Except under British Rail, those Intercity managers wouldn’t have been allowed an original thought between them.
Exvept that doesn't tie in with the reality after the early-80s, where the sectors were increasingly innovative, especially in promoting leisure travel. In ticketing: Railcards, rail rovers, Apex, SuperSaver, even the Travelcard. In branding. In the overall product: new trains, refreshed stations.
It's highly likely that BR would have carried on with yield management and Value tickets as the technology let them. And we wouldn't have given Branson £300m to snaffle away to his tax haven before smugly lecture us on how doing the obvious and the bare minimum is "innovative efficiency".
I for one have no confidence in any results from polling companies
I bet you do when they agree with the position you're trying to take.
I'd say, anecdotally, that 50-65% of people wanting rid of the TOCs would be about right.
You might disagree, and think the public adores our glorious TOC leaders, but that doesn't mean the polling is wrong.
The big issue with YouGov is the reliance on online polling. Politically that has an effect- Leavers are, generally, older and less educated, and are less likely to be actively online- but talking about trains? I don't think that applies, especially older people are more likely to hark back to the days of proper steam trains.
But Delay Attribution also shows where spending some money might produce returns in improved performance
Does it? Really? Delay attribution doesn't analyse why the delays happen, it merely pins the tail on the donkey.
It's rare that any delay has one single attributable blame factor, but the delay attribution business is about passing the financial buck on to someone else.