the methodology for estimating passenger numbers at Vauxhall (for Waterloo), to align it with the pre-COVID-19 estimation method has been made. This has led to an increase in the estimated overall total passengers arriving and departing this station and the city of London, affecting tables RAI0201, RAI0202 and RAI0203.
COVID-19 impact: - Passenger numbers, train capacity, and crowding were affected by COVID-19 during autumn 2021 and the comparison year of 2020. Passenger numbers fell to historically low levels in 2020. The number of planned services was revised, and some operators ran longer trains to allow passengers to maintain social distancing. Comparisons show a big increase against the same period in 2020 but remain at a lower level than pre-pandemic.
Passengers in Excess of Capacity (PiXC) - In previous years this publication has presented estimates of overcrowding on trains during peak times using the PiXC metric. PiXC statistics show the overall percentage of passengers that exceed each train’s capacity. Owing to the fact that for approximately 97.5% services observed in autumn 2021, seating capacity exceeded passenger numbers, there will be no reporting of overcrowding and passenger standing measures within this statistical release.
Main points
In autumn 2021, passenger numbers into major cities recovered compared to the same period in 2020. On average, there was a 144% increase in all-day arrivals into cities. This was still 40% lower than arrivals in autumn 2019 (pre-COVID 2019).
London still had the highest rail passenger numbers arriving into a city across the day (on average 658,143 passengers per day); around 8 times that of Birmingham (second highest at 73,874), followed by Reading (66,273) and Manchester (59,645).
On average in selected major cities during this period, there was an 158% increase of passenger arrivals during the AM peak (07:00 to 09:59) compared to autumn 2020. The AM peak was 52% lower than autumn 2019.
Passengers travelled at slightly different times of the day. Across major cities 36% of daily arrivals were in the morning peak (7am-10am) compared to 45% of arrivals in 2019. In London 44% of daily arrivals were in the morning peak (11 percentage points lower than 2019, where 55% of daily arrivals occurred during this time). These patterns reflected a flattening of peak-time demand due to a decrease in commuting trips since the pandemic.
In autumn 2021, seating capacity for arrivals into major cities was 9% lower and 1% lower than the same period in 2020 and 2019 respectively.
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