Indeed. I would likely choose a mid week day for the lay in. Others maybe the end or start of the week.
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Government - Increase use of public transport
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Indeed. I would likely choose a mid week day for the lay in. Others maybe the end or start of the week.
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I don't think this crisis will resultin a fall off for the use of the railway long term but in the short term I believe there will be greater leisure use and fewer work trips though there might be a spike to start with as people seek to 'escape' their homes for the 'sanctuary' of work.
Season tickets will become even less favoured and somehow a part time season ticket will need to be introduced to accommodate demand shift rather quickly.
I can see Monday mornings being busier heading into work centres and Friday afternoons leaving said centres and an average Tuesday to Thursday in both directions. Friday mornings into work centres will be quietest of the morning peaks.
squizzler
Established Member
Like a lot of government strategies, I think this just lays out what is happening out in society and looks at means accommodating it. Young people are not taking up motoring to the extent that they did a few short years ago. Like the Buchanan and Beeching reports of the 1960s were a rearguard response to the harm that motoring was having to the country, this report is probably inevitable response to social changes already underway.
Integrated transport, a dream in the Prescott era, is now a technological inevitability. Mobility as a Service promises to make integrated transport not just practical but also profitable.
Integrated transport, a dream in the Prescott era, is now a technological inevitability. Mobility as a Service promises to make integrated transport not just practical but also profitable.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
While "software as a service" was a big paradigm shift, because that moved the physical boxes out of companies' own data centres, MaaS appears to me to be a massive gimmicky buzzword to describe the rather simple problem of integrating the booking and payment of multiple modes, something which people don't find unduly difficult to do manually anyway.
After all, unlike software, all transport that isn't walking, driving or cycling is already a service.
The other aspect regarding payment (the ability to subscribe to the transport service) also already exists in the form of season tickets.
The last aspect, shared demand responsive transport, has its own little niches where it sort of works (paratransit/community transport and very rural areas) but other than that people keep trying it and keep finding that it just isn't overly profitable compared with the more traditional modes such as large buses on a scheduled timetable.
There is one outlier - car/van clubs - but they are just a different car hire model, not a massive paradigm shift.
After all, unlike software, all transport that isn't walking, driving or cycling is already a service.
The other aspect regarding payment (the ability to subscribe to the transport service) also already exists in the form of season tickets.
The last aspect, shared demand responsive transport, has its own little niches where it sort of works (paratransit/community transport and very rural areas) but other than that people keep trying it and keep finding that it just isn't overly profitable compared with the more traditional modes such as large buses on a scheduled timetable.
There is one outlier - car/van clubs - but they are just a different car hire model, not a massive paradigm shift.
Indeed, and that pattern could likely have a bigger impact on car ownership than rail.
In that if you are working from home 2 days a week then the high up front cost of car ownership can make the cost of driving significant.
Add to that the potential for couples to work so that they are only going to the office on such a way which means that they only need one car, or even only needing to use rail once a week (2 or 3 days in the office a week), rather than owning two cars.
That would impact on the amount of cars being used at evenings and weekends as well.
As a example if your paying £40 a week each in fuel costs and by working from home you can pay £20 a day in train tickets your obvious costs fall from £80 to £60 plus all the other costs from owning two cars.
I hadn't thought of it from the motoring point of view, however I suppose it could reduce road congestion as well as train overcrowding. Interesting to see whether people would see running a car as less viable without a full weeks commute. If that is a phenomenom, it would be more where people have a decent public transport alternative.
squizzler
Established Member
'Moving the physical boxes out of companies own data centres' doesn't sound like an earth-shattering development to me either. But that is I suspect the point - SaaS makes possible to farm out the inconvenience of owning land maintaining the hardware with no loss of utility and possibly even transparently to the end user. That's surely all MaaS is: eliminating the need to own and maintain your own 'boxes' - boxes on wheels that sit in the street or garage rather than the server room in this instance.
Your last line largely the whole point. You are not buying a railway service, bus service or taxi service. You are buying personal mobility, and the system handles the work of deciding on the mode and provider, making the appropriate bookings.
