The Welsh Government and its transport body, Transport for Wales (TfW), can’t claim to be delivering Metro services for Cardiff, if half of its stations (10 out of 20) are only getting two trains per hour (2tph) once the Core Valley Lines (CVL) transformation is completed and new Stadler tram-trains and FLIRT trimodes are operating across the network in 2024.
Anyone who knows just a little about transport planning, passenger behaviours and the geography of Cardiff, will quickly spot that offering a service every 30 minutes for trips of probably less than 20 minutes, is not going to attract passengers. Whilst people are generally happier to wait longer for longer trips - so 30 minutes for a journey of an hour or more - they are less inclined to do so for shorter trips.
This reality will apply to all the stations on the Coryton and City lines in Cardiff, that will, as far as the passenger is concerned, see no meaningful improvement in services when Metro is operating compared with today - so at Danescourt, Fairwater, Waungron, Ninian Park, Birchgrove, Rhiwbina, Whitchurch, Coryton, Ty Glas, etc). It also makes no sense to be offering 2tph at these station whilst at the same time operating 10tph through Llandaff and Cathays to Queen Street. The Metro service offer in Cardiff is completely unbalanced and does not reflect latent demand. The direct service between the City and Coryton Lines will also be lost.
