Car ownership vs. car use

Tom B said:

Don't forget that, though the £1.50 bus fare in London may be more expensive for short trips than a car (presupposing that parking is free and we have already paid the fixed costs of ownership), it's still significantly cheaper than outwith London.

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I agree with this. It is why I don't think the idea of a public transport system that substantially replaces car use is a realistic prospect.

The £1.50 fare (which we probably all agree is a disincentive) is subsidised and supported by being part of a much larger system which is intensively used.

Outside London bus fares are much higher. Whilst increased ridership would reduce the cost per passenger per km, we would also need more bus routes and buses - operating more frequently and for more hours of the day.

Rural and semi-urban areas don't have the density of people to economically sustain an intensive bus service.

TrafficEng said:

Good luck placating a not insignificant number of disabled/limited mobility people who will no longer be able to be dropped off as close to their destination as possible.

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Most people using London taxis are not disabled or of limited mobility. Exceptions could be made for such cases, perhaps controlled by showing an appropriate Freedom Pass or ENCTS card if a Police Officer or parking attendant questioned the matter.

However, even then there is a need for common sense in selecting where to stop which is inevitably not displayed, e.g. stopping such that a bus will get stuck the wrong side of a traffic island. People with disabilities and those driving them around are not absolved from acting reasonably to others - that's why, for example, parking using a Blue Badge in a way that is causing an obstruction can still result in a ticket.

I guess you've not experienced the fun of using the tube in a wheelchair?

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I should perhaps have said "nobody without a disability needs to use a taxi in London".

The last few posts illustrate some of the hard choices that have to be faced, even in London where the public transport network is far better than in most other places.

In central London the congestion charge did increase traffic speeds but since then increases in private hire vehicles are one of the main reasons buses are slower. This provokes the same sort of vicious spiral of bus decline as elsewhere, except that people tend to switch from the bus to taxi/PHV instead of to driving. With the tube essentially inaccessible to wheelchairs, buses do provide an important service for those whose mobility is restricted, and PHVs are generally not accessible. Some cap on PHV numbers or liability to congestion charge is probably necessary here, along with some sort of consolidation of parcel and goods deliveries.

In outer London, as with many other places, it probably has to get more difficult to use the car for those journeys where walking, cycling or buses are reasonably convenient but not necessarily absolutely the quickest or perceived as the cheapest option. A means of doing this may be to try to shift the threshold where more and more people don't see car ownership as worthwhile - avoiding the cost of depreciation, insurance, servicing etc would pay for quite a few buses, taxis, and car clubs. Otherwise there's always going to be the temptation to use the car that's sitting on the drive.

I think the viability of this sort of thing in places like London would be dependent on the practicality of ever deeper excavations in underground railways.

With the development of linear motor type lifts that produce a result comparable to a Paternoster (but safer and higher capacity), we can probably go below the existing tube system.

This is a cautionary tale for other cities, if we get underground railways elsewhere we should develop those systems to minimise their use of underground "real estate".

Bletchleyite said:

Most people using London taxis are not disabled or of limited mobility. Exceptions could be made for such cases, perhaps controlled by showing an appropriate Freedom Pass or ENCTS card if a Police Officer or parking attendant questioned the matter.

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The problem is, if you ban taxis and PHVs for all but disabled/limited mobility people the result will be a massive decrease in the number of vehicles in service. This results in increased waiting time for a taxi/PHV to arrive, and realistically you'd need to forget hailing and have a booking only system. At that point you effectively have an expanded Dial-a-ride scheme, the cost of which falls mainly on the public, and provides a service that many disabled/limited mobility people would object to using. In a sense it would be like going back to the days of the "invalid carriage" where disabled people weren't meant to expect their travel needs to be provided as part of the mainstream system.

I don't know the stats for the percentage of taxi/PHV trips made by disabled people. But London does have the Taxicard scheme that provides people with certain mobility issues a discount on taxi journeys. The details vary by borough but it amounts (IIRC) to a discount of £8.50 per trip (one way) for 104 trips per year (so one two-way journey per week). £8.50 takes you about 2.5 miles. The budget for London Taxicard is about £11 million per year - so allowing for some admin costs it is somewhere in the region of 600,000 (two-way) subsidised journeys. Obviously one journey per week per person (and only for those eligible for Taxicard) is only a small fraction of the total number of taxi/PHV trips made by disabled and limited mobility people.

