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Election 2019 - promises

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Goldfish62

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That may work in urban areas. With decent loads and frequency. Surrey Hills buses carry grants from government bodies, funding from Gatwick (to offset their environmental emissions) and council subsidies (I haven't double checked this is still as it was...). If it was commercial only, none of the buses locally would ever run. But low loadings are as much a result of the timetabling. So someone has to fund it.

[local train service is also detrimental to public transport (Gomshall). It has gaps in the service that make it difficult to use as a commuter service. So you drive. It can take an hour to get to either Redhill or Guildford. And the same to Creepy Crawley. But the North Downs Line has its own issues that aren't just funding related...
The majority of buses run in urban areas. In any case Surrey is notoriously difficult bus territory. The grant funding that you talk about is not an operational subsidy but a pump prime for such services.

At the other end of the scale, in Cornwall, a deeply rural area, about 50% of services are commercial. However, in order to achieve this fares are high.
 
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Robertj21a

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That may work in urban areas. With decent loads and frequency. Surrey Hills buses carry grants from government bodies, funding from Gatwick (to offset their environmental emissions) and council subsidies (I haven't double checked this is still as it was...). If it was commercial only, none of the buses locally would ever run. But low loadings are as much a result of the timetabling. So someone has to fund it.

[local train service is also detrimental to public transport (Gomshall). It has gaps in the service that make it difficult to use as a commuter service. So you drive. It can take an hour to get to either Redhill or Guildford. And the same to Creepy Crawley. But the North Downs Line has its own issues that aren't just funding related...

Surrey will always be poor bus territory. It is generally quite affluent, with high car ownership. Bus companies are unlikely to be able to run many services commercially (certainly not at the less popular times, evenings etc) but the council have the powers to subsidise some services if they feel there is a demand.
 

8H

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In reaction to the Labour Party fares reduction proposal today and so far in this thread we have practically little else but generalised squawking from Tories who won’t admit they are. Those specific objections that have been raised, relating to capacity and to fare anomalies are exceptions. Capacity is a problem anyway that already needed addressing, so we all have to think harder, as Andy McDonald has pointed out we cannot road traffic build our way out of a climate crisis. The planned transformational improvements to bus services which have been quietly failing in most places outside of London for years should also help in this respect. At the moment we all know about the monster amounts of fare anomalies and split ticketing etc etc. The fares system as it stands therefore is not a perfect model !! We have to start somewhere on moving away from everyone going everywhere all the time in cars and we have to start doing so quickly. Rail will just have to take part of the strain. I admit a political bias, I am Labour but the whole country really does have to shift away from motor madness for all our sakes
 

Goldfish62

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Surrey will always be poor bus territory. It is generally quite affluent, with high car ownership. Bus companies are unlikely to be able to run many services commercially (certainly not at the less popular times, evenings etc) but the council have the powers to subsidise some services if they feel there is a demand.
The important issue is that bus service provision is not a statutory requirement, whereas matters such as education and adult social care are, so councils quite rightly direct scarce funds to these areas.
 

Robertj21a

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The important issue is that bus service provision is not a statutory requirement, whereas matters such as education and adult social care are, so councils quite rightly direct scarce funds to these areas.

Quite correct, but usually overlooked by those who want a bus to be available whenever they want to use it.
 

BigCj34

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The truth is that the government would have to nationalise every single bus service in the country.

I'm not sure you understand how the bus industry is structured or how it operates. Here's an example. I'm Bloggs buses and I run a service a couple of times a day to take shoppers into town. It's a commercial service and the fares are set at a level that just about keep my business afloat. An imposed lower fare would result in me withdrawing the service, or going out of business, whichever came first.

Do you see the problem here?

And if the government could impose lower fares on independent businesses, why not stop at buses? Let's tell Tesco and Sainsbury what to charge.

The whole thing is a complete non starter.

Any transport infrastructure needs public expenditure, unless we are going to have multiple competing toll roads to get to different places (which would use up a lot of space). Roads need public funding, so it makes sense to explore ways to use them in a way that's the most efficient for transporting people. Buses, cycling and walking are far more efficient than the equivalent number of people using each using a car.
 

