(What if) TFL money saving ideas

[mmh]

A more serious review of "parallel" running might make sense e.g. what is the purpose of the Hammersmith & City line given the modified Circle line ? It replicates a bit of the Circle and a bit of the District.

Well, if you think that changing the colours on maps will give any savings. I'd doubt it myself.

 

[JonathanH]

A more serious review of "parallel" running might make sense e.g. what is the purpose of the Hammersmith & City line given the modified Circle line ? It replicates a bit of the Circle and a bit of the District. Bakerloo Queens Park - Harrow is duplicated by Overground.

That doesn't work. If we assume that all routes run at 6tph, the Circle and 'Wimbleware' line provide 12tph between Edgware Road and High Street Kensington. The Circle and District provide 24tph along the south side. The Metropolitan, H&C and Circle provide 24tph along the north side. The Circle and H&C provide 12tph from Hammersmith to Baker Street. The District and H&C provide 18tph out to Barking.

Are you proposing just losing 6tph on the north side and out to Hammersmith?

 

[matt_world2004]

Nowhere near enough capacity for Hayes considering the Crossrail service planned to run. There's no other suitable place to terminate with the exception of maybe West Drayton P5 - although lots of drivers don't sign past Heathrow Junction.

Whilst you might not want to service Heathrow due to the high track charges, trains still have to terminate somewhere. Or do you want to shaft all the users between Hayes and Paddington with a lower frequency?

Current frequency is 4tph which terminates at Hayes during disruption and the additional 2tph was always planned to go to West Drayton.originally.

 

[Edsmith]

Uxbridge was originally a Met station - so curtailing the Piccadilly at Rayners Lane would be more sensible (and IIRC was the situation a few years ago except at peak hours).

The silly 5th form 'well their local MP' type remarks really aren't befitting of adult conversations.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Feb 2022 ==

A more serious review of "parallel" running might make sense e.g. what is the purpose of the Hammersmith & City line given the modified Circle line ? It replicates a bit of the Circle and a bit of the District. Bakerloo Queens Park - Harrow is duplicated by Overground.

I agree about the silly comments and it would make far more sense to terminate the Piccadilly Line at Rayners Lane. Maybe also bring the Wood Green reversing siding back into regular use rather than nearly everything going to Cockfosters?

 

[A0]

That doesn't work. If we assume that all routes run at 6tph, the Circle and 'Wimbleware' line provide 12tph between Edgware Road and High Street Kensington. The Circle and District provide 24tph along the south side. The Metropolitan, H&C and Circle provide 24tph along the north side. The Circle and H&C provide 12tph from Hammersmith to Baker Street. The District and H&C provide 18tph out to Barking.

Are you proposing just losing 6tph on the north side and out to Hammersmith?

As such I'm not proposing anything - but on the grounds TFL needs to save money, because its largesse is not going to be bankrolled by central government indefinitely and the Mayor playing party political games won't be helping - I was looking at where there is "duplication" which could be reduced. And when x-rail opens that will impact the "northern" half of the Circle line and H&C because it more closely shadows that than the District / southern half of the Circle.

 

[Horizon22]

Current frequency is 4tph which terminates at Hayes during disruption and the additional 2tph was always planned to go to West Drayton.originally.

No it’s 2tph to Hayes, 2tph to Heathrow. If there’s disruption, the Hayes terminators are cancelled. Soon all 4tph are going to Heathrow.

 

[matt_world2004]

No it’s 2tph to Hayes, 2tph to Heathrow. If there’s disruption, the Hayes terminators are cancelled. Soon all 4tph are going to Heathrow.

There is capacity for 4 tph at Hayes however that's the whole point of platform 5 so that a service can still run when the Heathrow loop is out of action

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Many would save a pittance. Would help cripple much of the wider economy though.

Exactly. Most of the suggestions so far make no sense at all.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2022 ==

There are only 2 approaches and TFL are going to have to do a bit of both:

Increase revenue - which means fare increases.

Cost reductions - be that fewer employees, fewer services, extending the life of rolling stock, no new capital projects etc.

Also exactly. Increase fares to the level they would have been at if the damaging fares freeze had never been implemented.

It should, of course, be recognised that numbers using public transport in London are quickly approaching pre-Covid levels. TfL may be financially viable sooner than many think.

 

[A0]

Exactly. Most of the suggestions so far make no sense at all.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2022 ==


Also exactly. Increase fares to the level they would have been at if the damaging fares freeze had never been implemented.

It should, of course, be recognised that numbers using public transport in London are quickly approaching pre-Covid levels. TfL may be financially viable sooner than many think.

Not sure TFL was "financially viable" pre Covid to be fair. It was running a £ 500m deficit in 2018/2019 and was expecting a deficit of £ 742m in 2019/2020.

