Passenger numbers after the holiday period

[Halwynd]

Really? On what basis do you make that claim? The fact that Manchester - Blackpool services are now formed of six coaches (vice the 150 used in the past) is not an accident. Things are busy in the North. If you're looking for severely reduced demand, take a wander over to the ex-NSE commuter land.

I agree, Manchester - Blackpool has been very busy for years, and no doubt elsewhere on Northern.

But on my route - Southport to Manchester - getting a seat is always easy. Several weeks ago - my last rail journey - I travelled to Manchester on a peak time commuter train and had a bay of 5 seats in a 769 all to myself, even after the Bolton stop - always a busy pick-up station. I couldn't believe it - not that long ago that particular train would have been full and standing after Wigan.

The railway has messed around with the Southport timetable that much over the years, it's now become silly. For those from Wigan, do you, or did you, go to Wallgate or North Western? Returning from Manchester, did you go to Piccadilly, or now do you go to Victoria or Oxford Road? The TransPennine timetable has been messed around with in a similar way. I know the reasons and excuses, but passengers must get fed up with it.

Then there is the reliability factor. The Southport line has frequent cancellations caused variously by rolling stock issues, crewing issues, cancellations the night before, and of course industrial action. For many Sundays this year the timetable has been such a disaster that most of the trains now just carry fresh air on that day of the week - the passengers have all gone. Today will be an exception though because there are no trains at all: engineering work has closed the line, and at least a regular bus service has been timetabled.

The sad fact is that this was once a busy, thriving, well-used line. Covid might have payed a lesser part, but the railway itself has given it the biggest kicking.

Last week I had to travel daily for work purposes. Normally I would have instinctively caught the train, but no longer. I won't mention the unreliable Northern ticket machines, but on the first day, lo and behold my intended train was cancelled. I didn't particularly want to drive because of parking and congestion issues, so for the first time in about 30 years I caught a bus for the short journey.... and what a revelation. The week saw 100% reliability, 100% punctuality, friendly drivers, seat comfort which exceeded my expectations - perhaps not as good as a 769, but certainly better than a TPE 802 - and a flat fare of just £2 per journey. On one particular day the ticket machine on one of the buses wasn't working and the driver told intending passengers who were paying by card to just take a seat without charge - what a contrast to the attitude of the railway when their ticket machines don't work! I'm a convert to the bus for my local journeys and I'm now wondering whether I'll ever step foot on my local station again...

Perhaps it's not just post-Covid effects that are keeping folk away from the railway.

 

[modernrail]

I agree, Manchester - Blackpool has been very busy for years, and no doubt elsewhere on Northern.

But on my route - Southport to Manchester - getting a seat is always easy. Several weeks ago - my last rail journey - I travelled to Manchester on a peak time commuter train and had a bay of 5 seats in a 769 all to myself, even after the Bolton stop - always a busy pick-up station. I couldn't believe it - not that long ago that particular train would have been full and standing after Wigan.

The railway has messed around with the Southport timetable that much over the years, it's now become silly. For those from Wigan, do you, or did you, go to Wallgate or North Western? Returning from Manchester, did you go to Piccadilly, or now do you go to Victoria or Oxford Road? The TransPennine timetable has been messed around with in a similar way. I know the reasons and excuses, but passengers must get fed up with it.

Then there is the reliability factor. The Southport line has frequent cancellations caused variously by rolling stock issues, crewing issues, cancellations the night before, and of course industrial action. For many Sundays this year the timetable has been such a disaster that most of the trains now just carry fresh air on that day of the week - the passengers have all gone. Today will be an exception though because there are no trains at all: engineering work has closed the line, and at least a regular bus service has been timetabled.

The sad fact is that this was once a busy, thriving, well-used line. Covid might have payed a lesser part, but the railway itself has given it the biggest kicking.

Last week I had to travel daily for work purposes. Normally I would have instinctively caught the train, but no longer. I won't mention the unreliable Northern ticket machines, but on the first day, lo and behold my intended train was cancelled. I didn't particularly want to drive because of parking and congestion issues, so for the first time in about 30 years I caught a bus for the short journey.... and what a revelation. The week saw 100% reliability, 100% punctuality, friendly drivers, seat comfort which exceeded my expectations - perhaps not as good as a 769, but certainly better than a TPE 802 - and a flat fare of just £2 per journey. On one particular day the ticket machine on one of the buses wasn't working and the driver told intending passengers who were paying by card to just take a seat without charge - what a contrast to the attitude of the railway when their ticket machines don't work! I'm a convert to the bus for my local journeys and I'm now wondering whether I'll ever step foot on my local station again...