It's a very railway-centric (and DfT-centric) view that motoring has done harm to the country. For the majority of real people they are extremely glad to have the substantial additional mobility that their car gives them, beyond what their parents and grandparents had, at no time more than the present.
The railway has actually gone the other way with integration. they are even incapable of handling connections in the way they used to; they nowadays cheerfully send trains off with the connecting passengers all coming over the bridge.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I think that's a solution looking for a problem to some extent. Most people have preferences and don't want a computer deciding. A journey planner is already a good way of showing them what the options are and really truly was the "killer app" for non-private transport.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
So "MaaS" is b******t bingo for "short term car hire, public transport and taxis", then. Thought as much. A bit like "ride sharing" is a buzzword for "minicab".
SaaS was, for businesses, a far bigger paradigm shift. The idea of hosting your corporate business services on the Internet was not even an option 20 years ago.
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Even that is a poor substitute. We have far more nonsense itineries at our office nowadays than ever happened before Journey Planners came along.
PartyOperator
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Assuming increased home working will lead to less commuting feels a bit like the assumption that rising wages would lead to people working less. I suspect a large part of the reaction will instead be longer but less frequent commutes. Sure, if you already own a nice house in London your life will become more comfortable. But if a nice house in Stratford upon Avon becomes a viable alternative to a small flat in Stratford, East London, a whole load more people might start piling onto the train to Marylebone a couple of times a week.
deltic
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BBC headline is a bit misleading - there is no mention of increasing public transport use in Grant Shapps comment - what he is saying is that we should use cars less and if we have to travel then public transport and walking and cycling should be the preferred way of doing it. In essence we need to radically reduce the amount we travel and when we do travel beyond walking distance we need to use public transport. The presence crisis has shown how much travel is discretionary - there is a huge economic cost of reducing travel but also a massive health and environmental benefit. Mitigating that economic cost while retaining the health and environmental benefits are key to future policy.
He's on a hiding to nowhere if that's the case.
Public transport will have to be beefed up one way or another. People aren't going to go back to staying in the same village all the time.
From the BBC article:
"One such hole is aviation. Whilst making it clear that many car drivers will be expected to shift to public transport, walking or cycling if they can - Mr Shapps’ foreword appears to suggest that aviation emissions can be solved through technology."
If the rich are still to be be allowed to swan off to San Tropez, I expect to still be able to get to the Dales. We have the technology to increase capacity on most of the railway. Not running 2 carriage trains everywhere.
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edwin_m
Veteran Member
This article analyses what should be done for decarbonization and concludes widespread electrification is by far more important than battery or hydrogen trains. A less detailed article in Modern Railways reaches the same conclusion.
https://www.railengineer.co.uk/2020/03/13/getting-electrification-done-the-net-zero-imperative/
Indeed so. There's some scope to expand the role of rail, particularly around and between regional cities, but for a lot of flows (particularly London ones) the rail market share is probably about as high as it can be. Apart from a small number of very privileged individuals, everyone driving into London today probably has a good reason why they aren't using the train. The sorts of fairly short distance low volume flows that make us most car journeys aren't suitable for trains, but a well-designed and integrated bus network with light rail on the spine routes and demand-responsive transport on the fringes could make a difference.
I think there is some potential for these to expand, and they do address the point someone made earlier than most of the costs of driving are fixed so the marginal cost of driving for a particular journey is quite small and usually less than the public transport fare. Electric cars are more expensive to buy but cheaper to run, so exacerbate this problem but ironically the first cost may push people towards a car club membership, at least instead of a second car. Access to a car at fairly short notice at times when there really isn't an alternative could start eroding car ownership, and make walking/cycling/public transport a choice people are more likely to consider and one that is relatively more attractive.
The ultimate solution in terms of transport capacity and sustainability is for the population to stop travelling so much and transition to living more local lifestyles. How that is done is another matter.
If there is one thing that this pandemic has illustrated, it is that many of these journeys that people claim are essential are far from it, and here is the problem, people take things for granted and ignore externalised consequences of their actions. Ignoring things doesn't make them go away.
