(What if) TFL money saving ideas

[HSTEd]

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.

Well what fraction of trains actually have to run to the depot? Isn't it just one run per set in the morning and evening, minus those sets stabling at London Road?

 

[cle]

The Bakerloo could probably turn more at Stonebridge and cull a few drivers. The LO service is 4tph now. Same for Northern line and Golders Green, Piccadilly and Wood Green, Stanmore's service is absurd... after Crossrail, the Central line could definitely turn more at White City as Ealing demand falls

etc etc... all this could add up to less headcount and to lower stock re-orders. But then when things recover, or on the Bakerloo, you look to extend (which should happen through other means, to Lewisham, absolutely) - you're short again.

For now, frequencies. Bakerloo could run 3tph to Harrow and 12tph to Queens Park, and be ok.

 

[fgwrich]

Well what fraction of trains actually have to run to the depot? Isn't it just one run per set in the morning and evening, minus those sets stabling at London Road?

I'm not sure as I don't have a Bakerloo timetable to hand, but it is of course where the main maintenance depot + cleaning facilities are. Looking at RTT is remains fairly busy throughout the day.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Stonebridge Park Depot all day on 24/02/2022

Train information at Stonebridge Park Depot all day on 24/02/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Railwaysceptic]

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

This is becoming sterile. We are not discussing whether or not Boris Johnson was an idiot or if he wasted money. We are debating whether TfL's financial position was unhealthy because of his decisions. It was not unhealthy. TfL was able to invest and expand well within the scope of their cash flow and borrowing limits while remaining solvent.

Your assertions about the "operational subsidy" are self-contradictory. London can not have benefitted from them if they were "happily negotiated away." Incidentally that's mere Labour Party propaganda. If the Government is operating a fake austerity policy and decides to stop paying a grant, the Mayor can't compel them to continue paying it. Andy Burham is currently fulminating against the revised trans-Pennine plan. Can he compel the Government to do what he wants?

 

[stuu]

This becoming sterile. We are not discussing whether or not Boris Johnson was an idiot or if he wasted money. We are debating whether TfL's financial position was unhealthy because of his decisions. It was not unhealthy. TfL was able to invest and expand well within the scope of their cash flow and borrowing limits while remaining solvent.

Your assertions about the "operational subsidy" are self-contradictory. London can not have benefitted from them if they were "happily negotiated away." Incidentally that's mere Labour Party propaganda. If the Government is operating a fake austerity policy and decides to stop paying a grant, the Mayor can't compel them to continue paying it. Andy Burham is currently fulminating against the revised trans-Pennine plan. Can he compel the Government to do what he wants?

It's not Labour Party propaganda that until 2018 there was central government support for TfL's day-to-day operations. The 2010 Tory government decided to remove this, and the date was brought forward during the tenure of Johnson. The result of that was that there was less money available for anyone who followed Johnson as mayor, I don't see how that is even debatable. Whether or not Khan's fare freeze was or wasn't a good idea is a different matter, but it was no more expensive than previous mayors' pet projects. To single it out as the reason for TfL's current financial position is entirely disingenuous, given it cost less than 1.5% of income

 

[bramling]

Well what fraction of trains actually have to run to the depot? Isn't it just one run per set in the morning and evening, minus those sets stabling at London Road?

13 trains are currently provided from Stonebridge Park.

The problem is that isolating Stonebridge Park from the rest of the line will likely cause issues if a train needs to be changed over for any reason.

Stonebridge Park to Harrow could be ditched, but the saving would be pretty minimal - with the service now down to 4tph you’re only talking about 2 or 3 trains north of Stonebridge Park at any one time.

Bakerloo frequency has already been scaled back in the latest timetable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

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

Though basically all the non London ones are commercial. You could prune London's to that level.

 

[London Trains]

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?

My idea of a 4tph Paddington to Queens Park shuttle would only require roughly 3-5 trains, so it wouldnt be unfeasible to just run these ECS or in service to and from Stonebridge Park at the start and end of service.

 

[dodecahedron67]

It pains me to read some of these suggestions. It really does.

"Other cities don't have it so London shouldn't either" is exactly the rhetoric the politicians are wanting you to believe, when it really should be "London has it so every city should"
Any U18 fare rise is political suicide, ergo won't be done, as it's just going to hit lower-income families hardest, Khan has already raised adult fares once and is doing so again (iirc)

Perhaps if that central subsidy that everywhere else has still existed, and £Ms hadn't been pissed away on useless vanity projects by both Labour and Tory mayors then TfL could have coped with the pandemic. The fact of the matter is that whilst there's all this spiel about Levelling Up the only constant is Levelling Down; HS2 cuts, this TfL palava, the mess that is the "re-opening your railway" bs

Fundamentally the best way to get more money is to get more pax using your services, slashing these services radically will do the exact opposite (yes, I take the point about duplicated routes etc. but most of the time there's a reason for that duplication; the extra capacity is [or was and will in the future be] needed)

Having just moved away from London recently, you really don't appreciate how essential a proper integrated network is until you don't have it, here in York we have 1 night bus; the uni night bus. Some routes finish running at 7pm on weekdays. Some city centre routes are hourly and don't run on Sundays leaving parts of York with no public transport.

