I will follow up with personal comments ... after I have had a coffee!
Melksham is not Orpington. Topsham is not Brixton. Bristol is not London. So what can we learn from the London TravelWatch "Emerging from Lockdown" seminar I have documented at
http://www.passenger.chat/23410 ? Quite a lot, as it turns out. The Mayor's office, Transport for London, the Rail Delivery Group and various experts and special interest representatives have looked at their city and their issues - but their issues and their city has similar issues - but on a very different scale - to we have in the South West of England in our much smaller cities, market towns, villages and countryside. Some of the issues in London are far larger than we will face, but there are some issues that will rear their heads in Wiltshire and Devon that simple aren't issues in London.
What did I pick out from the seminar?
We do not want to return to an even more car dominated society. For sure, people feel they can isolate more easily in their own private vehicle, but a move to more private vehicles is a move to greater congestion, the need for more parking, less efficient use of limited resources, worse for the planet. It turns public transport into a "poor man's solution" which, alas, it already is painfully close to in parts of the South West, with an "us" and "them" of car owners. And there's a concern that provision for the poor is likely to be poor provision. Build up private vehicle numbers on the road, and you build up traffic jams to catch the buses in too ... reduce the passengers using the buses, and buses get less frequent so less people use them.
A need for accurate and consistent information. Correct information about what's running over the next couple of days, and correct real time updates as things change over coming weeks and months. And have that information consistently reported.
Consistent ticketing too. For London, there's an integrated system, but even there this was raised. Here, as things change and change about and services are not back up to frequent (even if they were once) the ability to use any reasonable route be it train, bus, whoever operates it, becomes all the more valuable - especially if the information systems are joined up and consistent.
The very great difficulty that social distancing will bring. Although our scale is less in the South West, we still have very busy (or potentially busy) trains and buses and the capacity simply may not be there. And will buses and trains be able to run in service from dawn to dusk and beyond with 5 minute turn arounds at the end of the journey, or will they need to stop for cleaning? Bit of an issue where a railway line is a single track branch to a stub track - half an hour to clean at Barnstaple may be a problem.
Connections become more important where a service is thin. Even in London, talk was of long waits. Here in Melksham, connecting (sorry to take a personal example) off the bus from my home into Bath ... I change in the Market Place - just 3 options per day where there were 40 direct buses a year ago - with waits of 47, 37 or 37 minutes. Granted I can walk the "last mile". Similar things with trains. Time them to connect. With a thinner timetable, have them wait if one is running late. All very well to be proud of a 97% ppm, Mr
RDG‡ ... but if that's achieved with long waits at changes and with only one in twenty of those pesky passengers travelling, is it really the best measure to be using to judge yourself?
Journey distances are likely to get shorter and
Journey times are likely to be staggered. So within reason - and especially with services at the 70% level or so that's likely soon, trains running all day every day, and with a slightly fuller calling pattern, make sense. I can come up with specifics later where for the sake of a few minutes, a usably frequent service is provided to many more people. Other jottings suggest that 15 minutes + 15% on a journey is not unreasonable to maintain decent and flexible service for everyone - sometimes it will be much MORE frequent than it was (up from every 2 hours to every hour, but a bit slower)
There is a fear of fare rises. For sure, short term is "get people back to work", but how is it paid for in the medium term? Not just ground transport - air too - I've see suggestions that fares could go up 50%. With trains ... "why have peak fares any more when there is no peak" is countered by the question "why have off peak fares any more when we already have any time fares"?
Social distancing and the last mile. Walk, cycle if you can. That final section with a connection onto or off another piece of transport adds a whole extra cycle of loading, social distancing and unloading issues. Headed via Paddington to Leicester Square? For goodness sake get off at Piccadilly Circus!
How long is a temporary measure? Bus passes (if you have busses!) all day - temporary measure. More London road space to walkers and cycles - temporary measure. Allowing eScooter - let's do it as a temporary measure? Yes BUT if people invest in a cycle, or an eScooter, or adjust their lives to making use of these measures, should they not be permanent? If so, it would sure help uptake. I can recall comment "I won't start using the train because it's a trial service" ...
These notes are not intended to be a complete review of next stage for the South West ... rather, lessons and thoughts brought on by the London TravelWatch presentation; certainly it has helped inform me and get me thinking and I hope it's done the same for a few readers too.
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