Goldfish62

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Any transport infrastructure needs public expenditure, unless we are going to have multiple competing toll roads to get to different places (which would use up a lot of space). Roads need public funding, so it makes sense to explore ways to use them in a way that's the most efficient for transporting people. Buses, cycling and walking are far more efficient than the equivalent number of people using each using a car.
I agree, but what's that got to do with my post?
 

The Planner

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In reaction to the Labour Party fares reduction proposal today and so far in this thread we have practically little else but generalised squawking from Tories who won’t admit they are. Those specific objections that have been raised, relating to capacity and to fare anomalies are exceptions. Capacity is a problem anyway that already needed addressing, so we all have to think harder, as Andy McDonald has pointed out we cannot road traffic build our way out of a climate crisis. The planned transformational improvements to bus services which have been quietly failing in most places outside of London for years should also help in this respect. At the moment we all know about the monster amounts of fare anomalies and split ticketing etc etc. The fares system as it stands therefore is not a perfect model !! We have to start somewhere on moving away from everyone going everywhere all the time in cars and we have to start doing so quickly. Rail will just have to take part of the strain. I admit a political bias, I am Labour but the whole country really does have to shift away from motor madness for all our sakes
Not sure political affiliation plays a part at all, it is just common sense to assume that the system as it stands could not deal with a sudden influx of passengers that this price drop would entail.
 

Antman

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In reaction to the Labour Party fares reduction proposal today and so far in this thread we have practically little else but generalised squawking from Tories who won’t admit they are. Those specific objections that have been raised, relating to capacity and to fare anomalies are exceptions. Capacity is a problem anyway that already needed addressing, so we all have to think harder, as Andy McDonald has pointed out we cannot road traffic build our way out of a climate crisis. The planned transformational improvements to bus services which have been quietly failing in most places outside of London for years should also help in this respect. At the moment we all know about the monster amounts of fare anomalies and split ticketing etc etc. The fares system as it stands therefore is not a perfect model !! We have to start somewhere on moving away from everyone going everywhere all the time in cars and we have to start doing so quickly. Rail will just have to take part of the strain. I admit a political bias, I am Labour but the whole country really does have to shift away from motor madness for all our sakes
All very worthy. But it's absolute fairy story territory. There is no capacity. There is no infrastructure. The trains are overloaded. You can't run buses/trains to a lot of the country where there isn't sufficient patronage/too much patronage to allow loadings to transfer to rail (or bus). And you propose to charge the motorist. Who mostly HAS to drive. Often at a defined time to get to work, to pay taxes, to pay for the other £100Bn or so you want to charge workers/business. Which is quite frankly, bananas at a time when the road fuel tax take is plummeting anyway because of increased efficiency/electric vehicles and high fuel prices cutting the tax take. Make driving even more expensive and you make fuel poverty worse AND you also reduce your tax take. It doesn't work. But McDonnell know this, And I bet you do too.

On a simple level, all Labour wanted to do was announce populist soundbites like free travel, lower fares. The job of trying to pretend it's affordable is intended to be lost in the discussion. So long as the soundbite is out there. And some gullible mugs believe it and it influences their vote. But that's what Labour (and indeed all politicians) are about.
 

BigCj34

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From what I understood it sounded like you were more in favour of a commercially feasible 2 buses a day operation than one with buses more frequently with regulated fares that is not commrcially feasible and would need subsidy. It sounded like you favoured the former and I would favour the latter if it got cars off roads etc.
 

BigCj34

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All very worthy. But it's absolute fairy story territory. There is no capacity. There is no infrastructure. The trains are overloaded. You can't run buses/trains to a lot of the country where there isn't sufficient patronage/too much patronage to allow loadings to transfer to rail (or bus). And you propose to charge the motorist. Who mostly HAS to drive. Often at a defined time to get to work, to pay taxes, to pay for the other £100Bn or so you want to charge workers/business. Which is quite frankly, bananas at a time when the road fuel tax take is plummeting anyway because of increased efficiency/electric vehicles and high fuel prices cutting the tax take. Make driving even more expensive and you make fuel poverty worse AND you also reduce your tax take. It doesn't work. But McDonnell know this, And I bet you do too.

