Robertj21a
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Yes, it's a shame that so few seem to realise that.
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What incentive is there to go by train?
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Yes, it's a shame that so few seem to realise that.
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Plus make phone calls
That's because tickets are currently restricted due to social distancing. Beforehand, advance tickets would've been most likely a quarter that price.
Easy to bash rail now over price, but context is key. Reality is, until the end of the pandemic (whenever that may be), rail won't be as popular as it once was.
AlbertBeale
Established Member
As it happens, in UK terms I'm not even "relatively" affluent - my income is well inside the bottom 5 percentiles (or whatever the technical phrase is), ie more than 19 out of 20 people in the UK have more income than me. You misunderstood what I meant - I wasn't implying that on grounds of conscience I travelled in a more expensive way because I could afford it; I meant that if my conscience meant that my mode of travel cost more, then if need be I would decide to travel less rather than make a journey in a way that I didn't feel was justified. The "broader issues [taken] into account when deciding on transport mode", which I referred to, often mean that my decision has to be (on financial grounds) not to use any travel mode and to forgo that travel because I couldn't justify using a mode that I might be able to afford.
AlbertBeale
Established Member
You too have misunderstood the point I was making.
A normal business response if your product isn't as popular as it once was is to reduce prices, isn't it?
Could it actually be that, with their income guranteed by the government, TOCs have little incentive to reduce prices?
squizzler
Established Member
I’m with @AlbertBeale in this one: but he does not mention that we as a society actually choose which transport options cost more than others.
In what ways?
squizzler
Established Member
Turning down the pleasure of train travel because it superficially appears that the car is cheaper?
Hardly - not everyone finds it a pleasure as this thread testifies to!
Making a choice to ascribe your own cost system to things, and denying yourself what you would clearly like to do, is the OP’s perogative, but hardly something that the rest of us are going to adopt.
squizzler
Established Member
Actually society has already 'ascribed its own cost system to things' in the form of duties and taxes on things, and subsidies to others. Petrol duties - although not at the level of other so-called sin taxes on alcohol and tobacco - already provide a useful signal of motoring costs at point of use.
Fuel costs are already an effective incentive in favour of rail travel - the carrots being the rising service quality in recent yeas and intangible pleasure of train travel we have already discussed. The ridership growth shows this combination of carrot and stick does influence travel preference.
Ladder23
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Without liking trains, none!!
I can’t see any reason why, expense, service, it’s all poor, going by my experience with thameslink and other local tocs.
I can’t see any reason why, expense, service, it’s all poor, going by my experience with thameslink and other local tocs.
Cheshire Rover
Member
Have you ever tried travelling in/out Manchester in the peak on a Northern or TfW service pre Covid? There is nothing pleasurable about that! Don't get me started on the P14 at Piccadilly.
Absolutely. Society (government) could ensure that international train travel is cheaper than air, for example. It's a scandal that it's not.
With social distancing, trains can only take roughly a quarter of customers maximum. For example a cl 185 that you'd get between Redcar and Leeds has 181 seats, with social distancing measures, only can house 42 I believe. Current useage of travel is around 15% that it was back in February. That still nearly fills that cl. 185.
Nothing to do with the EMA's, which won't last forever. So with social distancing it's harder to provide those cheap advance fares.
squizzler
Established Member
And yet in the real world the rail industry has been winning new business hand over fist, with ridership having doubled since the 1990s. True perhaps, growth in the Southeast and London (i.e. Thameslink to which you refer) had hit a plateau before Covid, with the former provincial and intercity services stepping up the main drivers of growth.
Readers of this thread could be excused a degree of 'cognitive dissonance' attempting to reconcile sentiments herein and what we have observed in the reality of increasing ridership, the majority of GB citizens now using the train service each year, and reasonable (if not astounding) passenger satisfaction scores.
In fact the views expressed here might be seen as cause for optimism after covid, as there is clearly plenty of opportunity not just to resume a service that the public have been keen to use previously, but to but more effort into winning the 'hearts and minds' of travellers to the point that even rail forum users have positive things to say about train travel.
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Not the case any more; notwithstanding the fact that social distancing isn't actually mandated and is only "where possible", the true socially distanced capacity is now around 50%, as evidenced by LNER's updated seating plans (well done @Wallsendmag for implementing this so promptly!)
LNER's revised seating plans were finished two weeks ago, so I would hope that TPE will follow suit imminently if this hasn't already been done.
That can only be done by making air travel more expensive by way of levies and tax. How could the costs of maintaining fixed infrastructure for 1000 miles ever be cheaper than two airports and an air traffic control system?
Moreover, our attempts to build a domestic railway which competes with air travel are desperately unpopular (and misunderstood) in some circles.
But it hasn't been causing much modal shift, and journeys by all modes were increasing. The railways have not performed better than other modes, generally (with the possible exception of London commuters, where driving is far more probmematic, as is parking).
Do you have a source for that statement?
I assume you mean HS2? While that is unpopular in some circles, I don't think it's fair to claim that it's necessarily 'misunderstood' - plenty of people opposing it do understand it perfectly well.
squizzler
Established Member
I think this could be challenged, as the modal share for rail is now 10%. I think in the dog days of BR it was closer to 5%, although I have not a link to hand to support this.
