Commuting 'not coming back': Harper

[12LDA28C]

The same train/unit executes more than one service during the day. The trains used in the off peak are the same trains as those used during the peak but not all of the peak trains are used off peak. If less services are running in the peaks then less trains/units are needed in the peak. Now until the off peak services increase to the same level as the pre Covid19 peak there will trains/units sat around all day doing nothing.

Passenger numbers off-peak and at weekends have already reached pre-Covid levels on many routes. This would suggest that service levels need to increase to match that demand to avoid overcrowding or reduce it where it is already happening. This means there would be less trains 'sat around' during the day.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Passenger numbers off-peak and at weekends have already reached pre-Covid levels on many routes. This would suggest that service levels need to increase to match that demand to avoid overcrowding or reduce it where it is already happening. This means there would be less trains 'sat around' during the day.

The off-peak and weekend numbers may have reached or even exceeded pre-Covid19 OFF peak levels. BUT the current OFF peak level has not reached pre-Covid19 PEAK levels. Until that happens less trains will be needed unfortunately.

 

[bramling]

I have looked at the December 2015 timetable, the last before class 387s. There were 60 GN outer suburban unit diagrams, 38 for class 365, 12 for class 321 and 10 for class 317.

Of those only 29 worked all day SX, 21 went onto Hornsey between the peaks and 10 stabled elsewhere, mainly Welwyn Garden City.

On Saturdays 30 units worked all day, 10 were peak only and 20 units were spare.

On Sundays 25 units worked all day, 10 were peak only and 25 units were spare.

Roughly speaking, if the SX peak had been no bigger than the weekend peak, then only 40 units would have been required instead of 60. In particular, the class 317 and class 321 fleets were mostly idle at the weekends.

It's worth mentioning that in the above timetable the former 2Cxx and 2Pxx services on Saturdays would have been exclusively 4 cars only. From memory I think this was seven diagrams. These services were generally regarded as suffering from severe overcrowding, so 4 cars wouldn't be suitable for an all-day service now. Indeed the equivalent services in the current timetable are 8 car, and due to longer turnrounds have increased to eight diagrams (though this will change in May). So essentially it's necessary to add a further seven units to the Saturday all-day usage mentioned above. We would also probably need to factor in some extra units for the increased off-peak 12-car working on the Cambridge fast services which rising demand has required. That in itself is taking things ever closer towards parity.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Passenger numbers off-peak and at weekends have already reached pre-Covid levels on many routes. This would suggest that service levels need to increase to match that demand to avoid overcrowding or reduce it where it is already happening. This means there would be less trains 'sat around' during the day.

It really doesn't suggest that. Some routes are very busy on Saturdays but saying off peak levels reaching pre-pandemic levels means services should be increased during the week is just nonsensical. Many off peak midweek services had almost nobody on them pre-pandemic so recovering from having nobody on them to almost nobody on them doesn't suggest service levels need to increase.

 

[43066]

Many off peak midweek services had almost nobody on them pre-pandemic so recovering from having nobody on them to almost nobody on them doesn't suggest service levels need to increase.

Yes, because the railway was dead quiet off peak in 2019 .

 

[dk1]

Yes, because the railway was dead quiet off peak in 2019 .

Do you not find it’s the same quotes from the same posters on here now as it was back then? Nothing changes.

 

[43066]

Do you not find it’s the same quotes from the same posters on here now as it was back then? Nothing changes.

It is indeed! Some clearly just have agenda to moan and criticise constantly. It gets a little wearing.

They aren’t describing the railway I work on and use almost every day, I imagine it’s the same for you!

 

[bramling]

That isn't necessarily a sign that your neighbour isn't producing exactly the same output, just at different times. There is more flexibility now and people are judged on what they deliver, not their presence.

In this case, not really, as he openly admits work is now a “joke”, and he’s simply waiting to be made redundant having strung things out for as long as he can get away with.

Meanwhile my neighbour on the other side is now back to working 5 days a week in the office, after having spent rather a lot of money reconfiguring part of his house as a home office - needless to say he’s not happy about it!

I think there is some clear divergence now between the views of different workers, with polarisation to attending the office daily if the office is local, and attending much less frequently if it involves a long commute.

