Changes to travel patterns: rail industry responses.

[whole diary]

[Mark A]

Question 3 on Graham's list:

3. We have seen an increase in leisure travel and a fall in daily commuting.  How quickly can the railway adjust to meet the new challenges?

Started me thinking on how the railway *has* responded, whether there are examples of best practice to be found in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) (and what has been seen from the railways serving the south west).

Mark

[grahame]

Question 3 on Graham's list:

3. We have seen an increase in leisure travel and a fall in daily commuting.  How quickly can the railway adjust to meet the new challenges?

Started me thinking on how the railway *has* responded, whether there are examples of best practice to be found in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) (and what has been seen from the railways serving the south west).

Mark

We can certainly add a positive corollary looking for good examples and asking how they may be rolled out wider.   Thanks, Mark - utterly agreed with adding this carrot ;-)

[IndustryInsider]

Very little best practice IME^▸ (in my experience). 

There’s little incentive for the operators to do anything more than the bare essentials as it usually costs money and all the money they may take is then taken from them in return for their fixed operating fee.

That might not matter too much if there was a coherent quality/growth strategy from government/DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).  But there’s very little sign of that (with a few notable exceptions like reopening that were mostly already quite advanced in the planning and funding stages pre-Covid). 

They are thinking the opposite and are working on very short term cost saving strategies, be that a reduction of carriages, staff or services (or a combination of all three).

[TaplowGreen]

Very little best practice IME^▸ (in my experience). 

There’s little incentive for the operators to do anything more than the bare essentials as it usually costs money and all the money they may take is then taken from them in return for their fixed operating fee.

That might not matter too much if there was a coherent quality/growth strategy from government/DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).  But there’s very little sign of that (with a few notable exceptions like reopening that were mostly already quite advanced in the planning and funding stages pre-Covid). 

They are thinking the opposite and are working on very short term cost saving strategies, be that a reduction of carriages, staff or services (or a combination of all three).

Is it short term though?

Business travel, which was the "bunce" is in decline and will inevitably continue in that trajectory. The genie is out of the bottle.

Revenue is 28% down on the pre Covid period but costs rise inexorably.

This could be the shape of things to come. I'd like to see more leisure services, more ability to cope with major sporting events etc, and a more agile, modern and customer focused industry generally but, to quote another regular correspondent......"oooooooooos gonna pay for it?".......the answer is "the taxpayer" and I'm afraid that ship may already have sailed in another direction under this Government,  and quite possibly its successor?

[IndustryInsider]

Let’s look at Cornwall.  I would describe reducing your operators available rolling stock in an area which is very tourism biased and is already well above pre-Covid levels on weekends as very short term thinking.

On your other points, yes I largely agree.

[TaplowGreen]

Let’s look at Cornwall.  I would describe reducing your operators available rolling stock in an area which is very tourism biased and is already well above pre-Covid levels on weekends as very short term thinking.

On your other points, yes I largely agree.

Very good point re: Cornwall and equally failing to ensure that there are sufficient crew available to run the full, advertised services to Looe, Newquay and other branches on Summer Saturdays is extremely poor too in the same context.