TfL's budget shows operating deficit almost halved as Mayor calls for Government investment in transport

TfL's budget shows operating deficit almost halved as Mayor calls for Government investment in transport

tfl.gov.uk

 

[Edsmith]

Exactly. Most of the suggestions so far make no sense at all.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2022 ==


Also exactly. Increase fares to the level they would have been at if the damaging fares freeze had never been implemented.

It should, of course, be recognised that numbers using public transport in London are quickly approaching pre-Covid levels. TfL may be financially viable sooner than many think.

If only it were that simple, fare increases are only going to lose more customers, there are alternatives nowadays.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

If only it were that simple, fare increases are only going to lose more customers, there are alternatives nowadays.

Fares were increased consistently until Sadiq Khan put his own electoral chances ahead of London's requirements. Those regular fares increases did not prevent passenger numbers from rising. So far in this thread, no-one has suggested persuasively that there are alternatives that would make a noticeable improvement in TfL's finances.

 

[Ken H]

Are there any bus routes that parallel rail routes. Surely room for cuts there?
I think underground lines outside greater London already attract subsidy from the respective county councils. Whether that is a realistic amount I dont know. But if they wont pay enough to cover costs, then curtail the services at the county border.

 

[stuu]

Fares were increased consistently until Sadiq Khan put his own electoral chances ahead of London's requirements. Those regular fares increases did not prevent passenger numbers from rising. So far in this thread, no-one has suggested persuasively that there are alternatives that would make a noticeable improvement in TfL's finances.

The fare freeze cost about 1.5% of revenue. Its barely relevant to the problems at hand. How about subsidise every journey on the underground with the same amount per passenger as on Merseyrail? That would solve the problem

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Not sure TFL was "financially viable" pre Covid to be fair. It was running a £ 500m deficit in 2018/2019 and was expecting a deficit of £ 742m in 2019/2020.

TfL's budget shows operating deficit almost halved as Mayor calls for Government investment in transport

TfL's budget shows operating deficit almost halved as Mayor calls for Government investment in transport

tfl.gov.uk

Yes, but my point is - and has been in other threads - that until Sadiq Khan imposed a fares freeze, TfL was financially robust. He became Mayor more than five years ago and the financial situation in 2018/19 was the consequence of his reckless, self-serving policy. It's always worth bearing in mind that his two predecessors, both highly flawed individuals, never played fast and loose with TfL's finances.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2022 ==

The fare freeze cost about 1.5% of revenue. Its barely relevant to the problems at hand. How about subsidise every journey on the underground with the same amount per passenger as on Merseyrail? That would solve the problem

1.5% of total revenue on pre-Covid London Underground was astronomical.

Who is going to pay for an additional subsidy? Who believes the subsidy doled out in the North is a good thing?

 

[stuu]

Yes, but my point is - and has been in other threads - that until Sadiq Khan imposed a fares freeze, TfL was financially robust. He became Mayor more than five years ago and the financial situation in 2018/19 was the consequence of his reckless, self-serving policy. It's always worth bearing in mind that his two predecessors, both highly flawed individuals, never played fast and loose with TfL's finances.

Are you having a laugh? Johnson's comedy bus cost well north of £1bn.

TfL spent more on the imaginary Garden Bridge than on any of their actual, real bridges during his tenure.

And of course there is the famous cable car

 

[Edsmith]

Without getting into political point scoring clearly savings are going to have to be made and the Waterloo & City line looks an obvious one as soon as the Northern Line through London Bridge reopens.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Are you having a laugh? Johnson's comedy bus cost well north of £1bn.

TfL spent more on the imaginary Garden Bridge than on any of their actual, real bridges during his tenure.

And of course there is the famous cable car

You've missed the point. No sensible person believes Boris Johnson was a good Mayor and most Londoners are not at all surprised at the mess he's making of his new job. His idiotic ideas while Mayor did not jeopardise TfL's finances although they certainly wasted money. While that wanton dilettante was in office, TfL was able to spend lavishly on refurbishing stations such as West Hampstead and finance TfL's territorial ambitions yet stay all the time within TfL's borrowing limits.

 

[stuu]

You've missed the point. No sensible person believes Boris Johnson was a good Mayor and most Londoners are not at all surprised at the mess he's making of his new job. His idiotic ideas while Mayor did not jeopardise TfL's finances although they certainly wasted money. While that wanton dilettante was in office, TfL was able to spend lavishly on refurbishing stations such as West Hampstead and finance TfL's territorial ambitions yet stay all the time within TfL's borrowing limits.

No, I'm not. Khan's fare freeze cost much less than Johnson wasted, approximately £6-700m over 4 years. And at least there was a tangible benefit. Dont forget TfL had more money available during his tenure because it received hundreds of millions in operational subsidy, something which he happily negotiated away

 

[Mikey C]

Are you having a laugh? Johnson's comedy bus cost well north of £1bn.