On a simple level, all Labour wanted to do was announce populist soundbites like free travel, lower fares. The job of trying to pretend it's affordable is intended to be lost in the discussion. So long as the soundbite is out there. And some gullible mugs believe it and it influences their vote. But that's what Labour (and indeed all politicians) are about.

I agree about a massive fares cut being unrealistic especially in London commuter territory. But as well all know there are plenty of instances where fares can and probably should be reformed to make rail travel more attractive.

With transport, if you build it they will come (usually). Making public transport more attractive than driving is important with investment in better and frequent services is more important than just pricing out motorists who drive because there is no decent alternative.
 

Grumpy Git

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As someone who grew-up in the sticks with virtually no bus service (one on Thursday and two on Saturdays) but now living in Liverpool for the last 20 odd years, I have to say country folk (certainly in the midlands/north) get stuffed from all angles on transport. A car is essential and taxis are non-existent.

They would still vote for a pig as their MP though if it wore a blue rosette.
 

Goldfish62

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From what I understood it sounded like you were more in favour of a commercially feasible 2 buses a day operation than one with buses more frequently with regulated fares that is not commrcially feasible and would need subsidy. It sounded like you favoured the former and I would favour the latter if it got cars off roads etc.
Not at all. As a bus industry professional I was trying to explain to you in simple terms the basic operation of the industry. Do you not see the complications of trying to regulate fares on the thousands of services run by hundreds of operators across the country? And this is of course completely ignoring the fact that unlike the railways, bus operators are commercial businesses and have more in common with Tesco and Sainsbury than they do with the railways.
 

Grumpy Git

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Did public transport improve in those areas during Labour's 13 years in power?????

Yes, quite substantially as it happens. It has been cut back again since 2010 and is clinging on by the skin of its teeth. My 87 year old mum does her best to keep it running!
 

Antman

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They would still vote for a pig as their MP though if it wore a blue rosette.
To be fair a lot of the labour faithful would vote for Boris Johnson if he had a red rosette (or Vladimir Putin or Prince Andrew).

Most voters sadly don’t think. It’s a gut reaction. And they ARE swayed by sound bites and empty promises and lies from both sides...
 
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30907

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Those specific objections that have been raised, relating to capacity and to fare anomalies are exceptions.
I shall be voting Labour (living in Shipley constituency, I have sufficient reason, but that's OT) but I remain unconvinced that this is a thought out policy.
Capacity is not an "exception" - I can't think of any major commuter area that doesn't have capacity problems.
And fare anomalies relating to regulated seasons vs anytime are not "exceptions": very many longer distance seasons within the NSE area are priced at a substantial discount below Anytime Returns and have been since BR days (and that's before we get onto the Intercity ones).
I am still waiting to see some detail on the proposal because I cannot see how you would save 33% by reducing Anytime Singles to 10% of a weekly season.
 

Andyh82

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Everything Labour come out with is just too extreme an sounds like fantasy

Why not say they will freeze rail fares, if this is the road they want to go down, why say they are cutting them by a third? They are immediately taking money out of the system.

It’s like free broadband. Not free broadband for those who can’t pay, but free fibre broadband for everyone including those who are quite happy to pay for it.

I notice they were piggy backing on the SWR strike by launching that proposal today as well, which shows that that longest strike ever is politically motivated.
 

gazzaa2

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Not sure political affiliation plays a part at all, it is just common sense to assume that the system as it stands could not deal with a sudden influx of passengers that this price drop would entail.

The system as it stands can't deal with the existing number of passengers let alone hordes more.
 

underbank

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Yes, quite substantially as it happens. It has been cut back again since 2010 and is clinging on by the skin of its teeth. My 87 year old mum does her best to keep it running!