Briefly - and only to illustrate how a simple idea can be more complex in reality - the enforcement of bus lanes has nothing to do with the police. Parking attendants can only deal with parking contraventions in bus lanes (dropping a passenger doesn't count). Bus lanes are usually enforced by camera with a PCN sent in the post. This means a taxi/PHV driver would not have the passenger's documents to hand when the PCN arrives. So drivers would need to take copies (possibly a photo) of the passenger's entitlement for every trip, just in case they get a PCN. That could be a data protection/privacy minefield.

This is a problem even under the current arrangements. London Travelwatch did some work a few years ago on the problem of people not being able to get a PHV to pick them up because there was a bus lane in front of their home. The reason being was that if the passenger didn't have proof of disability, or was a 'no show', then the driver would have no proof they entered the bus lane and stopped only to pick up a disabled passenger. It is a very difficult and complex problem to resolve.

Bletchleyite said:

However, even then there is a need for common sense in selecting where to stop which is inevitably not displayed, e.g. stopping such that a bus will get stuck the wrong side of a traffic island. People with disabilities and those driving them around are not absolved from acting reasonably to others - that's why, for example, parking using a Blue Badge in a way that is causing an obstruction can still result in a ticket.

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Obviously it would help if common sense were applied, but if walking more than 10m is extremely difficult for someone then dropping them 20m from where they need to go is not a good idea.

Usually a drop off/pick up is only going to take a few minutes. Parking with a blue badge might involve a long-stay, possibly with the vehicle left unattended. Hence parking would be dealt with as an obstruction, whereas the drop off/pick up is more like delaying a train by a few minutes in order to help a wheelchair user off with a ramp. Very few rail passengers would begrudge this delay - road users should be willing to be equally patient.

Bletchleyite said:

I should perhaps have said "nobody without a disability needs to use a taxi in London".

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Fair enough, obviously including all forms of disability including invisible ones.

I would add to the list people who need to use a taxi because the nature of the trip is not suitable for public transport. For example a group of business people travelling together for a meeting and needing to have a confidential conversation on the way (I've done just that with a barrister on several occasions, not conversations you can have on the tube). Alternatively, people travelling with high-value items (e.g. jewellery, cash). Also there are circumstances where bulky or heavy items need to be delivered very quickly and a taxi/PHV provides a more efficient way of doing so than hiring a courier. I'm sure there are many more good reasons other people could think of.

TrafficEng said:

The problem is, if you ban taxis and PHVs for all but disabled/limited mobility people the result will be a massive decrease in the number of vehicles in service. This results in increased waiting time for a taxi/PHV to arrive,

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That seems unlikely. You would have a decrease in the number of vehicles in service, matching the decrease in demand - which by itself would be broadly neutral in terms of waiting times. There would also be some negative impact because fluctuations in demand would be greater as a proportion of average demand. But on the other hand, the much improved traffic flows would mean journey times would be shorter, and - crucially - a vehicle, when booked, could arrive much more quickly from a given distance. Obviously, the precise impact would depend on how any policy limiting taxis is implemented but it seems to me rather more plausible that the reduced congestion could mean reduced waiting times for a taxi to arrive.

TrafficEng said:

and realistically you'd need to forget hailing and have a booking only system.

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Is that really a problem in these days of Smartphones? Besides, is it really the extremely mobility-limited who are hailing taxis in the street? I would expect those people would be more inclined to book, since they are precisely the people who are not going to be able to stand in a street trying to hail any passing taxis.

TrafficEng said:

I would add to the list people who need to use a taxi because the nature of the trip is not suitable for public transport. For example a group of business people travelling together for a meeting and needing to have a confidential conversation on the way

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That seems a bit of a strange reason to me. If I want to have a private conversation while travelling, then I'd imagine the last thing I'd want to do is conduct that conversation with a taxi or Uber driver easily able to hear every word. If anything it's probably safer to do it on a tube, where there is lots of background noise and almost noone is going to be interested in trying to evesdrop on strangers' conversations. Or just find a private space or room before or after the journey.

TrafficEng said:

Usually a drop off/pick up is only going to take a few minutes. Parking with a blue badge might involve a long-stay, possibly with the vehicle left unattended. Hence parking would be dealt with as an obstruction, whereas the drop off/pick up is more like delaying a train by a few minutes in order to help a wheelchair user off with a ramp. Very few rail passengers would begrudge this delay - road users should be willing to be equally patient.

