New structure for British railways

[Supaned]

13 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

A poor comparison, not least since road tax has not existed for many years. We pay vehicle excise duty and fuel tax, both of which go into the general exchequer. It's like saying alcohol duty should pay for public houses.

 

To an extent perhaps , but there is rarely if ever any outcry about the cost of works to roads , they are just accepted as part of national infrastructure. There are people who don't drive cars and I've not heard of such folk complaining about money being spent on roads , yet plenty of people profess not to use the railway but DO object to government funding of it - why is that?

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Supaned said:

plenty of people profess not to use the railway but DO object to government funding of it - why is that?

 

Perhaps, as @Nearholmer has observed, because of the perceived bias of that subsidy towards the Great Wen.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Compound2632

[Pacific231G]

17 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Sorry to be antagonistic, but almost all of that is utter boll......cobblers.

 

Many, if not most, of the highly remunerated staff of the privatised railway were previously the horrendously "underpaid" members of BR. So your first assertion is demonstrably wrong.

 

On your second point, "demand pricing" was introduced by BR long before privatisation (by an ex-BA chap, with whom I worked closely on the ER in the 1980's), and quite successfully. The previous system (Apex and Super Apex, introduced by BR in the 1970's and an absolute to sell - I was a Travel Centre clerk for part of that time) did demand that you booked a long way ahead to achieve a significantly reduced fare. But the present system adjusts fares in real time, using a real time algorithm - if there is low demand for a certain departure, the fares stay down right up to the day before (or even the same day on certain routes). Your analysis is not only out of date but inherently wrong. It is entirely possible to book a cheap fare almost up to the departure date, or even time, if you can be flexible (just like airline travel).

 

So your third point is lost on me. But it appears not to be lost on many who have simply pressed the "agree" button, without either any idea of the reality, or any intention to challenge the existing situation. So that's me told then.

My comment about the increase in remuneration for "top jobs" IS a reflection of generally increasing inequality in a winner takes it all economy but it spread to a general expectation across almost every industry often being applied to managers who weren't qualified to go anywhere else. At times I've benefitted from this expectation, particularly in consultancy contracts. I also know from personal senior governance experience that the pressures to ramp up Chief Executives' salaries compared with the rest of an organisation's staff,  can be enormous. Remuneration comparison exercises in partcular have a definite ratchetting effect .

 

Demand pricing does penalise anyone who doesn't or can't book ahead and that IMHO that makes the railway less useful to many people. It's often a whole lot easier just to jump in the car and simplification is often the key to giving the customer what they need. Trying to avoid peakinesss and overcrowded trains makes sense but not to have passengers paying wildly different prices to travel on the same half empty trains unless the real aim is revenue maximisation (at passengers' expense) rather than demand management . 

 

My third point, which was the rule of thumb comparison between car, rail and domestic air travel, was based on my own experience of controlling costs both in my own business and in production budgets. It is obviously somewhat anecdotal and other factors came into play, such as the need to carry equipment or not wanting people making long drives on a winter's evening after a long and tiring day. However, as a rule of thumb it did work when it came to the simple costs of moving personnel (often me!)  around the country.

 

I actually agree with your later point "The alternative is to accept that the railway is actually an essential public service which needs an adequate subsidy to continue delivering the service it does. That is essentially what is missing from the Williams/Shapps formula."

The justification for season tickets for people commuting to major connurbations at the busiest times of day is that the rail system enables such connurbations to function at all and season tickets avoid everyone trying to commute (sometimes for part of their journey) by car.  A smart system would enable the season ticket holder to get money back if they didn't use the service or if they used it at a quieter time. If, as seems likely, mixed home/office working becomes far more common then something more flexible than a season ticket designed for a daily commute will probably be needed anyway. 

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Ron Ron Ron]

17 minutes ago, Supaned said:

 

To an extent perhaps , but there is rarely if ever any outcry about the cost of works to roads , they are just accepted as part of national infrastructure. ......

 

it's not an equal comparison.

As I pointed out a few posts earlier, although the funds raised through taxation on motor vehicles and road usage**  goes into the general taxation pot, that income outweighs the amount spend on roads (maintenance, renewals and new build) by a multiple factor.

