London Waterloo remains Britain’s busiest station as £800 million upgrade continues: Waterloo International Terminal  (Artist's impression)

Tuesday 6 Dec 2016

London Waterloo remains Britain’s busiest station as £800 million upgrade continues

Region & Route:
| Southern: Wessex
| Southern

New figures released this morning (Tuesday, 6 January) by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) reveal that London Waterloo remains Britain’s busiest station with annual passenger numbers reaching over 99 million in one year, as Network Rail and South West Trains continue their work to boost capacity at the station by 30%.

The total number of passenger journeys at London Waterloo, as measured by entries and exits, reached 99.1 million for 2015/16, while Clapham Junction has replaced Charing Cross in the Top 10 most used stations with 32.2 million entries and exits.

Becky Lumlock, route managing director at Network Rail, said: “The new figures released today by the ORR demonstrate the extraordinary growth in the number of people using the railway and underline the need for the national Railway Upgrade Plan and the £800 million investment in the Waterloo & South West Upgrade.

“Passenger numbers are at their highest level since the Victorian era and are continuing to grow, so it is vital that we keep investing and deliver a better Wessex route.

“The £800 million investment is the biggest package of improvements for passengers using Waterloo for decades, and will provide: five additional platforms at Waterloo; longer platforms for longer trains between Waterloo and Reading; new trains between Waterloo and Windsor; and longer trains on London Suburban services.”

Christian Roth, managing director for South West Trains, said: "The continued rise in passengers using this railway, particularly at London Waterloo, shows just how important it is to increase capacity and improve the facilities for passengers as quickly as possible.

"The Waterloo & South West Upgrade will provide longer platforms, new trains and 30% more capacity for passengers, improving the journeys of tens of thousands of people every day."

A large chunk of the work to boost capacity at Waterloo will be delivered between 5-28 August 2017, when platforms 1-9 will close for three and a half weeks, while platforms 20-24 will temporarily re-open. Network Rail and South West Trains are asking passengers to get ahead of the changes early by checking networkrail.co.uk/wswupgrade.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

To view the full estimates of station usage dataset and accompanying report, see: http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/station-usage-estimates

Methodology

The methodology used to estimate usage at London stations has been improved for 2015-16, providing a better representation of how Londoners use the rail network. However this means that direct comparisons to previous year’s data are not valid. All data is for tickets purchased on the mainline railway network – London underground usage is not included.

The Waterloo & South West Upgrade

The £800 million Waterloo & South West Upgrade includes:

  • Rebuilding the former Waterloo International Terminal, providing an extra five platforms (20-24)
  • Extending Platforms 1-4 to allow ten-car trains to run on London Suburban services for the first time in the busiest hours
  • 150 new carriages – with the first entering service in mid-2017 – between London Waterloo and Windsor & Eton Riverside, offering free WiFi, wider doors, air conditioning and improved passenger information. Full introduction by end of 2017 will allow a ‘cascade’ of trains to other lines out of Waterloo, taking the total number of carriages on the network to 1,599 compared to just 1,022 in 1996.
  • Extending platforms at eight stations between Waterloo and Reading, as well as at Camberley and Chertsey, to accommodate longer trains

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - Owen Johns
Media relations manager (Wessex route)
07710 959476
Owen.Johns@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

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