We discuss our aspirations on the forum. The recent
GW▸ Franchise consultation has been an excellent hook onto which to hang those discussions. But how representatve are we (on the forum) of the general travelling public? Do we have a good crossview, or a thin sampling that has self-selected to the point that it's unrepresentative? I am very conscious of the rail meetings I attend that are 90% old white males, when many of the trains I travel on have passengers of all colours and creeds, a majority of female over male and a majority of young over old.
Transport Focus's surveys provide an altenative and independent data gathering route to ours, and it is very useful indeed to look at their results. They distilled data from their nationwide work into a few slides for presentation and discussion at the
DfT» 's round of consultation meetings, and have now released copies to all who attended ... as that was "public" I believe that makes them published for anyone to read. Some of the diagrams will appear as postage stamps in the top right of these pages for a time, and (below) I'm copying those full size (if one appears at top you can click on it to see it bigger too)
A further word of caution - even the Transport Focus view is self-selecting in that its sampling method does not take into account the views of people who would love to travel by train, but don't / can't for various reasons - it looks at the current custom base and not at the potential customer base.
What it's about - passengers (shows arrival of incoming train to form 17:36 to Westbury at Swindon in January):
And the Department for Transport's schedule for the GW Franchise - planning for what will be provided and by whom for the next decade:
Transport Focus presentation mirrored at
http://gwr.passenger.chat/180109_tf.pdfDepartment for Transport presentation mirrored at
http://gwr.passenger.chat/180109_dft.pdf
Click on the map to explore geographics
