Network Rail looking at how it could bring in 24 hour train service

[Mark62]

Headline on the BBC was that network rail said that trains could soon run24 hours a days across the Netwrok.
I didn't realise that Only London had a rail Netwrok in the UK. The BBC article is all about London trains. It's seems none of the U.K. Has a train service. Then again London has more spent on its public transport than all of the rural uk put together.
Correct me if I'm wrong but 50 years ago, the U.K. Did have trains running for 24 hours. Overnight trains ran connecting all major areas. Then the reduction started as the network was being primed for what is now colloquially called privatisation.
I remember travelling many times on the east coast at night. Trains were frequent and very busy. They were still taken off even though they made money. I dont expect the franchises wanted to bother having to waste time money(and profits) running trains overnight.
Trains were taken off because they were said to be unpopular overnight. I never saw any evidence of that.
So now network rail want to bring back overnight trains to the Uk. Sorry.
London is the Uk. People in Liverpool, newcastle, Malton and Brigg don't matter. Another mistake. Brigg gets six trains a week on one day only. People there would like trains every day but network want to close the line for no apparent reason and arriva who run the line don't have the rolling stock or even know where Brigg is.
London gets all the cream whilst people in the regions get nothing.
Overnight trains in Brigg. Well done network rail for your care and diligence. Close down the Brigg line and you'll have a bit more money to spend in London.

 

[The Ham]

I'd suspect not very few airports have scheduled arrivals for a genuinely 24 hour operation. Manchester has under 10 scheduled arrivals and departures between midnight and 6am. Heathrow is limited by quota to approximately 17 flights per night which are mostly packed into the 5am to 6am time block as long haul arrivals. It's really Gatwick and Stansted that have notable number of flights at roughly 70 and 40 respectively but then these are only during the summer peak, outside of summer the numbers for both are under 10 per day.

However with a 11:59 landing time it would probably be about 01:00 before you are able to leave the terminal, add in an extra 30-60 minutes for people who need extra time and you'll probably want the last services at 01:30 to 02:00.

If you have a flight at 05:00 most people would want to be there before 04:00, with 03:00 but being unreasonable. As such if you have hourly services between midnight and 5 am then there's probably enough people using them to justify running them.

This would be especially true given that you would also have airport staff wishing to use the services.

I would hope that when the Southern Approach to Heathrow is built that they design the access tunnels so that one direction can be maintained whilst allowing services to run in the opposite direction.

That would leave Waterloo/Staines Staines/Weybridge and Woking/Guildford as the week points in the network as Weybridge/Basingstoke is 4 tracks so it should be possible to use one of the slows when maintaing the tracks in the opposite direction.

Woking/Guildford wouldn't cause too much delay if buses were needed or if services were diverted Via Aldershot (probably adding up to 30 minutes for each option).

The others may be more complicated, however even running from Staines to Guildford (and then on to Woking) via Ascot would probably only be just over an hour, if there was a stop added at Frimley passengers could be buses to Farnborough Main for onward travel or passengers could use the Western Approach and get a train from Basingstoke to their stations. Alternatively, if there was a grade separated junction between Frimley and Farnborough then you could just run direct trains, which would just mean that Brookwood was missed, but a service from Woking to Aldershot would provide connections.

Which just leaves getting to London, which could be a case of buses for the station stops between and sending the trains via Weybridge to get to Clapham Junction and Waterloo.

 

[The Ham]

Headline on the BBC was that network rail said that trains could soon run24 hours a days across the Netwrok.
I didn't realise that Only London had a rail Netwrok in the UK. The BBC article is all about London trains. It's seems none of the U.K. Has a train service. Then again London has more spent on its public transport than all of the rural uk put together.
Correct me if I'm wrong but 50 years ago, the U.K. Did have trains running for 24 hours. Overnight trains ran connecting all major areas. Then the reduction started as the network was being primed for what is now colloquially called privatisation.
I remember travelling many times on the east coast at night. Trains were frequent and very busy. They were still taken off even though they made money. I dont expect the franchises wanted to bother having to waste time money(and profits) running trains overnight.
Trains were taken off because they were said to be unpopular overnight. I never saw any evidence of that.
So now network rail want to bring back overnight trains to the Uk. Sorry.
London is the Uk. People in Liverpool, newcastle, Malton and Brigg don't matter. Another mistake. Brigg gets six trains a week on one day only. People there would like trains every day but network want to close the line for no apparent reason and arriva who run the line don't have the rolling stock or even know where Brigg is.
London gets all the cream whilst people in the regions get nothing.
Overnight trains in Brigg. Well done network rail for your care and diligence. Close down the Brigg line and you'll have a bit more money to spend in London.