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As long as they ARE of limited mobility, and this tends to be very visible (unlike reasons which might require use of an accessible toilet facility). I do begrudge a taxi containing someone who does not have a disability delaying my bus. It is simply selfish.

Those with heavy equipment or similar should arrange to use an appropriate loading bay.

In practice I wouldn't abolish taxis, but I would consider them, in law, the same as private cars, and therefore not afford them any priority access to bus lanes etc. If you want a car with driver, which is what they are, sit in traffic with everyone else.

DynamicSpirit said:

That seems unlikely. You would have a decrease in the number of vehicles in service, matching the decrease in demand - which by itself would be broadly neutral in terms of waiting times. There would also be some negative impact because fluctuations in demand would be greater as a proportion of average demand. But on the other hand, the much improved traffic flows would mean journey times would be shorter, and - crucially - a vehicle, when booked, could arrive much more quickly from a given distance. Obviously, the precise impact would depend on how any policy limiting taxis is implemented but it seems to me rather more plausible that the reduced congestion could mean reduced waiting times for a taxi to arrive.

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I think the logic is that if there was less demand, there wouldn't be lots of black cabs sitting in ranks or PHVs circulating aimlessly waiting for a fare, so less likely to be one of either nearby when needed. Having said that, Uber is currently treated by the market as a tech company that people are prepared to pour money into without it obeying the normal rules of profit and loss, so its financial model isn't necessarily sustainable. And really the regulators should be cracking down on the congestion and pollution from circulating PHVs, which would also help with getting one to arrive more quickly from further away.

Bletchleyite said:

I should perhaps have said "nobody without a disability needs to use a taxi in London".

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So what else was I supposed to do the other month when multiple underground lines at Paddington had serious disruption at rush hour and I had to get to a meeting in Angel? A cab was the only reasonable way I could do it, and the number of other people also opting for a cab suggests that I was not the only person in that situation.

WelshBluebird said:

So what else was I supposed to do the other month when multiple underground lines at Paddington had serious disruption at rush hour and I had to get to a meeting in Angel? A cab was the only reasonable way I could do it, and the number of other people also opting for a cab suggests that I was not the only person in that situation.

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Paddington-Angel? 205 will do you for that.

TrafficEng said:

I agree with this. It is why I don't think the idea of a public transport system that substantially replaces car use is a realistic prospect.

The £1.50 fare (which we probably all agree is a disincentive) is subsidised and supported by being part of a much larger system which is intensively used.

Outside London bus fares are much higher. Whilst increased ridership would reduce the cost per passenger per km, we would also need more bus routes and buses - operating more frequently and for more hours of the day.

Rural and semi-urban areas don't have the density of people to economically sustain an intensive bus service.

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It depends on the journey. Longer ones, it will probably be cheaper. Parking is the big killer. I can park anywhere in my borough between 11am and 3pm for free - any other time, outwith my zone, I definitely wouldn't drive.

Also, at the moment I don't have a travelcard - if I did, for regular commuting, I'd probably use the buses more as they are effectively free.

HSTEd said:

I think the viability of this sort of thing in places like London would be dependent on the practicality of ever deeper excavations in underground railways.

With the development of linear motor type lifts that produce a result comparable to a Paternoster (but safer and higher capacity), we can probably go below the existing tube system.

This is a cautionary tale for other cities, if we get underground railways elsewhere we should develop those systems to minimise their use of underground "real estate".

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Yes, perhaps - but given the issues with Crossrail, and HS2, and given that any such project would be many years away, I wouldn't hold out too much hope...

WelshBluebird said:

So what else was I supposed to do the other month when multiple underground lines at Paddington had serious disruption at rush hour and I had to get to a meeting in Angel? A cab was the only reasonable way I could do it, and the number of other people also opting for a cab suggests that I was not the only person in that situation.

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In the rare event of several problems on the Underground, (1) most people would understand if you were late for a meeting, (2) it's unlikely there would be enough taxis hanging around on the offchance of such a major event to carry everyone, and (3) if there were and they did then they would create enough congestion that nobody would get anywhere very quickly.

DynamicSpirit said:

That seems unlikely. You would have a decrease in the number of vehicles in service, matching the decrease in demand - which by itself would be broadly neutral in terms of waiting times.

