Working from home has blown a £2bn hole in rail industry finances despite the number of Britons using the train network returning to near pre-pandemic levels.
If demand is down then we don’t need to expand capacity…..
Senior industry figures said that despite ongoing strike action 97pc of travellers are back on the rails compared with 2019. But they are travelling less frequently and less during peak hours.
One senior executive said: “We have almost completely recaptured the market. The passengers that were using the railway pre-Covid, are now using the railway.
“But they are not using it as much. And the journeys they are taking generate less revenue for the railway.”
It’s peak capacity that matters, and as the demand for that isn’t expanding, is in fact shrinking, then we’ve not got to expand peak capacity, do we?
If only…!
Railway use in the great exemplar for State-run, subsidised railways, France, has been in decline for some time particularly on TGV routes. And until recently long distance coach services were not allowed.
So people are staggering their journeys and taking the 10.45 rather than the 8.45? Great, changing working practices have made us use trains more efficiently. Presumably this applies to buses too.
Sunk cost may be an economic fallacy but it’s a political reality. The Conservatives have invested too much political capital in it and by claiming it’s part of the levelling up program they’ve made it almost impossible for Labour to scrap.
See SLS for how easy it is to break an iron rice bowl.
The problem with this is that whilst you might have reduced overall usage across the network you may still have places where you still may need more capacity.
As for the trains VS coaches debate: There are places that have a train station that would be a real bugger to service using coaches. The roads are simply not up to it. You can see this on routes where maintenance of the line requires replacement bus services to be used. A 2 hour train ride to London is turned into a multi leg adventure lasting 3 – 4 hours.
“As for the trains VS coaches debate: There are places that have a train station that would be a real bugger to service using coaches. The roads are simply not up to it. You can see this on routes where maintenance of the line requires replacement bus services to be used. A 2 hour train ride to London is turned into a multi leg adventure lasting 3 – 4 hours.”
But maybe, it doesn’t always matter that much. Speed really matters for commuting. No-one wants to spend a long time every day going to work. It also matters for really long distances because you can get there and back in a day and save spending money on a hotel room.
I have to go to Oxford sometimes. At peak hours, train is £40 vs £7.50 for coach. It takes 30 minutes longer, so that’s an hour lost for the day. So, theoretically £32.50 net lost. But in reality, there’s no way I’m doing any work in the 30 minutes before I leave. Maybe I don’t set the alarm so early, or can have breakfast instead of picking up something at Greggs.
Same as how I might consider Megabus to Manchester. Do I care that it takes an hour longer? Either way, I need a hotel room in Manchester, so whether I arrive at 21:30 or 22:30 is irrelevant. What am I going to be doing in a hotel room? Probably same stuff I’ll do on a coach, reading funny stuff on the internet. And Megabus can do it for £22 instead of £102.
Railway Lions!
HS2 is an EU Mandate, continuance shows TPTB are still wedded to reversing our BRINO
War on Truss is to install a return to EU Gov’t complete with £ replaced with Euro and BoE made redundant
Interesting article
Includes opinion on scrapping HS2
Telegraph readers know how to solve Truss’s economic troubles – does our expert agree?
John Longworth reacts to suggestions from readers on how the Chancellor can plug the £60bn black hole in the public purse
https://archive.ph/mD24A
telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/11/telegraph-readers-know-how-solve-trusss-economic-troubles/