London has more rail passengers than the rest of the country (given 2/3rds of all passengers are in the London and South East Sector and quite a few of those in the InterCity Sector will also be heading to/from London), as such it's not overly surprising that London has more money spent on it.

However, I'm not convinced that it does if you include the money returned to the government from premiums paid by the rail companies and deduct of the subsidies paid by those from other TOC's. For instance, including all TOC's except for those that run London commuter services (i.e. including ScotRail, Northern, XC, TPE, Virgin East Coast and Mersey Rail) required £125 million in subsidy. This compares with those that run London commuter services (i.e. including GWR, SWR, TfL rail, C2C, Chiltern, Southern) required £42 million in subsidy.

Then in terms of bus subsidy in England this is a total £2.3 billion of which less than £0.85 billion is used for London buses. This doesn't include Scotland which gets a further £291 million.

This means that in terms of public transport subsidy London gets about £0.9 billion whilst the rest of the UK gets £1.8 billion (so about double the amount).

As such even allowing for £1 billion a year in spend for Crossrail London was only just getting more spent on it with a total of about £1.9 billion. However once you deduct the £0.2 billon in extra taxes from London for Crossrail the total is £1.8 billion and therefore less than the rest of the UK.

 

[edwin_m]

I'd suspect not very few airports have scheduled arrivals for a genuinely 24 hour operation. Manchester has under 10 scheduled arrivals and departures between midnight and 6am. Heathrow is limited by quota to approximately 17 flights per night which are mostly packed into the 5am to 6am time block as long haul arrivals. It's really Gatwick and Stansted that have notable number of flights at roughly 70 and 40 respectively but then these are only during the summer peak, outside of summer the numbers for both are under 10 per day.

Arrivals aren't so bad because for a long-haul flight landing about 0600 the train service is probably up and running by the time you've cleared the airport, and if it isn't you can just wait a bit. Many business flights depart before 0800, which probably makes them impossible to access by rail from most starting stations. The problem here is that even for a busy airport the number of passengers originating from most stations will be small. And at that time of the morning most people are time-sensitive rather than money-sensistive (the company is paying), there's no traffic congestion so most of the passengers will drive or get a taxi.

 

[yorksrob]

London has more rail passengers than the rest of the country (given 2/3rds of all passengers are in the London and South East Sector and quite a few of those in the InterCity Sector will also be heading to/from London), as such it's not overly surprising that London has more money spent on it.

However, I'm not convinced that it does if you include the money returned to the government from premiums paid by the rail companies and deduct of the subsidies paid by those from other TOC's. For instance, including all TOC's except for those that run London commuter services (i.e. including ScotRail, Northern, XC, TPE, Virgin East Coast and Mersey Rail) required £125 million in subsidy. This compares with those that run London commuter services (i.e. including GWR, SWR, TfL rail, C2C, Chiltern, Southern) required £42 million in subsidy.

Then in terms of bus subsidy in England this is a total £2.3 billion of which less than £0.85 billion is used for London buses. This doesn't include Scotland which gets a further £291 million.

This means that in terms of public transport subsidy London gets about £0.9 billion whilst the rest of the UK gets £1.8 billion (so about double the amount).

As such even allowing for £1 billion a year in spend for Crossrail London was only just getting more spent on it with a total of about £1.9 billion. However once you deduct the £0.2 billon in extra taxes from London for Crossrail the total is £1.8 billion and therefore less than the rest of the UK.

If we're going to play the numbers game, London has around seven million of the population, while the rest of the Kingdom has around forty nine million, so half of the subsidy isn't such a bad deal.

 

[transmanche]

If we're going to play the numbers game, London has around seven million of the population[...]

It's closer to nine million.

ONS estimated Greater London population for 2016 was 8.8 million. EuroStat estimated the larger London Metropolitan Area (the largest in the EU) population as 14.4 million in 2016.

 

[yorksrob]

It's closer to nine million.

ONS estimated Greater London population for 2016 was 8.8 million. EuroStat estimated the larger London Metropolitan Area (the largest in the EU) population as 14.4 million in 2016.

Even by those numbers, it's still doing alright.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

If we're going to play the numbers game, London has around seven million of the population, while the rest of the Kingdom has around forty nine million, so half of the subsidy isn't such a bad deal.