Perhaps it's not just post-Covid effects that are keeping folk away from the railway.

It’s definitely not just Covid effects. If you add strikes and the TOCs or specific lines that have become a shambles (Southport - good example) then it has simply been impossible to piece a number of journeys together for the last 2 years. I have personally canned at least a dozen work trips I would have taken and probably about the same leisure. At an average of say £80 x 24, that is about £2k the railway hasn’t had off me. If that is an experience just 5000 other railway users have had, that’s £10 million the railway hasn’t had. Let’s say those 5000 passengers have also been entitled to delay repay of £500 on all their journeys that have been disrupted (it is probably double that for me) then that £2 million more the railway is missing. So that’s £12 million missing revenue from a tiny sample group.

As I don’t have a car the car hire companies have seen a decent share of that.

The point I am making is that these numbers add up to something significant very, very quickly.

What is £12 million in jobs? About 200/250 railway employees per annum? If so that is about a third of C2C’s staff, as an example.

 

[Krokodil]

Perhaps it's not just post-Covid effects that are keeping folk away from the railway.

I certainly agree, how many people have been put off by the mismanagement of TPE for example?

 

[Halwynd]

It’s definitely not just Covid effects. If you add strikes and the TOCs or specific lines that have become a shambles (Southport - good example) then it has simply been impossible to piece a number of journeys together for the last 2 years. I have personally canned at least a dozen work trips I would have taken and probably about the same leisure. At an average of say £80 x 24, that is about £2k the railway hasn’t had off me. If that is an experience just 5000 other railway users have had, that’s £10 million the railway hasn’t had. Let’s say those 5000 passengers have also been entitled to delay repay of £500 on all their journeys that have been disrupted (it is probably double that for me) then that £2 million more the railway is missing. So that’s £12 million missing revenue from a tiny sample group.

As I don’t have a car the car hire companies have seen a decent share of that.

The point I am making is that these numbers add up to something significant very, very quickly.

What is £12 million in jobs? About 200/250 railway employees per annum? If so that is about a third of C2C’s staff, as an example.

I certainly agree, how many people have been put off by the mismanagement of TPE for example?

True on both counts. The point made by 'modernrail' illustrates very well just how a few journeys, when extrapolated, results in a huge loss of revenue. That loss of revenue is having an effect today, and I'm afraid it will have an effect in the future. The railway tends to know how it's existing passengers feel about the service (through surveys etc.), but it needs to know more about the thoughts of those who don't travel by rail, but could or would like to do so.

As many of us have said for years, it needs better senior leadership (As 'Krokodil' says, TPE is a good example of such management failure, in fact, their failures have been so profound that they would make an ideal subject for one of those television business documentaries along the lines of 'How not to run a company') - and an overall leader who is allowed to 'get on with it' by the DfT. Could that happen under todays fragmented model of operation? - I don't know.... perhaps it really needs a return to some form of 'British Rail' such as that operated under Bob Reid I.

Like most on here I would have thought, I get absolutely no pleasure in criticising the railway of today, in fact it saddens me greatly to see what it has become.

 

[northwichcat]

The Government has deigned that the HST's should be scrapped to lower costs.

Remember it at the next general election.

Which doesn't make sense when Chiltern are still running loco-hauled services between Banbury, Leamington Spa and Birmingham, providing an alternative to XC for selected journeys.

 

[Bald Rick]

just to set a few things straight.

Notwithstanding what the Secretary of State / Rail Minister might or might not have said (personally one of my life laws is to mistrust everything written by the Daily Express), decisions on service levels are not taken based on network wide patronage figures,

Decisions are taken based on specific route by route, and even train by train data, along with detailed forecasts based on known travel pattern behaviour.

What has changed is

1) post Covid travel patterns have yet to fully settle down, although we are nearly there now; hence there has been a higher likelihood of error in recent decisions (errors in over and under provision)

2) the incentive on TOCs to speculate has been largely removed.

 

[Deafdoggie]

The harsh realities are that WFH is here to stay (check out Indeed if you think WFH is finished!)
Travelling by car is getting cheaper. My electric car will get me 200 miles for £5. Yes, there are other costs, but they remain if I drive or go by car. Putting fares up will certainly kill off demand.
Obviously not everyone has an EV, but there are getting more and more and we now have more EV public chargers than petrol pumps. The problem is only going to get worse for rail. For the running costs, why would anyone not take the car?

