As some of you will know, I am currently conducting some research, and I think its time I asked the opinion of forum members in general:
If you could pick one improvement above all others that you would like to see - what would it be?
You dont have to restrict it to the timetable - anything related to the overall travelling experience will do. Also, I'd very much like to hear views from the staff side as well as the passenger side.
This is a very difficult question to answer.
Obviously one of the major concerns to most people is more and possibly longer trains on many routes within the West however
FGW▸ is so short of units that it's only by robbing Peter to pay Paul that someone gets an imporoved service whilst someone loses out, so it's bit like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Spare DMUS don't appear overnight.
Refurbs unfortunately whilst many may not like whats happened to particualr units we're more or less stuck with it, until the next refurb.
So I think fare simplification is possibly be the only area that can be tackle as it doesn't involve extra units, staff or infrastructure.
Personnaly I would like to see the London Zonal extended to at least all metropolitan areas so that all local public transport rail, bus, trams is covered by one ticket. Ideally the whole country should be divided up into fare zones as Germany and Holland.
The fare zones should include local rail fare as well. Long distance railfares would still be National, but with cheaper walk on and higher advanced fares.
This could mean that there may be an
IC▸ fare and a regional fare between two points. With a choice of a fast IC or stopping regional trains. As pr Germany where it was 35 Euros from Berlin to Dresdden on an IC/EC and 58 euro for 5! on the slower
RE▸ with a change.
If there were more ICs running further between stops with a following Regional stopping train then many of the problems of local pasengers doing short journies on an IC would be solved. Especialy as the fare would be higher.
However, the problem with running both IC and Regional trains following one another in say Cornwall is you'd probably need more units and more infrastructure (signal sections). So not a short term solution.
So possibly picking up something else from the thread better carriage cleaning inside and out.
Sorry Lee can't think of any easy low cost quick solutions.