The number of people in any area is irrelevant. It's the number of people who use public transport that counts. The percentage of people using public transport in London and the Home Counties is far bigger that the percentage elsewhere. This is reflected in the sums spent on road improvements. Very little has been spent on road improvements in London in the past eighteen years or so but large sums have been spent elsewhere, reflecting the fact that outside the south east far more people travel by road.

 

[Mathew S]

The number of people in any area is irrelevant. It's the number of people who use public transport that counts. The percentage of people using public transport in London and the Home Counties is far bigger that the percentage elsewhere. This is reflected in the sums spent on road improvements. Very little has been spent on road improvements in London in the past eighteen years or so but large sums have been spent elsewhere, reflecting the fact that outside the south east far more people travel by road.

It's easy enough to argue that the other way around though. I drive on many of the journeys that I make only because there isn't an adequate public transport option. Invest in public transport and people use it, cut funding as has happened in my area and driving becomes the only option.

For clarity, I live in an urban suburb of Wigan, and yet we don't have an adequate early morning or evening (after 6pm) bus service, or an evening (after 6pm) train service from our local station. It wouldn't take much investment to change both of those things, and yet instead billions are being put into building a new road into the town centre.

 

[yorksrob]

It's easy enough to argue that the other way around though. I drive on many of the journeys that I make only because there isn't an adequate public transport option. Invest in public transport and people use it, cut funding as has happened in my area and driving becomes the only option.

For clarity, I live in an urban suburb of Wigan, and yet we don't have an adequate early morning or evening (after 6pm) bus service, or an evening (after 6pm) train service from our local station. It wouldn't take much investment to change both of those things, and yet instead billions are being put into building a new road into the town centre.

Indeed. The fact that "far more people travel by road" outside of the South East is very much due to the lack of decent alternatives, and that includes the inferior de-regulated bus network, which London has been spared.

 

[SamYeager]

Oh dear, it looks as though those chips on the shoulder are getting a work out again. I should point out that I live in the south west and my principal travel to London has been for courses so I'm certainly not biased in favour of the SE.

 

[Mathew S]

Oh dear, it looks as though those chips on the shoulder are getting a work out again. I should point out that I live in the south west and my principal travel to London has been for courses so I'm certainly not biased in favour of the SE.

I can only speak for myself, but it's nothing to do with having a chip on my shoulder; I was merely pointing out - as others have done - that a significant part of the reason why more people drive outside London & the SE is that there is no alternative, even in many urban areas. For example, one day each week at the moment I have to drive a 50-mile round trip to work and back because it's not possible to get from Wigan into Manchester city centre in time to start work at 7am using public transport.
Slowly, every so painfully slowly, things are starting to improve. Earlier train services are coming from 20th May, and there is talk of re-regulating bus services which will hopefully allow more evening buses to run. However, to pretend that there is any valid reason for the disparity in public transport spending between regions of the UK is to take a determined departure from reality.

 

[furnessvale]

London has more rail passengers than the rest of the country (given 2/3rds of all passengers are in the London and South East Sector and quite a few of those in the InterCity Sector will also be heading to/from London), as such it's not overly surprising that London has more money spent on it.

Could that be chicken and egg? Given the potential for passengers in the Liverpool / Manchester / Leeds Sheffield / North East corridor, it could just as validly be argued that "if" the money had been spent in that area, numbers would be much greater.

I am the first to accept that numbers would not be as great as the London conurbation, but equally I would not expect the same amount of money to be spent, just a slightly fairer distribution.

 

[The Ham]

If we're going to play the numbers game, London has around seven million of the population, while the rest of the Kingdom has around forty nine million, so half of the subsidy isn't such a bad deal.

However, the subsidy figures covered all rail travel in London and most rail travel in England south of Birmingham, in that it included the old LM franchise, the Chiltern franchise, the whole of GWR, SWR, C2C, Southeastern. Pretty much the only rail franchise that goes anywhere South of the M4 would be XC, and that would only change each figure by £5 million. However that does mean that the rail subsidy figures used are significantly inflated beyond what they should be for just London as they are cross subsidising nearly the whole of the South East, the South West and a lot of the West Midlands.

My post was in response to the point that London had more spent on it than the rest of the country, as such i wasn't trying to provide a cost per person.

Given the way that the rail franchises work it's hard to provide a clear answer for just London. However it is likely that London will reduce a higher than average figure for public transport subsidy, but that is another matter.