That's the opposite of the situation with the railways, where revenue generated, through fares, other income and taxation, do not cover the total costs.

 

Prior to the Covid intervention....

Passenger operations (balanced across the whole network) roughly broke even, plus or minus.

Freight operators, being an entirely private field of business, paid their way, according to the access and other charges levied on them.

Infrastructure is the loss maker, in that income from users (access charges etc, etc,) don't come anywhere near meeting the total costs of maintenance, renewals and capital investment programmes.

 

 

( **Road fund licence, VAT on new car purchases, fuel excise duty, MOT charges, VAT On almost everything from accessories, spare parts, servicing costs (inc. labour) etc. )

 

 

 

.

[Nearholmer]

50 minutes ago, Supaned said:

The railway is either national infrastructure and a public service , or it's a profit making entity, but it's unlikely to be both - some parts will generate more revenue than others (eg a main line to London is likely to pull in far more revenue than a branch line in the North East , but as a public service they are equally as important).

 

Just about the only things which get close to the sort of model that you seem to advocate are those where it is agreed, by national consensus, that there should be "universal provision": gas, water, electricity, and sewerage (all provided by companies with obligations to serve, with defined limitations); healthcare; highways (publicly provided, but again with defined limitations); basic postal service (provided by a company, whose obligation to provide expires this year IIRC); education (the provision models there are too complex to summarise); the myriad, often-forgotten, things that local authorities are obliged by law to provide; a few I've forgotten.

 

Any attempt to apply the "universal provision" logic to rail transport falls at the first hurdle, in that it has never existed, and in practice almost certainly never could. It might just be possible operate a "universal provision" logic for a very basic level public transport, but certainly not for railways in isolation.

 

Added to which, slapping a label that says "public service" on the railway provision that does exist wouldn't solve the management and funding challenges (it hasn't yet for the NHS!), they will always exist in one form or another.

 

We just have to keep muddling along, trying to agree as a nation the extent to which we wish to buy for ourselves rail service provision over and above that which the market would provide for profit, and it will always be a difficult set of decisions, because most people don't much like paying taxes, and the calls on tax revenue always exceed what is raised. Put another way: do you want nurses to get a 5% pay rise, or do you want train fares frozen for five years, or do you want income tax to go up by 5% so that both can be afforded? (I'm sure the figures don't match, but you get my point about difficult choices, I'm sure).

[31A]

Re fares, in Holland they seem to have cracked it, or at least have a good system:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OV-chipkaart

[corneliuslundie]

I am concerned at the suggestion, if I have understood correctly, of a greater proportion of trains requiring prior booking.

I rarely know when I go somewhere when exactly I shall be returning, not even to model railway exhibitions (if it is good I shall stay longer, though not until the last train in case it doesn't run) and when I was working I could rarely predict when meetings outside London would finish, at least not with enough precision to enable me to book a seat on a specific train.

I don't drive so car is not a choice, but I am afraid that for many people who do drive and own cars the choice will be obvious and it will not be rail, which is often perceived as more expensive anyway (because many car owners have not a clue about the true costs of running their vehicles and think only in terms of petrol cost).

This is not the route to a greener transport system. But when is there ever joined up thinking in government?

Jonathan

[Gwiwer]

18 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Differential pricing can and does work to smooth peaks, but it has to be aggressively differential - look at budget airlines to see it done remorselessly

Look also at Southern, among the current ex-TOCs who offer seriously discounted fares on the less-busy trains which are also quota-controlled.  Plenty of tickets available via their website (and nowhere else - including not on the NR website and definitely not the booking apps) for £5.00 between Sussex towns and the London area.  AND reduced for railcard holders meaning in many cases that becomes £3.30.   The anytime single fare varies by journey but for my example, Worthing - Victoria, is £35.20 and a typical off-peak fare is £20.30.

 

 

[corneliuslundie]

But if access to those fares is so restricted, ie just one source, are they serious or is it a shop window to say "look what we are doing to fill our trains"?

Jonathan

[Gwiwer]

2 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

But if access to those fares is so restricted, ie just one source, are they serious or is it a shop window to say "look what we are doing to fill our trains"?