With pleasure. Page 4 of National Travel Survey 2018 - Frequency of surface rail use. 61% of people in GB use the train once or more per year. Let's bury the myth that 'most people never use the train' once and for all.
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Other than Virgin were taking the other year about how they had managed to significantly increase modal share against the airlines to Scotland:
Virgin Trains wins highest ever market share against airlines between Scotland and London
Virgin Trains has hailed an “historic shift” in travel patterns as more Scotland-London passengers choose train over plane than at any time in more than 20...
Whilst rail hasn't changed a lot in terms of percentage of miles traveled compared to overall travel it should be noted that long distance rail travel has been growing fairy constantly over the time of the ORR data:
Clearly rail is doing something right to see a near 40% growth figure over that timeframe.
The thing is that overall percentage has changed, but you look at the overall figures where there's hundreds of billion km traveled and it still looks broadly the same, however look at the more detailed average distances traveled and it's slightly more obvious.
2018 rail miles 10.58%
2015 rail miles 8.94%
As such there's not been a significant shift in the percentages given the overall number of km traveled it adds a significant number of extra km.
In 2018 there were a total of 808bn km traveled, an uplift of 1.46% is ~13bn extra km by rail.
The reason that there's unlikely to be a large shift to rail is that there's not a lot of extra capacity available given that the network is carrying more passengers than any other peacetime year, even before a certain Dr Beeching reduced by quite some margin the total number of miles on the network.
You're always going to get a skewed view here purely based on what this forum is. Same way if you asked the question on Car UK forums or asked the users of PPrune if they felt air travel was tempting.
For me the car wins as it boils down to convenience and not having to plan based on timetables. I don't need to worry about a meeting overrunning, I can grab a coffee with a colleague after work. I'll be warm in my car with my choice of podcast.
Train travel throws too many variables up for me, especially here in the North East. It's not reliable, it's certainly not cheaper than the car and more importantly it doesn't go where I want to go. The vast part of this region simply isn't served by trains. I'd say the bus is more of a threat to trains if you're talking public transport up here.
When I lived in Barcelona I commuted regularly by train and I can see how it would be advantageous in a busy city like that where driving is just stressful and parking expensive but I'd say that's an exception to the rule for most UK cities.
For me the car wins as it boils down to convenience and not having to plan based on timetables. I don't need to worry about a meeting overrunning, I can grab a coffee with a colleague after work. I'll be warm in my car with my choice of podcast.
Train travel throws too many variables up for me, especially here in the North East. It's not reliable, it's certainly not cheaper than the car and more importantly it doesn't go where I want to go. The vast part of this region simply isn't served by trains. I'd say the bus is more of a threat to trains if you're talking public transport up here.
When I lived in Barcelona I commuted regularly by train and I can see how it would be advantageous in a busy city like that where driving is just stressful and parking expensive but I'd say that's an exception to the rule for most UK cities.
squizzler
Established Member
If so, then it’s good to know that the motoring and aviation enthusiast online communities spend their time putting the boot into their adopted industries too!
I drove to London yesterday as TFW say I'm not allowed on their trains from Nantwich to Crewe.
(Also because the train I'd normally get wasn't running)
Downsides: took about an hour longer, traffic was heavy.
Upsides: Could listen to infinite monkey cage and then join in an hour long zoom call
Cost: 3 days parking, £60. Petrol 24 litres, about £26, so £86 for a 3 day trip. As I arrived at what would by an off peak ticket rail would 'only' be £196.
If it was my money there's no contest. As the cost doesn't come into it then under normal circumstances the train beats the car.
(Also because the train I'd normally get wasn't running)
Downsides: took about an hour longer, traffic was heavy.
Upsides: Could listen to infinite monkey cage and then join in an hour long zoom call
Cost: 3 days parking, £60. Petrol 24 litres, about £26, so £86 for a 3 day trip. As I arrived at what would by an off peak ticket rail would 'only' be £196.
If it was my money there's no contest. As the cost doesn't come into it then under normal circumstances the train beats the car.
Who are you going with? Trainline lists Nantwich to London as £83.80 off peak return which will allow you to take any off peak train on any reasonable route into Euston, Marylebone or Paddington and return within a month.
Joe Average will take the train if it the cost compares well with driving. If going to a city with a lot of traffic, horrible roads to navigate and scarce and/or expensive parking, and there is a rail service which provides a shorter journey time door to door and the fares are no more than the cost of fuel and parking people will take it.
If going to the next town over, the start and/or destination is some way from the station and it runs only every hour and there is free parking, Mr J Average will drive unless he is planning to have a few jars.
It is why the idea of a railcard for all needs to be pushed as it will bring fares to be closer to the cost of a car journey + parking. As has been wisely said before, fuel duty freezes give a false sense of economy in running a car. The ticket price may be the same as the fuel costs but rightly or wrongly, the costs of maintenance per mile do not enter peoples heads.
If going to the next town over, the start and/or destination is some way from the station and it runs only every hour and there is free parking, Mr J Average will drive unless he is planning to have a few jars.
It is why the idea of a railcard for all needs to be pushed as it will bring fares to be closer to the cost of a car journey + parking. As has been wisely said before, fuel duty freezes give a false sense of economy in running a car. The ticket price may be the same as the fuel costs but rightly or wrongly, the costs of maintenance per mile do not enter peoples heads.
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