1. Daily patronage statistics
The 2013 data shows a bit over 1.066 million NSW rail journeys per weekday. To put this into context, the Hong Kong MTR, one of the busiest rail networks, has a daily patronage of 4.5 million for a city of 7 million (about one third larger than Greater Sydney/Central Coast/Newcastle/Wollongong). However, HK MTR likely has an average journey distance of only half that of the 17km per journey average of Sydney Trains/NSW Trainlink, so in terms to total passenger kilometres, Sydney and it's peripheral cities comes much closer to about half that of the MTR. This is a pretty good outcome considering the greater car mode share in Sydney and it's peak hour commuter dominance versus the all day use seen in the MTR.
2. Peak hour statistics
The 3.5 hour AM peak (6am to 9:30am) accounts for about 33% of all journeys, the 3.5 hour afternoon peak (3pm to 3:30pm) and the 5 hour interpeak period 22%. At the granularity of these 3-5 hour blocks, there is actually a well rounded day time distribution, and it is only in the final 7.5 hours of the evening that patronage drops right off to just 13%. In contrast, my own personal experience of Hong Kong's MTR is that it is busy until very late into the evening, and this probably adds substantially to it's daily patronage.
| Table 24 - Trip proportions by period of day | |
| Period | % |
| AM peak (before 09:30) | 33.0% |
| Interpeak (09:30 to 15:00) | 21.8% |
| PM peak (15:00 to 18:30) | 32.5% |
| Evening off peak (18:30 to 02:00) | 12.7% |
| Total | 100.0% |
It is apparent then that despite low patronage during the evening hours, there is overall a good balance of patronage in terms of peak versus daytime interpeak. But as will be seen below, the problem is is maldistribution within the AM peak.
The 2012 NSW State Infrastructure Strategy placed a lot of emphasis on demand management (a fancy term for charging higher fares during busy periods) as a way to better address the peak hour capacity limitations of the rail system. The subsequent introduction of Opal addresses this partially by offering discounts for travel outside the hours of 7am-9am and 4pm-6:30pm. However, as seen in the next table, it doesn't address the most acute capacity problem, which is too much demand in the 8am-9am period, with significant spare capacity in the 7am-8am and in the 9am-9:30am shoulders:
| Table 28- Sydney CBD station exits (AM peak 3.5 hours) | |||||
| Station | Station exits | ||||
| 6:00 to 7:00 | 7:00 to 8:00 | 8:00 to 9:00 | 9:00 to 9:30 | 6:00 to 9:30 Total | |
| Town Hall | 3,029 | 8,652 | 23,479 | 6,428 | 41,588 |
| Central | 3,538 | 8,777 | 21,222 | 6,742 | 40,279 |
| Wynyard | 2,402 | 8,687 | 22,389 | 5,074 | 38,552 |
| Martin Place | 889 | 3,049 | 7,989 | 1,784 | 13,711 |
| Redfern | 790 | 2,221 | 5,551 | 1,486 | 10,048 |
| Circular Quay | 746 | 1,581 | 4,334 | 1,520 | 8,181 |
| Museum | 370 | 1,334 | 3,145 | 979 | 5,828 |
| St James | 420 | 1,145 | 2,771 | 805 | 5,141 |
| Total CBD | 12,184 | 35,446 | 90,880 | 24,818 | 163,328 |
Taking into account the average rail journey time of 28 minutes, I believe Opal should restrict it's AM peak hour pricing to the hours of 7:15am to 8:45am only, so as to provide greater incentives for journeys that result in CBD station exits in the 7am-8am or 9am-9:30am shoulders, where capacity utilisation (as measured by CBD station exits) is only 40-50% that of the 8am-9am peak hour. Basically, this data indicates Sydney Trains can solve it's capacity problems by convincing people to shift their morning journeys by 30-60mins.
3. CBD Interchange
It is also interesting to note that 20% of all journeys are through the CBD that don't result in a CBD exit (ie: look at the ratio of CBD station exits to "Up CBD" passengers in the table below). This would be passengers interchanging onto other lines in the CBD and then travelling out of the CBD in the second leg of their journey. This reflects Sydney's radial network design and relative lack of circumferential connections.
| AM Peak (06:00-09:30)3 | Sydney Trains | NSW TrainLink Intercity | Total | |
| Station entries | 325,037 | 21,578 | 346,615 | |
| Station exits | 323,450 | 8,164 | 331,614 | |
| Up (towards city) passengers at CBD/Intercity cordon4 | 201,232 | 17,310 | 218,541 | |
| CBD station exits | 163,328 | |||
4. Rail mode share by Major Centre
The CBD, North Sydney, Chatswood, St Leonards, Bondi Junction and Parramatta all have very reasonable rail mode share of journeys to work, of 28-49%. The major laggards are Macquarie Park and Sydney Airport which have rail mode shares of only 14-15% despite high job densities of the order of 44K and 27K jobs respectively - vastly more than the minor laggards of Penrith, Liverpool and Bankstown, which have significantly lower job densities. Interestingly, the high achievers have all been subjected to the Parking Space Levy, which commenced in 1992 and therefore omitted including Macquarie Park and Sydney Airport (which at the time did not have railway stations). Given congestion on the arterial roads around Macquarie Park, at a minimum the Parking Space Levy should be extended to the Macquarie Park corridor. Given the 800,000sqm of office floor space and 1:25-1:50sqm parking ratios, this could raise of the order of $20m per annum.
| Including | ||
| ‘walk only’ | ||
| Centre | Train share | Trips by all modes |
| Sydney CBD | 49% | 252,110 |
| North Sydney | 47% | 41,534 |
| Redfern-Central Sydney | 39% | 4,794 |
| Chatswood | 35% | 15,594 |
| Education and Health Precinct - Central Sydney | 35% | 23,016 |
| City East - Central Sydney | 33% | 22,647 |
| Bondi Junction | 32% | 9,184 |
| St Leonards Office Cluster | 29% | 25,536 |
| Burwood | 28% | 8,875 |
| Parramatta | 28% | 38,855 |
| Ultimo-Pyrmont-Central Sydney | 27% | 18,917 |
| Sydney Olympic Park | 21% | 8,068 |
| Rhodes Business Park | 20% | 10,879 |
| Hornsby | 18% | 7,055 |
| Hurstville | 15% | 8,052 |
| Kogarah | 15% | 7,769 |
| Macquarie Business Park | 15% | 43,297 |
| Sydney Airport and Environs | 14% | 27,826 |
| Randwick Education and Health | 12% | 11,116 |
| Blacktown | 11% | 8,506 |
| Westmead Health | 10% | 10,374 |
| Liverpool | 8% | 13,107 |
| Bankstown | 8% | 8,317 |
| Penrith | 6% | 14,261 |
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