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As per edwin_m's post, the issue isn't a pure demand one. There is also a spatial distribution problem. We don't know how many taxis/PHVs would be needed just to cater for disabled people's needs, but lets take 5% as an example. If we were to make an instantaneous plot of the location of all 'available' taxis/PHVs and remove 95% of them on a uniform basis then on average the distance from any given point to the nearest available taxi/PHV would increase. Hence a longer wait.

However, the uniform reduction case would not apply in real circumstances as taxis/PHVs are more likely to position to locations where trade is greater (unless regulations were introduced restricting taxis/PHVs to pick up only in an allocated geographic area). There would then be large areas of London with no available taxi/PHV within quite a significant distance. Hence a much longer wait.

DynamicSpirit said:

Obviously, the precise impact would depend on how any policy limiting taxis is implemented but it seems to me rather more plausible that the reduced congestion could mean reduced waiting times for a taxi to arrive.

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Response as above. It has also been noted already that although the congestion charging scheme initially increased average vehicle speeds the effect didn't last long (in part due to the increased PHV use we are talking about). If we removed nearly all taxis and PHVs from the streets the existing users would have to switch mode, probably onto buses. Although buses are a more efficient use of roadspace per passenger than taxis/PHVs, we would still need to add buses to the network because the existing routes/frequencies are based on current levels and patterns of ridership. Adding more buses will add back some (all?) of the congestion that was removed by getting rid of taxis/PHVs. There may be no net gain.

DynamicSpirit said:

Is that really a problem in these days of Smartphones? Besides, is it really the extremely mobility-limited who are hailing taxis in the street? I would expect those people would be more inclined to book, since they are precisely the people who are not going to be able to stand in a street trying to hail any passing taxis.

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Opinions will vary on whether smartphone booking is adequate. But there are locations (e.g. terminus stations) where taxis are available without booking. And people don't necessarily need to stand for a cab to be hailed.

DynamicSpirit said:

That seems a bit of a strange reason to me. If I want to have a private conversation while travelling, then I'd imagine the last thing I'd want to do is conduct that conversation with a taxi or Uber driver easily able to hear every word. If anything it's probably safer to do it on a tube, where there is lots of background noise and almost noone is going to be interested in trying to evesdrop on strangers' conversations. Or just find a private space or room before or after the journey.

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I can only speak about my personal experience, but in a taxi you don't have to think about who the anonymous people sitting/standing around you are, or if any of them work for the media or companies you may be in conflict with. The background noise on the tube makes it harder to have a conversation - you usually have to talk louder - which increases the risk of someone else hearing. As for using a private space for a pre-meet then that is probably happening already. But if you are paying someone a four-figure sum per hour for their time then the ability to talk and travel is worth much more than the cost of a taxi fare.

Bletchleyite said:

As long as they ARE of limited mobility, and this tends to be very visible (unlike reasons which might require use of an accessible toilet facility). I do begrudge a taxi containing someone who does not have a disability delaying my bus. It is simply selfish.

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How would you know whether they had Agoraphobia, Claustrophobia, Autism or Asbergers (for example)? The kind of conditions the Blue Badge scheme was recently extended to cover. It would be a hard 'sell' to explain to these people that although they now have access to a blue badge someone has decided that speedy bus journeys are more important than their own travel needs.

Bletchleyite said:

Those with heavy equipment or similar should arrange to use an appropriate loading bay.

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Loading bays are rare (especially on roads with bus lanes) and usually reserved exclusively for HGVs not taxis/PHVs. It also defeats the benefit of using a taxi which is the ability to stop as close as possible to the premises you are going to.

Bletchleyite said:

In practice I wouldn't abolish taxis, but I would consider them, in law, the same as private cars, and therefore not afford them any priority access to bus lanes etc. If you want a car with driver, which is what they are, sit in traffic with everyone else.

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In essence that argument has been playing out in London with PHV representatives challenging TfL in the courts to allow PHVs to use bus lanes. TfL have been robustly defending their position that taxis (but not PHVs) should be able to use bus lanes. If the provider of bus services in London believes taxis have a need to use bus lanes (a net social benefit?) then it is probably unlikely your preferred policy would be introduced without there being some radical shift in circumstances.

As capacity in the core section of London is the most constrained, encouraging journeys that do not terminate in the inner core not to go through the inner core might prove somewhat helpful.

