The Office of Rail and Road released the estimate of station usage figures for 2018-19 in January 2020 enabling a review of passenger numbers at the recent additions to the rail network.
The document confirmed that there were 2,566 railway stations on the railway network as of 31 March 2019.
A number of recently opened railway stations were impacted by poor punctuality and reliability, meaning that they experienced a reduced trajectory in growth compared to other stations opened at the same time.
2018/19 openings
Three railway stations formally joined the national rail network in 2018/19.
Kenilworth reached the top 1,500 railway stations with 170,912 entries and exits
Maghull North surged to 339,066 entries and exits
Corfe Castle entries and exits were not recorded because travel from/to the station is not recorded in rail industry systems.
2017/18 openings
This document offers the first full financial year performance for the railway stations opened in 2017/18.
Cambridge North – 66% increase in usage to 812,972
Ilkeston – 3.3% increase to 130,398
Last year it was reported that more than quarter of a million passengers had passed through Ilkeston. In a revision to the 2017-18 data released at the end of March 2020, the station usage for Ilkeston was halved.
As a result of feedback from one of our users, we identified an issue with some of our 2017-18 station usage entries and exits estimates. The error is believed to have been caused by a manual update applied at an early stage in the production process and primarily affects the estimate of entries and exits at Ilkeston in 2017-18. The production process for producing the 2017-18 estimates has been re-run resulting in changes to estimates at around a third of all stations. The biggest change is for Ilkeston, for which the revised entries and exits estimate is around 50% less than previously published. Changes to estimates for all other stations are less than 2%. These revised estimates, together with previous revisions made to 2017-18 estimates on 14 January 2020, have been included in all associated data tables including 2017-18 data, but have not been included in the 2017-18 factsheet or elsewhere. Estimates for station usage in 2018-19 are not affected by these revisions.
Office of Rail and Road Revisions Log
Low Moor – 5.7% increase to 140,690
2016/17 openings
Despite a 6.5% increase to 414,504, Lea Bridge missed the top 1,000 railway stations by one place having missed it by 24 places last year.
Edinburgh Gateway increased usage by 13.8% to 323,698.
Kirkstall Forge gained from further development nearby and a major service improvement with a 54.7% increase to 232,386.
2015/16 openings
Bermuda Park gained 27.2% more entries and exits with a surge to 36,088. Nearby Coventry Arena opened on the same day achieved 111,462 having barely missed out on 100k in the year previously.
Cranbook locked in its position above 100k with 107,350 entries and exits.
Apperley Bridge achieved similar figures to the year previous with 375,794.
Oxford Parkway moved into seven figure territory with 1,082,834 following 15% growth on the previous year.
The Borders Railway stations experienced various rates of change to their usage. Only Newtongrange experienced a fall, whilst Shawfair experienced a further surge in entries and exits.
| 2018/19 | 2017/18 | 2016/17 | |
| Eskbank | 367,042 | 338,932 | 274,770 |
| Galashiels | 360,416 | 356,262 | 346,264 |
| Gorebridge | 123,930 | 115,102 | 98,218 |
| Newtongrange | 154,202 | 157,014 | 141,644 |
| Shawfair | 41,138 | 31,588 | 22,236 |
| Stow | 71,222 | 69,834 | 67,474 |
| Tweedbank | 443,766 | 436,978 | 436,232 |
Ebbw Vale Town increased by 4.7% to reach 256,042.
Pye Corner moved into six figure territory with a 30% increase on last year to reach 125,692