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Poor GWR Marketing of Improved Services - M4 Congestion.

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mikeb42

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If the lower crossing was to get a bus lane on both carriageways, it would allow for more door to door routes linking both sides of the Severn. @stj could upgrade his journey from car to bus! The reduction of the generic highway lanes to two in each direction would also throttle the motorists going on the crossing itself so they get jammed up harmlessly over the water out of everyone else's way rather than around Newport where they pollute the town.

"Jamming Up" traffic over the water would take much more than sticking a bus lane on the Prince of Wales Bridge. The Severn bridges are the sole part of the Cardiff<->Bristol corridor that have ample capacity - 5 lanes of it each way between roughly Magor and the English shore. Such a bus lane would have zero utility to buses as it wouldn't throttle the non-bus traffic and without toll plazas there's no routine congestion there for buses to undertake - other than straight back into a 10s of miles long queue on a Friday...

The rest of this corridor is ruined by a central core which is pretty much an engineering disaster. This is largely due to i) the Brynglas tunnels, ii) other 2 lane pinch-points and iii) that so many short hops are made by joining & leaving the M4 between the western and eastern ends of Newport via badly sited & designed junctions on bends adjacent to i) & ii). One or two of these were so bad they have been closed to useful effect, but the rest need dealing with too. Most other stretches of the corridor have been improved over the last 20 years and it would mostly be serviceable were it not for the shambles around the Brynglas tunnels.

The worst congestion occurs westbound, particularly on Fridays when it becomes a car-park between west of the Bath exit and Newport from midday until 8pm. A large proportion of this traffic is not local and has nothing to do with commuters. Bus lanes, congestion charges, Bristol council trying to ban arbitrary things in contravention of Westminster guidelines etc aren't going to have any effect on this.

The only thing worse than commuting along here by road is doing so by GWR. Trains on the Cardiff<->London route are irrelevant for the vast majority working in Bristol. Parkway is 7 miles from the city centre and of no use other than to those who work in the cluster of workplaces around the top of the M32. Temple Meads is also in the wrong place and the services from S Wales have for years been grotty, too infrequent, unreliable, appallingly overcrowded, expensive and woefully slow. Some of these have been made a little, but only a little, better recently. Woefully slow is the killer, has barely improved if at all and looks set to stay indefinitely.

Anyone commuting from the suburbs and satellites of Cardiff or Newport to Bristol or vice versa (and there are plenty of each though more of the former for socio-economic reasons) will find that it takes roughly 100% longer to do this by bus+train than driving. Thus turning a manageable commute into an intolerable one.

Even if you're fortunate enough to live and work within walking distance of rail stations at both ends with a direct train linking them it is hard to take. We recently had a colleague quit a job he was otherwise happy with after 4-5 years of commuting from Cardiff to Bristol under these conditions purely because he couldn't stand the GWR experience on the Cardiff<->Temple Meads route any longer. This was somebody who had previously commuted into London from Southend on C2C for years and so must have been pretty hardy. Unreliability, journeys constantly elongated by unpunctuality and overcrowding seemed to be the things that eventually tipped him over the edge.

Until there are expresses that do Cardiff<->Temple Meads in ~35 minutes 4 times an hour reliably, and intensive metro train/tram/whatever services in Cardiff/Newport/Bristol it is never going to be an competitive option. Sometime never, then...
 
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Envoy

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The attitude of the ruling Labour Party in Wales is that they refuse to build a new M4 south of Newport to relieve the congestion - caused mainly by the 2 lane tunnels at Newport because they want more people to use the trains. So, they ‘punish’ the car users for not being green and at the same time have 50 mph speed limits to reduce pollution. (I would have thought that all the nose to tail traffic crawling along would actually increase pollution as they are burn more fuel than cruising faster). Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats (what’s left of them) & of course, the Green Party - all back Labour on this issue.
A lot of nonsense has been talked about a new M4 destroying ’The Wetlands’. Well, a good bit of the black route M4 would have crossed Newport’s industrial area. Furthermore, the so called ‘wetlands’ are not natural but are in fact drained land for the purpose of farming. (I bet Brunel did not have all this bother when he build the railway across the coastal plain). The only party that would actually build a new M4 is the Conservatives - who would need to win a clear majority in the 2021 Welsh Election. I am all for rail transport but the section of the M4 around Newport is throttling the economy of south Wales.

