Poor service frequency

[matacaster]

I enjoy travelling on the train and would use it more to travel to work as the cost is now similar to using my car. However, the current huddersfield to Sheffield via Barnsley is only hourly due I believe lack of crossing places. This line has hudds 150,000, Barnsley, of a similar order and Sheffield 2 to 3 times larger. Metro have aspired to 1/2 hour service for donkeys years.

By car its circa 45 minutes to barnsley + 2 buses. In the late evening buses are around 40 minutes apart, so it takes nearly 3 hours to get home as the buses and trains don't mesh well. Patronage is reasonable, but poor frequency probably limit demand.

I wonder what the typical frequencies are for our friends in the south east? Between similar sized places?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Lowestoft to Ipswich runs to a broadly hourly frequency. Journey time around 90 minutes. Lowestoft has an estimated population of 71,000. Ipswich maybe 234,000.

Nowhere else is quite as big 'en route' though, unlike Huddersfield to Sheffield (via Barnsley).

 

[SeanG]

I would agree that the Penistone line service would ideally be half hourly.

Similarly, I think that the Durham Coast should be half hourly too. It links Middlesbrough (140,000), Stockton (194,000), Hartlepool (100,000) and Sunderland (344,000) but only has an hourly service. Noted that it also links to Newcastle, but these journeys can be made from Teesside via changing at Darlington and from Sunderland on the Metro. At present the service is only hourly and takes a very long time for the distance (for example Seaham - Middlesbrough is about 20/25 minutes in the car but is over an hour on the train).

 

[Purple Orange]

London aside, I don’t see services in the south east being that great either. Reading-Guildford is hourly, Brighton-Southampton is hourly, Brighton-Eastbourne and Portsmouth-Brighton is every hour. Unless you’re going to London, nothing is pulling up trees.

 

[A S Leib]

Reading-Guildford is hourly

*Half-hourly, alternating between Redhill and Gatwick. I agree that there's generally a big difference between services to / from London and ones avoiding it though.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jun 2022 ==

I enjoy travelling on the train and would use it more to travel to work as the cost is now similar to using my car. However, the current huddersfield to Sheffield via Barnsley is only hourly due I believe lack of crossing places. This line has hudds 150,000, Barnsley, of a similar order and Sheffield 2 to 3 times larger. Metro have aspired to 1/2 hour service for donkeys years.

By car its circa 45 minutes to barnsley + 2 buses. In the late evening buses are around 40 minutes apart, so it takes nearly 3 hours to get home as the buses and trains don't mesh well. Patronage is reasonable, but poor frequency probably limit demand.

I wonder what the typical frequencies are for our friends in the south east? Between similar sized places?

Nowhere near as large, but Salisbury to Bath's one train per hour and ~58 minutes for 66 km (52 km/h) by rail (Sheffield - Huddersfield's ~78 minutes for 57km, 44 km/h). Bristol to Portsmouth is 140 minutes for 157 km (67 km/h, with populations of 200,000 in Portsmouth, 250,000 in Southampton, 50,000 in Salisbury, 100,000 in Bath and half a million in Bristol).

Bletchley to Bedford's hourly and 43 minutes for 27 km (38 km/h with around a quarter of a million people in Milton Keynes and ~100,000 in Bedford, although the Marston Vale line will probably be improved a lot once Bicester - Bletchley's built).

 

[The exile]

Bristol to Portsmouth is 140 minutes for 157 km (67 km/h, with populations of 200,000 in Portsmouth, 250,000 in Southampton, 50,000 in Salisbury, 100,000 in Bath and half a million in Bristol

Though to be fair, most of the route (other than Salisbury to Warminster/ Westbury) is overlaid with other services giving better frequency for shorter journeys, which is where it’s particularly important.