Not got much sympathy for the latter. In most cases this will be what they signed up for pre-2020.

 

[dk1]

It is indeed! Some clearly just have agenda to moan and criticise constantly. It gets a little wearing.

They aren’t describing the railway I work on and use almost every day, I imagine it’s the same for you!

Me neither. It’s like they get off on negativity for some unknown reason. I find it more amusing than wearing

 

[bramling]

Me neither. It’s like they get off on negativity for some unknown reason. I find it more amusing than wearing

I don’t really get the agenda for wanting to imply that trains are running around empty - we all know that’s not the case. Certainly the (substantial) car park at my local station is back to being full to capacity each weekday bar Friday, the latter always being the case anyway.

What *does* still seem to be missing is the people who were paying a fortune to travel for business journeys at peak times for journeys like London to Manchester. To be frank the industry was lucky to get away with that one for as long as it did. Obviously that’s making a dent in revenue, but that doesn’t automatically mean every commuter train is half empty.

It’s also a matter of conjecture how much more demand there would be if we weren’t getting all the disruption caused by the government-inspired IR issues.

 

[dk1]

I don’t really get the agenda for wanting to imply that trains are running around empty - we all know that’s not the case. Certainly the (substantial) car park at my local station is back to being full to capacity each weekday bar Friday, the latter always being the case anyway.

What *does* still seem to be missing is the people who were paying a fortune to travel for business journeys at peak times for journeys like London to Manchester. To be frank the industry was lucky to get away with that one for as long as it did. Obviously that’s making a dent in revenue, but that doesn’t automatically mean every commuter train is half empty.

It’s also a matter of conjecture how much more demand there would be if we weren’t getting all the disruption caused by the government-inspired IR issues.

Yes there is a dent in business revenue but then we are bordering on a recession anyway so that’s to be expected. Been here/done this a few times before. The country & railway just have to mildly adapt & suck it up as they’ve done before.

 

[paul1609]

I don’t really get the agenda for wanting to imply that trains are running around empty - we all know that’s not the case. Certainly the (substantial) car park at my local station is back to being full to capacity each weekday bar Friday, the latter always being the case anyway.

What *does* still seem to be missing is the people who were paying a fortune to travel for business journeys at peak times for journeys like London to Manchester. To be frank the industry was lucky to get away with that one for as long as it did. Obviously that’s making a dent in revenue, but that doesn’t automatically mean every commuter train is half empty.

It’s also a matter of conjecture how much more demand there would be if we weren’t getting all the disruption caused by the government-inspired IR issues.

I think it generally depends on how long the journey is, my experience (Kent and Sussex) is that for journeys up to around 50 mins out of London there's been a good recovery, at around that limit the figures seem to really drop off now. On the West Coastway the Peak London services are now dead but the cuts have been made to the local services (eg Brighton to West Worthing) which has extended the journey time on Brighton To Southampton Services and resulted in overcrowding.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Yes, because the railway was dead quiet off peak in 2019 .

To me it seems there is no point comparing current passenger numbers (peak or off peak) to pre Covid19 OFF peak as that was always low, obviously. What we need to know is how close current (peak or off-peak) numbers are to pre-Covid19 PEAK numbers. Or how soon we get near there.

But, yes, its made unclear by all the subjective measurements. Easiest I guess is to find out what the fares income is as that tells us what the railway is getting for its efforts - last I read season ticket revenue was down. But I bet it has risen from that but by how much I do not know.

 

[43066]

I think it generally depends on how long the journey is, my experience (Kent and Sussex) is that for journeys up to around 50 mins out of London there's been a good recovery, at around that limit the figures seem to really drop off now. On the West Coastway the Peak London services are now dead but the cuts have been made to the local services (eg Brighton to West Worthing) which has extended the journey time on Brighton To Southampton Services and resulted in overcrowding.

That accords with what I had understood, and matches my observations; it’s the outer suburban commuters that have really stayed away. IC and commuter belt (probably as far out as places like St Albans/Sevenoaks//T-Wells/East Grinstead) have recovered the best. That said numbers are clearly increasing, we need to get the IR situation sorted and see where we are in a year or so.

