And then appropriately weight the preferences of needing to being able to get on the train or not and comfort while standing and minimised journey times through minimising increases in dwell time with an increase in passenger numbers, which is where the marginal increases in train capacity come from, if there are capacity issues and people can't get on the train the preferences of those on it go out the window, that how things work these days.
One thing I don't understand is how 387 has less standing capacity than BR units with 3+2 seating as this wasn't the case on Thameslink or is it just a case of rose tinted GN spectacles?
People can board all the peak trains to and from Welwyn Garden City. They are well sized for the task (pairs of 317s mostly), with seats for most passengers - 584 seats plus say 50 - 60 standees on departure from Welwyn Garden City southbound AM and slightly fewer from Finsbury Park northbound PM. Dwells work within the time allowed and observed load. This means that there are no passengers who cannot board (left behind) whose needs have to be weighted in the calculation. This does occur when trains are short formed, but this is thankfully still rare. I understand that such a trade off would be needed if that were happening. Other passengers on other lines (no, not GTR lines) end up with the trade offs I plan!
387s have 447 seats per pair. On Thameslink these units allowed additional services and more 12 car trains, which were an improvement on 2 x 377 or 2 x 319, both in capacity and dwell time. This mitigated their lower seating capacity. On GN they are not introducing additional services or apparently lengthening the formations of many trains until 2018. 1C96 (King's Cross to Welwyn North) demonstrates the effect. It has gone from full pairs of 365s with a few standees to full and crowded 387s. Hence the complaints repeated across their workings thus far.
700s are better configured for standing and short dwells, and will work better than 387s as they have only slightly less seating capacity. I understand that Thameslink's core will not work at 24 tph without this compromise of seating and standing space, but GTRs passengers assume it will come with more frequency and / or train length for them. According to the consultation document Welwyn Garden City stands to get neither!
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That is a GTR management style response. We have made things worse, but it is yours the passengers fault.
Indeed. I sometimes think many of my industry colleagues struggle to understand the motivation of complaints about these issues and struggle to recognise that there are real people behind the trade offs they make.
The nature of any commute is a huge factor in determining people's quality of life and the life choices. If you change two 30 minute journeys in a seat (plus access and egress time of course) without much warning to 30 minutes standing on a crowded train, the affected passengers individual cost of that journey has increased enormously ('generalised cost' or 'weighted cost' are the terms planners would use). It is enough that some will find the new situation intolerable to the extent that they feel compelled to move house, change jobs, move their children from school, retire early etc.
It may well be that growing demand will replace such people with others more tolerant of the conditions and benefits elsewhere offset this in the 'business case', but beware. Too many experiencing significant downsides motivate politicians to intervene and change the best laid plans, resulting in seriously suboptimal use of expensive infrastructure - e.g. Wimbledon loop bay platforms at Blackfriars?
