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How can we tempt people out of their cars and into public transport in the future?

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yorkie

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Note: I am not talking about the short term (e.g. suggestions made in the existing thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/getting-people-back-on-trains-as-lockdown-eases.216148/ relating to getting rid of social distancing, masks etc) but more in the medium and longer term.

I see many problems with reliance on cars, which include making people less active, polluting the environment, making streets less safe, and much more.

For shorter journeys, we should be increasing the attractiveness of walking, cycling etc. But this isn't a practicable solution for medium to longer distance journeys.

So.. how can we tempt people away from their cars and onto public transport? Over to you!
 
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Bletchleyite

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1. Simpler, better value fares. People on here can work the system to get a good price, but fundamentally people shouldn't need to do that.

2. Making the on-board environment more attractive - better legroom, better seats, better luggage capacity etc. Cramming people in just isn't a selling point, and often this is just done to save money (i.e. where trains could be longer, just aren't). A good example is the 195/331, which ignoring the fact that they are mechanically rubbish are a step-change improvement on rotting Class 150s and draw lots of positive comments particularly for the low density interior with lots of tables.

3. Simpler, clearer, more reliable clockface timetables with planned connections, as you can't run direct from everywhere to everywhere.

An example of utter transformation that is likely to build custom significantly as word gets around is Manchester-Blackpool, going from whatever 1980s DMU could be made to work properly that morning to a regular diet of 6-car 331s with attractive, spacious interiors with lots of tables for family days out etc.
 

The Planner

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The only way that will likely work is to price people out of cars. People will still not give up the convenience of it unless it hits them in the pocket.
 

Bletchleyite

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The only way that will likely work is to price people out of cars. People will still not give up the convenience of it unless it hits them in the pocket.

Some won't, but plenty of people just look at the train fare or timetable and go "nope", and that's before you get onto cramming people into rows of tightly packed airline seats rather than making trains comfortable.
 

AGH

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Pricing simplified, selling the product and clearer connectivity. I commute by train into Manchester in 35 mins door to door on TPE. New trains, Uber quick (can't drive it that quick) and cost per day comparable to the car if you include parking. Never advertised on that basis.its as if they don't want more customers
 

Bletchleyite

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Pricing simplified, selling the product and clearer connectivity. I commute by train into Manchester in 35 mins door to door on TPE. New trains, Uber quick (can't drive it that quick) and cost per day comparable to the car if you include parking. Never advertised on that basis.its as if they don't want more customers

The most beneficial single simplification you could do is single-fare pricing. That way there is no way for a "layperson" to concern themselves with complexity of fare validity and when a single or return is better, they can treat it all the same if flexibility is not needed.
 

HSTEd

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The railway has to be fast, it has to be convenient as possible and it has to be cheap.

Ultimately the most succesful railway innovations of recent years/decades have been ones that tend towards Metroisation - high intensity, simple, timetables and journey time reductions.


Public Transport cannot compete in the last mile, so in order to be competitive overall it has to smash the "line haul" section of the journey.
That's why I float schemes like high speed metros and maglevs and what not.

The slow last mile crawl on a bus is tolerable if you are still faster than driving overall.
And high speed simple timetables will improve convenience - everything should be turn up and go if we can manage it.
 

adamedwards

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Making sure the Advance fare prices come out promptly. If the only fare you are offered is the peak mega expensive price you will never book a train again.
 

Bletchleyite

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Making sure the Advance fare prices come out promptly. If the only fare you are offered is the peak mega expensive price you will never book a train again.

That and make sure the booking engines can differentiate between "Advances sold out", "Advances not available yet" and "Advances won't be made available on this train" and clearly display that to passengers, including the date and time of planned release if it's the middle one.
 