 

[The Ham]

Could that be chicken and egg? Given the potential for passengers in the Liverpool / Manchester / Leeds Sheffield / North East corridor, it could just as validly be argued that "if" the money had been spent in that area, numbers would be much greater.

I am the first to accept that numbers would not be as great as the London conurbation, but equally I would not expect the same amount of money to be spent, just a slightly fairer distribution.

Possibly, however if you look at Mersey Rail (annual subsidy £20.7 million) and London Overground (annual subsidy £16.1 million) where London Overground has been running for less time and has about double the number of stations it still has 5.5 the number of passengers.

That would imply that even where places are given a similar level of subsidy that London will out perform them. The reason is probably down to the inability for London to provide a comparable account of road space per any given population due to the population density.

 

[w1bbl3]

Many business flights depart before 0800, which probably makes them impossible to access by rail from most starting stations. The problem here is that even for a busy airport the number of passengers originating from most stations will be small.

I do agree that the early morning arrivals are generally rail served or can be rail served with a short wait.

However for the morning business time departures getting the airport by train is possibly less of an issue than getting to the nearest station initially unless you live within walking distance of a station. As it's likely you'd have to either drive or get a taxi to the station as the local bus service will not have started up at 3 or 4 in the morning at which point it possibly becomes questionable about trying to get to the station in the first place rather than going direct to the airport.

I do also wonder how many passengers travel directly to the airport for the very early 3am/4am/5am leisure flights from say Gatwick, Stanstead or Manchester rather than travel the night before and stay in a hotel near to the airport to avoid getting up a midnight / 1am or just not going to bed at all.

I would suspect that any real latent demand for night services to airports would be to ferry staff in time for the early shift or on finishing the late shift and this would pose a problem of having enough people wanting to go to the same place for a service to be viable and how they finish (or start) their journeys once off the train.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

It's easy enough to argue that the other way around though. I drive on many of the journeys that I make only because there isn't an adequate public transport option. Invest in public transport and people use it, cut funding as has happened in my area and driving becomes the only option.

For clarity, I live in an urban suburb of Wigan, and yet we don't have an adequate early morning or evening (after 6pm) bus service, or an evening (after 6pm) train service from our local station. It wouldn't take much investment to change both of those things, and yet instead billions are being put into building a new road into the town centre.

Forgive me, but you're not putting the argument the other way. You're arguing something quite different.

My point was to rebut the false claim made so often that London receives an unfair share of tax funding for railways. There are two and a half sensible ways of calculating what is fair, and one obviously wrong way. The wrong way is to divide railway funding by head of population, regardless of what percentage uses the railway. This wrong way is very popular among people who resent London. The sensible ways are:

1) Divide the Government funding spent on public transport in a given area, including subsidies by the number of people in that area who use public transport;

1a) Divide the Government funding spent on railways in a given area, including subsidies by the number of people in that area who use the railway;

2) Divide the total Government funding spent on all forms of transport in a given area by the population of that area. This total includes money spent on roads, cycle paths, foot paths, pavements, public transport subsidies, tram links, bus shelters, new stations etc.

The point you are making is about political choices, most of which are not made in Westminster. You may disagree with your local politicians choosing to build new roads instead of funding railways - I imagine many car-owners in your neighbourhood might disagree with you - but that has nothing to do with whether or not London gets more than its fair share of tax money.

 

[Mathew S]

Forgive me, but you're not putting the argument the other way. You're arguing something quite different.

My point was to rebut the false claim made so often that London receives an unfair share of tax funding for railways. There are two and a half sensible ways of calculating what is fair, and one obviously wrong way. The wrong way is to divide railway funding by head of population, regardless of what percentage uses the railway. This wrong way is very popular among people who resent London. The sensible ways are:

1) Divide the Government funding spent on public transport in a given area, including subsidies by the number of people in that area who use public transport;

1a) Divide the Government funding spent on railways in a given area, including subsidies by the number of people in that area who use the railway;

2) Divide the total Government funding spent on all forms of transport in a given area by the population of that area. This total includes money spent on roads, cycle paths, foot paths, pavements, public transport subsidies, tram links, bus shelters, new stations etc.

The point you are making is about political choices, most of which are not made in Westminster. You may disagree with your local politicians choosing to build new roads instead of funding railways - I imagine many car-owners in your neighbourhood might disagree with you - but that has nothing to do with whether or not London gets more than its fair share of tax money.

