Transport.

[Derivative]

In this thread I will rant while offering very little in the way of solution.

I like public transport as a concept. Sitting on a train watching the countryside go by whilst reading a book, doing crossword puzzles, or sleeping, is much more exciting than sitting in the M1 roadworks.

The general direction of the UK seems to be aimed at pushing people towards public transport - global warming, particulate pollution, congestion (e.g. London currently has about 4 times more workers than could get in by car).

Against all of this, it's slower to use on anything but the most direct route.

I could drive from Hull to London twice, possibly three times, for the cost of a return train ticket. The journey would be shorter door to door, or about 30 minutes longer if we only count the train bit.

This can basically be extrapolated to any journey. London to Aberdeen is something like 400 quid. You're better off flying. The only cost-effective method is to take the Megabus, with comfort levels Calais stowaways wouldn't put up with.

So, because driving is better than public transport, our nationwide policy is seemingly based on intentionally making driving worse and worse until people give up. We've basically stopped building roads, parking permits are popping up in arbitrary places, speed limits are going up everywhere, taxes, the list goes on.

Is it actually impossible to make public transport better? It almost seems like the economic equivalent of smashing windows to create jobs at the moment.

edit: Obviously, I love driving and riding, this is BCF. That's mostly for leisure, though. Commuting is a matter of deciding what the best deal is (cost, stress, etc).

[Motorhate]

The bottom line is, when the system is run for profit, quality of service will always suffer. Lack of investment for years is catching up as is an ever-growing population. World's gone mad.
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[Derivative]

The part that bemuses me is why the Government have done nothing about it. It's one of the most fundamental parts of the economy that people can get to work or attend meetings or whatever. Yet it's just sort of given lip service every now and then as if it's slightly suboptimal.

I go on to nationalrail.co.uk, stick in London to Hull, return, tomorrow.

It gives me an 'off peak return', which is already discounted, for 162 quid.

OK, so let's say I "pay myself" 7 quid an hour instead.
I drive a bit slow, so I do 60mph at 50mpg.
That works out at about 13 quid per hour, 60 miles travelled.

For 162 quid I can drive myself 747 miles, or to Hull and back almost twice, even if I pay myself minimum wage, and that's one guy sitting in one car. I mean, it probably wouldn't be that hard for me to find a willing driver and give them a weekend break for that cost.

Absolutely stark raving bonkers. It's like the rail system may as well not exist. There is absolutely no reason to use it unless your employer pays or you know about your journey 4 years in advance.

Was it always like this? This obsession with 'cost savings' on every aspect of everything Government ever does? As an individual you don't prosper by being an epic miser, you prosper by spending responsibly and by investing in yourself and assets.

It wouldn't be so bad if driving wasn't being penalised, but it is. So essentially, we have a strategy of making our transport system worse over time. wat?

[ScaredyCat]

[Derivative]

Private vs. public seems to be missing the point entirely, though.

It feels a bit more like we're just standing still. What did we do to get to where we are today?

Over a period from 1960-present we built the entire motorway network. It seems like it was quite front-loaded (not much from 2000 onwards).

HS2 is taking 16 years if it's actually on schedule, and the mumblings make the tickets sound more expensive than a posh escort.

Crossrail is basically the only major expansion I can think of that actually seems to be coming in a timely fashion - and it's nowhere near enough.

I can't really make sense of rail strikes being relevant when we have such high unemployment (and even more just not looking for work because they've given up). If it were that bad, we'd see adverts for vacancies up and down the country. It feels more like mismanagement on every level.

[grr666]

Going to gig at Royal Albert Hall soon, booked hotel today. Was going to book up somewhere round Heathrow because I
will be starting out from Bristol, the idea being quick blat down M4. Dump car at hotel then go on to gig by train. Maybe a
20-30 minute train ride on overland from Heathrow to Central London. £56 each for me and the wife return Heathrow to Paddington
They can fuck right off. Robbing cunts! I can easily afford to do it but bollocks to that, I'm not letting them rip me off.

The tickets for the show were cheaper than that and I get a 2 hour show in a beautiful historic building with splendid
acoustics. £112 quid spent on the train gets me 30 minutes each way packed into a scabby metal tube with a load of
babbling foreigners.

So I'm driving right in now and staying in a hotel in Kensingtion that offers a double room, secure parking and
breakfast £130 inclusive for me and the wife. Barely more than the train tickets cost and we would have had
to book a hotel anyway, as I plan on getting thoroughly mashed before I see Brit Floyd. I won't be in any state
to drive home the same night.
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[ScaredyCat]

[stinkwheel]

The only way you'll get people to take public transport is if you make it cheaper and/or easier than driving yourself.

Unfortunately, they seem to be focusing on achieving this by making driving yourself harder and more expensive. Because that wont breed resentment!

One case that I found interesting was the Edinburgh trams. The bus service operator in Edinburgh says he'd have been able to run all the busses in Edinburgh. Free. Forever. For the amount they spent on the tram project.

Now a major city with an entirely free public transport infrastructure. THAT would get people out of their cars.

EDIT: For my own part. I find urban public transport systems entirely opaque and impenetrable. I have no idea which bus/tram to take to where. The timetables only help if you already know your way around and what the places are called. So I land up walking.

