Thin end of the wedge - plan to be thicker in 2014
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-12-26 11:21:19 - Graham Ellis
In the lead up to Christmas, we had the first two weeks of a 'marketable' TransWilts train service running from Swindon and Chippenham via Melksham to Trowbridge and Westbury. All our past theoretic work has suggested that the service will work operationally, has good flows of potential passengers, and will be taken to heart by the business and residential communities served to make it a success. But telling people about the service doesn't happen automatically, they need information presented in such a way that they'll see how it works for them, and for many it's going to be an experiment or two followed by changes in due course as they move from one work role or shift pattern to another, replace (or don't replace) a car, or move house. So - the first two weeks was very much the thin end of the wedge, and there's much more work to do in the New Year, in the spring and summer for leisure traffic and indeed throughout 2014.
I was agreeably surprised at how busy some of the trains were within the first week or two. On Sunday, 8th December and Monday 9th, a "blip" or excitement was only to be expected. The Sunday train I used on 15th, the Tuesday trains on 17th, and the Saturday trains on 21st were less predictable and I wouldn't have been surprised to see a marked dip - however, they were pretty busy services and the one exception - the 15:22 off Swindon last Saturday - is an 'oddball' anyway; an extra train just 45 minutes after the previous one, and three carriages long rather than one - so it 'looked' to be empty. But a count south of Chippenham revealed 17 passengers, and against a target average of 20 that's already 85% of the way there.
Right from the start, we had concluded that Christmas and New Year week figures would be inappropriate to use in trend analysis. But flooding of the line, and last minute cancellation of every service on 24th (I was at the station for one train and had to help explain to the disappointed 4 people who were looking to travel that their train was cancelled, even when the board showed it as "On time"), followed by no service on 25th (fair enough / little demand) or on 26th (the day when the public transport industry shuts down but sales and football have a peak day - providing a wonderful set of potential data for those who ask "do we need public transport at all?") have lead to very few travellers indeed so far this week. And tomorrow - an orphan Friday - is anyone's guess! The sensible thing to do is to spend these days recharging batteries, thinking ahead, and preparing for 2014.
In the lead up to Christmas, we had the first two weeks of a 'marketable' TransWilts train service running from Swindon and Chippenham via Melksham to Trowbridge and Westbury. All our past theoretic work has suggested that the service will work operationally, has good flows of potential passengers, and will be taken to heart by the business and residential communities served to make it a success. But telling people about the service doesn't happen automatically, they need information presented in such a way that they'll see how it works for them, and for many it's going to be an experiment or two followed by changes in due course as they move from one work role or shift pattern to another, replace (or don't replace) a car, or move house. So - the first two weeks was very much the thin end of the wedge, and there's much more work to do in the New Year, in the spring and summer for leisure traffic and indeed throughout 2014.