Jonathan

Why not both?  Why not as a marketing tool to get traffic onto their own website?  And to sell otherwise empty seats at a nominal amount in much the same way as airlines do.  It makes no sense to Joe and Joanne Public when they have paid four, five or six times the amount their neighbour did for the same trip but they also gain flexibility by doing so.  As with the airlines the more you pay the more choice you have.  The only time an Advance or similar ticket can be used otherwise than on the booked service is if that service is cancelled or if as a part of the journey a connecting service was delayed or cancelled causing you to miss the booked train.  In both instances your ticket is then valid by the next available service.  

[corneliuslundie]

But wouldn't they fill more empty seats if they were available from more sources? Unless you are familiar with the system you may well not think of going to the company website rather than one of the national on-line ticket sales companies.

Jonathan

[Pacific231G]

42 minutes ago, 31A said:

Re fares, in Holland they seem to have cracked it, or at least have a good system:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OV-chipkaart

Not without difficulties though

"The process, which started in 2005 and was finally completed in 2014, has been plagued with cost-overruns, delays because of technical difficulties, planning and co-ordination problems, and resistance from consumer groups and politicians because of concerns over the safety and user-friendliness of the system, resulting in waning public support"

The Chipkaart system looks to be fairly similar to TfL's Oyster card system though  I don't remember enormous problems with its implementation and I was using it for travel in London almost daily.

 

The only time I used the NS rail system heavily was in the mid 1990s, so long before chipkaart, during a fact finding mission to TELEAC -The then Dutch adult educational TV service- in Utrecht  to where I commuted daily from Alphen aan den Rijn. That commute was a bus and two trains. I also visited Hilversum and Amsterdam. In the central "ring" of cities there was a fairly frequent turn up and go service which was sort of half way between TfL and Network South East so I couldn't imagine anyone pre-booking a train. What it's like in in the country's outer regions I don't know. 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Pacific231G

[corneliuslundie]

Ah, I remember strippenkaart. So easy when I was visiting exhibitions in Amsterdam, or indeed the Utrecht railway museum, though in the rush hours I hardly ever saw it used. Did they all have season tickets or were they simply not paying?

Sorry, completely off topic, though a very simple system compared with things like the Oyster Card. And making things simple and easy for the traveller is very important.

Jonathan

[Nearholmer]

Oyster is pretty retro-tech now, apart from a users who don’t have bank accounts, ‘wave and pay’ being much more commonly used in London.

 

Oyster is a stored-value system, the card acts as a wallet for money that you load to it, but that really isn’t needed once a person has a debit-able bank/credit card - buying travel becomes just life buying a coffee.

 

The algorithms behind the wave and pay charging mechanism are very smart, so it will cap the amount you pay over a given period, charge you an horrendous fare if you tap-in, and then don’t tap out within a time window etc. Basically the fares-manual is written into the software.

 

The sooner it is extended to as much of the national rail offering as is feasible, the saner everyone will be. A key limit is the cap on contactless payment values, of course, so it’s hard to see how it could work for trips where the single journey price exceeds £45 (or whatever the limit now is).

 

 

 

 

[Oldddudders]

15 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The sooner it is extended to as much of the national rail offering as is feasible, the saner everyone will be. A key limit is the cap on contactless payment values, of course, so it’s hard to see how it could work for trips where the single journey price exceeds £45 (or whatever the limit now is).

Which is where gates come in. You don't get let out until you have used another means of payment. 

[corneliuslundie]

And a bit inconvenient if you have reached the limit of contactless transactions and the next one has to be chip and pin. They seem to have increased the number of transactions but a limit still exists.

And does it work in conjunction with railcards?

Jonathan

Edited May 28, 2021 by corneliuslundie

[woodenhead]

3 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

And a bit inconvenient if you have reached the limit of contactless transactions and the next one has to be chip and pin. They seem to have increased the number of transactions but a limit still exists.

And does it work in conjunction with railcards?

Jonathan

I don't think the limits work quite like that, you won't be turned away from a contactless only payment system like the Underground, it will trip when you next try and buy a coffee at Starbucks, Costa, Nero or Pret at the station where a pin option exists.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

And a bit inconvenient if you have reached the limit of contactless transactions and the next one has to be chip and pin. They seem to have increased the number of transactions but a limit still exists.