Nicholas43

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+1 for transparent single-leg pricing - possibly with modest transparent surcharges for using clearly identified peak legs, and for paying on-board or at destination.
More of the cheery and helpful on-board staff we get on my local trains (Didcot - Oxford).
Really cool app to plan train+bus journeys, and expectation that connections will work, Swiss-style.
Culture that car-parking charges should reflect the colossal economic and environmental cost of turning ~20 sq m of land per car into smelly desert.
(OK, this is niche): selected buses have a trailer for cycles.
 

Bletchleyite

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(OK, this is niche): selected buses have a trailer for cycles.

There's almost no point putting bicycles on local buses, because it's quicker to ride the bicycle*. It's allowed in Hamburg, for example, yet in 9 months of living there I think I saw it once, and it was a kid with his BMX. Perhaps what we should be calling for is for regional bus services (where it is useful) to be operated using wheelchair-accessible coach vehicles rather than rattly, underpowered buses? As the former offers a level of quality that the latter definitely doesn't, as well as being able to put a couple of bikes in the locker underneath.

* Useful if you have an irreparable mechanical defect, I suppose, but that is pretty rare if you carry a puncture kit and a pump - things have to get pretty bad with a pushbike before it won't move at all, even if stuck in one gear or needing to pop the brakes off one wheel as the wheel has lost a spoke and gone a bit wobbly. If it wasn't so rare, there would be businesses making money out of bicycle recovery! :)
 

NorthOxonian

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(OK, this is niche): selected buses have a trailer for cycles.
This is beginning to happen - a few of the scenic routes from Newcastle towards Hexham and Consett now have cycle storage facilities! I expect they'll see more use in the summer but even now they're sometimes used.

As to what I'd like to see - properly integrated fares. Travelling between towns and cities on the rail network is generally fairly straightforward, but through ticketing is generally patchy. In an ideal world, you should be able to buy a ticket from any train station, tram stop, bus stop, ferry port or even hovercraft terminal to any other. There is a thread on the bus forum discussing Plusbus, but that seems to be targeting the wrong problem. Urban bus travel is generally pretty straightforward - but rural routes with obscure fares is more of an issue.

In the short term, a good start would be to ensure all towns of population 5,000 or more (or significant tourist demand) with a bus link to a nearby station are available as destinations. Being able to buy one ticket that takes you from Ripon to Consett (for example) might just mean people consider public transport for journeys where it initially seems difficult.
 

chorleyjeff

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Note: I am not talking about the short term (e.g. suggestions made in the existing thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/getting-people-back-on-trains-as-lockdown-eases.216148/ relating to getting rid of social distancing, masks etc) but more in the medium and longer term.

I see many problems with reliance on cars, which include making people less active, polluting the environment, making streets less safe, and much more.

For shorter journeys, we should be increasing the attractiveness of walking, cycling etc. But this isn't a practicable solution for medium to longer distance journeys.

So.. how can we tempt people away from their cars and onto public transport? Over to you!

Agree with most of previous posts but don't we need to greatly increase passenger capacity before pushing folk on to the trains ?
 

Bletchleyite

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In the short term, a good start would be to ensure all towns of population 5,000 or more (or significant tourist demand) with a bus link to a nearby station are available as destinations. Being able to buy one ticket that takes you from Ripon to Consett (for example) might just mean people consider public transport for journeys where it initially seems difficult.

I'm not sure how important that actually is in these days of contactless payment - but it would certainly help for bus fares to cease being a business secret and to be available in the planners, and the timetables similarly so.

Also, all public transport connections should work the way trains do, that is, if your bus to the station is delayed and you miss your Advance fare train, you should be accommodated for free on the next service.
 

yorksrob

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That and make sure the booking engines can differentiate between "Advances sold out", "Advances not available yet" and "Advances won't be made available on this train" and clearly display that to passengers, including the date and time of planned release if it's the middle one.

Yes, there's too much smoke and mirrors around advance purchase. It should be obvious whether its worth holding out for a particular train rather than doing something else.
 

