What would you do to reform the railways?

[Shaw S Hunter]

The stand out response for me to that question is ticketing. There is so much fragmentation across the UK, within specific regions even, making integrated transport almost impossible.

Whether it is regional or national or however so designed, I would love to create a system by which joined-up ticketing, with the railways at the heart, would ultimately bring down prices for customers.

It must seem so alien to people accustomed to European ticketing models to see the UK continue with mostly "A to B" ticketing rather than zonal ticketing, and that's before we get to having one ticket for the train and another for the bus outside the railway station!

That's largely a question of how much subsidy we are prepared to provide. Government policy on this has for some time now been to reduce subsidy. Not to mention a deregulated bus industry. Sadly the various issues around public transport we like to discuss here are of little concern to either the politicians or the wider population who elects them. As I have said upthread I see no worthwhile reforms being made to our railways, or public transport in general, without there first being a significant reform of how politics is conducted in this country.

 

[PR1Berske]

That's largely a question of how much subsidy we are prepared to provide. Government policy on this has for some time now been to reduce subsidy. Not to mention a deregulated bus industry. Sadly the various issues around public transport we like to discuss here are of little concern to either the politicians or the wider population who elects them. As I have said upthread I see no worthwhile reforms being made to our railways, or public transport in general, without there first being a significant reform of how politics is conducted in this country.

A fair and reasonable point. There is unlikely to be any detachment of politics and transport (see also peoples aims for an arm's length, if not entirely independent, health board to remove political shortsightedness from NHS policy).

You are exactly right about the subsidy issue. As fares decrease, so something must increase elsewhere. That is the rub.

Men can dream, right?

 

[03_179]

End franchising.
Start by moving all SE operators into one intergrated entity-having control over Crossrail/Overground projects with TfL (What you would call a railway Network based in the South East I have no idea...)
Keep most franchise structures how they are now, merge WMT, Virgin, Transpennine and GMPTE services into one entity-merge LNER and WYPTE and Tyne and Wear services into one entitiy.
Integrate Network rail between track and train ownership.
Rename Network Rail to British Rail.
So then you will have-
-British Rail South East
-British Rail Western
-British Rail West Coast
-British Rail North East
-British Rail Scotland

You can jazz up the branding how you wish.

Also, reopen an in-house research and engineering facility to bring more train building back to the British Isles.

On a side note, would the sectorisation system in the 80s and 90s have any merit today?

Best idea so far.

Or even to revert back to Network South East, Regional Railways, Intercity, Scotrail.



As aside ... If the government stated that NO named branding i.e. Virgin, First, Abellio etc. is to appear on any trains, stations, leaflets and ticketing etc. would that make companies less interested in a franchise ?