Mention has been made of the advertising campaign by GWR being aimed attracting leisure travellers. I note that Oxford is one of the places that appears in the 'cartoons’. I have just done a check for pay on the day Anytime Returns for today - a Saturday. London Paddington to Oxford is £28.20 Anytime Return. Newport to Oxford (change at Didcot) is a whopping £56.40 return via the GWR website. Now, I know that Newport is a bit further away than London but TWICE THE PRICE! Anyway, one of the split ticket websites tells me that by splitting at Swindon we get Newport to Swindon = £21 return & Swindon to Oxford = £12.20 return making a total of £33.20 & thus saving a whopping £23.20. So, I ask, what is the point of expensive advertising campaigns supposed to attract the leisure market when the official GWR fares from Newport to Oxford are a total rip-off? (The leisure traveller would surely wish to pay on the day to avoid the risk of bad weather - which you get when advance bookings are made. Indeed, the GWR website is encouraging people not to travel today due the potential for disruption caused by storm Dennis). Goodness knows how many members of the public are aware of the discounts available by split ticketing but people should never assume that the website of the TOC involved will come up with the cheapest fare - and it should not be like this. GWR - high command - if you are reading this - you should make all your fares for through tickets at least the same price as they would be with splits.

Someone I know wanted to go from Cardiff to Oxford for a day out. They saw the high fares being charged by GWR and decided to drive. So, GWR lost business & the M4 gained another vehicle.
 

Dai Corner

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I used to commute from western Newport to central Bristol. Although this was 15 years ago the main drawback to using the train is still applicable; journey time reliability.

In the morning the non-appearance of the bus to the station meant missing the train and an automatic 30min delay. Coming home, a slight delay to the train meant missing the 1800 bus and a 40m delay (or £5-6 taxi ride) as evening services were infrequent.
 

Envoy

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Some of you are commenting on getting to & from rail stations to home/ places of work and that this swings it is favour of car transport - along with undesirable rolling stock/over crowding & costs.

I note that Filton Abbey Wood has a number of big employers nearby. Looking at a map of the area, it seems to be that nobody can walk eastward from the station to the University of the West of England as their way is blocked by the MOD site. Whilst I can understand the MOD wanting security, surely this is all bad planning in having an organisation block what could have been the shortest walking routes eastward from this station - thus meaning that University staff & students are unlikely to use this station - correct me if I am wrong. Likewise, I do wonder if Airbus to the west have any public transport link with the station or Parkway as it looks a bit far to walk for commuters?
Map:>https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5047517,-2.560137,2081m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1

Regarding Severn Tunnel Junction: a large area of derelict land is south of this station that could be used for parking and be linked to the M4 by the old toll plaza. The present small car park fills up and has pay machines. So, here we have another reason not to use the trains! (TfW trains on the Cheltenham > Chepstow > STJ > Newport > Cardiff route have recently been upgraded to 170’s but I wonder how many people who had bad experiences on 2 coach 150’s and have taken to the car are aware of this)?
STJ Map:>
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5828742,-2.7828691,1405m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1

A plan exists to build a new parkway station at Cardiff East (St. Mellons). This would surely have a massive impact in attracting commuters to rail if allied with free parking? A present, anyone wishing to use trains who lives in east Cardiff has to go through congested roads to Cardiff Central or east to Newport. So clearly, due to access to rail transport being so difficult - another win for car use.
 

Taunton

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Someone who tries the train once, finds a delay of 15 minutes (all too common), has to stand (not unlikely at peak times) and sees somewhat down at heel rolling stock with a cheap, very basic interior

Personally, I think that the answer is road pricing.
So the answer to increasingly poor standards on the railway is to make it more unpleasant for others ?
 