But it is hard to determine how one might efficiently do that.
A high speed, very high acceleration, public transport system in a ring around the area of the M25 for example.
But not sure if any available technology could manage close enough stop spacings to be useful whilst still retaining a high enough average speed to be useful - so a Maglev is about all I got there.

edwin_m said:

And really the regulators should be cracking down on the congestion and pollution from circulating PHVs, which would also help with getting one to arrive more quickly from further away.

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The main problem there is the lack of space for PHVs to park between jobs. Unlike taxis PHVs don't circulate just to look for trade. Unless they are repositioning to a more suitable location or to collect the next fare, any 'empty' miles are likely to be clocked up to avoid getting a parking penalty for waiting where they aren't allowed to.

This wastefulness is inherent in a system where PHVs and taxis operate under very different rules. But the alternative of removing the demarcation is unthinkable.

TrafficEng said:

This wastefulness is inherent in a system where PHVs and taxis operate under very different rules. But the alternative of removing the demarcation is unthinkable.

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Outside of the UK and US does any other country have the demarcation?

Is removing it really unthinkable?

Bletchleyite said:

Outside of the UK and US does any other country have the demarcation?

Is removing it really unthinkable?

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The competence of the two trades is vastly at odds. PHV drivers are unqualified, display appalling errors of driving on a daily basis, and have no concept of where they are going - relying on a mobile phone right in front of their nose to tell them. Somewhat different from a thoroughly trained and knowledgeable hackney driver.

HSTEd said:

As capacity in the core section of London is the most constrained, encouraging journeys that do not terminate in the inner core not to go through the inner core might prove somewhat helpful.

But it is hard to determine how one might efficiently do that.
A high speed, very high acceleration, public transport system in a ring around the area of the M25 for example.
But not sure if any available technology could manage close enough stop spacings to be useful whilst still retaining a high enough average speed to be useful - so a Maglev is about all I got there.

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A good start would be not building a brand new high speed public transport system in such a way that it terminates just as it reaches the fringe of that inner core.

Especially when the chosen location is very close to the terminus of the last built brand new high speed public transport system.

I think the M25 corridor might be a bit too close to the core to be effective. By the time you've travelled that far in it may be just as quick to go to the centre and back out. But to the North of London a sensible route might be Colchester-Stansted-Stevenage-Luton.... to intersect traditional intercity stops and airport locations. But that is probably a discussion for the speculative ideas thread.

TrafficEng said:

I think the M25 corridor might be a bit too close to the core to be effective. By the time you've travelled that far in it may be just as quick to go to the centre and back out. But to the North of London a sensible route might be Colchester-Stansted-Stevenage-Luton.... to intersect traditional intercity stops and airport locations. But that is probably a discussion for the speculative ideas thread.

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I think that is far too far out to be effective.
The further out you build the longer the line gets, thus the more expensive, and the less people in Outer London will actually be able to use it.

TrafficEng said:

If we removed nearly all taxis and PHVs from the streets the existing users would have to switch mode, probably onto buses. Although buses are a more efficient use of roadspace per passenger than taxis/PHVs, we would still need to add buses to the network because the existing routes/frequencies are based on current levels and patterns of ridership. Adding more buses will add back some (all?) of the congestion that was removed by getting rid of taxis/PHVs. There may be no net gain.

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I'm pretty sure there would be a gain by definition, since every bus is going to replace at least 20 taxis and more significantly the roadspace that has to be kept free in front of each one while it is moving. The reduction in congestion further increases the speed of the buses as well as those who still travel by taxi. Basically a repeat of what Ken Livingstone did at the start of the congestion charge, only targeting taxis instead of private cars.

TrafficEng said:

In essence that argument has been playing out in London with PHV representatives challenging TfL in the courts to allow PHVs to use bus lanes. TfL have been robustly defending their position that taxis (but not PHVs) should be able to use bus lanes. If the provider of bus services in London believes taxis have a need to use bus lanes (a net social benefit?) then it is probably unlikely your preferred policy would be introduced without there being some radical shift in circumstances.

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I believe the allowing of taxis in bus lanes is mainly because they need to be able to drop off a disabled person anywhere. Also taxis are instantly recognizable but PHVs are hard to distinguish from normal cars (and may operate as such when not "on duty") so allowing PHVs would make bus lane enforcement very difficult.

HSTEd said:

As capacity in the core section of London is the most constrained, encouraging journeys that do not terminate in the inner core not to go through the inner core might prove somewhat helpful.