 

[modernrail]

just to set a few things straight.

Notwithstanding what the Secretary of State / Rail Minister might or might not have said (personally one of my life laws is to mistrust everything written by the Daily Express), decisions on service levels are not taken based on network wide patronage figures,

Decisions are taken based on specific route by route, and even train by train data, along with detailed forecasts based on known travel pattern behaviour.

What has changed is

1) post Covid travel patterns have yet to fully settle down, although we are nearly there now; hence there has been a higher likelihood of error in recent decisions (errors in over and under provision)

2) the incentive on TOCs to speculate has been largely removed.

Bald Rick, do you think there is any sense on the planning side that once we think we are working with settled numbers, there is an opportunity to look at some fundamental re-casting. I know previous attempts have been a disaster but maybe a longer term, better thought out process could look really interesting.

A lot of the argument for our lack of properly integrated transport in the past has been it has been all about shoving the max number of trains down at capacity lines in peak periods which means lots of imperfections in terms of true integrated connections etc. As pressure seems to have eased potentially permanently on the most congested parts of the network at peak periods, it feels potentially enticing that this could be a time to revisit that presumption.

 

[yorksrob]

just to set a few things straight.

Notwithstanding what the Secretary of State / Rail Minister might or might not have said (personally one of my life laws is to mistrust everything written by the Daily Express), decisions on service levels are not taken based on network wide patronage figures,

Decisions are taken based on specific route by route, and even train by train data, along with detailed forecasts based on known travel pattern behaviour.

What has changed is

1) post Covid travel patterns have yet to fully settle down, although we are nearly there now; hence there has been a higher likelihood of error in recent decisions (errors in over and under provision)

2) the incentive on TOCs to speculate has been largely removed.

The cuts are being demanded based on nationwide patronage levels, which is directly causing the bad decisions.

 

[Xavi]

trains are not really subsidised, because the purpose of travel leads to economic activity that benefits the UK economy.

Spot on. Even Merriman referred to the strikes costing the economy money. What a hypocrite!!

Merriman said strikes cost the UK rail industry £25m on a weekday and £15m a day at the weekend, and cited a study saying that the cost of strikes to the wider economy from June to December [2022] was £700m.

 

[bramling]

The harsh realities are that WFH is here to stay (check out Indeed if you think WFH is finished!)
Travelling by car is getting cheaper. My electric car will get me 200 miles for £5. Yes, there are other costs, but they remain if I drive or go by car. Putting fares up will certainly kill off demand.
Obviously not everyone has an EV, but there are getting more and more and we now have more EV public chargers than petrol pumps. The problem is only going to get worse for rail. For the running costs, why would anyone not take the car?

There *should* be a number of good reasons why train would be superior to car.

* the ability to get on with other stuff
* less stressful
* more comfortable
* for some journeys faster, especially over a longer distance
* no need to bother with finding somewhere to park, and potentially paying for same
* safer
* more reliable

Unfortunately between them the industry and the politicians (what little difference there is between those two things nowadays) seem to be doing everything possible to wreck the above list of advantages, whilst at the same time not exactly doing anything to make road travel any better either.

Let’s face it, this country is in free-fall, pretty much every institution is performing poorly, nothing works properly, half the population don’t seem to want to go to work, tacky housing is going up in every last nook and cranny, inflation remains extremely high, no one has confidence in the government and financial institutions like the BOE, and we seem to have the most rancid set of politicians any of us have seen in our lifetimes. I’m not sure why anyone seems to be expecting rail travel to be getting any better, as nothing in this country is improving.

 

[gingerheid]

Further growth is needed, over the coming year there maybe further recovery but it is now over to the TOCs to have initiatives to boost passenger numbers, particularly leasure travel and even commuting where they can compete with the car. Take locally to me Norwich/Ipswich to Cambridge could become a commuter route where previously it hasn't been.

That could be my commuter route, and I really want it to be. Instead I'm renting a room in Ipswich and staying there a few nights during the week, and even then I still drive most of the time because the odds of there being trains on both the Sunday I want to travel down AND the day I want to return have recently not been good.

With some completed upgrades, industrial harmony and perhaps even an hourly Ely - Ipswich, ... I could give the railways more money.