Regarding the coast way, that’s another example of how some of the reductions that have taken place have been badly thought out and a tad knee jerk; see also the changes that Southeastern made to their timetable, some of which are being reversed.

To me it seems there is no point comparing current passenger numbers (peak or off peak) to pre Covid19 OFF peak as that was always low. What we need to know is how close to pre-Covid19 PEAK numbers we have got to so far or how soon we get near there.

I think we just need to accept the traditional peak was already on the way out, even pre Covid. That means the railway needs to cater better for all day demand - but there’s still a capacity shortage and overcrowding on some routes.

Regarding your earlier question (sorry missed it before), my local services are the same length and roughly the same frequency as pre pandemic, minus a few peak extras. They certainly aren’t as rammed in the morning peaks as they used to be (many people are going in mid morning rather than everyone piling in for 0830-0900), but evenings are increasingly resembling 2019.

 

[futureA]

Sounds like we need to slap a pantograph on these third rail trains and send them up north.

 

[Peter Sarf]

That accords with what I had understood, and matches my observations; it’s the outer suburban commuters that have really stayed away. IC and commuter belt (probably as far out as places like St Albans/Sevenoaks//T-Wells/East Grinstead) have recovered the best. That said numbers are clearly increasing, we need to get the IR situation sorted and see where we are in a year or so.

Regarding the coast way, that’s another example of how some of the reductions that have taken place have been badly thought out and a tad knee jerk; see also the changes that Southeastern made to their timetable, some of which are being reversed.



I think we just need to accept the traditional peak was already on the way out, even pre Covid. That means the railway needs to cater better for all day demand - but there’s still a capacity shortage and overcrowding on some routes.

Regarding your earlier question (sorry missed it before), my local services are the same length and roughly the same frequency as pre pandemic, minus a few peak extras. They certainly aren’t as rammed in the morning peaks as they used to be (many people are going in mid morning rather than everyone piling in for 0830-0900), but evenings are increasingly resembling 2019.

You are reminding me. I fear there is always a risk that any re-introduction of peak services is bound lag behind the recovering demand. That's why the railways (well DfT !) have to be clever enough to not stifle demand recovery. Its also nicer for the railways if the peak is less and the off-peak is more. Ouch I can see off peak fares getting closer to peak fares !.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

That accords with what I had understood, and matches my observations; it’s the outer suburban commuters that have really stayed away. IC and commuter belt (probably as far out as places like St Albans/Sevenoaks//T-Wells/East Grinstead) have recovered the best. That said numbers are clearly increasing, we need to get the IR situation sorted and see where we are in a year or so.

Regarding the coast way, that’s another example of how some of the reductions that have taken place have been badly thought out and a tad knee jerk; see also the changes that Southeastern made to their timetable, some of which are being reversed.



I think we just need to accept the traditional peak was already on the way out, even pre Covid. That means the railway needs to cater better for all day demand - but there’s still a capacity shortage and overcrowding on some routes.

BR (SR) used to say that delivering the peak was what drove the overall cost of running the network so if its diminished then that should save costs overall. Southern have done that with losing 455's and now 313's but being old stock the leasing charges saved are probably small but there will be some crew cost savings as well. Of course other side of the equation is NR infrastructure costs and that is largely fixed with any thought of any infrastructure rationalisation being pointless now given the huge costs and timescales involved with anything affecting the signalling system. So the industry needs to be allowed to find the sweet spot in maximising revenue for least costs.

 

[Peter Sarf]

BR (SR) used to say that delivering the peak was what drove the overall cost of running the network so if its diminished then that should save costs overall. Southern have done that with losing 455's and now 313's but being old stock the leasing charges saved are probably small but there will be some crew cost savings as well. Of course other side of the equation is NR infrastructure costs and that is largely fixed with any thought of any infrastructure rationalisation being pointless now given the huge costs and timescales involved with anything affecting the signalling system. So the industry needs to be allowed to find the sweet spot in maximising revenue for least costs.

Add to that savings in maintenance as I would hope that the newer trains require less maintenance ?.