Now when I've been in foreign cities on a break, I usually get a 48h pass. Then I DO use public transport. Like the trams in Amsterdam and Krakow. Thing is, I got on the wrong one several times, overshot stops and went to the wrong places. I just jumped back on another one heading the other way. If I'd been paying for individual journeys, that would have been both expensive and stressful.

The thing is, a day pass generally works out pretty expensive, especially if you're only going a short distance.

Perhaps they should employ grannies to stand in bus stops to tell people which number to get?
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[Lord Percy]

Well it's due to the profit motive and privatisation.

Profit motive puts prices sky high.

Privatisation turns it into a mess of operators all trying to run together. If Virgin promises more trains pulling into London on a certain day, that means Northern Rail can't make the same promise because the rail network has limited space in each area at any given moment. So whatever area Virgin serves will see a boost in service, while the Northern Rail area will just have to lump it. Problem here is that Virgin may have only won because they had the funds to stick to their promise. It doesn't take into account the economic needs of the nation, only the economic desires of a single train operator. And that's not even to mention how much more confusing it must be for a huge handful of rail operators to have to constantly negotiate who gets what time slots and on which day.

For a thing like rail it seems blindingly obvious that a central management point is needed, with all pricing, timetabling, logistics etc being done from a sort of 'one nation' perspective. I'd see it as a UK-sized version of Railway Tycoon or something. One rail system for one country with one control centre, it just makes sense.

As for busses, it's not quite so much of a monopoly but is almost as bad. I had a Chinese mate recently ask me for some advice on catching a bus from a hotel in Manchester to the airport. The information was a massive pain in the arse to figure out with tons of googling and flitting from Manchester council pages, First Bus, Arriva, etc, just to find out how much a ticket was going to cost. Compare this to the Chinese centrally managed transport system where absolutely everything is a few clicks away and all available on one massive, nationwide system. City busses form part of the local government transport system so it's all easily punched into a computer on the management end so you can work it all out fantastically and keep everything under control. Unlike the mish-mash private version where you have a little bit here, a little bit there and all in the name of 'competition' which doesn't exactly give much room for partnership or working together. Intercity and interstate busses in China are often privately owned too so, surprise surprise, it's a slightly bigger pain trying to figure them out as well.

British public transport is a joke because it's been left in private hands. "But but, competition, efficiency, market forces, something something..."

[Rogerborg]

[TbirdX]

I've spent many an hour sitting in a queue of traffic while the two people on the 13 buses that pass me in the bus lane go by.

Where is the economic logic in holding up hundreds of people, for example, along the embankment, costing thousands in lost time fuel and polluting the hell out of everything while three people on bicycles sail up the newly created cycle super highway.

I'm sure you could just buy everyone of those half dozen people who actually use the thing a new car and save the taxpayer millions.
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[Ste]

[M.C]

Public transport only works on long journeys, when booked in advanced, off-peak during the week. Once did London to Exeter return for £1.50 on Megabus, and I regularly used to do London to North Wales for £20 return by train.

On the day fares or even on peak journeys booked in advanced are eye-watering. It needs to be more flexible, why would people give up their cars when a single ticket can be a years insurance premium.

Anyway in London its not about public transport anymore, cycling's the new thing. I cycle myself but they've just messed up the roads for unnecessary/sometimes dangerous infrastructure, that's mainly used seasonally and only during rush-hour

[Lord Percy]

[Itchy]

There is a 3rd solution nobody seems to be talking about.

A privatised system, however with ALL/Majority of the shares owned by the government. This is a very common model in Asia.

The company is run the same as a corporation so you don't get the Civil service SA80 effect ~ Won't work, can't be fired. The pension provisions are also private and the company has to make provision for it AND the company is run for a profit so they don't need any subsidy.

However because the government is the biggest or only shareholder any dividends that are paid out are reinvested into the company.



The only danger is that the government sells it off cheap to its mates.
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[Ste]

What you're supposed to do is buy your ticket with the cheapest operator and then use it on the nicer, more expensive operators trains.

Your simple formula isn't so simple because of the sheer number of variables involved.

[Polarbear]

Don't turn up at the station in Newquay going to Scotland then....

A 1,700-mile first class train journey from Cornwall to the remote Scottish fishing village of Kyle of Lochalsh - and back again - certainly sounds like a grand trip.

And now it's got a price tag to match.

The first £1,000 fare in the history of Britain's railways has been revealed by a survey showing how long- distance prices have soared since privatisation in the mid-1990s.

The trip from Newquay costs £1,002 if the ticket is bought on the day of travel, and has met with fierce criticism.


That was in 2009
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[Ste]

£245.80 for a super offpeak open return for that journey.

[Lord Percy]

[Ste]

[Itchy]

[Lord Percy]

Dutch Abellio (parent company Nederlandse Spoorwegen) operate more railway in the UK than they do in their own country.

[Itchy]

[Motorhate]

[Rob Fzs]

There is not enough competition, the government is too scared to rock the boat and do anything, they've come up with hs2, which a couple years back i thought might be a decent idea, but as usual, all the parasites have got their claws in and it'll cost a fortune, there is just no vision, who knows, maybe a corbyn government might make radical changes.
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