I'm lucky in that my job is entirely computational, so it is relatively easy for me to adapt to working from home. I wouldn't mind spending half my time working at home if my line manager would accept it. There are advantages such as no dead commuting time: not having to queue for the toilet, kitchen, lunch; no gobby individual in the office next door blabbering on for hours; no building work; nobody having converstions whilst standing and blocking corridors/doorways; I can nip to the allotment in my lunch hour.
underbank
Established Member
Even more spread if we moved to a flexible 7 day working week. Then you could have far more workers on, say, Sundays. Personally, I'd work Fri-Mon and have Tue-Wed-Thu off.
underbank
Established Member
I've long been an advocate of localism. We need to get the big firms out of London and back into the regions. Need to get back to local shops so people don't need a car to get to the Tesco Superstore etc. Improving/increasing public transport isn't the answer - it's not sustainable, we need to dramatically reduce all forms of travel, and I hope that the current pandemic will achieve some of that.
underbank
Established Member
Who said we need to go back to that extreme? There's a lot of middle ground between village life and where we find ourselves today (well a couple of months ago anyway), where you can fly a couple of hours for a hen party in Magaluf for £50. We just need to start backpeddling slightly rather than thinking the extreme is the only option.
I think that we should move to the four day working week, but that's another discussion.
I'm not saying we shouldn't address the more extravagent aspects of 21st century life. Just that I believe strongly that getting out and about for leisure is very important, and if the people who currently use motor transport aren't going to use their cars, some additional public transport provision will need to be made.
biko
Member
I think it is interesting to see the UK government publicly aim for a modal shift. Many governments don't want to try to change behaviour as it is seen as too complicated and therefore only want to use technology, such as electric cars, but that is not enough to meet the targets. For example, the Dutch government is very much focused on technology (see https://www.klimaatakkoord.nl/mobil...gen/2019/11/12/infographic-mobiliteit-english). But ideally, as some others already commented, everybody should reduce mobility, but changing that behaviour and culture is very difficult, but this crisis may help partly.
The UK Government should ensure that the change in modal shift hits those who already cause most transport emissions, first. The frequent fliers.
Whilst into Central London is probably as high as as high as it can be, I'd suggest that there's still a lot of extra people who could use those services if there was more capacity.
Many of those extra passengers would be heading to those places either more in the suburbs and/or to places on a line across a line from the one that has direct services on.
As an example if there was a service which ran Basingstoke to Farnborough Main before using a new grade separated junction to then run through to Ascot. That would connect between lines which otherwise aren't (although there's a frequent bus service which provides a connection) and would also provide an increase in frequency between local stations.
As such it would likely that it would attract a lot more people into trains, not least as the existing peak hour trains are full.
biko
Member
Certainly, as aviation is the most polluting mode per mile and there is no technology available yet to reduce emission of planes. But road transport as a whole is the most emitting transport mode, so I think it is good to also do something about that.
For most of us the problem with rail travel is that there isn't a station at the end of the street. This means that, for most destinations outside city centres, an alternative transport mode is needed at each end of the journey. As far as is feasible you need bus connections day and evening seven days a week otherwise the car becomes far too convenient.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Indeed, this is a lot more about buses than about trains. But there are also other options like electric scooters (illegal in the UK) that would make local journeys easier including getting to the station.
Noting the comments on another thread about fuel taxes, perhaps the recovery period from the virus is a time to increase them again, both to raise some revenue and to get people out of the habit of driving once public transport is again safe and available.
dewsnapsliding
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So while your transport emissions go down (and those of say the other 200 or so people who work in the same office) your heating, power, lighting requirements (and those of your 200 colleagues go up). I bet it is more efficient to heat 1 office building than 200 individual homes. So instead of accepting the cost of your commute, you have to figure how much the increased cost of your utilities will be.
Don't get me wrong, I wfh currently, and before the recent situation 1 day per week, along with a lot of my colleagues, but it is not the panacea to emissions.
As someone on here has pointed out, heaviest emissions damage by mode is aviation which politically no-one will touch as the 2 weeks in the sun is regarded as a right to be enjoyed by everyone. If taxation is talked about and that type of holiday becomes the preserve of the rich, there will be rioting.
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