| abstract | - Birmingham New Street is the main railway station serving the city of Birmingham, England, located in the city centre. It lies on the Birmingham loop of the West Coast Main Line, and is a major hub of the British railway system. Birmingham is also served by Birmingham Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill. Also on the outskirts closer to Solihull is Birmingham International which serves the airport and National Exhibition Centre. Due to its central location, railway lines from all over Great Britain run into it including lines to London, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Scotland, Cardiff, North Wales, Bournemouth, Bristol, Plymouth, Nottingham, Leicester, Shrewsbury and Newcastle upon Tyne. The station is also a terminus for many local services from throughout the West Midlands conurbation, and acts as a major pass through for the cross city line, which runs between Lichfield and Redditch. Network Rail, which manages the station and measures usage through counting passenger footfall, ranks New Street station as the busiest in the United Kingdom outside London with 40.1 million annual visitors, 87% of whom are passengers. The Office of Rail Regulation, which estimates usage through analysing ticket sales, ranks New Street as the second busiest station outside London after Glasgow Central, with 25.1 million annual entries and exits. New Street is by far the busiest rail hub outside London, with over 4 million passengers changing trains at the station annually. An enclosed station, with buildings over most of its span, New Street is not popular with its users with a customer satisfaction rate of only 52% - the joint lowest of any Network Rail major station. A £550m redevelopment scheme named Gateway Plus was given the full funding by the British Government in February 2008, and new designs were unveiled in September 2008. Work commenced on the redevelopment a year later. The station is allocated the IATA location identifier QQN.
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