I fear you may be over-analysing the very simple point which I was actually trying to make which is that public transport in London receives a far greater level of investment than that elsewhere in the country. I don't seek to criticise that or defend it, merely to point out that it is certainly the case and attempt to convey some anecdotal evidence of some of the effects which it has.

 

[The Ham]

I fear you may be over-analysing the very simple point which I was actually trying to make which is that public transport in London receives a far greater level of investment than that elsewhere in the country. I don't seek to criticise that or defend it, merely to point out that it is certainly the case and attempt to convey some anecdotal evidence of some of the effects which it has.

The problem is that because more people use public transport in and near to London the level of funding provided by the government is seen as getting good value for money (provide £1 million is subsidy and see 1,000 people use the service or invest £1 million and see 3,000 use the service).

As such, given there's already a lot of people using the trains in and around London (about 75 rail trips per year per person for the whole of London and the South East vs about 11 rail trips per year per person for the other rail sectors covering the rest of the UK).

As such the provision of overnight services are going to initially focus on the areas where there's already a lot of rail travel as that's where the most people will want to use it.

If we assume that for every (say) 100 trips that are made currently 1 week be made overnight that would mean that there would be 2 trips a year from 3 people (or about 12 million a year) in London and the South East. This would compare with 2 trips per year from 18 people (or about 4.5 million a year) from elsewhere.

Then factor in the massive area that the train services would have to cover compared to London and the South East and you start to see why 24 hour rail services are likely to be started in a shark corner of the country where a lot of people already use rail to travel about.

Does this mean that we shouldn't be investing in other areas to try and encourage rail travel? No, but it's likely to mean that it would be poor use of money to start night services where rail use is low. As such it is seen as London getting the benefits yet again.

 

[transmanche]

Even by those numbers, it's still doing alright.

That depends on whether you're interested in 'equality' or 'equity'. Do you spend the same amount per capita regardless of need? Or do you spend more where the need is greatest?

Source

 

[yorksrob]

That depends on whether you're interested in 'equality' or 'equity'. Do you spend the same amount per capita regardless of need? Or do you spend more where the need is greatest?

Source

Well, even if one is minded to spend according to need, I think it would be hard to justify the spending disparity between the South East and elsewhere. There is a very great need for a decent service to Whitby, for example, yet in spite of the paltry cost of improving the situation, nothing ever gets done.

 

[transmanche]

Well, even if one is minded to spend according to need, I think it would be hard to justify the spending disparity between the South East and elsewhere. There is a very great need for a decent service to Whitby, for example, yet in spite of the paltry cost of improving the situation, nothing ever gets done.

Is that a 'very great need' for rail transport to/from Whitby that cannot reasonably be met by other means? Or a 'nice to have'?

 

[yorksrob]

Is that a 'very great need' for rail transport to/from Whitby that cannot reasonably be met by other means? Or a 'nice to have'?

Not that fulfills the role adequately, no. The old "run a bus instead" canard is very tired.

 

[The Ham]

That depends on whether you're interested in 'equality' or 'equity'. Do you spend the same amount per capita regardless of need? Or do you spend more where the need is greatest?

Source

The question then is how do you define the greatest need?

It's it where, by spending the money, you encourage more public transport usage because there is a low number of people using public transport but people can easily drive?

Alternatively, is it where there is a lot of public transport use because using the car would not be an option because there is insufficient road space for people to drive in the volumes seen elsewhere? Knowing that if you don't that there will then be a lot of pressure to build ltd of roads to try and compensate for the loss of public transport.

To put in terms of another popular thing that is often asked for by the government related to transport.

Do you make cyclists pay a tax like that required of car drivers in that it would generate extra money to spend on the roads?

Alternatively do you not have that tax, knowing that if you do the cycle groups will then be more demanding of more capital spend on cycle infrastructure which would probably dwaff that generated by the tax. It would probably result in more people driving which would cost more in that cycles do virtually no damage to roads when compared to cars, in that those people would be less healthy which would put more strain on the NHS and would require more road space to be built.

What may appear to be popular in that it provides the appearance of equity at first glance may result in things being made worse for a lot of people.

Does that mean that we shouldn't be spending more money to provide better public transport where there's low uptake just to ensure that we end up with an equal usage across the country? No, but then probably the only way to be sure of equal usage across the country is if there was no public transport at all.

Should the government be looking at public transport differently? Yes, what that looks like could be an interesting discussion, but not one for here.