Dai Corner

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Some of you are commenting on getting to & from rail stations to home/ places of work and that this swings it is favour of car transport - along with undesirable rolling stock/over crowding & costs.

On the pro-railway side, thousands more jobs are within a very short walk of Temple Meads as a result of new office developments.
 

Meerkat

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Looking at a map of the area, it seems to be that nobody can walk eastward from the station to the University of the West of England as their way is blocked by the MOD site.
From google maps you can walk/cycle round the south or North of the MOD site, neither of which are outrageously indirect.
 

Starmill

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So the answer to increasingly poor standards on the railway is to make it more unpleasant for others ?
A bizarre conclusion.

One assumes that you missed my advocacy of 6 or 8 car trains running every 10 minutes (or at least every 15) between Bristol and Cardiff all day, with new comfortable upmarket interiors? That's the sort of provision that would fit with the population and status of the places we're talking about, but it's not only entirely unrealistic, but it's not even really on anyone's agenda.

There is a very strong road lobby in this country, though, who will do anything and everything to resist the smallest encroaches on their right or capacity to drive whatever vehicle they like, wherever they like whenever they like.
 

jimm

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So why the adverts? Hardly aimed at the weekday traveleller are they?

Of course they aren't. Why would they be, when the trains are busy on weekdays?

Is it so hard to grasp such a basic point?

There is spare capacity on GWR's services off-peak and at weekends, so they want to encourage people to travel then!

Your point?

That just like GWR now, BR was trying to fill spare capacity that it had available at weekends, so came up with incentives to travel then/sit in first class coaches that were not full of business passengers paying full whack - unlike on weekdays...

Indeed but not relevent as it was a general quote about weekend works.

In what way is it not relevant, when people are warned in advance that they will be on a bus? Which might make them think they will travel another day/time. Engineering work on the railways is a fact of life - just like the Friday afternoon and evening tailback on the M4 from Brynglas tunnels.

This isn't just about seats though is it?

Please do enlighten us what it is about then? If people have been turned off using the trains, then why on earth would anyone massively increase the peak capacity available between Cardiff and London?

You know very well what I mean.

Do I? I don't think so....

Mention has been made of the advertising campaign by GWR being aimed attracting leisure travellers. I note that Oxford is one of the places that appears in the 'cartoons’. I have just done a check for pay on the day Anytime Returns for today - a Saturday. London Paddington to Oxford is £28.20 Anytime Return. Newport to Oxford (change at Didcot) is a whopping £56.40 return via the GWR website. Now, I know that Newport is a bit further away than London but TWICE THE PRICE! Anyway, one of the split ticket websites tells me that by splitting at Swindon we get Newport to Swindon = £21 return & Swindon to Oxford = £12.20 return making a total of £33.20 & thus saving a whopping £23.20. So, I ask, what is the point of expensive advertising campaigns supposed to attract the leisure market when the official GWR fares from Newport to Oxford are a total rip-off? (The leisure traveller would surely wish to pay on the day to avoid the risk of bad weather - which you get when advance bookings are made. Indeed, the GWR website is encouraging people not to travel today due the potential for disruption caused by storm Dennis). Goodness knows how many members of the public are aware of the discounts available by split ticketing but people should never assume that the website of the TOC involved will come up with the cheapest fare - and it should not be like this. GWR - high command - if you are reading this - you should make all your fares for through tickets at least the same price as they would be with splits.

Someone I know wanted to go from Cardiff to Oxford for a day out. They saw the high fares being charged by GWR and decided to drive. So, GWR lost business & the M4 gained another vehicle.

I've no idea what this Anytime ticket is that you are on about - the ticket that costs £28.20 on Saturday is an off-peak day return, which is valid on any train between London and Oxford at weekends.

Depending on what time you want to travel next Saturday, advances are currently available on the GWR website for travel between London and Oxford from £5.50 one way. Amazingly some leisure travellers do plan what they are doing ahead of time - and book tickets while they are at it.

It's going to take more than GWR tinkering about to sort out the shambles that the entire rail ticketing system has become.
 