Purple Orange

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Frequency and simplicity. The routes that need to be tackled are: suburb to city centre, long distance motorway journeys and Scotland-London air travel.

Suburb to city centre constitutes the biggest volume of car journeys and it is initiatives like conversion of heavy rail lines to metro that works really well here, with a significantly higher frequency and consistency. Regulated bus networks can also help too.

For longer distance journeys, rail needs to out perform the car for journey time and have a reasonable frequency. For example, I use intercity services that originate from Manchester and I would not consider driving to London unless I’m transporting items that are too much for one person to carry. For Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Bristol & Birmingham, the journey times by train are too close to the journey times by car. As a rule of thumb we broadly have these journey times from Manchester (apologies but I will use Manc to make my point)

Manchester to (with 30 minutes added to rail times get to Piccadilly from local area)
  • London; 160 minutes by rail, 230 mins by car,
  • Birmingham; 120 mins by rail, 105 mins by car
  • Leeds: 80 minutes by rail, 60 mins by car
  • Liverpool: 70 mins by rail, 55 mins by car
  • Newcastle: 170 mins by rail, 150 mins by car
  • Bristol: 200 mins by rail, 180 mins by car
With HS2, London and Birmingham should reduce to 106 mins (76+30) and 75 mins (45+30) respectively, which will significantly put a whole in car travel between Brum & Manc. NPR needs to be delivered to see similar effects on the M62.
 

Nicholas43

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My preference (though I accept that there are counter-arguments) would be to abolish the walk-up/advance distinction. Just one headline price A to B, with a clearly stated surcharge if you choose to travel at clearly stated peak times.
A (niche, as I said) example where a cycle trailer behind the bus would help: Radley to Lechlade. My wife and I could use train to Oxford, excellent existing connection to bus Oxford to Faringdon, and then cycle the last 4 miles.
 

bramling

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Note: I am not talking about the short term (e.g. suggestions made in the existing thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/getting-people-back-on-trains-as-lockdown-eases.216148/ relating to getting rid of social distancing, masks etc) but more in the medium and longer term.

I see many problems with reliance on cars, which include making people less active, polluting the environment, making streets less safe, and much more.

For shorter journeys, we should be increasing the attractiveness of walking, cycling etc. But this isn't a practicable solution for medium to longer distance journeys.

So.. how can we tempt people away from their cars and onto public transport? Over to you!

For me, comfort and overall journey experience. I’m not interested in getting on a 2-car DMU and having it full to the brim with kids running around and screaming, or whatever. So the best way to tempt me away from the car is to provide plenty of capacity so that the train won’t feel crowded.

I know compartments tend to get a bad press on here, but if looking towards the significant proportion of the population who rarely if ever use a train, this could well be a pull factor, especially for leisure travel. Going for a day out on a glorified bendy-bus, as some of the new fleets resemble, I’m not sure is going to tempt that many people.

Much as being stuck in traffic can be infuriating, at least you’re still in a comfortable armchair largely insulated from the immediate surroundings, and in most cases it’s still possible to stop and take a breather. Being stuck on a crowded train for a long period is an unpleasant experience, which a lot of people aren’t going to subject themselves to unless they really have no preferable option.
 

A0wen

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For all the people saying the price of rail is a problem, perhaps you could explain why usage has grown massively over the last 20 years and passenger use is at its highest since the 50s.

I don't think you can or should force people onto the rail network. Even a 5% "modal shift" would swamp the railway's capacity beyond its ability to cope.

And most short journeys (up to 20 miles) outside London, Manchester or the West Mids aren't viable by rail or bus without massive capacity increases BUT there will be an awful lot of carting around fresh air to introduce such capacity.

And that's before you consider families travelling - going on holiday by train? No thanks.
 

py_megapixel

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In terms of tempting people out of their cars - we need to get a congestion charge zone (with exemptions for blue badge holders and the like) around every major town and city in the UK which has decent public transport provision.
 