 

[Magdalia]

It's worth mentioning that in the above timetable the former 2Cxx and 2Pxx services on Saturdays would have been exclusively 4 cars only. From memory I think this was seven diagrams. These services were generally regarded as suffering from severe overcrowding, so 4 cars wouldn't be suitable for an all-day service now.

That's a fair point.

We would also probably need to factor in some extra units for the increased off-peak 12-car working on the Cambridge fast services which rising demand has required.

But the 2015 timetable already included a significant amount of 12 car weekend working between Cambridge and London.

 

[MattRat]

Sounds more like a threat than factual, but I might just be a massive cynic.

 

[notverydeep]

To attempt to inform this discussion at least a little, I can add the following passenger numbers analysis from passenger flows in London and its surrounds.

This is how passenger numbers are spread across the week compared to the average for weekdays (Mondays to Fridays) based on Autumn 2022 data:
Mondays 89% of the average weekday
Tuesdays to Thursdays 104.4%
Fridays 97.7%
Saturdays 87.2%
Sundays 59.5%

I also looked at how much demand occurs at Peaks times on weekdays, so closest to what Mark Harper presumably regards as 'typical office' commuting, although clearly some commuting occurs across the whole day every day of the week. Across the week, 47.7% of all station entries and exits are at 'peak' times (between 0700 and 1000 and between 1600 and 1900).
On Mondays this number was 50.4%
The average for Tuesdays to Thursdays is 48.8%
On Fridays it is only 38.6%

This clearly shows that the weekday peaks are still by some margin the busiest times of any day, even if they have not recovered to quite the same degree. Mondays and Saturdays now have quite similar passenger numbers overall now, but on Mondays half of these are at peak times (44.6% of those in the AM Peak), whereas on Saturdays only 33.6% of the journeys are at times that would be considered 'peak' on weekdays (and only 30% of these are in what would be the 'AM Peak).

Total demand during Autumn 2022 was 79.3% of that during Autumn 2019. This puts us back at 2010 demand levels, that is the current passenger numbers are the same as they were in 2010 overall. The period 2005 to 2013 saw very strong growth (traffic had been growing slowly since the early 1990s up to that point and continued to grow, but more slowly after 2013 up to the start of the pandemic. The trend through 2022 was one of steady recovery throughout.

Interestingly a piece of work I did in 2017 (though limited to one route using 2016 data) found that passenger numbers during Friday peak times were only 89% of the average for peak times across the week, suggesting even then that Working From Home was becoming an option for some office workers...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Interestingly a piece of work I did in 2017 (though limited to one route using 2016 data) found that passenger numbers during Friday peak times were only 89% of the average for peak times across the week, suggesting even then that Working From Home was becoming an option for some office workers...

Certainly in the IT industry "Friday from home" has been close to universal for years. I was able to do that long before I was able to work from home full time. Must be something like 15 years or so - basically it became popular in IT as soon as it became a viable option, which pretty much coincided with home broadband's arrival in the mid 2000s (it just wasn't as viable on dial-up as it was slow and blocked the phone line, and few paid the huge cost of ISDN).

 

[43066]

You are reminding me. I fear there is always a risk that any re-introduction of peak services is bound lag behind the recovering demand. That's why the railways (well DfT !) have to be clever enough to not stifle demand recovery. Its also nicer for the railways if the peak is less and the off-peak is more. Ouch I can see off peak fares getting closer to peak fares !.

At the moment it seems that the government are looking for any excuse to save costs and minimise short term subsidy, irrespective of the impact on future passenger growth. This is why we are currently witnessing:

- fewer, sometimes more crowded trains, planned around budgets rather than demand;

- higher ticket prices (as you say, potentially making off peak more expensive, eliminating return tickets etc.);

- little incentive to sort the IR issues which have dragged on for far too long, albeit hopefully there is an end in sight now.

This clearly shows that the weekday peaks are still by some margin the busiest times of any day, even if they have not recovered to quite the same degree. Mondays and Saturdays now have quite similar passenger numbers overall now, but on Mondays half of these are at peak times (44.6% of those in the AM Peak), whereas on Saturdays only 33.6% of the journeys are at times that would be considered 'peak' on weekdays (and only 30% of these are in what would be the 'AM Peak).