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There is a very strong road lobby in this country, though, who will do anything and everything to resist the smallest encroaches on their right or capacity to drive whatever vehicle they like, wherever they like whenever they like.
Not really a lobby but just the way the vast majority of non-city dwellers find is the most practical to complete their journeys. And many trips are not because they "like"making them but are necessary to get to work, or carry out their work. That isn't going to change any time soon however much rail enthusiasts would like it to.
 

Chris M

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What Bristol needs most is reliable, affordable intra-city public transport. I used to work in Westbury-on-Trym, I could drive in from Somerset in about 45-50 minutes off peak.
By public transport the bus to Temple Meads took nearly an hour (when it turned up) off peak. Getting to Parkway required a ~20 minute wait to change buses at Cribbs Causeway in the unlikely event both were on time.
 

Starmill

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Not really a lobby but just the way the vast majority of non-city dwellers find is the most practical to complete their journeys. And many trips are not because they "like"making them but are necessary to get to work, or carry out their work. That isn't going to change any time soon however much rail enthusiasts would like it to.
The government actively supports them by declining to increase taxes, reducing the real price of driving marginal miles, while consistently punishing rail users with higher and higher fares. I don't think anyone is under any impression any of that will change.
 

Starmill

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Depending on what time you want to travel next Saturday, advances are currently available on the GWR website for travel between London and Oxford from £5.50 one way. Amazingly some leisure travellers do plan what they are doing ahead of time - and book tickets while they are at it.
"from £5.50" is a bit optimistic (good luck getting one) and a more likely price of £10-15 or so also not really that good of a deal for a ticket which is fixed time without any value if you miss the train and to which you've no right to a refund and a fee to change your mind.

Fundamentally, people here trot out the argument that a handful of bargain advance tickets early in the morning or late at night, which won't be available a few days before travelling anyway (a more likely window for someone after a weekend day out in Oxford) mean that the service is attractive compared to a car, which is flexible unlimitedly. It's simply not the way most people think.

Crucially though I think the point being made us that £29ish is within range for day-tourism, and the fares quoted from Newport to Oxford aren't.
 
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The government actively supports them by declining to increase taxes, reducing the real price of driving marginal miles, while consistently punishing rail users with higher and higher fares. I don't think anyone is under any impression any of that will change.
Not helped by bad planning over decades where entire housing estates have been built with no access to public transport, coupled with poor integration between bus and rail. If it was made easier for local buses to serve railway stations people might be less inclined to use cars. Also expensive station parking encourages drop offs/pick ups doubling the daily car mileage for each commuter.
 

Starmill

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The only real solution to congestion on the M4 is improving the M4, including building a decent standard relief road past Newport.
Well I suppose it is when yoir viewpoint is limited to the idea that people are entitled to drive to get to places then yes. Every government in this country has quite internalised that idea, however, pretty much since cars became affordably mass-produced.
 

Starmill

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This was somebody who had previously commuted into London from Southend on C2C for years and so must have been pretty hardy. Unreliability, journeys constantly elongated by unpunctuality and overcrowding seemed to be the things that eventually tipped him over the edge.
I would much prefer to make a daily commute from Southed Central to the City of London than to come into Bristol from Cardiff. You have a far greater range of peak departures with a service every few minutes, you can always pick up a train at its origin so you've got a good chance of a seat, you know reliably that you're going to get a long train and the journey can be made in 50 minutes. It's also only slightly more expensive and comes with a back-up route that uses totally different lines if you're stuck.
 

squizzler

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"Jamming Up" traffic over the water would take much more than sticking a bus lane on the Prince of Wales Bridge. The Severn bridges are the sole part of the Cardiff<->Bristol corridor that have ample capacity - 5 lanes of it each way between roughly Magor and the English shore. Such a bus lane would have zero utility to buses as it wouldn't throttle the non-bus traffic and without toll plazas there's no routine congestion there for buses to undertake - other than straight back into a 10s of miles long queue on a Friday...
Perhaps if there were bus lanes on the bridge itself and then a guided busway through Newport and past other congestion prone sections of M4 it would do the trick. The guided busway would provide a great halfway house on that corridor: faster and more punctual than busses on the legacy motorway whilst making use of the latter where appropriate - and able to serve orders of magnitude more stops than the railway. It could even use electric trolley traction.