Polarbear

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I would suggest better marketing of existing Rover & Ranger products, as well as possibly introducing these types of tickets to other parts of the UK.

For the immediate & probably medium term, leisure travel is going to be a significant driver of rail travel. I don't expect commuting to disappear, but demand at peaks will probably be eased for some time to come.

Maybe consider having "Group" or "Family" fares, where one ticket it purchased covering a given number of people. Often, what makes people choose to use their cars for family day's out is when they are faced with a choice of one tank of fuel verses 3 or 4 separate train fares. Yes, railcards are available that reduce the headline costs, but unless one does a bit of research, the choice between public & private transport options will boil down to perceived cost.
 

yorksrob

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Group save seems to be a very effective offer on South Eastern, Southern and Great Western and these are readily offered when booking for a large group at a ticket office. Yet there seems to be no such equivalent in Northern England. Same with the Network card.

There ought to be consistency across the country with such offers.
 

CBlue

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I believe it's possible to buy a group daysave ticket on Greater Anglia also, which is surprisingly good value although unfortunately restricted to 3 or more people.

Duo return tickets would be a nice sweetener.
 

pdq

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Three scenarios:
1.Thinking about my family - eg a short distance daytrip from Batley/Dewsbury to York, and what makes us more likely to go by train rather than car...
  • Trains need to have sufficient capacity and reliability that we can either book seats for the same day and be confident it will run; or even better, sufficient capacity that we can just turn up and have a decent chance of sitting in reasonable proximity to each other. Not standing, sitting. This was not the case on TPE for a very long time, but that was before the new trains came on stream (and COVID of course).
  • The overall cost for us all, including use of railcards, must be proportionate in comparison with driving. I don't expect it to compete directly on price, so the overall 'experience' and the convenience of being delivered directly to the city centre must be worth the extra.
  • The overall door to city journey time should be similar, taking into account Park & Ride waiting and journey times etc.
2. Family again, but a longer journey - say to London
  • More likely to be planned, so flexibility is not so important - therefore would be reserving seats on specific trains
  • Journey time will definitely be quicker than driving so paying a sensible premium for this 'experience' and rapidity is a reasonable expectation
  • To that end, I would want some catering offer of hot and cold drinks, cake, chocolate, crisps.
  • I suspect the kids would want a charging point each. Heaven forbid they might need to look out of the window or - worse - talk to their parents :s
In both these cases. I think the travelling experience is key. Going by car up or down the M1 or M62 is nothing to get excited by; but a train journey can be - so the journey itself becomes part of the day out/holiday rather than a means to an end.

I can never see a position where we would go by train for a holiday other than for a short break to a city where a car is not necessary. For other types of break, the flexibility of (a) stacking the car with every conceivable piece of luggage - just in case - and (b) being able to do what we want, when we want at the destination, trumps all else.

3. Just me - to and from work
  • I used to commute by train (Batley - Huddersfield) and will almost certainly go back to doing so IF I go back to working in my office every day, just because the drive is a bit of a drag to do every day.
  • But... if it ends up being part time office, the cost of the annual season ticket vs petrol + parking (and I can normally park for free a 10 min walk from the office) has to stack up.
  • It also depends on the car journey. It was a doddle when the roads were quiet - door to door driving was comparable with train + walk, but once traffic built up, the car journey took longer. This isn't an issue for 2 days a week say, but certainly is if travelling every day.
  • However, the major aspect that stops the train being a no-brainer is the timetable. When I was last travelling there were 2 trains an hour between BTL and HUD, with the departure times crammed together, meaning I either finished work at 16:35 or had to basically wait an hour. Having worked at home (going to the office on average less than once a week) I have really valued the flexibility of working until I get to a convenient time to stop, not having to drop everything just to catch a train.
  • The car gives me the flexibility to finish work when I want to, not when the clock tells me to. A better spaced timetable (not necessarily more frequent) with better connections would make the world of difference.
So no 'one size fits all'. And it will be different for families, couples, individuals, groups.
 

