Annual All-Lines Pass: could it ever work?

[Starmill]

Something else.

Busier trains become later on their journeys, mostly due to extended dwell times, but also due to slower acceleration (for certain types of train).

Is there any specific evidence of how much of DB's woeful performance can actually be attributed to the increased loadings since D-Ticket, or the EUR9 ticket before it? They themselves have stated that inadequate renewal spending over recent decades has contributed to the problems, same for multi-system rolling stock issues.

 

[yorksrob]

How is this a 'rail renaissance'?

That implies that no one uses the railway. As the article points out, they would need to charge extra to use the popular parts of the network. There are better ways to encourage the use of spare capacity without overloading the bits that passengers are already using.

Any research of this nature just seems to be people who already use the railway hoping to use it more and pay less for it. That doesn't reduce pollution unless there is genuine and tangible modal shift.

They estimate that it would generate an extra 122m journeys a year, which sounds like a renaissance to me.

The other interesting figures are that they estimate that it would cost an additional £45 - £637m a year, as opposed to the £9 billion in tax revenue lost a year through the fuel duty freeze.

Bargain.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2024 ==

The real reason that none of this works properly for this country is because the capacity provided by our trains is pretty trivial on all but the busiest routes. Manchester - Sheffield, Leeds - Hull, Edinburgh - Perth, Wrexham - Chester, Salisbury - Southampton, Reading - Gatwick Airport, Antrim - Belfast... you name it, any part of the country nearly except for major routes to and from central London, all completely trivial in capacity terms, less than a modern segregated two-lane road, even one where every vehicle only carries one person. Note loads of those are competing with two and three lane grade-separated highways. And in a lot of cases above this is after train lengths have recently been extended. So they're trying to rely mainly on things like car parking being very costly or restricted availability, or a base of users who don't have car access. These just won't scale. We probably need around double our current capacity on all routes before we can consider if this is viable.

Germany and Austria started from a far, far higher base with S-Bahn and Regional Bahn services that actually deliver meaningful capacity around nearly all of their populated areas, and a much more poly-centric focus on expansion over recently years.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2024 ==


The only way to do this in the context of public transport is by spending many tens of billions of pounds per year on new infrastructure. That money can realistically only come from the state. It's been made abundantly clear that's not coming, at least in the next five years.

I know that we have too many short trains, but for the routes that we do have, are we that much different from Austria and Germany ?

Afterall, passengers aren't going to jump on an S-bahn that hasn't been built.

 

[Starmill]

I know that we have too many short trains, but for the routes that we do have, are we that much different from Austria and Germany ?

Yes. Two and three car trains once or twice an hour against eight car trains four or six times an hour. Same as comparing the ex Regional DMU services to the ex NSE services. Extensive use of double deck rolling stock is also made.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2024 ==

The lobby of the car in the UK seems too powerful to do pretty much anything

Unfortunately that's probably true. Apart from the likelihood of real terms flatlinig of fuel duty, rather than an annual cut as the previous government always did, the new government promises to be largely the same in this area.

 

[HSTEd]

Perhaps it would be best if the railway was to move to the low cost pass model (I personally think it would be), but we have to accept that in doing so it would have to change almost beyond recognition.

There would be no more discussions about buffets or restaurant service, nor of the idea of standing on trains being unusual.
There would also likely have to be an enormous fight with the unions, ROSCOs, industry lobbies and just about everyone else - the rail industry would have to be reforged from scratch.

The rail industry (outisde HS2) is already burning a billion pounds a month, functionally gutting the farebox is not going to fly without major reductions in expenditure.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Perhaps it would be best if the railway was to move to the low cost pass model (I personally think it would be), but we have to accept that in doing so it would have to change almost beyond recognition.

There would be no more discussions about buffets or restaurant service, nor of the idea of standing on trains being unusual.
There would also likely have to be an enormous fight with the unions, ROSCOs, industry lobbies and just about everyone else - the rail industry would have to be reforged from scratch.

The rail industry (outisde HS2) is already burning a billion pounds a month, functionally gutting the farebox is not going to fly without major reductions in expenditure.

Would £49 a month break even regionally?

 

[The exile]

See Germany.

Where several of the Laender are darkly hinting that large scale service cuts may be necessary once the federal funding for the Deurschland ticket ceases. No doubt there’s a lot of brinkmanship in that but there’s also no smoke without fire.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2024 ==

a non-exhaustive list of issues that predate the above tickets that I'm aware of:
- A railway bridge that was hit by a ship and collapsed NINE years ago has not yet reopened due to the time (re)construction is taking (Friesenbrucke, collapsed december 2015)

While it’s a useful reminder that it’s not just the uk where things can take their time, the impact of the loss of the Friesenbruecke on the German network in general is not much greater than the knock-on effects on ours of the closure of Altnabreac station

 

[HSTEd]

Would £49 a month break even regionally?

In the current cost environment? I doubt it.
Revenue per journey is £6.40 on average.