The guided busway, being a more recent innovation, would be far easier to build than the refused proposal for an extra motorway. It would also be more ecologically sound. Unlike the older technology of the motorway, users would gain the benefit of nice new busses as part of the package rather than having to continue making do with their existing cars.
 

jayah

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Indeed, the South Wales service is hardly improved, still 2 tph to London, just now quite often there is fewer seats as it's often a 5 car set. Even if it is a 9 the seating is so uncomfortable it's hardly likely to tempt folk from their cars.
HSTs are an improvement over 150s, yes, but the journey to Bristol from Cardiff isn't the quickest on them as they have a nasty habit of stopping everywhere!

The experience of Operation Princess was that despite the smell of sewage, the crowding and hard seats travel is a want and people will tolerate all of those things to get where they need to go. Whether that is new people or people from their cars. The HS2 business case suggests improving already connected flows is largely the former.

South Wales has a greatly improved service!

Aside from the limited stop peak trains the general London times have been accelerated by around 5-10mins, far more at weekends when for a long time 40mins London to Reading was the norm.

The weekend London service has also doubled in frequency to half-hourly both on Saturday and Sunday and the Bristol Cardiff local trains run half-hourly on Sundays from May on a 45min journey times with 2 calls.
 

jimm

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"from £5.50" is a bit optimistic (good luck getting one) and a more likely price of £10-15 or so also not really that good of a deal for a ticket which is fixed time without any value if you miss the train and to which you've no right to a refund and a fee to change your mind.

Fundamentally, people here trot out the argument that a handful of bargain advance tickets early in the morning or late at night, which won't be available a few days before travelling anyway (a more likely window for someone after a weekend day out in Oxford) mean that the service is attractive compared to a car, which is flexible unlimitedly. It's simply not the way most people think.

Crucially though I think the point being made us that £29ish is within range for day-tourism, and the fares quoted from Newport to Oxford aren't.

People have a choice - they take the advance deal, with the restrictions, or they pay more for a flexible ticket.

In what way is paying £5.50 to travel on a GWR train between Oxford and Paddington being a "bit optimistic"?

If you know anything about pricing on this flow - which I suspect you don't - then you would know that this fare is not at all unusual for an advance ticket, due to the competition for custom between GWR, Chiltern and Stagecoach's Oxford Tube coaches.

That was the price being quoted on the GWR website for travel on a number of trains both ways between Oxford and Paddington next Saturday when I was writing that post yesterday - and is still the price today.

And since when has an 09.32, 09.47 or 10.02 departure from Oxford or a 15.20, 15.50 or 17.20 departure from Paddington (all IET services and all bookable for £5.50 right now) been early morning or late at night?

Do many people make day trips from Newport to Oxford? I doubt it. And compared with the volume of leisure and tourist traffic between London and Oxford they will be a drop in the ocean, which is probably why GWR charges what it does.
 
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Envoy

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People have a choice - they take the advance deal, with the restrictions, or they pay more for a flexible ticket.

In what way is paying £5.50 to travel on a GWR train between Oxford and Paddington being a "bit optimistic"?

If you know anything about pricing on this flow - which I suspect you don't - then you would know that this fare is not at all unusual for an advance ticket, due to the competition for custom between GWR, Chiltern and Stagecoach's Oxford Tube coaches.
So, it takes competition from competing companies to drive down the prices - which explains why GWR are objecting to Grand Union operating between south Wales & London. See PDF:>
https://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pd...and-union-trains-track-access-application.pdf
Do many people make day trips from Newport to Oxford? I doubt it. And compared with the volume of leisure and tourist traffic between London and Oxford they will be a drop in the ocean, which is probably why GWR charges what it does.