I'd like to know where - wouldn't be London/SE by any chance? Up near our Northern town, it was during Labour's 13 years that we lost our libraries and village/small town bus services. The village I work in used to have a bus service direct to the nearby city - around 2007 it was binned and now there are no buses from the village at all. Villagers have to walk to the by-pass if they want a bus, hence why most drive. It was about the same time that our town<>town bus service was cut right back, no service after 6pm, no Sunday services at all. Certainly not seen the buses getting worse in the last 10 years at all - about the same as Labour left them, but then again, they're so sparse/poor, there's not much to cut.
 

HullRailMan

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I think the principal of the rail user paying for most of the cost (rather than subsidy) seems fair. After all, government support of the railway is still higher than under BR, but is mostly spent on infrastructure and other investment rather than running costs.

Today’s announcement ignores the fact that 95%+ of all journeys are not made by rail. As such, the vast majority will once again be subsidising the fares for a tiny minority. Of course a fare reduction will help some, but almost everyone else will see no benefit at all, as they never use rail.
 
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All I can see with labours rail and bus policy is the strange situation that the a lot of extra taxes on the rich will be given back to the rich (VED can’t fund it all). The reduction in commuters fares will in a lot of cases benefit the better off. If there children go to a private school by train or bus they will not now pay for! Just don’t get me started on free broadband
 

bramling

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50621621



Rail fares to fall by 33% under Labour, and free travel for under 16s.

Big news. But whilst a third off ticket prices will be an improvement, that only puts prices back about ten years, maybe less, and rail travel has not been affordable for more than ten years.

Utter lunacy. Khan’s fares freeze in London has already crippled TFL’s finances. And there’s no way the rail system could cope with a sudden rise in demand, even at off-peak times many trains run full.

Populism to the fore it seems.
 

thenorthern

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I think Labour's policy on reduced fares is unrealistic, train companies are not big faceless corporations with money to burn and the profit margins for railway companies are quite thin compared to most industries.

Labour's railway pledge however I don't think will attract many voters in marginal constituencies in the midlands or the north as many marginal constituencies either don't have a station within them or have a relatively limited service meaning that rail usage is relatively low. The 33% reduction pledge would be popular in places such as London, Manchester and Birmingham but Labour is going to win those areas anyway so the pledge is meaningless.

Interestingly I was talking to a Labour activist in the Staffordshire Moorlands constituency who had been out campaigning and I asked him if he was mentioning Labour's rail pledges to potential voters to which he said yes. I then pointed out that to many voters in Staffordshire Moorlands they are meaningless as there is no National Rail station within the constituency. He then felt embarrassed.
 

158756

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People in e.g Staffordshire Moorlands might still catch a train from Stoke to London or somewhere else far away, but no they aren't likely to be regular users. In terms of the election this promise might actually be most popular in home counties seats (home of the £5000 season ticket) Labour mostly have no chance of winning.
 

The Ham

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That will cost roughly £3.5bn to £4.0bn per annum. There was no mention of the cost in the article. Will probably lead to a lot of (over)crowding too, with inevitable demands for more trains / carriages (and less money to pay for them). It's a bit ironic that the bit that is soaking up most money (Network Rail) is the bit that is already nationalised. A further irony: those who commute (or travel by rail generally) tend to be the wealthier. Corbyn will be transferring subsidies to them.

Given that total rail income from tickets last year was £9.8bn 1/3 of that would be a little least than £3.3bn however not all that would be subject to the reduction (such as advance tickets).

If it is only season tickets (circa 45% of ticket income) then the cost would be £1.47bn.

However even that is simplistic, as many have pointed out it would mean that a LOT more people would be wanting to travel by train.

As such you could see that cost fall further as more people use the trains.

Now whilst it is true that there'd be a lot of places where there wouldn't be much spare capacity (chiefly heading into major cities) there's a lot of people who would be willing to use services to other places which otherwise are running with spare seats.

It should also be noted that if someone is paying £6,000 for a London season ticket it falling to £4,000 isn't actually going to attract that many more people to use those services. Why? If you think about it how many actually drive into London for work? Probably fairly few. Yes you may get a few more being willing to look for work in London, but overall is suggest not that many.

Where it's going to make a difference is for those who travel 5 to 20 miles to/from work each day, where there's a lot of the big upfront costs of car ownership aren't spread over that many miles each year.

