What could be done to increase rail usage outside of London?

[Bevan Price]

Return to an earlier system with no afternoon peak hour restrictions. Having to worry about returning home by about 15:00, or being stuck till 19:00 - or pay higher peak hour fares does nothing to encourage rail travel, especially for leisure / shopping travellers.

 

[yorksrob]

Railcards are now so cheap that they can often be paid back with a single journey.

At that point might as well just abolish railcards entirely and cut fares by 20%!

For those with access to a railcard, obviously.

In terms of the original question, longer trains and cheaper fares are the answer. That includes getting rid of some of the discrepancies whereby the South East has access to a universal railcard and good groupsave offers etc, but the remainder of the country does not.

 

[Harpo]

Back to basics.
Price (affordable, simple)
Frequency
Speed
Connectional network
Seat
Comfort

 

[The exile]

Back to basics.
Price (affordable, simple)
Frequency
Speed
Connectional network
Seat
Comfort

At a slightly higher transport level - integration with buses.
At a planning level (ie out of the railway’s hands) ensuring that (long term guaranteed) public transport availability is high up the list of priorities when planning / agreeing large developments. No 30,000 seater stadium /arena unless you can show how the public transport network is going to cope when a large event ends at 22.45 on a Saturday night (and what you’re going to contribute to ensure that will work for the entire lifetime of the facility).

 

[Sun Chariot]

Consider that London also has highly effective and integrated local transit in the form of the London Underground and London buses.

Absolutely my stance.

I worked for 18 years in various central/ish parts of London; I lived in Fulham, then Royal Docks, for 12 of those 18 years.
The first 6 years required me to commute from Cheshunt to, variously, Edgware Road, Islington, Stoke Newington, Bow, Camden, Highgate, Bethnal Green, Finchley, Hackney and Maylebone.
Try doing all those without an integrated, very frequent and (generally) reliable buses and Underground network most hours of a day (and much of the night).

In the past I've lived 11 miles from Oxford; currently, I'm 10 miles from Portsmouth. Unless I was working within a few minutes' walk of their rail stations, I would not conceive an attempt at commuting rail + bus.

 

[AM9]

Conversely, in the past I have lived 8 miles from Oxford and, currently, 10 miles from Portsmouth. Unless I was working within a few minutes' walk of their rail stations, I would not conceive attempting rail + bus.

From 1980 until 1993, I lived in Fareham and worked in Portsmouth. For much on the '80s, I used a local rail and bus combined pass that enabled bus travel from home to Fareham station and then by train direct to Portsmouth. Then after a few years, the railcard was withdrawn, - why, I've no idea, but the immediate impact was that many gave up public transport and drove, to the detriment of the M27 & A3M. Thus by some daft ticketing change, yet more travel was moved onto the roads. There's no reason why local regions of connected cities and small towns can't have just ticketing that encourages multi-mode commuting and leisure travel as a minimum
Just whining about how other areas have newer trains wasn't necessary, - Solent local services were all using thumpers 2 or 3H and the occasional Cardiff cross country (not XC), being a class 33+ 4 or 5 coaches.

 

[quantinghome]

But the same is true of a lot of main lines into London.

That's true looking at what was first built in the 1830s/1840s. But they were expanded with widespread four-tracking in the late 19th / early 20th century as the London suburbs were developing. As a result, most of the new London suburbs received a high frequency suburban service from the day they were built. That didn't happen too much in other cities. Some four-tracking did happen but was more often than not built for freight traffic, and saw heavy rationalisation back to two tracks between the 1960s and 1980s, which is now being reversed at great expense.

There were some exceptions in London like the Docklands networks or the North London Line, where predominantly freight routes have been reworked for high frequency passenger services.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Improving frequency is a big one. Urban stations should have more than 1 train per hour for example.

 

[Western Lord]

I am aware of how trains are replaced. However the question was how can we increase rail usage and 40 year old Sprinters won’t emcourage anyone to take up rail travel, especially if they crammed into two carriages full and standing everyday.

Once upon a time those forty year old trains were new. Are you suggesting replacing trains every few years? New trains will become old trains in due course (even in the south).

 

[WestAnglian]

Rail usage is severely biased towards London. The number of people who use rail travel daily is significantly higher in London compared to the rest of the country. While this is understandable in e.g. rural areas, what about the UK's other major cities and their rail networks means usage is so much lower, and how could usage in those cities be increased?

Rail usage may be lower outside the SE but overcrowding is already worse. Longer and more frequent trains would be the way to increase rail use in our provincial cities. A 2-car class 150 every 30 minutes with all seats full a third into its journey and a 20% chance of cancellation must put many off.

Edit: typo.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Rail usage may be lower iutside the SE but overcrowding is already worse. Longer and more frequent trains would be the way to increase rail use in our provincial cities. A 2-car class 150 every 30 minutes with all seats full a third into its journey and a 20% chance of cancellation must put many off.

