Liverpool Street becomes Britain's busiest station

The Elizabeth Line is attributed to the surge in passengers at Liverpool Street station

London's Liverpool Street station has replaced Waterloo as the busiest in Britain, new figures show.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said the "full opening of the Elizabeth line has changed the way people travel".

Outside London, the busiest stations were Birmingham New Street, Leeds and Manchester Piccadilly.

Glasgow Central was the most used station in Scotland and Cardiff Central topped the list in Wales.

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The ORR said between April 2022 and March 2023, there were 80.4 million entries and exits at Liverpool Street station.

Liverpool Street station has seen a year-on-year increase of around 50 million

It has seen a year-on-year increase of around 50 million, which was attributed to the opening of the Elizabeth line in May 2022, which serves the station.

The line, which also stops at Paddington, caused the station to rise to second place with 59.2 million entries and exits.

Waterloo fell to third place with 57.8 million entries and exits.

Analysis

By BBC London transport correspondent Tom Edwards

There is a line in the 1989 film Field of Dreams where the actor Kevin Costner is mulling over whether to build a baseball stadium.

The line goes something like "build it and they will come". Well that is certainly what has happened with the Elizabeth line.

It has completely redrawn how people get around London.

Just look at somewhere like Farringdon that is now a big interchange between Thameslink and the Elizabeth line - it has jumped from 38th in the country to 9th serving 30 million passengers.

The Elizabeth line has actually not had a good week with the mayor raising serious concerns over its performance on shared infrastructure out of Paddington. This shows you the wider picture.

There aren't many big rail projects under way at the moment - HS2 has been shrunk.

These figures show that if you spend money on high quality rail infrastructure then people want to use it.

Feras Alshaker, director of planning and performance at the ORR, said: "Waterloo had been the busiest station in Britain for all but one of the previous 18 years."

Denton station saw only 34 passenger entries and exists between April 2022 and March 2023

Beyond the capital the busiest stations were:

• Birmingham New Street recorded 30.7 million entries and exits

• Leeds at 24 million

• Manchester Piccadilly at 23.6 million

• Glasgow Central saw 20.8 million entries and exits

• Cardiff Central recording 10.2 million entries and exits.

The least used station that was open throughout the whole year was Denton, Greater Manchester, with 34 entries and exits.

Only two entries and exits were recorded at Teesside Airport station. But its once-a-week Sunday service was suspended in May 2022 after the platform was classified as unsafe.

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