TfW announce future plan for changing rail demands

Transport for Wales (TfW) has completed its future timetable review following a change in rail travel demands post-covid.

Following a comprehensive review of current rail demand and predicted future growth, TfW has developed a new long-term strategy to better align with the new travel habits and requirements of customers, whilst becoming a truly multimodal operator.

As a result of the review some rail routes will see more services and longer trains with more seats, particularly during seasonal peaks.  Other routes will see slightly different calling patterns better targeted to current needs.

However, TfW has had to make some tough decisions to ensure it provides capacity where most needed, grows revenue and ultimately reduces public subsidy.

Some of the key changes include:

• Running 87 more services on mainline routes than when TfW took over in 2018 and more carriages added to some busiest services to help meet growing demand.
• Removing a small number of services that have very low passenger demand.
• Providing extra capacity on popular summer routes.
• Deferring some earlier-made commitments for more services on certain routes.

TfW remains committed and is continuing to deliver its £800 million investment into new trains for the whole of its network.

Stakeholder feedback on current timetables, passenger numbers and close consideration of alternative travel options have all fed into the TfW review.

Colin Lea, Planning and Performance Director said: “We’ve completed our future timetable review. The proposed new timetables will provide us with more resilience in the winter period and meet changed travel demands post Covid.

“Nearly every service that TfW operates requires public subsidy, and as a responsible operator it’s imperative for TfW to balance the needs for a regular, robust and reliable service with available budgets to deliver value for taxpayers and more sustainable transport.”

TfW intend to deliver these timetables over the next few years.