This is the root of it in Manchester certainly (and in Liverpool on the non-Merseyrail lines). Though for all I think Merseyrail is the gold-plated solution, being a better-than-German-standard* S-Bahn, with a Metrolink like model (open stations, few staff, slightly higher fares) you can achieve something pretty good for a lot more people a lot more quickly (look at Metrolink expansion vs. what Merseyrail has achieved since say 2000), so this is probably the model to pursue.

The best thing Manchester could do to increase rail usage is get on with Metrolink conversion of all self contained or semi-self-contained (tram train) lines** ASAP, with as many of the Metrolink benefits as possible such as upgrades to the standard 5tph frequency. Even if they can't deliver in full for a while, e.g. still convert Marple and Hadfield even if it means running into Piccadilly terminal platforms (or potentially new tram platforms on the car park adding a bit of capacity for TPE?) for the foreseeable future.

* Operationally it's similar to Germany though on a 4tph rather than typically 6tph timetable, but it has a number of things that are considerably better such as staffing.

** Marple, Hadfield and Atherton being the obvious ones which are relatively poorly used but have massive potential if you look at what Metrolink is achieving on similar lines already.

 

[JGurney]

Rail usage is severely biased towards London. The number of people who use rail travel daily is significantly higher in London compared to the rest of the country.

This has been borne in upon me since leaving London, where I used to make lots of frequent short train journeys. Now I can go over a week without getting on a train. I still make just as many longer rail journeys, mainly involving being away from home at least overnight, but short journeys or day trips by rail happen much less often. The key factors are:

• fewer railway lines. My nearest station, Saltburn, is four miles away, not a six minute walk away. That railhead is a terminus so trains from there go in only one direction, westwards. In all directions except westward, the only railway lines within 20 miles are the Esk Valley line and the northern end of the NYMR. Limited opportunities for local train journeys.
• lack of integrated ticketing. When I want to go to Redcar or Middlesbrough, I could in theory get a bus to Saltburn then the train. However the bus to Saltburn continues to Redcar and Middlesbrough, and the fare is the same to all three (and in my case I have a monthly bus pass), so staying on the bus is a lot cheaper than changing to the train and buying a separate ticket. Plus, unless the connection time at Saltburn was tight, staying on the bus rather than changing and waiting for a train would often be much the same journey time. On the rare occasions I want to go to Darlington (but no further than day) the train would be a bit faster than a bus to Middlesbrough and change to the limited-stop bus to Darlington, not not much faster and the Darlington bus is also covered by my monthly pass so if I am not in a hurry I may still use the bus.
• lack of connected networks, and infrequent services. My second-nearest station is Danby, on the Esk Valley line. However there is no bus there. I can get direct buses to Middlesbrough or Whitby, at each end of the Esk Valley line, but not to any of the stations near me towards the middle of it. There being only four trains per day limits possible uses and means any use of it requires careful planning.

Not much can be done about the first or third points, but I suspect buses and trains requiring separate tickets is more open to amendment.

 

[The exile]

* Operationally it's similar to Germany though on a 4tph rather than typically 6tph timetable, but it has a number of things that are considerably better such as staffing.

Plenty of German S-Bahn lines are less than 4tph. OK -once you get into the core of the big cities the agglomerated service is better - but it soon thins out!

 

[mchunt]

Frequencies would be a good place to start.

Look at Peterborough to Leicester for a start... two very large places, both with an excellent range of destinations, three stations between them all at decent sized towns at just the right distance apart to be useful for the intermediate as well as the through market...

...and it only gets one train an hour on the route. There is probably quite a lot of suppressed demand on this corridor, and there are many more routes like it as well.

Same onwards towards Nuneaton.

Hinckley gets 1 train per hour, we have 4 busses an hour between Leicester & Nuneaton (which are usually busy) but they take about an hour from Hinckley to Leicester rather than 20 minutes on the train.

 

[Krokodil]

In Manchester's case there will be a huge benefit from the HS2 tunnel.

*Would

They need to commit to building it before it becomes "will".

But yes, it would have a transformational effect upon south Manchester services. If it were also connected to Liverpool as part of the NPR scheme then it would also allow local services in west Manchester and Liverpool's City Line to be transformed.

 

[The exile]

Something that would be transformational (but very expensive) almost everywhere would be the building of infrastructure to permit local services to operate independently of long distance ones. This is a core feature of large S-Bahn / RER networks - even if latecomers to the party have balked at the cost. Grade separation of junctions would be a start.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Plenty of German S-Bahn lines are less than 4tph. OK -once you get into the core of the big cities the agglomerated service is better - but it soon thins out!

They do vary I suppose. Hamburg and Berlin are the ones closest to Merseyrail in concept. Some of the others are more like the Snow Hill Lines/Cross City/Castlefield services with lower frequencies and sharing lines with other trains.

But overall Merseyrail is a "gold plated" option that is great for those who use it. But it's costly both in capital terms and operating terms compared to Metrolink which delivers most (but not all) of its benefits.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Has Northern seen any greater usage since the investment in new rolling stock and electrification?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Has Northern seen any greater usage since the investment in new rolling stock and electrification?

