Given the billions spent on the current system, and the billions being cut elsewhere in the economy, we need a better response to this than just calling the Government representative numpty (much as I like use of a good Scots word).
Simply pretending that there are no acceptable cuts (even on branches where itd be cheaper to put everyone in a taxi) is naive.
For example, with staffing costs (including the cost of paying for final salary pensions/ training/ insurance) going up and up for TOCs, plus track access costs etc, are there some lines where itd be better all round to run fewer longer services? On some routes the lure of an ORCATS raid has seen more/shorter services, because that ensures you a bigger slice of the pie. Instead of the current plan of five fast Manchester Leeds trains an hour in 2014 that are only three coaches long, would it be more efficient to use the fifteen coaches for over just three services an hour (but each one being five coaches)?
I remember an interview with someone at SWT in a rail magazine a couple of years ago where they said it was cheaper for commuter TOCs to run long (eight/ten/twelve) EMUs in service all day than it was to split them down to four/five coach operation off peak (due to the staffing costs of splitting trains up at a termini, the logistics of reattaching them in the afternoon without disrupting performance). Maybe thats true, but there are a lot of lines where the off peak capacity seems completely disproportionate to the number of passengers.
This is an important statement by McNulty. Nobody wants to see cuts but the railways by and large have been immune from Government cuts. This is the opening salvo in what could be a defining period for the railways. The next round of franchises will tell us more of Government thinking. I do fear for significant parts of Northern Rail.
Agreed (sadly). We might look back and wish that the next Northern franchise had been let five years ago (when growth was on the agenda for both the economy and railway).
The number of off-peak Manchester Airport express services is very high compared to European countries but on the whole off-peak services in the North are low compared to European countries
I dunno - there are a lot of routes with four trains an hour or better)... Newcastle to York... York to Leeds... Leeds to Manchester... Manchester to Preston... Preston to Blackpool... that's a coast to coast route with a "turn up and go" frequency.
One of the many scandals of our railway today is the way in which ticket revenue is considered by many TOC's to be of no relevance, since their whole operation is underwritten by the taxpayer. What other industry can afford to operate in this manner?! Train companies need to be forced to make far better efforts to collect money owed to them by the travelling public, and the DFT desperately needs to be less willing to throw public money at private firms who cannot be bothered to pay people a wage to bring in their revenue. The fact that the revenue protection teams are the first to go when money is tight really does tell a very sorry tale. I firmly believe that the official stats for ticketless travel are massively understated, and what is urgently needed is a revue of how money is collected. McNulty bright idea to scrap as many staff as humanly possible and go DOO is clearly not going to help.
A question which is rarely asked but surely should be, is why do we have one team of people selling tickets on trains and another team dealing with those who refuse to buy them? Why not combine the roles of Guards and RPI's instead of having such wasteful duplication of similar roles? Yes there would be training needed, legal matters to attend to and cover of staff being released to attend Court and suchlike, but I see no reason why it can't be done, at least to some degree
Good points.
At the moment the attitude of most Guards is that their main two duties are managing the train (inc door operation etc) and passenger safety. Fair enough, that's the role. But that means that revenue colletion is often ignored (the design of Pacers mean that the Guard has no time to get from operating the door to the other end of the train and back again before they have to operate the door at the next station) - especially a problem on joined up units with no corridor connection.
Get everyone who travels to pay the right price travel (or sling their hook) and the revenue looks different. But
when you are a company who gets millions of pounds in subsidy to operate then you probably won't break a sweat to collect a £3 fare (the average Northern ticket?) - the economics are the wrong way round.