TfL shouldn't be punished for wanting to provide a decent f'ing service.
Everywhere should be brought up to the London level, not London relegated to everywhere else

 

[A S Leib]

Would cutting the frequency of the Victoria line (36 tph peak, 27tph off-peak) save enough money without causing too much overcrowding to be worth doing so?

 

[zwk500]

Would cutting the frequency of the Victoria line (36 tph peak, 27tph off-peak) save enough money without causing too much overcrowding to be worth doing so?

I suspect (although don't know for sure) that the operating cost of each train on London Underground would be negligible in comparison to the fixed cost of maintaining the tunnels, stations and track & signalling. The main cost saving from day to day operations would be staff reduction, but drivers take time to train so if passenger numbers are picking up I'd be surprised if it made sense to reduce driver numbers.

 

[SynthD]

There’s a lot of bike shedding going on. Think bigger, like converting more of the desk jobs to work from home and sell that new office in Stratford, or the older one in Southwark.

 

[miklcct]

Cut bus frequencies until every bus is carried to standing load from 7 to 19 on weekdays.
Introduce express commuter bus services, which charge at a premium, from outer London direct non-stop into the city centre going where the railway can't directly serve, with target loading 90% capacity.

 

[Edsmith]

It pains me to read some of these suggestions. It really does.

"Other cities don't have it so London shouldn't either" is exactly the rhetoric the politicians are wanting you to believe, when it really should be "London has it so every city should"
Any U18 fare rise is political suicide, ergo won't be done, as it's just going to hit lower-income families hardest, Khan has already raised adult fares once and is doing so again (iirc)

Perhaps if that central subsidy that everywhere else has still existed, and £Ms hadn't been pissed away on useless vanity projects by both Labour and Tory mayors then TfL could have coped with the pandemic. The fact of the matter is that whilst there's all this spiel about Levelling Up the only constant is Levelling Down; HS2 cuts, this TfL palava, the mess that is the "re-opening your railway" bs

Fundamentally the best way to get more money is to get more pax using your services, slashing these services radically will do the exact opposite (yes, I take the point about duplicated routes etc. but most of the time there's a reason for that duplication; the extra capacity is [or was and will in the future be] needed)

Having just moved away from London recently, you really don't appreciate how essential a proper integrated network is until you don't have it, here in York we have 1 night bus; the uni night bus. Some routes finish running at 7pm on weekdays. Some city centre routes are hourly and don't run on Sundays leaving parts of York with no public transport.

TfL shouldn't be punished for wanting to provide a decent f'ing service.
Everywhere should be brought up to the London level, not London relegated to everywhere else

I don't suppose anyone is particularly happy about it but the situation is what it is and unless TfL have a magic money tree then savings are going to have to be made. Does any other city give free travel to kids? And in case you haven't noticed demand has plummeted as a result of the surge towards remote working and shopping online. Do you really expect national funds to be thrown at TfL? And you mentioned York and yes it would be nice if other cities around the country had better public transport provision but that's another subject.

 

[JamesT]

It's not Labour Party propaganda that until 2018 there was central government support for TfL's day-to-day operations. The 2010 Tory government decided to remove this, and the date was brought forward during the tenure of Johnson. The result of that was that there was less money available for anyone who followed Johnson as mayor, I don't see how that is even debatable. Whether or not Khan's fare freeze was or wasn't a good idea is a different matter, but it was no more expensive than previous mayors' pet projects. To single it out as the reason for TfL's current financial position is entirely disingenuous, given it cost less than 1.5% of income

Though in exchange for losing the grant, London gained a greater share of business rate income from their area. Looking at the spreadsheet attached to https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2020/4124 it looks like TfL's income went up about £1bn a year from 2017 when this change went in. How much was the grant that was lost?

 

[43096]

There’s a lot of bike shedding going on. Think bigger, like converting more of the desk jobs to work from home and sell that new office in Stratford, or the older one in Southwark.

Do they actually own those buildings, or lease them?

 

[Railwaysceptic]

It's not Labour Party propaganda that until 2018 there was central government support for TfL's day-to-day operations. The 2010 Tory government decided to remove this, and the date was brought forward during the tenure of Johnson. The result of that was that there was less money available for anyone who followed Johnson as mayor, I don't see how that is even debatable. Whether or not Khan's fare freeze was or wasn't a good idea is a different matter, but it was no more expensive than previous mayors' pet projects. To single it out as the reason for TfL's current financial position is entirely disingenuous, given it cost less than 1.5% of income

You are going round in circles to avoid addressing the issue. As I said earlier, this is becoming sterile.

However, you have now admitted that the Tory government decided to remove the grant. Good. Please explain how the Mayor of London could have compelled the Government to continue paying the grant.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Feb 2022 ==

Though in exchange for losing the grant, London gained a greater share of business rate income from their area. Looking at the spreadsheet attached to https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2020/4124 it looks like TfL's income went up about £1bn a year from 2017 when this change went in. How much was the grant that was lost?