But it is hard to determine how one might efficiently do that.
A high speed, very high acceleration, public transport system in a ring around the area of the M25 for example.
But not sure if any available technology could manage close enough stop spacings to be useful whilst still retaining a high enough average speed to be useful - so a Maglev is about all I got there.

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Instead of which we have the Overground and the pink Oyster reader. But to be fair that targets closer in and denser suburbs, so lower speeds and more frequent stops are more appropriate. However a Maglev isn't any quicker than a train for stop-start applications, because maximum speed is limited by acceleration/deceleration, which can't get much more than provided by a high-performance EMU unless passengers are strapped in for safety.

Bletchleyite said:

Outside of the UK and US does any other country have the demarcation?

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Isn't it there wherever Uber operates?

The existence of multiple PHV apps in itself contributes to congestion, because each app operator is trying to get more cars on the road than its competitors so as to shorten the wait time. If all PHVs signed up to the same app then there would be far fewer circulating for the same average wait time. I think it's the case that in most cities outside the UK there is one recognized or dominant app used by most or all of the licensed taxis, plus Uber trying to be disruptive.

edwin_m said:

Instead of which we have the Overground and the pink Oyster reader. But to be fair that targets closer in and denser suburbs, so lower speeds and more frequent stops are more appropriate. However a Maglev isn't any quicker than a train for stop-start applications, because maximum speed is limited by acceleration/deceleration, which can't get much more than provided by a high-performance EMU unless passengers are strapped in for safety.

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Not strictly true, as in most maglev systems the traction power system is installed in the track and not in the train.
This means you are unconstrained by the power to weight potential of the vehicle.

This means your acceleration curve can be a straight line at the passenger comfort limit.

EDIT:
If a tube train was capable of continuous acceleration at it's starting rate (1.3m/s) it would reach 100mph in 34 seconds.
But obviously it can't do that.

TrafficEng said:

A good start would be not building a brand new high speed public transport system in such a way that it terminates just as it reaches the fringe of that inner core.

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I don't agree. From the existing termini people can disperse in all directions on local transport, and the stations are mostly far enough apart that the resulting local loadings are fairly even. Taking main lines further in than the existing rail termini means a significant number of the passengers would use the local transport to travel out again.

HSTEd said:

Not strictly true, as in most maglev systems the traction power system is installed in the track and not in the train.
This means you are unconstrained by the power to weight potential of the vehicle.

This means your acceleration curve can be a straight line at the passenger comfort limit.

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Very little difference at suburban speeds and the sort of stop spacing you'd have on an outer London orbital. Just run a check on a performance model and a Class 331 would do 3 miles start to stop in 2min 49s, but if its acceleration didn't drop off with speed it would only be 15s quicker.

edwin_m said:

Very little difference at suburban speeds and the sort of stop spacing you'd have on an outer London orbital. Just run a check on a performance model and a Class 331 would do 3 miles start to stop in 2min 49s, but if its acceleration didn't drop off with speed it would only be 15s quicker.

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At tube train accelerations it would do something like 2 minutes.
But I think 4800m spacings might be a little small considering the line could easily be 150km+ long.

HSTEd said:

At tube train accelerations it would do something like 2 minutes.
But I think 4800m spacings might be a little small considering the line could easily be 150km+ long.

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I was using acceleration of 1.21m/s2, probably not far off what a tube would do though I don't have figures for one.

If you're talking outer London suburbs you need to interchange with radial lines and serve the communities on the way. It's not a long distance journey unless you really want to divert people travelling nearly half way round, and it's unlikely there'd be enough of those to justify a fast service between Watford and Croydon or whatever.

edwin_m said:

I'm pretty sure there would be a gain by definition, since every bus is going to replace at least 20 taxis and more significantly the roadspace that has to be kept free in front of each one while it is moving. The reduction in congestion further increases the speed of the buses as well as those who still travel by taxi. Basically a repeat of what Ken Livingstone did at the start of the congestion charge, only targeting taxis instead of private cars.

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It would need to be modelled to get a definitive answer, but my expectation is that because the buses need to be operated over defined routes whereas the taxis are distributed over a much wider network, the effect would be a concentration of movements onto a smaller amount of roadspace. That could increase congestion rather than decreasing it.

