Take a look at other transport industries where capacity is restricted and operators with different service models have to bid for capacity. Some operators would offer cheap squeeze them in service, others would offer an enhanced more comfortable service for higher greater margin fares. There is demand for both.
Just look at the tens of thousands of potential passengers every day using the A24, A217, M23, A22 rather than the service offering we have today. I would be quite happy to pay £50/£75 for a return ticket if the journey was as comfortable and as quick as my car is.
Regarding returns to shareholders any company which ignores such a large market of untapped income is not looking after its potential shareholder dividend potential, but is on a path to stagnation and eventual loss of its income.
Brian
Your philosophy is contradictory to me. You cite the opportunity to take passengers from their cars but recognise that capacity is limited. In the case of the BML, capacity is absolutely limited in the peaks when a proportion of passengers are obliged to stand yet you say that the trains need seats as comfortable as your car, which would severely limit their total capacity. Most BML trains run at their maximum length and there are no spare paths in which to run more so there would be more standing passengers and probably some left behind.
Thus the line's capacity is absolutely limited in terms train volume so the only solution is to 'pack them in'.
If you are talking about wooing motorists in the off-peak times, then you would need a duplicate set of low-density seating trains for those times. That would be:
a) extremely expensive for the TOC (and its shareholders)
and
b) even more expensive providing somewhere to park all the unused trains.