I also visit Scotland monthly, and the most enjoyable journey there is definitely one by rail. Yesterday I booked flights for the next six months, because you need to book flights a good three months before you find whether or not there's going to be any trains.

I think I'm part of the 30%...

 

[Deafdoggie]

There *should* be a number of good reasons why train would be superior to car.

* the ability to get on with other stuff
* less stressful
* more comfortable
* for some journeys faster, especially over a longer distance
* no need to bother with finding somewhere to park, and potentially paying for same
* safer
* more reliable

Sadly this isn't true.

*You're often forced to stand or in a 3+2 seating arrangement with no table, and close proximity to strangers.
*Modern cars do most things for you. Once in a lane at the set speed it's virtually impossible to have an accident, it moves you back in lane if you veer off. It maintains speed/distance from car in front without any driver intervention.
*Have you travelled in an IET?
*Some journeys maybe faster...but some are slower.
*Other than central London, parking isn't really a problem. *Most cities and large towns have EV hubs to park & charge whilst you're doing whatever you do. Hotels have overnight charging bays.
*as said above, it's virtually impossible to crash a modern car. Evenmoreso driverless cars.
*Motorways & Satnav between them keep traffic flowing pretty well. And you're not abandoned miles from home!

 

[northwichcat]

Decisions are taken based on specific route by route, and even train by train data, along with detailed forecasts based on known travel pattern behaviour.

What has changed is

1) post Covid travel patterns have yet to fully settle down, although we are nearly there now; hence there has been a higher likelihood of error in recent decisions (errors in over and under provision)

2) the incentive on TOCs to speculate has been largely removed.

Some operators e.g. Northern and TPE decided they don't have sufficient staff to cover all services, so were being slow to return to a pre-COVID level service even when the demand was there. Then the lower service frequency and frequent cancellations becomes the cause of reduced demand as passengers found alternatives post-COVID.

 

[Robcuk]

Sadly this isn't true.

*You're often forced to stand or in a 3+2 seating arrangement with no table, and close proximity to strangers.
*Modern cars do most things for you. Once in a lane at the set speed it's virtually impossible to have an accident, it moves you back in lane if you veer off. It maintains speed/distance from car in front without any driver intervention.
*Have you travelled in an IET?
*Some journeys maybe faster...but some are slower.
*Other than central London, parking isn't really a problem. *Most cities and large towns have EV hubs to park & charge whilst you're doing whatever you do. Hotels have overnight charging bays.
*as said above, it's virtually impossible to crash a modern car. Evenmoreso driverless cars.
*Motorways & Satnav between them keep traffic flowing pretty well. And you're not abandoned miles from home!

What do hotels charge? I'd guess it can work out more expensive than fuel! I have two EVs and only charge them at home.

I wouldn't drive into London though - so much congestion plus I'd probably get done for going over 20 somewhere or have an accident.

Sooner rather than later the government will be coming for the EV driver! No tax coming from fuel or the annual car tax.

Hopefully the government will look at the Scottish, french and Germans systems and stop charging so much but they'll probably go the other way

 

[Deafdoggie]

What do hotels charge? I'd guess it can work out more expensive than fuel! I have two EVs and only charge them at home.

I wouldn't drive into London though - so much congestion plus I'd probably get done for going over 20 somewhere or have an accident.

Sooner rather than later the government will be coming for the EV driver! No tax coming from fuel or the annual car tax.

Hopefully the government will look at the Scottish, french and Germans systems and stop charging so much but they'll probably go the other way

Depends on the hotel! But most have slow overnight chargers so it's not much. No point rapid charging when you're there all night.

 

[bramling]

Sadly this isn't true.

*You're often forced to stand or in a 3+2 seating arrangement with no table, and close proximity to strangers.

I’d include that in the train *should* be better box. Agreed it’s certainly likely to be the experience though.

*Modern cars do most things for you. Once in a lane at the set speed it's virtually impossible to have an accident, it moves you back in lane if you veer off. It maintains speed/distance from car in front without any driver intervention.

Have to say I can’t really agree with that one. There’s still plenty of ways one can have an accident or near miss, many of them through poor driving by someone else. Naturally it’s possible to mitigate this risk down to an acceptable level, but it’s still there. Statistically rail is still very much safer.

*Have you travelled in an IET?

Yes and they’re rubbish. I’d include that in the point above, the railway should have done better on this one - especially given how much they have cost.

*Some journeys maybe faster...but some are slower.