And does it work in conjunction with railcards?

 

Hmmmm ............ I've spent many hours "on the gate line" at Tube stations, and have never seen a customer have their card rejected because its over limit on number of transactions, so I suspect that TfL have some agreement with the banks to obviate that - I will try to find out.

 

In short, no it doesn't work with railcards, because the card reader can only read one card per gate activation.

 

But, London residents who have a "railcard" type entitlement get a free travel card of one sort or another: Diabled people get a Freedom Pass; everyone 60+yo gets an Oyster that gives all modes free; children 11-16yo get an Oyster that gives trams and buses free, and child fare on the tube (they get an Oyster because they aren't expected to have a debitable bank card); children under 11yo travel free without any form of ticket. And there are others that I can't recall.

 

 I've a got out of date with how railcards for "out of town" people work since retiring, so take what follows with a pinch of salt. I think that the holder of a disabled persons railcard can have their discount entitlement templated onto an Oyster, so they still have to "load" an Oyster card to pay; Armed Forces Railcard holders have customarily been waved-through to travel free, and I think they may now get a pass that works the gates; ........... best ask at the station about any other railcards.

[Gwiwer]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I've a got out of date with how railcards for "out of town" people

I believe where interavailable ticketing exists between TfL and NR services (such as Fenchurch Street / Liverpool Street - Stratford / Barking / Upminster) that gates are programmed to accept all relevant ticket types rather than only TfL or NR versions.  In cases where a NR ticket holder also holds a railcard and their ticket is valid "via London Terminals" with the † symbol the TfL gateline will accept the ticket, at the essential cross-London stations only, without a need to show the railcard.  For children 11 and under and in all cases of difficulty there is always an attended gate or if the gateline attendant is otherwise engaged for a while a gate will be left open temporarily meaning there should never be difficulty entering or exiting the networks.  

 

London daily caps are lower than the £45 contactless daily limit so this should never be an obstacle to travel.  One would need to rack up more than two default penalty fares in order to trip the limit.  That can occur when a journey "times out" (entry and exit are separated by a time greater than the pre-determined limit, which is pretty generous) or if a card is touched in but not out meaning the correct fare cannot be calculated; the penalty will be applied at next touch-in.  One penalty per day can be refunded; this allows for genuine error and the rare cases of severe delays in transit.  

[Hesperus]

I'll admit that I don't use the railway much, I live in the countryside near Ludlow and have the type of job that needs tools 99% of the time.

 

I do use it occasionally though and find the ticket websites easy to understand.  I can go at 8:30 for £68 or wait till 10am and get there for £25 (unless I'm going to Hereford where its the same price all day).

 

It strikes me that season tickets need to change not only to stop rewarding peak time travel but also to put an end to the practice that richer folk who can afford them are traveling cheaper than poor folk who can't.  I realise that it's always been done that way but that isn't necessary a good reason to continue.

[Supaned]

On 28/05/2021 at 18:46, Oldddudders said:

Which is where gates come in. You don't get let out until you have used another means of payment.

 

Of course, that relies upon said gates being adequately staffed , not just left wide open as happens at New Street because the staff all go on their break at the same time......

[Michael Hodgson]

I remember trains.  I used to catch them before Covid.

[Oldddudders]

I remember gates. I used to manage their installation. 

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Supaned said:

gates being adequately staffed , not just left wide open

Opening the gates means the athletes in our society have nothing to hurdle in order to enter or exit stations   

 

It is sometimes necessary to leave gates open for a short time for a number of reasons (and only the wide gate should be so opened) but it should not be necessary to leave the lot open while multiple staff take breaks.  PNBs should be rostered to ensure best coverage and if the staff will not observe their rostered times then management needs to take mattes in hand.  

 

At many smaller stations where the gates are supervised by a single booking office person or have just a single gateline attendant there will be times when the station is left "open" as it is impractical to arrange meal / toilet break relief otherwise.  During Covid even some larger stations have had gateline staff cut to one for safety.  But at anywhere with multiple staffing there should not normally be any reason to leave all the gates open other than in the event of a systems failure or evacuation.  

[ess1uk]

The competition for the GBR headquarters has got a few staff upset in MK