Have trains saturated the market?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Browsing around a few sites and non-transport related forums, I came across this current poll:



First Great Western is the dominant passenger train player in the town concerned, and it's interesting to note that the poll does back up Alison Forster's assertion that there are plenty more passengers out there who would travel by train if ...

[vacman]

only 20 voters though.

[BRADNOCK]

It is just a thought that if the trains were made more affordable then more people would want to use them and the infrastructure would not be able to cope anyway, Perhaps it may pays the powers that be to set the prices at the present levels. There is not enough spare capacity now. If you are a family of four and you wish to go on a moderate journey I would of thought it is still cheaper to go by car even taking into account the price increase of fuel into account.

[grahame]

only 20 voters though.

Agreed - I would love to have seen something like that from a far busier forum where there were an order of magnitude more people taking part.   But I don't want to start one here as I would very clearly not have a good cross section as my audience.

More than half the respondents checked "too unreliable" and more than half checke "too expensive", I note. And I wish there had been a "service too infrequent or not at suitable time" box, and a "public transport not available to where I want to go"

[grahame]

It is just a thought that if the trains were made more affordable then more people would want to use them and the infrastructure would not be able to cope anyway, Perhaps it may pays the powers that be to set the prices at the present levels. There is not enough spare capacity now. If you are a family of four and you wish to go on a moderate journey I would of thought it is still cheaper to go by car even taking into account the price increase of fuel into account.

There are certainly times / areas where pricing policy is set up so as to discourage travel at those times, and places there are infrastructure shortages.   I'm not sure if you count the train themselves as "infrastructure"?   There are many lines where the trains that are running are far shorter that the maximum length the line allows, and many lines where more trains could be run. But moving people out of their cars does reduce the tax take on fuel 

With "family of four" ... have you come across the "Groupsave" ticket where 4 travel for the price of two?    I'm also temped to suggest a "buddy up and save" scheme for the cost-sensitive