Again this is somewhere the railway should do better. Even many long distance journeys are now very slow due to the tendency to add extra stops over the years.

*Other than central London, parking isn't really a problem.

That’s one for debate I’d say. Try parking in a relatively run-of-the-mill place like Southend and that might skew things a bit - it’s a case of drive round for ages, park a very long way away, or pay £18 for a few hours. Generally I’d agree though.

*as said above, it's virtually impossible to crash a modern car. Evenmoreso driverless cars.

Really don’t agree with this one, see above.

*Motorways & Satnav between them keep traffic flowing pretty well. And you're not abandoned miles from home!

Definitely don’t agree here. Letchworth to Henley-on-Thames the other week, off-peak. Something like 65 miles, supposed to take about 75 minutes. In reality took 154 minutes, with various hold ups along the way for no real reason. If anything WFH or whatever seems to have messed up these sorts of journeys, as traffic is now conspicuously busier on the 0900-1100 period. I wasn’t impressed! To be fair the journey was still probably on a par with what it would have been by rail, door to door. So a bit of a trade off between cursing about motorway traffic, or being stuck on a train having to listen to someone else’s TikTok or whatever. Definitely scope for rail to try and score some points here should guiding hands in the industry have a desire to do so.

 

[Bald Rick]

The cuts are being demanded based on nationwide patronage levels, which is directly causing the bad decisions.

No, they are not.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Sep 2023 ==

Bald Rick, do you think there is any sense on the planning side that once we think we are working with settled numbers, there is an opportunity to look at some fundamental re-casting.

depends what you mean by ‘recasting’

if you mean the timetable, some have already been done (eg WCML, Southeastrn), and more to follow. But the planning capacity of the industry dictates that not everything can be done at once.

 

[yorksrob]

No, they are not.

You're not seriously expecting us to believe that someone at Cross Country (as an example) has looked at passenger numbers and come to the conclusion that they need fewer trains to run the service ?

 

[WAB]

Bald Rick, do you think there is any sense on the planning side that once we think we are working with settled numbers, there is an opportunity to look at some fundamental re-casting. I know previous attempts have been a disaster but maybe a longer term, better thought out process could look really interesting.

A lot of the argument for our lack of properly integrated transport in the past has been it has been all about shoving the max number of trains down at capacity lines in peak periods which means lots of imperfections in terms of true integrated connections etc. As pressure seems to have eased potentially permanently on the most congested parts of the network at peak periods, it feels potentially enticing that this could be a time to revisit that presumption.

I'd be stunned if the experience could be found within the Network Rail and TOC train planning units to attempt more than one area re-cast at a time. Furthermore, I struggle to see where substantial reductions in frequency could be made without harming frequencies to the extend that the service becomes unattractive. The debate over focusing on connections is one had on here and in the industry fairly regularly, but the usual arguments of insufficient platforms, pax wanting through trains on main flows, and political pressure for every shack to be served by expresses to London come up.

 

[Bald Rick]

You're not seriously expecting us to believe that someone at Cross Country (as an example) has looked at passenger numbers and come to the conclusion that they need fewer trains to run the service ?

I don’t know how that is relevant to what you suggested, which was:

The cuts are being demanded based on nationwide patronage levels, which is directly causing the bad decisions.

But, yes, the decisions being taken on Cross Country services are being based on the passenger numbers on the services concerned, not the national numbers.

 

[yorksrob]

I don’t know how that is relevant to what you suggested, which was:



But, yes, the decisions being taken on Cross Country services are being based on the passenger numbers on the services concerned, not the national numbers.

The decisions being taken by Cross Country are being based on losing part of its fleet without replacement. That is based on the national numbers.

 

[Bald Rick]

That is based on the national numbers.

It isn’t.

why do you think it is?

 

[yorksrob]

It isn’t.

why do you think it is?

It's being done to save money.

 

[Krokodil]

But, yes, the decisions being taken on Cross Country services are being based on the passenger numbers on the services concerned, not the national numbers.

If that were true, are you seriously saying that the contents of the former HST diagrams can all be comfortably accommodated in the 4/5 coach Voyagers that will replace them? Presumably those Voyagers are being freed up by short-forming double sets, are you also saying that the contents of those double sets will comfortably fit in a single?

This is purely about penny-pinching.

 

[ScotGG]

The problem with a number of routes (especially those around London) is you might run a packed train out of the city at 5pm, but then have to run it back almost empty.

That hasn't been the norm for a decade at least.

