The Office of Rail and Road has published its End of Year statistics on the busiest stations in the United Kingdom.
And in a surprise – Waterloo is no longer the busiest station in the United Kingdom. So where is it?
The answer is… London Liverpool Street.
Liverpool Street of course is one of the key points of the Elizabeth Line, with it getting over 80 million entries and exits. It was quickly followed by Paddington (at the other end of the Crossrail core) with 59.2 million entries and exits
Perennial number 1 – Waterloo has been defeated and won the war elsewhere, and is in 3rd place with 57.8 million entries and exits.
The full list makes for interesting reading, as the top 10 stations are all in London this year, and notably, the Elizabeth Line has had a major influence on the rankings.
The top 10 most used stations in Great Britain
|
Rank
|
Station
|
Entries and exits
|
Rank one year ago
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | London Liverpool Street | 80.4 million | 4 |
| 2 | London Paddington | 59.2m | 6 |
| 3 | London Waterloo | 57.8m | 1 |
| 4 | London Bridge | 47.7m | 3 |
| 5 | London Victoria | 45.6m | 2 |
| 6 | Stratford (London) | 44.1m | 5 |
| 7 | Tottenham Court Road | 34.9m | New entry |
| 8 | London St Pancras International | 33.3m | 12 |
| 9 | Farringdon | 31.5m | 38 |
| 10 | London Euston | 31.3m | 7 |
Data – Office of Rail and Road
Moving outside London, the busiest station was Birmingham NewStreet, with a mere 30.7 million entries and exits.
This is followed by Leads and Manchester Piccadilly
The busiest Scottish Statin is number 4 – Glasgow Central, followed by Edinburgh Waverley..
The top 10 most used stations outside London
|
Station
|
Entries and exits
|
|---|---|
| Birmingham New Street | 30.7 million |
| Leeds | 24.0m |
| Manchester Piccadilly | 23.6m |
| Glasgow Central | 20.8m |
| Edinburgh Waverley | 18.2m |
| Gatwick Airport | 16.5m |
| Brighton | 14.1m |
| Reading | 12.4m |
| Glasgow Queen Street | 12.3m |
| Liverpool Central | 11.4m |
The least used station that was open throughout the whole year was Denton in Greater Manchester with 34 recorded entries and exits. Third-place Elton and Orston in Nottinghamshire was the least visited in the previous year with 40 entries and exits; that number increased by 16 in this reporting year.
There were five open stations with 100 or fewer entries and exits in the latest year:
- Teesside Airport, Darlington (two entries and exits)
- Denton, Greater Manchester (34)
- Elton and Orston, Nottinghamshire (56)
- Kirton Lindsey, North Lincolnshire (94)
- Reddish South, Greater Manchester (100)
Teesside Airport station is closed to passengers currently due to safety issues – although it never scored highly with a lack of services and it being some way away from the airport.
If you build it, passengers come
If you deliver high-quality and good passenger transit options, passengers will come.
We can see that with the jump in London stations taking a lot all of the top 10, and five of those stations listed have Elizabeth Line stopping trains (Liverpool Street, Paddington, Stratford, Tottenham Court Road and Farringdon, which have experienced spikes in demand over the year.
Whilst there are growing pains (especially beyond the core sections), it’s showing the Elizabeth line is working, whilst reliving the Underground network, and adding that desperately needed capacity.
The major nodes outside London continue to see good passenger use – even with the number of rail strikes the network has experienced over the year.
With cost pressures still an important factor on the railway, and the government walking back some projects in their scopes, pressure will be needed to campaign, build and deliver the services that passengers are demanding in 2024 and beyond.
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