If it were possible to spread the buses out over a wider network of roads the opposite might apply, but it depends on the suitability of some London streets to operate buses and the practicality of designing sensible routes to make use of these streets. In terms of suitability, we'd also need to account for vehicle size and the restricted visibility of buses (vs taxis) and how that might impact on pedestrian and cyclist safety.

edwin_m said:

I don't agree. From the existing termini people can disperse in all directions on local transport, and the stations are mostly far enough apart that the resulting local loadings are fairly even. Taking main lines further in than the existing rail termini means a significant number of the passengers would use the local transport to travel out again.

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I was interpreting HSTEd's point as proposing if people don't need to go into the central core then we should find ways of avoiding the need for them to do so.

If we took the northern cordon of the central core as the A501 (approximately a straight line from Edgware Road to Angel) then of the directions people can travel on arrival at Marylebone/Euston/St Pancras/Kings Cross approximately half (180 degrees) will enter that central core. In terms of trips we would expect rather more than 50% to cross the cordon and enter that central core.

Therefore as a (theoretical) response to HSTEd's point, the concept of plonking what amounts to a new terminal station in the same location where circa 50% of onward travel options need to enter that central core would be contrary to the objective of keeping people out of the core unless they need to go there. There is more that could be said, but this is drifting away from car ownership vs use so I won't expand further.

(but worth noting that some taxi travel is station to station across London)

TrafficEng said:

It would need to be modelled to get a definitive answer, but my expectation is that because the buses need to be operated over defined routes whereas the taxis are distributed over a much wider network, the effect would be a concentration of movements onto a smaller amount of roadspace. That could increase congestion rather than decreasing it.

If it were possible to spread the buses out over a wider network of roads the opposite might apply, but it depends on the suitability of some London streets to operate buses and the practicality of designing sensible routes to make use of these streets. In terms of suitability, we'd also need to account for vehicle size and the restricted visibility of buses (vs taxis) and how that might impact on pedestrian and cyclist safety.

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Whilst taxis would be spread out over a larger area, most of their travel would be along similar corridors to the buses. As most of the other travel would be the short distances off of the core routes to provide door to door service, typically up to about 400m although with some longer distances but few above 1km from the core routes.

Whilst those away from the core routes will lessen the impact, 4 taxis carrying 4 people each will still take up more roadspace than a Bus carrying 32 people.

If you don't believe me then please explain to those on this forum with no Transport Planning experience what a PCU is and why a bus is given the value of 3 PCU's and why I therefore say that 4 taxis would take up more roadspace.

Tom B said:

The competence of the two trades is vastly at odds. PHV drivers are unqualified, display appalling errors of driving on a daily basis, and have no concept of where they are going - relying on a mobile phone right in front of their nose to tell them. Somewhat different from a thoroughly trained and knowledgeable hackney driver.

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In London. In many other parts of the UK PHV drivers (be they Uber or not) are the well behaved ones and the Hackney carriage drivers are the disreputable ones, and more expensive to boot. They have quite a reputation in MK for instance, whereas the drivers for the private hire companies by and large know where they're going and behave themselves.

TrafficEng said:

It would need to be modelled to get a definitive answer, but my expectation is that because the buses need to be operated over defined routes whereas the taxis are distributed over a much wider network, the effect would be a concentration of movements onto a smaller amount of roadspace. That could increase congestion rather than decreasing it.

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While I agree that you'd need modelling to get a definitive answer, I'm sure you could get a pretty good idea by just watching the congested main roads in London and seeing what most of the traffic is. As someone who goes into central London frequently, I'd say that Oxford Street is the only street that is congested and where buses make up a very high proportion of the traffic (and I believe TfL are taking action anyway to reduce the numbers of buses there). On just about every other main route I've seen in central London, I'd say that during congested periods, vehicles that appear to be either private cars or private hire vehicles vastly outnumber buses. I would therefore find it very implausible that getting a lot of the private-hire traffic onto buses could increase congestion along those routes, even allowing for some concentration of buses.

You should also consider that, in central London, even if a PHV is using back roads that are away from bus routes, you can't get very far along back streets without reaching a junction with a main road. And of course junctions are where most congestion tends to be caused. I would expect there would be very few taxi journeys that don't involve - if not travelling along a bus route - at least crossing one a couple of times and therefore contributing to junction-congestion. That's simply because almost any taxi journey that didn't cross a bus route would have to be no more than about 10 minutes walking distance - and how many people will go to the trouble of hiring a taxi for such a short journey!