 

[infobleep]

for drunk people? And people are not going to be drunk just before the pubs close? Or if there's a sports event on?

i really hope you're not pedalling that as some sort of excuse for poor transport provision

Well trains from Reading skip certain stations on Friday and Saturday nights and it isn't to speed up the journey. Is that poor provision?

 

[The Ham]

Should the government be looking at public transport differently? Yes, what that looks like could be an interesting discussion, but not one for here.

Here's a new thread to discuss the above:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...t-funds-rail-be-looked-at-differently.164121/

 

[yorksrob]

The question then is how do you define the greatest need?

It's it where, by spending the money, you encourage more public transport usage because there is a low number of people using public transport but people can easily drive?

Alternatively, is it where there is a lot of public transport use because using the car would not be an option because there is insufficient road space for people to drive in the volumes seen elsewhere? Knowing that if you don't that there will then be a lot of pressure to build ltd of roads to try and compensate for the loss of public transport.

To put in terms of another popular thing that is often asked for by the government related to transport.

Do you make cyclists pay a tax like that required of car drivers in that it would generate extra money to spend on the roads?

Alternatively do you not have that tax, knowing that if you do the cycle groups will then be more demanding of more capital spend on cycle infrastructure which would probably dwaff that generated by the tax. It would probably result in more people driving which would cost more in that cycles do virtually no damage to roads when compared to cars, in that those people would be less healthy which would put more strain on the NHS and would require more road space to be built.

What may appear to be popular in that it provides the appearance of equity at first glance may result in things being made worse for a lot of people.

Does that mean that we shouldn't be spending more money to provide better public transport where there's low uptake just to ensure that we end up with an equal usage across the country? No, but then probably the only way to be sure of equal usage across the country is if there was no public transport at all.

Should the government be looking at public transport differently? Yes, what that looks like could be an interesting discussion, but not one for here.

That's why Whitby is a case in point:

• You already have a very decent usage of the paltry service that exists, so it's not a question of speculatively trying to bring a route "back from the dead". It's usefulness is already proven. It just needs what every passenger line needs.
• It wouldn't require anything like the level of investment (proportionally) that the major projects do. An extra unit shuttling backwards and forwards. At the very least, reinstatement of the bay platform at Middlesbrough is the only infrastructure investment needed (the rest is already there).
• As well as providing an important end to end link, there are intermediate settlements that are difficult to serve by other forms of public transport. They need a decent service.

This is a route where it would be very easy to spend a (comparatively) little bit of money to get a very large amount of benefit.

 

[transmanche]

Not that fulfills the role adequately, no. The old "run a bus instead" canard is very tired.

I didn't mention buses at all. I was just trying to prompt you to explain in a bit more detail why you felt there was a 'great need'.

Take health as a comparison. The budget for NHS England is around £2,200 per person for 2017/2018. Do you spend it where there is the greatest need? Or do you share it out equally - and just say 'tough' to anybody who needs treatment costing more than £2,200 a year?

Do you spend it on the latest radiography equipment to treat cancer? Or do you cover the 'paltry cost' of buying people paracetamol?

 

[yorksrob]

I didn't mention buses at all. I was just trying to prompt you to explain in a bit more detail why you felt there was a 'great need'.

Take health as a comparison. The budget for NHS England is around £2,200 per person for 2017/2018. Do you spend it where there is the greatest need? Or do you share it out equally - and just say 'tough' to anybody who needs treatment costing more than £2,200 a year?

Do you spend it on the latest radiography equipment to treat cancer? Or do you cover the 'paltry cost' of buying people paracetamol?

In that case, see my above post.

The Whitby line is one which has both need and can be rectified to a reasonable cost.

 

[transmanche]

Do you make cyclists pay a tax like that required of car drivers in that it would generate extra money to spend on the roads?

What tax is this that car drivers are 'required' to pay to spend on the roads?

Most cars on the road attract VED based on CO2 emissions - with electric and other ultra-low emissions cars and motorbikes paying nothing. Many other low-emission cars and motorbikes pay a nominal £20 or £30. Cycles don't emit CO2.

Some cars and motorbikes on the road pay fuel duty. Cycles don't use fuel, that's provided by the rider.

Electric car drivers will pay VAT at 5% on the electricity purchased to power the car. But that can be negated by using some of the many free charging points to be found. Cyclists will pay VAT on chips and bacon butties purchased to power their ride home from work.

So if you drive an electric car; you pay no VED, you no fuel duty and can pay no VAT on your free fuel. And in any event; VED, fuel duty and VAT are not ringfenced for spending on roads.