Rail passenger numbers and crowding on weekdays in major cities in England and Wales: 2022 (revised)
Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics in several major cities in England and Wales during 2022.
Applies to England and Wales
Documents
Details
Following the discovery of errors in the raw input data affecting the calling time at some count stations, the allocation of standing allowances to some train operators, and the number of Avanti services, some minor revisions were made to the 2022 figures in the latest Rail passenger numbers and crowding statistics.
The revisions made to the calling time at count stations will not affect the total passenger number estimates but will redistribute the load between different times of the day. This will cause a slight revision in a.m. and p.m. peak arrivals and departures for some cities and stations in Tables RAI0201, RAI0202 and RAI0203.
Some revisions made to the standing allowances allocated to some train operating companies (TOCs), affecting the Passengers in Excess Capacity statistics. These revisions will see the proportion of services and passengers in excess of capacity slightly fall for some cities and stations, and some TOCs. These revisions will affect Tables RAI0209 through to RAI0215.
A revision of the methodology for estimating passenger numbers at Waterloo, to align it with the pre-COVID-19 estimation method, and a revision to the number of Avanti services will slightly increase the overall total passengers estimated, affecting Table RAI0201.
These revisions are minor at a national level, not changing the overall trend. However some larger differences might be seen at a regional level and in the departures and arrivals figures for Waterloo Station.
Headline figures
In autumn 2022, there were on average 1,576,764 daily passenger arrivals into major cities. This represents an increase of 43% compared to autumn 2021, but 15% below the same period in autumn 2019. Of these daily arrivals in autumn 2022, 38% were in the morning peak (07:00 to 09:59).
London had the highest rail passenger numbers arriving into a city across the day (on average 997,346 passengers per day), around 9 times that of Birmingham (second highest at 108,165).
Total seating capacity per day covering all day arrivals and all-day departures totalled 8,401,228 in autumn 2022. Based on all-day arrivals, in autumn 2022 train operators ran services with a daily seating capacity of 4,210,154, approximately 1% higher than that of 2021 (4,166,441 total seats), and 8% lower than 2019 (4,556,779 total seats).
Across all cities in autumn 2022, approximately 14% of passengers were standing during the AM and PM peak. This was an 9 percentage point (pp) increase compared to autumn 2021 although 2.6 pp less than autumn 2019. The increase compared to autumn 2021 was predominantly driven by the 11.6 pp increase in the proportion of passengers standing in London (which had the highest proportion of passengers standing).
Overall, for all cities outside of London, passengers in excess of capacity was 0.5% and remained largely unchanged compared to the previous year. Just over 7,500 passengers per day were in excess of capacity across both peaks in London (0.8%), an increase of 0.7 pp on the previous year.
Passengers travelled at slightly different times of the day compared to before the pandemic. Across major cities in autumn 2022, 38% of daily arrivals were in the morning peak (7am to 10am) compared to 45% of arrivals in 2019. In London, 45% of daily arrivals were in the morning peak (10 pp lower than 2019, where 55% of daily arrivals occurred during this time).
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