So, your irrational view suggests that a flow with a lot of people would be cheaper than a flow between 2 places with fewer passengers. Obviously the flow between Newport & Oxford would be less than the flow between London & Oxford but that is no reason why they should be expected to pay a higher rate per mile for the former.
 
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thaitransit

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If I recall this area is quite a distance from central London. Why would the local traffic be so high in a regional area a few hours by rail from London. Given the distance from London I would have thought commuting by rail would be the only option as driving would be simply too long as its 200km plus from London.

Generally from my experience once your out of the capital city the population density drops off dramatically and the distance between towns gets long and long. This certainly the case in Australia. Thus traffic issues are non existent 200km out from Melbourne or Brisbane unless a natural disaster or major accident blocks the highway.
 

mmh

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If I recall this area is quite a distance from central London. Why would the local traffic be so high in a regional area a few hours by rail from London. Given the distance from London I would have thought commuting by rail would be the only option as driving would be simply too long as its 200km plus from London.

Generally from my experience once your out of the capital city the population density drops off dramatically and the distance between towns gets long and long. This certainly the case in Australia. Thus traffic issues are non existent 200km out from Melbourne or Brisbane unless a natural disaster or major accident blocks the highway.

London is almost entirely an irrelevance in this thread, the mentions of it are people justifying their position that South Wales has an improved rail service because you can get to London 10 minutes quicker. The journeys people are making aren't to London though, they're relatively local journeys.

Britain's road traffic doesn't really follow the pattern that the further away from the capital you are the quieter it'll be. The M4 although it goes to London in the section being spoken about here is largely being used by traffic not going to/from London. That's common with many British roads, they might connect multiple conurbations along the way and have busier and quieter sections. End to end journeys are probably in a small minority on all of our motorways (barring some short ones and ones which are only connecting roads between other motorways.

It's related to the British geography and population spread really - many large towns and cities all over the place!
 

thaitransit

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London is almost entirely an irrelevance in this thread, the mentions of it are people justifying their position that South Wales has an improved rail service because you can get to London 10 minutes quicker. The journeys people are making aren't to London though, they're relatively local journeys.

Britain's road traffic doesn't really follow the pattern that the further away from the capital you are the quieter it'll be. The M4 although it goes to London in the section being spoken about here is largely being used by traffic not going to/from London. That's common with many British roads, they might connect multiple conurbations along the way and have busier and quieter sections. End to end journeys are probably in a small minority on all of our motorways (barring some short ones and ones which are only connecting roads between other motorways.

It's related to the British geography and population spread really - many large towns and cities all over the place!

So this traffic is primarily local short distance commute traffic within the regional area. Not rural to city commuter traffic. So a local regional suburban diesel train network would probably service the area better than more long distance trains to the city.
 

mmh

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So this traffic is primarily local short distance commute traffic within the regional area. Not rural to city commuter traffic. So a local regional suburban diesel train network would probably service the area better than more long distance trains to the city.

To an extent, yes. It's like many (most?) areas of Britain - it needs both. In the same way as our roads are mixed traffic, so are the railways, and with longer distance commutes relatively common in some regions the distinction between inter city and commuter as a journey type is a bit fuzzy.

"The city" is a bit different a concept here. Many people who don't live in a city will be relatively close to multiple ones, it's relatively rare for a region to be dominated by only one to the extent it becomes "the city." In this case, the area has two large and one small city (Cardiff, Bristol and Newport) but also many smaller places scattered between them.
 

Dai Corner

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To an extent, yes. It's like many (most?) areas of Britain - it needs both. In the same way as our roads are mixed traffic, so are the railways, and with longer distance commutes relatively common in some regions the distinction between inter city and commuter as a journey type is a bit fuzzy.

"The city" is a bit different a concept here. Many people who don't live in a city will be relatively close to multiple ones, it's relatively rare for a region to be dominated by only one to the extent it becomes "the city." In this case, the area has two large and one small city (Cardiff, Bristol and Newport) but also many smaller places scattered between them.

