I find that on these threads about service reductions, there are two camps. First are those who believe service reductions will result in fewer people using the railway, resulting in less income for the railway, meaning service reductions fail to save much or any money but result in a worse rail service.
Second are those who argue that service reductions will result in little long reductions to passenger numbers and so will save the Treasury considerable amounts of money, thus putting the railway in good position to recover passengers lost through the pandemic.
Personally I very much have the former view that if service reductions are being done to save money they are self defeating as I think less frequent and / or overcrowded trains will just end up driving passengers off the railway, particularly if they are leisure passengers. The exception to this is at peak times where demand has little chance of recovering to 2019 levels. That said, if resourcing issues means that it is not possible to run the previous timetable, then a reduced timetable is better than having loads of ad hoc cancellations as least passengers can plan round a reduced timetable, but they can’t plan round ad hoc cancellations.
That’s a reasonable assessment.
The issue is that peak time commuters in the south east, and long distance travel (especially business travel), is what paid for the railway.
The former is barely half what it was, even at the peak of recovery last autumn. Long distance travel is ‘back’ (or will be in a few weeks), but with reduced business travel there is reduced yield and thus income, even for a similar level of passengers.
I’d be surprised if there is much in the way of longer term service reductions in the Intercity market, as it is largely revenue generative, with the possible exception of Cross Country.
I’d be surprised if there
weren’t longer term service reductions in the London commuter market; as you say that market has fundamentally changed.
The interesting part is the rest. None of them make money - which means that the revenue lost from removing services is more than offset by the cost saving, even if none of the passengers on the removed services transfer to other services. However given where these services are located, and other Government commitments, the politics is “interesting”. But the there’s not enough money. So a politician is going to have to take a “courageous” decision: reduce services that will incur the wrath of a large number of regional interests, or go and ask the Treasury for more cash. Those who have dealt with Treasury will know how that invariably ends.