£49 a month would require the user to make an average of less than 4 round trips per month, assuming average journeys.
And even then, rail fares only cover about ~40% of the operational cost of the industry.

 

[JonathanH]

Would £49 a month break even regionally?

Hardly. £49 barely buys a weekly season ticket for a 10 mile return journey in some places.

 

[AlastairFraser]

In the current cost environment? I doubt it.
Revenue per journey is £6.40 on average.

£49 a month would require the user to make an average of less than 4 round trips per month, assuming average journeys.
And even then, rail fares only cover about ~40% of the operational cost of the industry.

Would the induced demand not cover the average revenue per journey per passenger decrease?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2024 ==

Hardly. £49 barely buys a weekly season ticket for a 10 mile return journey in some places.

That's partly because our rail system is broadly uncompetitive price wise with the car for most journeys, there is a lot of suppressed demand we can capture.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Would the induced demand not cover the average revenue per journey per passenger decrease?

No, because we would need to add huge amounts of capacity at massive cost. HS2 anyone?

If you want to make Northern look like Nederlandse Spoorwegen (and that would be no bad thing) it would cost hundreds of millions at least. I'd love to see 240m trains the norm on something like TPE but it's going to cost.

However even then £50 a month is probably a bit cheap even so - fares reduced to about 50% of their present levels might be viable though.

 

[AlastairFraser]

No, because we would need to add huge amounts of capacity at massive cost. HS2 anyone?

If you want to make Northern look like Nederlandse Spoorwegen (and that would be no bad thing) it would cost hundreds of millions at least. I'd love to see 240m trains the norm on something like TPE but it's going to cost.

However even then £50 a month is probably a bit cheap even so - fares reduced to about 50% of their present levels might be viable though.

What if we refuse to add the capacity? Yes, there would be more overcrowding, but the trains would be cheaper.

 

[HSTEd]

Would the induced demand not cover the average revenue per journey per passenger decrease?

As noted, you'd have to add a lot of capacity that could easily end up costing vast sums in capital costs - especially with the dysfunctional infrastructure construction industry in the UK.

We don't even have the route that Continental Railways have taken to pack in more people inexpensively - double decker trains.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2024 ==

What if we refuse to add the capacity? Yes, there would be more overcrowding, but the trains would be cheaper.

At some point crowding will constrain traffic growth and revenue generation will stop increasing.

 

[AlastairFraser]

At some point crowding will constrain traffic growth and revenue generation will stop increasing.

It would, but the extra revenue generated could be invested in more capacity as it flows in. I'm not saying it's a good or permanent solution, but perhaps it should be trialled in the NW to generate capital for further improvements.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What if we refuse to add the capacity? Yes, there would be more overcrowding, but the trains would be cheaper.

Then the railway becomes a bit useless because you can't guarantee to board. You could I suppose do cheaper capacity work like changing to Japanese/London style standee layouts, perhaps with a fully seated first class, but you would still be leaving people behind.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Then the railway becomes a bit useless because you can't guarantee to board. You could I suppose do cheaper capacity work like changing to Japanese/London style standee layouts, perhaps with a fully seated first class, but you would still be leaving people behind.

Maybe that's a tradeoff we have to accept for the moment.

 

[AM9]

Maybe that's a tradeoff we have to accept for the moment.

So what use would a service tht there was no guarantee of actually getting there be. Don't forget traisn aren't just for leisure, apart from commuting there's journeys to hospitals etc..

 

[Bletchleyite]

So what use would a service tht there was no guarantee of actually getting there be. Don't forget traisn aren't just for leisure, apart from commuting there's journeys to hospitals etc..

One way to manage expectations is (yes, I know unpopular here) compulsory reservation. In India on certain routes you have to book months in advance to have any chance.

However, I think not price-dumping fares would avoid the problem. It should be cheaper than the marginal cost of going by car, but it needn't be near enough free.

 

[HSTEd]

Then the railway becomes a bit useless because you can't guarantee to board. You could I suppose do cheaper capacity work like changing to Japanese/London style standee layouts, perhaps with a fully seated first class, but you would still be leaving people behind.

If we set the train limit in the North West as the 105m of Platform 1 and 5 at Oxford Road, that would leave us with 5 20m cars or so.
A 5-car Class 710 is 241 seats plus 641 standees for 882 passengers.

A less extreme solution would be a 4-car Class 710 (189 seats plus 489 standees) and one 20m Class 395 carriage (just because I know the seat count), which would leave us with 250 ish seats plus 500 standees for ~750 passengers.

Obviously if we write off Platform 1 and 5 entirely we can go to six cars which allows us to get something like 950 passengers with one coach of "regular" seating.

 

[AlastairFraser]

So what use would a service tht there was no guarantee of actually getting there be. Don't forget traisn aren't just for leisure, apart from commuting there's journeys to hospitals etc..

Well, it's a cheaper option alongside the existing ticket system. Flexibility of choosing the time you aim to leave it, while accepting it's not always possible for x price.