With the further complications that Cardiff and Newport are in Wales, Bristol is in England, two thirds of the trains between Cardiff and Newport and all those between Newport and Bristol are ultimately the responsibility of the UK Government. The remaining ones being the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

On the roads side, the two bridges over the Severn and the motorways east of there are the responsibility of the UK Government. The M4 west of the Severn including the badly congested bit round Newport is the Welsh Government. Local councils take care of the other roads.

Buses and coaches are purely commercial, though Councils can subside bus services if there is a social need and they don't compete with commercial ones.

Then throw in the Cardiff Capital City Region and the West of England Combuned Authority.

See the problem thaitransit?
 

Envoy

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If I recall this area is quite a distance from central London. Why would the local traffic be so high in a regional area a few hours by rail from London. Given the distance from London I would have thought commuting by rail would be the only option as driving would be simply too long as its 200km plus from London.

Generally from my experience once your out of the capital city the population density drops off dramatically and the distance between towns gets long and long. This certainly the case in Australia. Thus traffic issues are non existent 200km out from Melbourne or Brisbane unless a natural disaster or major accident blocks the highway.

Many thanks for your contribution from Australia. The population of Great Britain is I believe about 67 million. That is of course in a relatively small country and it is only in the more mountainous areas of Wales, Scotland and northern England that the population density thins out. When people move about, you will have shorter distance commuter traffic on both the railways and the roads as well as longer distance travellers. The M4 around Newport is a particular problem because back in the 1960’s when it was constructed, it was decided to go around the northern edge of Newport in order to link the eastern valleys (densely populated ex mining area) with this expressway. As well as traffic making short hops, this section also carries traffic between south Wales and southern England via the Severn bridges. On the eastern side of Newport, the A449 expressway heads NE to connect with the M50 and hence the Midlands & north. Right at the busiest section in Wales, the M4 goes through a 2 lane each way tunnel and this acts as a choke point leading to massive tailbacks. The Welsh Government have ignored a public enquiry recommending a new route to the south of Newport and work on this has already cost about £116 million on planning/ consultants etc. since 2013 alone. As has already been mentioned, they have the attitude that traffic can stay in the jams in order to encourage rail travel - despite the numerous accidents and hold ups on this section of motorway around Newport.

To try and understand the traffic flows in Great Britain, may I suggest that you click the following link during the peak daytime flows UK time. You should see that bear the big conurbations, the highways are marked red indicating jams yet further out in the countryside, they are more likely to be marked green indication that people are moving at speed:https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5195043,-2.7791091,10z/data=!5m1!1e1

To try and understand the flows on the railways, may I suggest that you click the following link during the UK daytime:>
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/
Then, in the location box, test out the different ‘flows’ of trains through certain places and click on the code numbers for the trains to see where they are going. So, for example, to see the flows in and out of south Wales put Newport in the location box & submit. Then try this for Cardiff and this will bring in many more local commuter services in the south Wales valleys and down to the coast. (Disruption is likely as we are having a terrible storm today). Then try Bristol Parkway = a major junction just north of Bristol.

So, like the major highways, the railways are conveying both short haul passengers as well as those going further.
 

Brissle Girl

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Temple Meads is also in the wrong place
Dai Corner has refuted this but it's worth emphasising again, as it is often trotted out. These days, Temple Meads is absolutely in the right place for office based commuters. The vast majority of major private sector employers are now within a 5 minute walk out of the side entrance, the notable exceptions being Lloyds Banking Group and Hargreaves Lansdown who are a 15 minute walk away in Harbourside. The migration of employers, and even more importantly the attraction of new ones, has been going on for around 25 years now, and there's still space for another couple of big offices. They've all been quickly let, (probably helped due to the proximity to the rail station). When I was involved in resiting a business of 400 people some 20 years ago, Temple Quay was an absolute no-brainer compared with other locations, both in the city centre and outside (eg Aztec West). It was the most popular with staff too.

And then there is the massive Bristol Uni development on the other side of the station which will generate another huge uplift in employees within a 5 minute walk, teaching staff, administration and ancillary in the next couple of years.
 