DJ_K666

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1st. Make them run when and where people need them. So make them convenient and easy to use.

2nd. Make the fares attractive and simple. Like other posters have said know how to work the system shouldn't be necessary

3rd. Use proper stock and make it comfortable. Which means proper matching of seats to windows, axe these ironing board seats for people with no lumbar and put tables in. And wifi. And USB charging points. Basically axe First class and make standard like first. (I cannot possibly condone going into first class and removing all the signage and then flushing it down the toilet where 1st belongs)

4th. [Joke mode]Reintroduce the acts of parliament which allowed the old network to be built [/joke mode] Luckily the snail paced, costly and cumbersome GRIP system has gone where 1st ought to go, down the bog, so hopefully something easier better and cheaper can replace it.
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209th abolish the TOCs and reactivate BR
 

Starmill

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As someone recently commented we're all in this one together. Personally I think that land use and road space reallocation is a great place to look next. Closing one of the carriageways of dualled roads for guided busways is fairly quick and painless because you can set new new road up first while traffic uses the soon to be busway, then switch. Contactless, or at the very least smartcard, PAYG should be available in nearly all Metro areas across the country, across bus, ferry, National Rail and light / other rail.
 

py_megapixel

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As someone recently commented we're all in this one together. Personally I think that land use and road space reallocation is a great place to look next. Closing one of the carriageways of dualled roads for guided busways is fairly quick and painless because you can set new new road up first while traffic uses the soon to be busway, then switch.
And make it as obvious as possible. A driver stuck in traffic who can see buses whizzing past them every minute is surely likely to consider switching to the bus next time.
 

lxfe_mxtterz

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Fares that don't tear a gaping hole through your bank account (at least for the trains, anyway!) I can barely afford to pay for train fares anymore, particularly those which are longer distance. I've found myself using the bus instead a lot more often, recently.

Saying that, whilst I've found bus fares for longer distances generally quite reasonable (some even good value), some of the fares for shorter journeys are absolutely shocking. For example, I'm forced to pay £5 each day to go 8 minutes up the road and back, four times a week - add another £1 onto that and I could've purchased a return fare to another town 20 miles away!

I'd happily welcome a London-style bus fare system (£1.55 per journey, £4.65 cap), at least in urban areas, because I find being charged (separate example) £7 to go from the town centre to Sainsbury's (a 9 minute journey) quite literally daylight robbery.
 

CBlue

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Fares that don't tear a gaping hole through your bank account (at least for the trains, anyway!) I can barely afford to pay for train fares anymore, particularly those which are longer distance. I've found myself using the bus instead a lot more often, recently.

Saying that, whilst I've found bus fares for longer distances generally quite reasonable (some even good value), some of the fares for shorter journeys are absolutely shocking. For example, I'm forced to pay £5 each day to go 8 minutes up the road and back, four times a week - add another £1 onto that and I could've purchased a return fare to another town 20 miles away!

I'd happily welcome a London-style bus fare system (£1.55 per journey, £4.65 cap), at least in urban areas, because I find being charged (separate example) £7 to go from the town centre to Sainsbury's (a 9 minute journey) quite literally daylight robbery.
Unfortunately the fares in London are subsidised, the rest of the country having no such luck.

Most bus operators jacked up fares due to poor reimbursement from the concessionary scheme - it was either that or cancel the services in some cases.



Sadly a lot of improvements needed won't happen without a lot of political willpower. Establishing areas of employment around railway stations and other suitable public transport interchanges would be a good start, rather than the piecemeal development of business parks and industrial estates we have currently.

My current employer is a good example of this. One site is located nowhere near any practical bus route apart from a park and ride site 20 minutes' walk away. The other site is located on the edge of a nearby village, but nowhere near the railway station serving that village! Both are very recent business park developments yet seem to have been built around car drivers first and foremost.
 
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