A very good point. Indeed an admirer of Boris Johnson could argue that he did well when a gun was being pointed at his head.

 

[stuu]

Though in exchange for losing the grant, London gained a greater share of business rate income from their area. Looking at the spreadsheet attached to https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2020/4124 it looks like TfL's income went up about £1bn a year from 2017 when this change went in. How much was the grant that was lost?

From the link: Business rate retention replaced the investment (capex) grant, not the opex grant which had previously existed

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Feb 2022 ==

You are going round in circles to avoid addressing the issue. As I said earlier, this is becoming sterile.

However, you have now admitted that the Tory government decided to remove the grant. Good. Please explain how the Mayor of London could have compelled the Government to continue paying the grant.

Obviously he couldn't have compelled the government to carry on paying. However, he could have actively campaigned against its removal, which he didn't do, leaving London in a pretty unique position in the Western world of not receiving any operating subsidy

 

[Ken H]

Business rate income will fall with WFH. Firms will shed office space and do hot desking. Some offices will revert to other use. Maybe residential?

 

[SynthD]

Moving from a government subsidy to taking business rates seems to maintain the idea that you can’t fund it entirely from the users, the farebox.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Moving from a government subsidy to taking business rates seems to maintain the idea that you can’t fund it entirely from the users, the farebox.

Most urban public transport services the world over are not commercial.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Obviously he couldn't have compelled the government to carry on paying. However, he could have actively campaigned against its removal, which he didn't do, leaving London in a pretty unique position in the Western world of not receiving any operating subsidy

Even the Labour Party knows that's utter twaddle!

They know perfectly well that Sadiq Khan won't extract more from this Government than what the Government is willing to dole out, no matter how much he puffs and splutters. They know that Andy Burnham will not get more than the stipulated 90 billion no matter how much he campaigns.

 

[317 forever]

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 ==



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.

There was a time when off-peak trains from the Bank branch terminated at Colindale and some trains from the Charing Cross branch terminated at Golders Green. I'm sure some reduction of through trains to Edgware would be feasible.

 

[Ken H]

There was a time when off-peak trains from the Bank branch terminated at Colindale and some trains from the Charing Cross branch terminated at Golders Green. I'm sure some reduction of through trains to Edgware would be feasible.

Do some vic line trains still terminate at 7 sisters and victoria? Is there scope for reduced mileage there?

 

[bramling]

There was a time when off-peak trains from the Bank branch terminated at Colindale and some trains from the Charing Cross branch terminated at Golders Green. I'm sure some reduction of through trains to Edgware would be feasible.

Colindale has two problems. Firstly the time taken to check the train is empty, but the bigger problem is that there is no opportunity for drivers to use facilities. Two new problems created to save 4 minutes running time each way. Golders Green is more viable, but you've now lost a well-used service recovery facility, so introducing a hit to overall performance of the entire line.

So, yes, feasible, but not without introducing new problems. To mitigate against these problems a redesign of the infrastructure would be necessary. Third platform at Colindale, anyone?

 

[PeterC]

Do some vic line trains still terminate at 7 sisters and victoria? Is there scope for reduced mileage there?

IIRC only trains bound for the depot now terminate there.

 

[zwk500]

Do some vic line trains still terminate at 7 sisters and victoria? Is there scope for reduced mileage there?

How much would slightly reduced mileage actually save?

 

[Mikey C]

Colindale has two problems. Firstly the time taken to check the train is empty, but the bigger problem is that there is no opportunity for drivers to use facilities. Two new problems created to save 4 minutes running time each way. Golders Green is more viable, but you've now lost a well-used service recovery facility, so introducing a hit to overall performance of the entire line.

So, yes, feasible, but not without introducing new problems. To mitigate against these problems a redesign of the infrastructure would be necessary. Third platform at Colindale, anyone?

And the area around Colindale is being covered in new flats, so you wouldn't want to reduce the service there by terminating more trains at Golders Green. Indeed long term, you'd imagine that traffic on the tube will pick up anyway, people living in rabbit hutch flats are less likely to want to work from home than those in large houses in leafy areas

 

[Goldfish62]

What about instead of service reductions they work on licensing out their ibus technology and their oyster cpay technology to other bus operators around the world . Tfl could also use their expertise to run rail and bus franchises around the world with the commercial revenue from these activities feeding into subsidising their main network. Like MTR corporation in Hong Kong or Deutsch Bahn with Arriva.

I think you'll find they already do that.

Commercial consulting & international operations

TfL's Commercial consulting team advises on transport-related projects around the world

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Commercial consulting & international operations​

We partner with cities, regions, consultancies and transport operators around the world to deploy our unique, specialist expertise and develop sustainable answers to transport challenges.

 

[Edsmith]

IIRC only trains bound for the depot now terminate there.

I think it's something like one in three trains terminate at Seven Sisters and proceed to the depot as a staff service.