Are transport costs going off the rails?

There is no reason for people who can travel perfectly well or more economically without using the railway to even contemplate such a journey, and their abstinence reduces overcrowding. But for many people there is no choice but to take the train and, financially, as well as literally, they are being taken for a ride.

Lou advocates returning the railways to public ownership. To all intents and purposes [except the siphoning of profits] they are under state control and a very expensive shambles the state has made of it. The costs of franchising, regulation and governmental control are enormous. The actual profits taken by the operating companies are not impressive and offer little incentive for future investment. The train companies do not even own the rolling stock which is leased from big financial corporations subject to a vast amount of civil service interference in terms of specification, production, and supply with a roller-coaster profiled order book which leaves UK manufacturers constantly guessing or out of business entirely. More state control is possibly not the answer.

Although there might be capacity during peak hours on individual lines, once those lines all converge in central London, the stations often can’t cope. Trains often queue up to enter central London stations and arrive late, despite there being a carefully planned timetable.

What we need is a change in mentality from employers, allowing more flexible start and end times as well as more working from home using technology that allows it. It is socially irresponsible of employers to mandate physical presence by employees who could work remotely.
It always amazes me if I get a slightly later train which arrives after 9am; there are lots of empty seats unlike the previous train which is always overcrowded. If employers concentrated less on presenteeism and abolished the tradition that one must be at work in an office job by 9am, public transport would be a lot less crowded and more comfortable.

I agree that we should get away from fixed working hours where possible, which reduces demand on public transport and roads at peak times, saves time and decreases stress. Before I retired as a lecturer I would work at home until mid-morning, with little interruption other than nuisance calls, unless I was teaching or had a meeting. If something cropped up and I was needed, I could be at work within ten minutes. I found that I could achieve a lot more when working at home. Other colleagues came in early and left early to avoid peak times for travel on roads and public transport.

Some people certainly need to be at work during fixed hours but introducing more flexibility for others could make our public transport and roads more bearable for everyone.

Flexible working hours is good , if you can wangle it. I managed to 8am to 4pm, and so missed the traffic at both times. Although at those times, all the trains stopped at every station, making those journeys even longer. And I’d certainly get more work done from 7:30 to 9:00 , than any other time of the day

As to letting people work at home ( which is basically unsupervised ). This works both ways, I would hate it as I’d feel I’d need to do even more work and when they had overnight shifts, with people in the office over night ( again unsupervised) the one day a manager did go in one of the chaps was curdled up in his sleeping bag. So its not always wise to let the staff work unsupervised, unless you can trust ALL of them, cos only letting a few do it, causes even more problems. I’d much rather let a member of staff go home a few hours early and make it up 15 mins a day, cos I could apply that to everyone and not cause friction.

I am keen on more people having flexible working hours, but I take the point made by William about not everyone being trustworthy. It is about time that we pay people for what they achieve rather than for attendance. For some jobs it is easy to devise performance indicators and reward those who are efficient with shorter working hours or a higher salary.

There is also a good case for encouraging people to live nearer work, since rising fares, fuel price and congestion don’t seem to be enough to drive this change. In the days before we had road and rail, and had no phones, Internet, videoconferencing, etc.,we all managed to live near our place of work.

I agree with the withdrawal of the concessionary bus travel concession for over 60’s. I am sure the costs of administering it [taking the transport ministry, local authority, and bus operators into account] is disproportionate to its value. So far as I can see from where we live, it is virtually useless because the bus services just do not go where people need to go at the times when the pass is valid. The closure of bus services between market towns in rural areas has been going on for years because the services are grossly uneconomic and have to be heavily subsidised. The internet and the use of private transport will ensure that this trend is never reversed and indeed accelerates. I accept that abolishing the concessionary scheme will make those rural bus services – and many suburban ones as well – that do survive even more vulnerable. I think there are better ways of helping older citizens with the support they really need.

I don’t have children so do not get any education subsidised by the state but I still have to pay taxes so education is funded. All I receive from my local council is refuse collections and more and more potholes. Leave the state pensioners bus passes alone.

MalcolmR, everybody, including you, seems to forget that bus passes and winter fuel allowances were given to the elderly by the Labour Government as a sop to not paying a decent pension. To remove the benefits now would be a huge betrayal. The Government is not going to do this whilst they are a hens kick away from a Referendum followed by a General Election. The older citizens are the ones who vote in great numbers and the politicians are very aware of this. The younger ones will only vote if they have an ‘App’ on their iPhone or iPad to do so.

Have you looked at splitting your ticket, to maybe save even more ?

It basically means buying 2+ tickets instead of one, So if you’re travelling from A to C via B at a cost of £x, it will look at the cost of tickets from A to B and B to C to see if you end up using the same train/seat but paying less. see here for more detailed info

http://splitticket.moneysavingexpert.com/

Had a look at ticket splitting but sites usually say: 1) Advance tickets cheaper, 2) Journey too long to split or 3) The split means a change of train operator with journeytimes going from 3 hrs to >4hrs !
So this technique seems of limited value for long distance services.

Did you try the link I posted? I don’t think Martin Lewis would have put it in the public domain if it couldn’t help. And he would have had 1000s of his MSE followers test it too. I don’t think many other sites would have had that level of testing.

But if it’s no help, then sorry for the wild goose chance.

There is no doubt that for some journeys it is hard to obtain the optimum ticket-splitting result. Very complex software and considerable computing capacity are required to calculate and compare all the sectional options and validate them against the prevailing ticket restrictions having regard to the time and date of travel. Continuous maintenance of the database is also a heavy ongoing commitment. Great Britain’s fares and ticketing structure is so complex, having been tinkered with over generations and now in the hands of multiple train operators, that unless there is a big, profitable, and preferably unchallenged, market for a ticket-splitting service the process will remain unsatisfactory and the train operators are not going to do anything to encourage such investment. The system is crying out for rationalisation to make it logical, equitable, consistent and comprehensible to the average traveller but I shan’t be sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation.

William – your comments on split ticketing were valid and welcome and in many circumstances large savings can be made. No need to apologise !!

Two of my family had to take the train to Tiverton in Devon from oxford last weekend. £39 single for 146 miles. I didn’t think that was bad (driving would have cost at least twice that). If you travel off peak it make sense. Cheapest weekday seems £29.40, highest around £51.