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Passenger survey at Chippenham - report and pictures

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-07-24 12:34:44 - Graham Ellis

Yesterday, fifteen volunteers joined me to assist Wiltshire Council and Aktins survey passengers travelling from Chippenham station. There's quite good data available as to ticket sales and journeys from the stations, but rather less as to how people get to the station in the first place, where they start from, why they choose Chippenham, and what improvements / alternatives they would like to see. And that other information is important in informing choices and decisions on future provision. These are times of change - in bus services and connection, in electricifaction, in franchise and management specification, in accessibility, and in train services - so now's exactly the time to gather and make use of that information.

We helped by having a volunteer on every departing train from the 05:55 right through the morning peak - walking through the trains to collect completed questionnaires. Trips from Chippenham to Swindon and Didcot, to Bath Spa and Bristol, and to Trowbridge. Lee and Bob helped by collecting yet more surveys and Bath and Swindon stations, as there wasn't time for our volunteers to cover complete 8 coach trains in the 15 minutes journeys there from Chippenham.


There's a lot of planning work in the lead up to a survey such as this

 

Sion, Ian, Phil and Ian ... and the 05:55 to Paddington in the background. Honourable mention for Kevin who was already on that train!

 

The 06:28 to Southampton - the only train to Melksham until the 19:01!

 

The 07:30 to Cheltenham Spa (this is the 07:04 from Westbury)

 

The 08:15 to Bath and Bristol - the 07:00 from London Paddington

 

The 08:45 to Swindon

 

The 08:55 to Swindon, and on to London

 

Dominic, Peter, Sion, Eddy, Kevin, Laura and Anne - all back from their collecting runs. A mention too for Hayley and John who were working hard on trains when we took the pictures.

 

We were fortunate that the trains ran more or less to plan (just one cancellation of a connecting service, and delay due to lightening, to contend with). Never the less, the gathering and securing of the data, and the ensuring of everyone's safety at all times, had to be taken care of.


The full data is now with travel experts at Wiltshire Council, and it will also be available to the Community Rail Partnership team in anonymised form in due course. Informal easy discussions as the data was being collected revealed people travelling far and wide to catch trains at Chippenham - from Calne and Corsham, from Malmesbury and Melksham, and from Steeple Ashton and Devizes.

Highlights of the day? A wonderfully positive group of volunteers. An ability to show how well we can work with the council. Serious discussions with several senior people I met with on the platform. Great to see so many people using the train. A lot of information gathered, and a lot learned. And the seeds of a relationship sown that may grow into a full, formal CRP and with a funding path too that will support the community activity to encourage strong uptake of improvements.