Trains into London in the peak are hardly empty anymore.

With WFH even less so. People work at home then head in for a gig, theatre, meet friends etc.

With ever more car free housing in outer London too it's a potential revenue source for contra peak journeys. More homes. Ever rising population. A rail network though that often seems stuck behind changing trends.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Sep 2023 ==

trains are not really subsidised, because the purpose of travel leads to economic activity that benefits the UK economy. So they are enablers of the economy. Whether that is making it possible for individuals to take up jobs and generating profits for employers, or people making leisure trips, exporting money to areas they don’t live in. Even your in laws using the train to spend Christmas with you, results in you spending a bit more within your local community.

Someone gets it.

A rail network brings economic and social benefits far beyond the immediate service.

Why do all business groups lobby for better rail? It benefits the wider economy.

It also reduces congestion which directly benefits business that uses road transport.

Only an extremely parochial govt fails to grasp that.

 

[slowroad]

That hasn't been the norm for a decade at least.

Trains into London in the peak are hardly empty anymore.

With WFH even less so. People work at home then head in for a gig, theatre, meet friends etc.

With ever more car free housing in outer London too it's a potential revenue source for contra peak journeys. More homes. Ever rising population. A rail network though that often seems stuck behind changing trends.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Sep 2023 ==


Someone gets it.

A rail network brings economic and social benefits far beyond the immediate service.

Why do all business groups lobby for better rail? It benefits the wider economy.

It also reduces congestion which directly benefits business that uses road transport.

Only an extremely parochial govt fails to grasp that.

There are benefits from decongestion of other modes and pollution reduction and it is right that these are taken into account. But these effects are not large enough to justify the extent of subsidy on low use routes and trains, especially outside congested areas. And any associated subsidies would not be needed anyway in areas with proper congestion charges and pollution taxes.

Beyond this rail has no greater social value than other modes, all of which support wider business and social activities.

 

[yorksrob]

There are benefits from decongestion of other modes and pollution reduction and it is right that these are taken into account. But these effects are not large enough to justify the extent of subsidy on low use routes and trains, especially outside congested areas. And any associated subsidies would not be needed anyway in areas with proper congestion charges and pollution taxes.

Beyond this rail has no greater social value than other modes, all of which support wider business and social activities.

Public transport as a whole has great social and economic value to the population who doesn't have access to private transport, either on a long term basis or occasionally. Within that, rail has a great social and economic value to those who need to travel middle to longer distance journeys.

This is entirely outside of the benefits to decongestion within urban areas.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Public transport as a whole has great social and economic value to the population who doesn't have access to private transport, either on a long term basis or occasionally. Within that, rail has a great social and economic value to those who need to travel middle to longer distance journeys.

This is entirely outside of the benefits to decongestion within urban areas.

Whilst many on here bury their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge it. Driverless cars are fast becoming a reality. This will be a game changer for many. It won't be instant, of course, but I'd expect it to be here within 10-15 years as the norm.
I've been privileged to take part in tests and the technology is there already. It's the legislation that is lacking. But that will come.
From a government view point, private investors are throwing money into driverless technology whereas railways are a drain on the public purse. So the government will be easily won over and if they can dampen demand for railways by letting strikes rumble on, even better.
Given the amount of private investment driverless cars will be a reality, so don't expect a change of government party to change the situation.
The railways need to act, and act fast, to get their revenue up to justify their future.
No one thought canals would become obsolete. Ignore the signs at your peril.

 

[yorksrob]

Whilst many on here bury their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge it. Driverless cars are fast becoming a reality. This will be a game changer for many. It won't be instant, of course, but I'd expect it to be here within 10-15 years as the norm.
I've been privileged to take part in tests and the technology is there already. It's the legislation that is lacking. But that will come.
From a government view point, private investors are throwing money into driverless technology whereas railways are a drain on the public purse. So the government will be easily won over and if they can dampen demand for railways by letting strikes rumble on, even better.
Given the amount of private investment driverless cars will be a reality, so don't expect a change of government party to change the situation.
The railways need to act, and act fast, to get their revenue up to justify their future.
No one thought canals would become obsolete. Ignore the signs at your peril.

Then the railway needs to be allowed to build revenue. This is patently what its not being allowed to do. People want to travel by train - they are being prevented by the ongoing dispute and service unreliability.

And we don't know what approach a different party will take to the industrial relations dispute, so don't bother pretending that you do.