No it didn't, I've seen a figure of £322m for them, and even this is misleading, as because TfL owns them, the operators don't have to provide their own buses to operate the routes, and hence will be paid less to operate them.

 

[A0]

No it didn't, I've seen a figure of £322m for them, and even this is misleading, as because TfL owns them, the operators don't have to provide their own buses to operate the routes, and hence will be paid less to operate them.

According to Wikipedia and the Evening Standard https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tra...on-streets-in-costcutting-drive-a3430836.html they cost £ 355,000 each and there were 1000 ordered.

*However* the price premium over a "standard" bus was about £ 50,000 and on the grounds 1000 new buses would have been needed in any case *at best* you can argue the only wasted money was the increment between the cost of "standard" bus and the new RM - so £ 50m. Which whilst not "chicken feed" should be set against TFL's own forecast deficit for 2019/2020 which I linked above of £ 742m.

 

[stuu]

No it didn't, I've seen a figure of £322m for them, and even this is misleading, as because TfL owns them, the operators don't have to provide their own buses to operate the routes, and hence will be paid less to operate them.

Yes you are correct, I remembered wrongly. £1bn is the estimated total cost of money wasted by Johnson as mayor, not just on the buses

 

[mmh]

Without getting into political point scoring clearly savings are going to have to be made and the Waterloo & City line looks an obvious one as soon as the Northern Line through London Bridge reopens.

Not a chance if the City decides they want bums on seats again, which hopefully they do, and there does seem to be an increasing number of financial businesses saying that's what they want.

 

[HSTEd]

I suggest a strategy of playing on the anxieties of the Conservative party.

Close the Waterloo and City as a testbed for conversion to automated operation, if successful, close the Bakerloo line and convert south of Queen's Park to unmanned operation.

The promise of bashing the unions will get the Treasury to open the purse for the capital cost.

 

[Ken H]

Curtail Bakerloo at Queens park. There is a decent national rail service northwards
Can night trains and buses. What other English city has night public transport?
Kids pay. If you live more than 3 miles from school you get free transport. Everyone else pays. Why is London any different?
consider if some parts of the extremites of the tube can be bustituted at very quiet times.
And cut tube and bus frequencies if the demand is not there.

 

[deltic]

Curtail Bakerloo at Queens park. There is a decent national rail service northwards
Can night trains and buses. What other English city has night public transport?
Kids pay. If you live more than 3 miles from school you get free transport. Everyone else pays. Why is London any different?
consider if some parts of the extremites of the tube can be bustituted at very quiet times.
And cut tube and bus frequencies if the demand is not there.

Quite a few cities have nighttime buses - ones coming into central London at 4-5am are full of cleaners/security guards etc

 

[bramling]

Uxbridge was originally a Met station - so curtailing the Piccadilly at Rayners Lane would be more sensible (and IIRC was the situation a few years ago except at peak hours).

The silly 5th form 'well their local MP' type remarks really aren't befitting of adult conversations.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Feb 2022 ==

A more serious review of "parallel" running might make sense e.g. what is the purpose of the Hammersmith & City line given the modified Circle line ? It replicates a bit of the Circle and a bit of the District. Bakerloo Queens Park - Harrow is duplicated by Overground.

If one of the C&H were to be removed, I’d pick the Circle. The H&C is no longer an eccentric service to Whitechapel, indeed on the top half of the circle I’d say the Barking trains nowadays load more heavily than anything else.

Likewise I’m not sure where the cost saving would come from - the trains already exist, are fairly new, and cannot be redeployed elsewhere, so the only saving would be in terms of crews. No stations would close, so no savings there either.

There is *some* logic to the Bakerloo idea as it allows issue of fleet replacement to be kicked into the long grass, and would allow the mothballing of several stations, a control room and a rolling stock depot. I’m not advocating it, but there are clearly savings to be made here if the political will was there.

As for Uxbridge, much as I have no regard for Khan, the TFL situation is Johnson being vindictive. It’s clearly a punishment for Khan, a punishment for people voting Khan, and I suspect also a punishment for people voting Labour in London. If the consequence of this is that Uxbridge finds itself on the receiving end of the consequences of their MP’s political games, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that they might consider their allegiances next time round. From a practical point of view, cutting the Met to Uxbridge isn’t really practicable though - a number of trains stable there for starters, and it would simply lead to surplus modern trains. If you cut the Picc to Uxbridge then the replacement fleet size could be reduced, and it would also simplify signalling interfaces, so there are some savings to be had there. But we should remember why the Picc runs to Uxbridge in the first place, which is primarily that turning the whole service at Rayners Lane has in the past proved massively unreliable. So to realise the savings, you’d have to spend money on enhancing the turnback capability at Rayners Lane, which would likely negate the savings.

