Modelling passenger demand for parkway rail stations

Interest in Parkway stations emerged in the 1980s. These act as convenient out-of-town stations for inter-urban rail journeys. There were 13 so-called Parkway stations in Great Britain in 1999 and two have subsequently been opened. This paper reports the development and application of a new Parkway forecasting model which was conducted for the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), undertaken as part of an extensive update to the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook, which recommends demand forecasting frameworks and associated parameters that are widely used in the railway industry in Great Britain. The objective was to develop a model that had more desirable properties and was more straightforward to apply than the previously recommended procedure. The focus is entirely upon inter-urban journeys of over 80 km.The model forecasts the demand for Parkway stations based solely on rail ticket sales data and its properties are illustrated with two case study applications. The nature of Parkway stations forces consideration of competition, and it is demonstrated that the inclusion of a station choice component leads to a somewhat improved explanatory power and a more plausible generalised cost elasticity.In addition to the methodological developments, the model has provided generally reasonable elasticities and forecasts and shown that Parkway users have different preferences to rail travellers in general. In a test based around a newly opened Parkway station, its forecasts are more accurate than the procedure it replaces.