If that's the case then the overcrowding is likely to be for fairly short distances before someone has a chance to sit down.

Yes there'll be a need to put in more investment to creating extra capacity, however there's probably still a fair amount of extra capacity available for a lot of the country by providing longer trains.

Yes there'll be a need for extra capacity to be created for London and other major cities, but we need that anyway and given that little of that comes from ticket sales anyway it's unlikely to make much of a difference to what is/isn't funded.

Having said that, do I think that is a good idea to have such a cliff edge in ticket prices?

Well that depends on if you think that we need to reduce our car usage so as to significantly reduce our carbon emissions?

Given that I do, such a change is likely to result in a significant reduction in emissions (especially given that most train emissions are assessed on trains being 30-40% full, if we can get that to 35-45% full that reduces the per person emissions by at least 10%, even before you consider the greening of the power grid).

Yes it would create some problems (but I think that'll not be as extreme as some fear) however it would result in a significant cultural shift in how people view rail travel and could therefore result in a noticeable modal shift.

With regards to those who use rail, whilst 42% of rail travel is done by the top 20% by income, is also true that 13% of rail travel is undertaken by the bottom 20% by income. As such although there's clearly a higher usage of rail by those with higher incomes (probably significantly skewed by those working in the City of London) the amount below the average in the lower levels is about 1/3. As such it's not that significant.

It should also be noted that a household with an income of £50,000 could fall into this to 20%, which although it's a decent income level is far from excessive of it's a Cole where both are working.
 

Antman

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And which benefits more people. Especially the less well off ? Tipping point seems to be 1.40 a litre. Go above that and usage falls. So congestion much less. But also a lower tax take as discretionary travel reduced. In other words, the poor can’t afford to travel so don’t. It’s counterproductive to up fuel costs. And hits people in poorer areas on lower wages with less public alternatives harder. And they are the ones who can’t just buy an electric car (20-90k) or buy a newer much more fuel efficient one. And are those more likely to switch from labour to conservative as they grow up and their aspirations t ur n into achievement. Raising fuel duty will condemn more to a life of being unable to travel further for work. And betterment.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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This is the Germany approach - linking cheaper rail fares (and new capital investment) with climate change needs and rebalancing transport modes towards rail:
This is from a financial analyst after DB's credit rating was improved by the new policy (DB is nominally a private company with the government as sole shareholder):
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2...ets-credit-rating-boost-response-climate-law/
The change in ratings was prompted by a $12 billion support package from the German government to make rail a more efficient and cheaper means of travel for passengers and freight.
The package was presented alongside a raft of other policy measures under the government’s Climate Action Programme 2030 which it hopes will put the country on track to reduce emissions by 55% from 1990s levels by 2030.
Spent over 11 years, the money will support investment on expanding, modernising and electrifying the rail network. The government will also reduce value-added tax (VAT) to make long-distance rail tickets cheaper, raise air travel surcharges and increase vehicle tax in line with CO2 emissions per kilometre, in efforts to make rail Germans’ preferred means of transport
 

quantinghome

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And which benefits more people. Especially the less well off ? Tipping point seems to be 1.40 a litre. Go above that and usage falls. So congestion much less. But also a lower tax take as discretionary travel reduced. In other words, the poor can’t afford to travel so don’t. It’s counterproductive to up fuel costs. And hits people in poorer areas on lower wages with less public alternatives harder. And they are the ones who can’t just buy an electric car (20-90k) or buy a newer much more fuel efficient one. And are those more likely to switch from labour to conservative as they grow up and their aspirations t ur n into achievement. Raising fuel duty will condemn more to a life of being unable to travel further for work. And betterment.

Who's talking about raising fuel duty? The £9billion a year has been lost due to fuel duty not keeping it up with inflation - the freeze is effectively cutting fuel duty. Completely the wrong signal to send if we want to shift away from fossil fuels, which we have to. There are better ways to address fuel poverty, decent public transport alternatives being the main one.

To address your general political comment, I must say I've yet to see much 'betterment' in the past nine years from our 'aspirational' government. Certainly not for those on lower wages.
 
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