If one wanted to properly trim the service on the Uxbridge branch, reversing 50% of the service at South Harrow is more immediately operationally viable, albeit producing a pretty infrequent service between there and Rayners Lane.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2022 ==

I agree about the silly comments and it would make far more sense to terminate the Piccadilly Line at Rayners Lane. Maybe also bring the Wood Green reversing siding back into regular use rather than nearly everything going to Cockfosters?

The problem with short workings is that much of the service runs to the ends because experience has shown that turning stuff short causes more problems than it solves, especially with the higher off-peak frequencies now expected in the central area. You also lose the reversing facilities for use in recovering the service during and after disruption, which is a major problem.

In essence if you want to turn stuff short, it would mean either investing in some high-volume turnback facilities (for example making the two middle platforms at East Finchley into reversing roads), or cut the entire frequency back to create some breathing space in the railway as a whole.

Having said all that, I do agree with the premise that the extremities get a more frequent service than they justify, it’s just that when one looks at it this isn’t something which can readily be solved.

The Northern has attempted to do what is being suggested by reintroducing a through Mill Hill East service and cutting the High Barnet service by 4tph, and this doesn’t seem to have been a success - everyone seems unhappy about it, though to be fair the service unreliability is more down to Covid instability / cancellations. The Jubilee also now regularly uses West Hampstead to turn trains, after some money needed to be spent on the infrastructure to make the siding quicker to use, but again this I’m has caused unreliability as West Hampstead was the last remaining siding left empty in the timetable, and is now no longer available to use for service recovery.

No easy answers unfortunately, and we shouldn’t forget the lessons of the 1980s where a lot of capacity was stripped out of LU on the justification of falling passenger numbers, which then caused massive issues over the following three decades.

Personally, I’d go for scaling back elements of the service in the evenings. This is where, at times, a lot of empty trains run around. Something like the Northern could cope with going from a 3-min service across the board to a 4-min one after 2100, albeit that you have to find a way of ramping down. Ditch the Night Tube too, which has caused so many problems, and is another piece of Johnson stupidity.

 

[Edsmith]

Not a chance if the City decides they want bums on seats again, which hopefully they do, and there does seem to be an increasing number of financial businesses saying that's what they want.

I think bums on seats at home is likely to continue just coming into the office maybe once or twice a week, I certainly can't see the W&C ever returning to pre covid peak time loadings.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2022 ==

Curtail Bakerloo at Queens park. There is a decent national rail service northwards
Can night trains and buses. What other English city has night public transport?
Kids pay. If you live more than 3 miles from school you get free transport. Everyone else pays. Why is London any different?
consider if some parts of the extremites of the tube can be bustituted at very quiet times.
And cut tube and bus frequencies if the demand is not there.

There is certainly plenty of scope for cutting poorly used night buses but I think cutting them completely would be a bit extreme, I totally agree with you about kids paying though.

 

[London Trains]

Personally I'd reduce the Bakerloo Line to a 4tph Paddington to Queens Park shuttle, and completely shut down the rest of the line, as there are good alternatives available everywhere.

 

[A0]

Curtail Bakerloo at Queens park. There is a decent national rail service northwards
Can night trains and buses. What other English city has night public transport?
Kids pay. If you live more than 3 miles from school you get free transport. Everyone else pays. Why is London any different?
consider if some parts of the extremites of the tube can be bustituted at very quiet times.
And cut tube and bus frequencies if the demand is not there.

Bit in bold:

Manchester: https://tfgm.com/public-transport/bus/night-bus

Liverpool did, but it was suspended due to Covid.

Nottingham: https://www.nctx.co.uk/nightbus

 

[fgwrich]

Curtail Bakerloo at Queens park. There is a decent national rail service northwards
Can night trains and buses. What other English city has night public transport?
Kids pay. If you live more than 3 miles from school you get free transport. Everyone else pays. Why is London any different?
consider if some parts of the extremites of the tube can be bustituted at very quiet times.
And cut tube and bus frequencies if the demand is not there.

Personally I'd reduce the Bakerloo Line to a 4tph Paddington to Queens Park shuttle, and completely shut down the rest of the line, as there are good alternatives available everywhere.

Just to point something out here - Everyone who keeps suggesting the Bakerloo should be curtailed to Queens Park seems to be forgetting one major thing : The Bakerloo Line's main depot is at Stonebridge Park. You could curtail them at Willesden Junction, where there is a third platform, though I'm not entirely sure that is long enough for a full Bakerloo line set?

I hate to suggest it, but what about TfL Airspace? Some of their suggestions so far have been pretty ridiculous (eg building on car parks etc), but (again on the Bakerloo) what about building over the top of London Road Depot (lambeth) in a similar vein to that of White City on the Central Line.