Peter Able stuck@home wrote:
On 28/09/2014 15:38, Recliner wrote:
Peter Able stuck@home wrote:
On 28/09/2014 12:58, Recliner wrote:
Peter Able stuck@home wrote:
On 28/09/2014 11:17, Recliner wrote:
Peter Able stuck@home wrote:
On 28/09/2014 10:19, Recliner wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:

And I suppose many of the additional fares will be to
Zone 1, and therefore quite expensive.

I hope they don't take such a simplistic view of the extra fares. Quite a
bit of traffic to Z1 will be abstracted from existing stations.

Let's hope not. But obviously there will be net additional fares from zones
7&8, and therefore expensive if to London.

It is ironic that one of the rationales given in the past for closing
Chesham is that little traffic will be lost, the bulk being transferred
to Amersham and Chalfont.

Here we have the same situation in reverse. How realistic is it to
"hope" that the Croxley link will generate £500k of NEW business per week?

Yes, put like that, it does look rather optimistic. I wonder if that's the
projected fare revenue in a few years, once new developments are in place
around the new stations? It's hard to envisage such high net revenue
increases in the first year or two.


You earlier corrected the "expected incremental fare box revenue" quoted
by the OP to £26 million. Dare I suggest that the figure comes from this?

LU Fare Revenue 2013/14: £2,286m (tfl annual report)
Number of LU stations: 270 (Wikipedia)
Fare Revenue per station: £8.5m (calculated)

Net increase in LU stations by Croxley Link: 3 (croxleyraillink.com)

Fare Revenue for 3 stations: £26m (calculated)

My, my, what a coincidence.

This sort of back-of-the-fag-packet crude estimation (by the promoters of
the Croxley Link, I mean) is not at all rare. Early on someone makes a
wet-fingered guess and twenty PowerPoint presentations later it is quoted as Gospel.

Surely there's only a net increase of *one* new station? There's two new
stations (Cassiobridge and Vicarage Rd) and one station (Watford) closing.
In addition, the Met will serve two existing LO stations (Watford High St
and Junction), which already have direct services to Harrow and London.

No, what I *wrote*, stands. "Net increase in *LU* stations" -
according to the reference.

Now, what about my point sophistry?

I can't see how LU will pick up any fares from Watford Junction all the way
to London, given the existing, faster services through the station; there
may be some to intermediate places on the Met line.

The Cassiobridge station may pick up some new business to London and
intermediate stations, as well as business transferred from the closed
Watford Met station.


And as Watford Met's traffic has always been disappointing, so will be Cassiobridge's.

Only the Vicarage Rd station is all-new, and in a populated area, so it
should pick up significant business.


But to where? As you say, it will be a slow journey to Harrow or to London via the Met.

Watford High St will get a much more frequent service, but slower to
London than the existing 3tph LO service, so it's only likely to pick up
business to places on the Met line to Harrow.


Which cannot be much.

It would be useful if anyone knew where MR got its incremental fare
estimate of £26m from. I assume it's quoting someone else's figure?


It may be from the HCC business case where a revenue of £26,092,000 is
quoted - along with an operating cost of £40,932,000. Drill down far
enough and you'll find the fag packet. I mean that. So much of modern
financial prediction is based upon sophistry, burnished by flashy
presentation. Think of another planned railway - not a million miles from Croxley.

Even when I worked for LT the route to Watford Met was a revenue
disappointment. Things might have been different had the line been built
as projected, on through Watford Met to the Met High Street station. At
least that station was in the middle of the High Street. Watford High
Street has seen better days, but the lower end, where the current High
Street Station is, is the most run-down part - and not likely to attract
much commuting patronage I would have thought.

Half a million per week of new business?

One has to assume they're banking on some major new housing or business
developments near the new stations, but as you say, it sounds pretty
dubious.