With a quick release clamp, disk brakes are quicker than v brakes.
You can write that but what I see with racers preferring to swap bikes instead of swap wheels like with rim brakes suggests it is not always so.
[...] tbh if anybody is riding a bike they can't remove the wheel from to change the tyre they really need to consider if it's sensible for them to use a bike as a mode of travel (or acquire this very, very basic skill).
That is elitism and not a requirement. I expect you would be horrified by the condition of bikes in many towns and cities across Europe, including London, Cambridge, Oxford and Bristol.
And how thin are your tyres? I change mine only every year or two and I think most shops would fit one for a few pounds extra, still costing less than refuelling a car of petrol for tyre and fit in total. So does it make economic sense for the unwilling and incompetent to learn to do it?
The rail industry focuses on offering the services it is required to by law and contract. Bikes are, at the moment, a 'nice to have' and therefore the first thing to be dropped when things get awkward. Whether this is right or wrong, I can't say.
I suspect you are correct. The market seems to have failed to encourage service of this core market and the public sector writing the laws and contracts seems to be setting the wrong requirements to deliver decarbonised transport, integrated transport or physical activity.
If you're going far enough that you will need a train back then you should certainly have the equipment to replace or repair a punctured inner tube, because if you don't you're stranded and in potential danger until somebody stops or comes to pick you up.
I do not understand what this has to do with removing a wheel, which is not required to repair a puncture. You can get enough tube out to patch it without removing one, except maybe on those race-style bikes with almost no gap between tyre and frame, or now many people just connect one of those £3 cans from the supermarket sports shelves that are like a mini version of what has replaced spare tyres in cars.
I also do not understand how they would be stranded or in potential danger any more than someone out for a walk.
Car drivers with no mechanical qualifications are expected to be able to check their tyres, top up their oil and replace headlights. A cyclist being able to replace/repair a puncture is at an equivalent level.
Car drivers are absolutely not expected to be able to remove a wheel or change a tyre. A web search also makes me think the tyre and oil top up questions were only added to the UK driving test in 2012, so I doubt most non-owner drivers could do it without the car instruction manual.
So to return, I think adding a dismantling requirement to bike transport would be an unreasonable extra expectation, especially when most fit in minibus taxis.