Is that really true on Intercity routes these days? Avanti seems to be just about the same 7 days a week ( edge cases excluded)
a really easy statement to make. You cant just "make it so". That is surely the point of the change underway.
Commuter traffic is very inefficient. It requires vast amounts of resources which spend quite a lot of the day carting fresh air about. Smoothing out the peaks has allowed some rolling stock to be let go which reduces costs and improves productivity.
Better industrial relations will mean fewer refunds due to cancelled services.
Regional services are very lacking though. The west side of Northern runs a similar timetable on a Sunday as it does on Christmas Day (i.e. zilch!)
And add a fake "compulsory reservation" flag to services to pretend that they're all sold out.
You cant get many more people on your 5 car XC or EMT service!
up from a temporarily reduced £2 flat fare to, checks nots, a not unreasonable £3 flat fare!
ok - who is going to pay to make it better then? You clearly wont. Who should? Don't say the government because they have other priorities. We might not like that but that is where we are.
If its £30 per person, that means you'd save £10 for just that one journey. It really doesn't need many journeys over the course of the 12 month period of the railcards valdity to save money overall. For lots of journeys you can save the railcard cost for just one journey!
there is no room for debate with that kind of statement. It borders on preposterous!
Ok - i am not saying it should be £200. I am saying it could be, say, £135.
The funding method that is more likely to apply, unfortunately, is pushing up prices where the market supports it. Anywhere that the railway is overcrowded - for example on Saturday mornings - will be seen as places where more money could be made from higher prices - in a similar vein to the LNER reform.
It is short journeys by car that need to be discouraged though, because they are the ones that, combined, create the most pollution and congestion.
a very fair point well made!
As the population goes up more people will travel by rail as well.
Do you think peak restrictions will be bought in Saturdays and Sundays?
It made sense in the 1980s when it was introduced as a way of encouraging travel at times when there was spare capacity in the relevant area - eg the gap between ridership in peak and off peak was wider. That is not so much the case now as leisure travel is much more significant.
SWR, and to a lesser extent LNR on its longer routes, have different prices on Saturday mornings, although still called off-peak.
i dont know - we need to consider it and other changes to find the right response to a changed usage world
In other words, it worked!
Yes, but has now been overtaken by people travelling despite its existence rather than because of its existence.
Likewise there are a lot of things on the modern railway that I wouldn't do if I were in charge, but I'm not in charge so they're being done.
I suspect that the economics of seven car bimodes stack up rather favourably compared with coupling up pairs of Voyagers. More capacity, fewer staff, more efficient engines, electric power where appropriate and less maintenance.
No it isn't. It's perfectly rational to vote with one's feet if the price exceeds the value of the service.
There's paying a premium and there's being fleeced. If Avanti did what LNER have done: "London to Manchester single on Saturday? That's a quite busy day so it'll be £190 please"
Welcome to the club! Lots and lots of people already have come to that conclusion - perhaps the railway will then be able to reduce services to cater for a lower demand, more in line with their rolling stock capacity and reduce the pressure on recruitment and the wage bill. If the demand doesn't actually lower then that will tell us all something of course.
Well I'm not happy to be funding the railway (whilst hardly using it in recent years) at its current level of subsidies and grants through general taxation, giving cheap fares at the point of use. Whether the fares are worth it or not is a subjective view, but it does appear to be an incompetently run, incompetently managed mess where reality has gone out of the window. Will need a political strongman to deal with that - where is an Ernest Marples when we need him?
agreed - but we aren't seeing that though are we? I suspect there is ability to absorb higher prices yet. Like I said the trains are rammed on Sunday.
I have no problem with that ( is that not what airlines do?) as long as the train with 4 peopel on is priced to attract custom.
