Both of those examples are easily monetised. I can't imagine that they've been demonstrated as benefits of this scheme however. Business cases are also pretty good nowadays at bringing in wider economic benefits / hard to monetise benefits.
More than anything it's about access to more, and more productive work. The best possible journey time between Newquay and Truro by rail today would be 1h 15m. Perhaps the work will reduce it to 1h 10m. Still too slow to promote commuting by rail. Still 15 minutes slower than the bus. Still 25 - 40 minutes slower than driving.
I can see that it’s easy to monetise length of journey time (and accumulated delays). But how do you monetise the poorer productivity due to people arriving stressed and spending time discussing the traffic or performing worse because they were late home and so were late to bed by the time they got everything done? Genuine question - as obviously these delays can occur both on road and rail.
Indeed. Precisely my point. Good for enthusiasts and local politicians. Good for everyone though?
It has moved on a lot. The detail is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tag-unit-a2-1-wider-economic-impacts
That's exactly what they do. Up and down the country.
Sections 4 and 6 respectively have the details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/webtag-tag-unit-a1-3-user-and-provider-impacts-march-2017
There's no evidence people want trains for their own sake, beyond your view. We've discussed this before many times...
I don't think you're reading what I'm saying. I'm saying that they cannot provide thst for Newquay - Truro journeys. Without such journeys, the only relevant flow with adequate demand, the infrastructure work and subsidy of the extra services is terrible value for money. That means that other parts of Cornwall and England will have less good service as a result. You can support it by being blinkered and saying you don't want to travel on a bus, but ultimately that's meaningless.
The other flows it supports like St Columb - St Austell etc are pretty small. It will also inconvenience the equally small number of people making journeys like Liskeard - Newquay and Newquay - Plymouth if they have to change at St Austell because the London train is no longer calling at Par.
There is by definition if they're counting on the benefits of speeding up Penzance - London under the business case.
On the contrary, speeding up the long-distance service would have created much bigger net benefits than running extra trains for which there will be little demand. The cost of three or four 150 diagrams with two crew is huge. The cost of an existing service running faster is near zero. The cost of an existing service calling at a new station is also near zero in most cases, as more resources are needed only if it breaks the diagram.
Valuing those benefits is something that a whole industry has been built around, both in government and outside it. Of course there's a value to them.
I don't think that's the case? However even if it was, the capital budget to refurbish the station, raise the permissible speed and do a bit of miscellaneous work like new fencing and vegetation management was very minimal compared to the capital costs we're looking at here. Also only two units and crews are needed. Finally, the train actually saved time.
Bear in mind that frequency has consistently proven to be important for ridership...
A whole industry adding questionable value. No coincidence that since BCR became the centrepiece of every investment decision made by government the economy has performed poorly and public investment in the UK has fallen.
Research some of the posts in this forum. Many were still questioning whether it should have happened after the successful reopening.
There was a lot of dismissive comment about BCR calculations at the Transport Cttee hearing yesterday in Parliament about EWR, including by goverment officials AND the Rail Minister, on its ability to 'capture' and reflect the value of 'Transformation Benefits'- the development of Canary Wharf facilitated by the Jubilee Line Extension was praised by the minister and compared with its low BCR or even negative BCR!
Okehampton was delivered for just over £40m against £50m budget. Cornwall Metro budget is £57m. Rather similar I’d say.
On the contrary, the fact that we see reopenings where vast quantities of money are wasted in the rail industry, such as Reston, shows that it's needed far more now than in the past.
You've got no evidence for that. I think you've just made it up.
It's really not. How do you think say drug spending is valued? I can assure you it uses the same basic tools to value life as are used to value transport interventions.
I agree the OBR are fundamentally flawed. They were a "clever trap" the tories came up with to try to hamstring Labour. They're now falling into their own trap. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Successfully running a service yes. But without appraisal how could you evidence it was a success in any other sense? It's about the economy, not your own personal experiences.
On lines where there's a competive journey time. To a major centre of employment and leisure.
I certainly have, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. The Green Book was introduced by HMT in the 1970s. Look what happened to public investment subsequently - the chart shows a massive and constant decline in Capital Investment as a percentage of GDP since the 1970s. Link to The Green Book added.
Another way of saying "vibes" might be "chance of achieving modal shift" People who won't take buses will take trains.
You've literally just fabricated that there's a causal relationship there. You have no evidence of that whatsoever.
Reston was promoted by East Lothian Council, Scottish Borders Council, and SEStran (not the rail industry) and was subject to cost benefit analysis.
You can measure mode shift.
Cooked analysis. The rail industry should have stopped them from funding a project so hopeless. Even @Bald Rick was cross about that one.
You might like trains, and nobody can criticise you for it.
Next time I’ll spell out that successfully means more than running a train on time. It’s nothing to do with my experiences. It’s everything to do with the social and economic benefits people and communities are realising. Do I believe we should pay to convert all those benefits to £s for a BCR? No, democracy should prevail.
There you go, you’ve said it all, why are we making democratic decisions based on BCR when the figures can be cooked?!!!