Well, the 6 car Blackpools are anecdotally almost as busy as the 2 car Pacers of old were...and that's just a capacity increase, the actual service hasn't improved.

 

[LMS 4F]

Once upon a time those forty year old trains were new. Are you suggesting replacing trains every few years? New trains will become old trains in due course (even in the south).

I am saying that from the point of view of someone who has a choice then a 150/2 is not going to be a strong selling point. Especially as lots of other services in West Yorkshire have much newer and better trained, both electric and diesel.
Add to that the fact that two carriages are often inadequate then no wonder people use their cars to get into Leeds, that being the job hot spot around here.
If this country is serious about getting people to use public transport then there needs to be investment on a continuous basis, not just a one hit wonder every few years.

 

[yorksrob]

Once upon a time those forty year old trains were new. Are you suggesting replacing trains every few years? New trains will become old trains in due course (even in the south).

More should have been done in the intervening forty years to ensure that they were supplemented to keep up with demand. Too many two carriage trains still running around the regions.

 

[The exile]

More should have been done in the intervening forty years to ensure that they were supplemented to keep up with demand. Too many two carriage trains still running around the regions.

Indeed - we need to get away from “boom and bust” and go to a rolling programme of new stock delivery - basically at the slowest practical delivery rate, with, like the majority of 1st gen DMUs, interoperability by design.

 

[yorksrob]

Indeed - we need to get away from “boom and bust” and go to a rolling programme of new stock delivery - basically at the slowest practical delivery rate, with, like the majority of 1st gen DMUs, interoperability by design.

Indeed. TPE seems to have improved in terms of capacity recently, whereas XC seems to be going in the opposite direction (to give a couple of examples).

 

[Dr Day]

A more interesting angle on these types of thread would be to add a caveat ‘at no net extra cost to the taxpayer’.

 

[CMS1]

On the assumption routes and connections are already as optimised as possible, there's 3 things that IMO are key to winning over road users from non-London journeys to rail:
Higher speeds - 75mph or higher line speed on all lines (unless its a route with little overall traffic to win over to rail)
Solid WiFi
Better comfort - 2 points here - jointed track should be a thing of the past, and announcements need scaling right back - or have announcements free carriages

 

[Sun Chariot]

On the assumption routes and connections are already as optimised as possible, there's 3 things that IMO are key to winning over road users from non-London journeys to rail:
Higher speeds - 75mph or higher line speed on all lines (unless its a route with little overall traffic to win over to rail)
Solid WiFi
Better comfort - 2 points here - jointed track should be a thing of the past, and announcements need scaling right back - or have announcements free carriages

So the distance, between a railway station and final location, plus their ease - and the frequency - of onward transport (if it isn't viably walkable for them) isn't key ?
It's paramount and a "which transport mode" deciding factor, throughout all my years' commuting.

75mph minimum speed? That's light-rail / tram propositions all thwarted then...

 

[Bletchleyite]

A more interesting angle on these types of thread would be to add a caveat ‘at no net extra cost to the taxpayer’.

There is unlikely to be any answer to that at all, except some minor timetable tweaking. Though what you can do is invest capital to save operating costs, which is what Metrolink gets you - you have to put up the capital for the conversions but the subsidy requirement is much reduced or zero (it was zero in the past, I don't know if it still is).

Subsidy of course isn't uniformly bad when it comes to high volume urban services. It can be recouped from taxation (e.g. capital investment or pump-priming from planning gain, a tax on new developments) and if the subsidy brings a greater economic benefit than its cost it's worthwhile to continue with it, which I expect is how the likes of Germany see it.

 

[HSTEd]

Indeed - we need to get away from “boom and bust” and go to a rolling programme of new stock delivery - basically at the slowest practical delivery rate, with, like the majority of 1st gen DMUs, interoperability by design.

The problem with that approach, in the political sense, is that that rate will not be sufficient to sustain more than one factory. Maybe two at a push. It's only about 500 carriages a year.

Factory closures are an anathema to modern politicians, so trains are ordered based on the need to keep plants open rather than actual usefulness.

 

[cactustwirly]

Make it less awful. Manchester's diesel local services for instance are rubbish - infrequent, slow and often overcrowded. All the Metrolink conversions have resulted in significant patronage increase. And as for the Chat Moss stopper on the Liverpool side being hourly...

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Chiltern Aylesbury branch? I'm sat on one now, though admittedly it's a 3 car and nearly empty. It's definitely old though!

It is more or less just Chiltern now though, the other home of short DMUs around London, the GWR local services, have long since been Lizzed, the branch lines aside! And unsurprisingly, as a result, patronage has rocketed.

Reading to Gatwick says hello, often substituted with 2 car units

 

[Farigiraf]

Reading to Gatwick says hello, often substituted with 2 car units

If it went to London, GWR would never let that happen.