 

[deltic]

Given we already have a Network Railcard for SE England, a monthly railcard for £100 a month valid only after 10am and not valid to start a journey between 16.00-19.00 from major urban areas, excluding stations in the Network Railcard area but also valid on local buses would be an interesting offer.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Given we already have a Network Railcard for SE England, a monthly railcard for £100 a month valid only after 10am and not valid to start a journey between 16.00-19.00 from major urban areas, excluding stations in the Network Railcard area but also valid on local buses would be an interesting offer.

I think £100 a month (£1200 a year) would be a bit much, but a few hundred a year (paid by monthly DD) would be very reasonable.

The only way it would be worth £1200 pa would be a First Class version valid at all times of day.

 

[HSTEd]

Given we already have a Network Railcard for SE England, a monthly railcard for £100 a month valid only after 10am and not valid to start a journey between 16.00-19.00 from major urban areas, excluding stations in the Network Railcard area but also valid on local buses would be an interesting offer.

£100 a month would barely cover the cost of local bus travel in Greater Manchester under the new franchising scheme!
They'd be precious little left for railway traffic in GM, let alone the rest of the North West!

Indeed, I believe the annual GM County pass now costs more than £100 a month!

 

[Bletchleyite]

£100 a month would barely cover the cost of local bus travel in Greater Manchester under the new franchising scheme!
They'd be precious little left for railway traffic in GM, let alone the rest of the North West!

Indeed, I believe the annual GM County pass now costs more than £100 a month!

I believe that poster was proposing a National Railcard, i.e. 1/3 off train fares.

 

[yorksrob]

Perhaps £49 is too cheap. I wonder if £100 a month would be the sweet spot !

 

[HSTEd]

I believe that poster was proposing a National Railcard, i.e. 1/3 off train fares.

He also mentions that it would cover buses, but would anyone bother with a pass that only gave 1/3rd off of a bus journey?
I read it to mean that the buses would be free, beyond the railcard functionality.

But a bus only pass in Greater Manchester under the new regime costs around ~£1000 per year, although no annual product actually exists.
So I don't really know.

 

[yorksrob]

No, because we would need to add huge amounts of capacity at massive cost. HS2 anyone?

If you want to make Northern look like Nederlandse Spoorwegen (and that would be no bad thing) it would cost hundreds of millions at least. I'd love to see 240m trains the norm on something like TPE but it's going to cost.

However even then £50 a month is probably a bit cheap even so - fares reduced to about 50% of their present levels might be viable though.

We missed our chance to electrify vast swathes of the urban north and flood it with cast off Thameslinky trains unfortunately.

 

[Bletchleyite]

We missed our chance to electrify vast swathes of the urban north and flood it with cast off Thameslinky trains unfortunately.

We did electrify vast swathes of the urban North and flood it with ex-Thameslink 319s, which were knackered and needed replacing in short order.

I suppose the switch of Liverpool suburban services and Blackpool North services from entirely diesel to entirely electric (bar the CLC) won't have been visible on t'other side of't'Pennines, but it did happen.

 

[yorksrob]

We did electrify vast swathes of the urban North and flood it with ex-Thameslink 319s, which were knackered and needed replacing in short order.

I suppose the switch of Liverpool suburban services and Blackpool North services from entirely diesel to entirely electric (bar the CLC) won't have been visible on t'other side of't'Pennines, but it did happen.

We electrified teeny-weeny swathes of the North. None of the trans-pennine routes, no Hull, No Harrogate loop etc.

Imagine 8 carriage crowd busters on some of these !

 

[Starmill]

No, because we would need to add huge amounts of capacity at massive cost. HS2 anyone?

If you want to make Northern look like Nederlandse Spoorwegen (and that would be no bad thing) it would cost hundreds of millions at least. I'd love to see 240m trains the norm on something like TPE but it's going to cost.

However even then £50 a month is probably a bit cheap even so - fares reduced to about 50% of their present levels might be viable though.

NS don't really run a lot of high-capacity high-frequency trains on diesel, and we couldn't use low-voltage OHLE. So many tens of billions (probably hundreds) would be required to do a complete electrification of all suburban commuter routes, on top of the full-Y HS2 and lots of platform extensions and grade separation. Also probably some land take for the extra platforms in city centres as e.g. Newcastle would run out.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2024 ==

We did electrify vast swathes of the urban North and flood it with ex-Thameslink 319s, which were knackered and needed replacing in short order.

I suppose the switch of Liverpool suburban services and Blackpool North services from entirely diesel to entirely electric (bar the CLC) won't have been visible on t'other side of't'Pennines, but it did happen.

Awful lot of two car DMUs on the Cheshire Lines to Liverpool, Southport and Kirkby - Wigan, Atherton line, Blackburn, Buxton, Mid Cheshire line and Hope Valley line into Manchester, and nothing switched to electric into Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle... Not like these aren't big cities...

 

[A S Leib]

nothing switched to electric into Newcastle

The Metro? Granted, nowhere near as high-capacity as tube trains or Thameslink, and doesn't do anything for Teesside or Hexham, or the restored diesel line to Ashington.