Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the projected passenger number were in the business case for each (a) new station and (b) reopened rail line in the last 10 years; and what the actual passenger numbers were in each case 12 months after they opened.

Benefit Cost Ratios (BCRs) within the economic case are only one element of decision-making on schemes and should be considered alongside the other cases in the five case business model used in Government (strategic, economic, financial, commercial and management cases). Therefore we do not routinely make BCRs available.

Details of Rail infrastructure and assets lists new stations opened in the financial year can be found here https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/infrastructure-and-emissions/rail-infrastructure-and-assets/ Not all of these were promoted by the Department.

Estimates of station usage contains annual estimates of the number of entries/exits and interchanges at each station in Great Britain https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/estimates-of-station-usage

In practice it can take a number of years for long term demand patterns to emerge for new stations. The Department (and bodies who promote their own schemes) have a long standing and established appraisal framework to help scheme promoters forecast passenger demand of new stations and lines. We are continuing to monitor our framework and use evaluation to understand the impacts of schemes.