Thanks, so that really does prove beyond any doubt that Harper’s assertion that “commuting is not coming back” is complete and utter nonsense. It’s dispiriting that the Transport Secretary, of all people, is in denial of basic facts.

Interestingly a piece of work I did in 2017 (though limited to one route using 2016 data) found that passenger numbers during Friday peak times were only 89% of the average for peak times across the week, suggesting even then that Working From Home was becoming an option for some office workers...

This also perfectly ties in with what many of us have observed anecdotally.

 

[Neptune]

Certainly in the IT industry "Friday from home" has been close to universal for years. I was able to do that long before I was able to work from home full time. Must be something like 15 years or so - basically it became popular in IT as soon as it became a viable option, which pretty much coincided with home broadband's arrival in the mid 2000s (it just wasn't as viable on dial-up as it was slow and blocked the phone line, and few paid the huge cost of ISDN).

Pretty much everyone I know who has an agile working policy works in the office Mon - Thu and works from home on Friday, me included.

Therefore as this seems to be a common theme amongst working patterns of city office workers it makes me suspect that Friday is the day Harper and his cohorts did their commuting pattern research. Usual political scare tactics.

 

[zwk500]

Certainly in the IT industry "Friday from home" has been close to universal for years. I was able to do that long before I was able to work from home full time. Must be something like 15 years or so - basically it became popular in IT as soon as it became a viable option, which pretty much coincided with home broadband's arrival in the mid 2000s (it just wasn't as viable on dial-up as it was slow and blocked the phone line, and few paid the huge cost of ISDN).

It doesn't suprise me that IT was ahead of the curve on this one. But flexible working has certainly been in place for other industries since before COVID, and would have happened regardless. Covid just gave it a kick. I'm currently applying for jobs back in the UK for and companies are happy to talk about being based in any office nationally and anything from 2 to 5 days in the office per week.

 

[northwichcat]

Indeed. Similarly I don’t think many of the thousands of people I just saw at London Bridge wearing smart casual/formal office attire were coming back from a day at the beach!

During the pandemic the cost of office space in the big cities dropped significantly. This allowed many employers to get some space in a big city. Not enough for every employee to be based there but enough for collobration days. I think if everyone who said their office space is in London all commuted there on the same day, you'd have more people commuting than prior to the pandemic. The same with other cities, like Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc.

The problem the railways face is they can't always predict which days managers will decide are the best for doing face-to-face and even if they can would they change the number of services or number of carriages allocated for different weekdays?

 

[Starmill]

Can someone post sn extract from the transcript please? Thank you.

 

[SussexSeagull]

In this case, not really, as he openly admits work is now a “joke”, and he’s simply waiting to be made redundant having strung things out for as long as he can get away with.

He would also being doing next to nothing if he was working in an office.

 

[zwk500]

Can someone post sn extract from the transcript please? Thank you.

The Full hansard debate is here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commo...D947-674D-42D2-925F-CC8419FDB131/RailServices

The relevant answer is in Column 33 here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commo...ribution-70352E30-AA76-450C-98A4-BFB23A978708

On Network Rail, the modernising maintenance programme is central to delivering the savings that will help to fund the pay offer that has been made. We need to see similar reforms in the train operating companies in order to deliver a reliable, seven-days-a-week rail service that is better for passengers, particularly given that we have seen a bounce-back in leisure travel at the expense of commuter rail, which I do not think is going to come back post-pandemic. We need to see a more flexible railway delivering for passengers.

 

[edwin_m]

During the pandemic the cost of office space in the big cities dropped significantly. This allowed many employers to get some space in a big city. Not enough for every employee to be based there but enough for collobration days. I think if everyone who said their office space is in London all commuted there on the same day, you'd have more people commuting than prior to the pandemic. The same with other cities, like Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc.

To a large extent this is self-limiting. The number of commuters into a city won't exceed the number of desks they have to work at. Of course it's not quite that simple - the same amount of floorspace may accommodate more people if they are collaborating rather than sitting at individual desks - but a lot of collaborative events aren't over a whole day so the related travel may be off-peak.

I do wonder whether certain infrastructure projects are worth taking forward in the current environment. Croydon remodelling for example is mostly about increasing commuter capacity.