Most-packed trains are in Manchester
IT’S OFFICIAL... OUR CITY HEADS NATIONAL LIST OF OVERCROWDED SERVICES
SHOCKING new figures reveal that the two most overcrowded trains in England and Wales were services in and out of Manchester.
The TransPennine Express train arriving at Manchester Oxford Road from Glasgow Central at 8.24am was the most crowded train, according to data from the Department for Transport (DfT), with more than twice as many passengers as seats.
The four-carriage train had seats for 191 passengers, despite a total of 403 commuters on board when it arrived into Oxford Road Station.
The second busiest route was the train leaving Manchester Oxford Road at 4.19pm for Edinburgh with 387 commuters but only space for 191, according to the DfT’s survey of services last autumn.
More than 5,000 passengers a day were forced to stand on peak morning rail services into Manchester, with train overcrowding in the region at its highest level for three years.
Throughout 2017, one in five passengers had to stand on their morning commute between 8am to 8.59am. On trains arriving into Manchester between 7am and 9.59am, 5,428 people had to stand - 15 percent of all passengers - rising from 5,082 in 2016.
During the afternoon three-hour peak, between 4pm and 6.59pm, overcrowding on trains leaving Manchester was 2.2pc above capacity, down from 2.5pc in 2016.
The DfT said crowding on the service is ‘likely to have reduced’ since May as it is no longer able to call at Wigan because of new timetables.
Passengers in the North have suffered major disruption on a number of Northern and TransPennine Express routes since train schedules were changed.
The busiest operators arriving at Manchester stations in the morning was TransPennine Express, with 23pc of passengers forced to stand on a typical autumn weekday, followed by Northern, where 15pc of passengers were standing.
In the afternoon, 17pc of passengers leaving Manchester stations on TransPennine Express trains were standing, as were 10pc of passengers on Northern services.
A DfT spokesperson said: “Demand for rail travel has more than doubled since privatisation to 1.7 billion journeys last year.
“More and more people are travelling by train and that has meant that some passengers on the busiest routes can face overcrowding at times, but every train operator is addressing this as a priority.
“As we invest in the biggest modernisation of the railway since the Victorian era, we are providing more trains, more seats, longer platforms and new services to cut overcrowding and speed up journeys.
“By the end of 2021 there will be an extra 6,400 services a week and 7,000 new carriages using new and upgraded track across the country, replacing the outdated Pacer trains and improving services for thousands of passengers.” TransPennine Express have been approached for a comment.