Waterloo tops station usage table
LONDON Waterloo has regained its status as the most used railway station in England, Wales and Scotland according to the latest Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) estimates of station usage statistics for the year April 2021 to March 2022. The statistics include the annual total of passenger entries and exits at each of the 2570 stations served by mainline rail services in Britain as at March 31. Estimates of station usage are derived from LENNON (Latest Earnings Networked Nationally OverNight), the rail industry’s ticketing and revenue system, together with some local ticketing data. The ORR – the primary producer of official statistics for rail – said a number of adjustments are made to the source data to make the estimates as accurate as possible, and that these data sources and the methodology used provide the best approach possible given that Great Britain does not have a fully gated rail network or robust count data for every station. After a 16-year reign, Waterloo – a mainly commuter station that was affected by the Covid pandemic – was knocked off the top by Stratford (London) last year (April 2020 to March 2021), but finds itself back in pole position following 41.4 million passenger entries and exits in the latest year (April 2021 and March 2022). However, the total number of passenger entries and exits at Waterloo is still less than half of the number (86.9 million) from before the pandemic (April 2019 to March 2020). London Victoria retained its position as the second most used station with 36.8 million entries and exits, while London Bridge stayed in third spot with 33.3 million. Stratford (London) dropped down to fifth this time with 28.2 million, although that is more than double last year’s estimate. There are eight stations that serve the capital in the top 10 and are joined by Birmingham New Street, which remained in eighth place (22.7 million), and Manchester Piccadilly, which moved up from last year’s 18th to this year’s 10th (19.6 million). Highbury and Islington, Clapham Junction, Barking, and East Croydon, located outside London Fare Zone 1, dropped out of the top 10. In the latest year, there were 24 stations in Great Britain with more than 10 million entries and exits. This is compared to just five stations the previous year and 43 stations two years ago.
Around the country
In Scotland, Glasgow Central remained the most used station with 15.3 million entries and exits, up from 5.3 million last year, but down from 32.5 million two years ago. Edinburgh was the second most used station with 13.6 million entries and exits and Glasgow Queen Street was the third most used station (8.5 million). Across Wales, Cardiff Central remained the busiest station in the latest year with 7.5 million entries and exits, up from two million last year, but down from 12.7 million two years ago. Newport was second (1.8 million) and Swansea moved up from fourth to third, with 1.5 million. Elton and Orston in Nottinghamshire was the least used open station in the latest year, with 40 recorded entries and exits. It had the second lowest usage two years ago (April 2019 to March 2020) when it had 68 entries and exits. The fifth least used station, Kirton Lindsey, North Lincolnshire had its weekly service suspended between April 1 to May 22, 2021 and again from January 1, 2022 to March 31, 2022. The only new station to open in the latest year was Soham. The East Cambridgeshire station recorded 14,196 entries and exits over the three-and-a-half months it was open from on December 13, 2021. The ORR said entries and exits for some stations will be overestimated due to the impact of passengers buying ‘split tickets’, where a passenger completes a single journey using two or more tickets. This is due to some passengers not boarding or alighting at the split point and instead staying on the train. The most common ticket split points, and therefore likely to be over estimating station entries and exits the most are, in alphabetical order: Basingstoke, Croydon BR (East Croydon and West Croydon), Didcot Parkway, Doncaster, Gatwick Airport, Leeds, Milton Keynes Central, Peterborough, Sheffield and York. The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) estimates that overall split tickets accounted for around 6% of passenger journeys between April 2021 and March 2022.