Tom Quinne

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Actually parking your car at Newport, Cardiff Central or Severn Tunnel is a major negative to commuting. That’s before you even look at the actual reliability of the service, and your other end journey to your place of work.

A 12hr stay at Newport or Cardiff Central carpark if you can find a space, is many hundreds of pounds a week.

As for the M4 I’m not convinced the congestion is caused by the tunnel in its own right, it’s I think the faux 50mph speed from Coldar to Tradger Park.

It amazing how both directions slow to a stand then crawl the length of the “limit”.

But hey it’s all about reducing pollution isn’t it, don’t the WAG realise more and more people are coming off at Magor, then using the southern domestic link road clogging up south Newport causing more pollution across a greater area!
 

Dai Corner

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But hey it’s all about reducing pollution isn’t it, don’t the WAG realise more and more people are coming off at Magor, then using the southern domestic link road clogging up south Newport causing more pollution across a greater area!

Shhhh that's my 'secret' way to avoid the peak-time queues!

But seriously, the Southern Distributor Road is the way traffic for Newport should be going, leaving the M4 for those going further west. It could do with dualling all the way to Jn 23 and some junction improvements but they are mostly in industrial / commercial areas so not to too controversial.
 

mikeb42

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19 Jan 2015
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Dai Corner has refuted this but it's worth emphasising again, as it is often trotted out. These days, Temple Meads is absolutely in the right place for office based commuters.

I would perhaps concede that Temple Meads is becoming less in the wrong place, over a very long period. As noted, there's been development over decades there due to lots of available derelict land presumably plus given what a nightmare Bristol is to get in and out of, building next to the main railway station is clearly a pretty good idea.

I've worked in Bristol on-and-off over a 25 year span at more locations than I can count. Temple Meads was in the wrong location for all of them - except for a stint at Temple Quay right next to it. When based there we were surrounded by huge swathes of shiny new steel and glass office developments (and rabbit hutch flats) which lay largely unoccupied for years and years. Now that the impact of 2008 has faded they do seem to be rapidly filling up. It looks like the abandoned developments by the river near the Temple Way underpass have finally restarted after many years as rubble. The quickest walking route from the station to the Cabot Circus and Stokes Croft areas has recently been severed by a new development that's springing up the other side of the river which is not helpful, but someone always loses...

As for the M4 I’m not convinced the congestion is caused by the tunnel in its own right, it’s I think the faux 50mph speed from Coldar to Tradger Park.

The congestion was there for decades prior to the introduction of the (apparently largely pointless) 50 limit. That limit first appeared Westbound only after an HGV caught fire in 2011 damaging the roof and destroying the lighting system in the westbound bore. This took the WAG (Welsh Govt) literally years and years to get around to doing anything about - the hallmark of their administration of anything. In the meanwhile they took the "Slap a speed limit on it, job's a good 'un" approach.

The permanent 50 in both directions was only instigated a couple of years ago making the costly managed motorway system installed there previously into the most expensive set of "50" signs in history. It is ostensibly a NOx mitigation measure. The approaches to the tunnels are downhill in both directions, particularly so and over a much greater distance westbound. So the engines of most vehicles are producing almost zero power at the point where they've crested the summits of the preceding hills, and therefore correspondingly only idle-level emissions of any sort. A load of accumulated kinetic energy is being avoidably turned into heat and a good blast of particulate pollution from tyres and the friction parts of brakes. An impartial peer-reviewed scientific explanation of how that's helping anyone would be fascinating. Plus also not forthcoming. If they must do it, put the limit only on the uphill bits where everyone is pulling away after the tunnels.

It's all pretty irrelevant for most of the day anyway as anyone doing anything like as much as 50 is having a lucky experience. It's been like that since at least the 1990s just due to the inadequacy of the infrastructure vs volume of traffic. Nothing to worry about though, it's only the principal artery into the population and economic centre of an entire nation including its capital city.

At least the railway is pretty good for getting to London (at frequently eye-watering cost) though. The particularities of the Brynglas tunnels aside, isn't this just another example of a familiar refrain all around Britain?
 
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