Could the railways be renationalised under Labour and what should happen in the meantime?

[simonmpoulton]

Regardless of what they do with regards to nationalisation or a different model, the simple fact is the system as it stands is too complicated - split tickets being cheaper than single tickets as an example and also is too expensive to use. Now whether that is a result of the private franchisees shareholders wanting to take huge profits out or a general lack of efficiency in the system as a whole - i'd argue that probably a bit of both. But also i'm not convinced giving the job of running things to civil servants will make much of a difference to either - public bodies do have a tendency to waste money and not care about being efficient with the resources they have!

A good look should be given to the way the Dutch railway system is run - having travelled on it quite extensively a couple of years ago I thought how easy to use and inexpensive it was! Even if we look over the pond at the transport system of Los Angeles - they run a system where there is a maximum charge you can pay per day/week - after you paid this all further travel is free!

It shouldn't cost more to take the train than the cost of driving but unfortunately as it stands even with the high cost of Petrol it still is usually more cost effective to drive to most destinations!

 

[PeterC]

It shouldn't cost more to take the train than the cost of driving but unfortunately as it stands even with the high cost of Petrol it still is usually more cost effective to drive to most destinations!

Even more so if you need another travel mode to reach the station.

A cab to the station costs me the same as driving 48 miles. More if I can stop at a cheap supermarket.

 

[Meerkat]

It shouldn't cost more to take the train than the cost of driving but unfortunately as it stands even with the high cost of Petrol it still is usually more cost effective to drive to most destinations!

Rail is expensive to provide. If anywhere supplies it cheap it’s because taxpayers are subsidising it, and then you get into the debate on what the taxpayer should subsidise- ie should taxpayers have to subsidise me travelling to a football match the other side of the country? And then it gets complicated on the social benefits of avoided pollution/congestion.

 

[yorksrob]

Rail is expensive to provide. If anywhere supplies it cheap it’s because taxpayers are subsidising it, and then you get into the debate on what the taxpayer should subsidise- ie should taxpayers have to subsidise me travelling to a football match the other side of the country? And then it gets complicated on the social benefits of avoided pollution/congestion.

Taxpayers will also be subsidising someone to visit Great Aunt Doris on the other side of the country when she's ill, so rail subsidy is worthwhile.

Additionally, why should only people who can afford to run a car be able to travel for leisure ? Not subsidising rail travel would result in major economic and social inequality.

 

[JonathanH]

Additionally, why should only people who can afford to run a car be able to travel for leisure ? Not subsidising rail travel would result in major economic and social inequality.

Who has ever suggested that only people with a car can afford to travel for leisure? The frequency of travel is what is constrained by higher prices, not the absolute ability.

It is already generally cheaper to travel locally than over a longer distance in absolute terms. Everyone would agree that makes sense. It seems reasonable to suggest that people have a choice of travelling to a nearby town every week, or over a longer distance once every few months.

 

[yorksrob]

Who has ever suggested that only people with a car can afford to travel for leisure? The frequency of travel is what is constrained by higher prices, not the absolute ability.

It is already generally cheaper to travel locally than over a longer distance in absolute terms. Everyone would agree that makes sense. It seems reasonable to suggest that people have a choice of travelling to a nearby town every week, or over a longer distance once every few months.

It is already cheaper to travel a shorter distance, so there's no justification in exacerbating inequalities.

 

[Meerkat]

Taxpayers will also be subsidising someone to visit Great Aunt Doris on the other side of the country when she's ill, so rail subsidy is worthwhile.

Additionally, why should only people who can afford to run a car be able to travel for leisure ? Not subsidising rail travel would result in major economic and social inequality.

Why is visiting relatives something worthy of taxpayer funding? There are always coaches and buses.
unless you are planning on a total redistribution of wealth some people will always be able to have/do nicer things and long distance leisure travel is not essential. Connecting lower paid people to work opportunities, and reducing pollution/congestion, are good reasons for subsidies (Though hard to quantify).

 

[yorksrob]

Why is visiting relatives something worthy of taxpayer funding? There are always coaches and buses.
unless you are planning on a total redistribution of wealth some people will always be able to have/do nicer things and long distance leisure travel is not essential. Connecting lower paid people to work opportunities, and reducing pollution/congestion, are good reasons for subsidies (Though hard to quantify).

Yes, get the working classes t't mill and mines, that's all they're good for.

 

[m0ffy]

Why is visiting relatives something worthy of taxpayer funding? There are always coaches and buses.

Which run on taxpayer-funded infrastructure. It doesn’t matter how you cut it, roads are paid for by general taxation, not a ringfenced pot, solely funded by road use.

 

[43066]

Connecting lower paid people to work opportunities, and reducing pollution/congestion, are good reasons for subsidies (Though hard to quantify).

Connecting higher paid people to work and leisure opportunities, as the railway does, might be a better use of subsidy if it results in greater positive externalities.

 

[Technologist]

Which run on taxpayer-funded infrastructure. It doesn’t matter how you cut it, roads are paid for by general taxation, not a ringfenced pot, solely funded by road use.

That's a technicality, in practice motoring is subjected to a whole load of additional taxes which other forms of transport or general activities are not. Thus in practice the cost of motoring is more than representative of the cost to deliver the service.

The only reason why road tax (now VED) and fuel duty isn't hypothecated to operating the road network is that you'd have to adjust the costs regularly to match to outgoings and the exchequer realised that they could raise a lot more in revenue than operating the roads costs.

 

[mwmbwls]

Conservatives set for worst election result yet, research shows

Survey of 15,000 people suggests even party leader Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire seat is at risk

www.theguardian.com

The answer to the exam question posed in the thread title could be a resounding "Yes" if Labour win as large a majority as predicted. However they are cautious about tipping their hand at this stage so as not to fuel the right wing media media or destabilise the exchange rate - this is known colloquially as "not dropping the Ming Vase". The previous Labour administration only discovered "Electrification" in its final days. Tony Blair did not get trains and neither did Gordon Brown, despite Scottish electrification schemes being conspicuously successful both before and after devolution.They had bigger and nastier dragons to slay. The fundamental problem is that with a four year electoral cycle a government can authorise a scheme and the benefits accrue to their successor - IIRC the only electrified rail that opened under the Labour Government was the Crewe to Stoke link - a requirement driven by railway engineering requirements.
P.S. I have not forgiven or forgotten the penultimate Labour Government whose Transport Minister. Barbara Castle, authorised the closure of the Midland Main Line from Chinley to Matlock in 1967, despite it not being in 1963 Beeching Plan. I do not bear grudges - I polish mine everyday.

 

[yorksrob]

If I were an incoming Labour government, I'd concentrate on getting the railway more affordable and easier to use for the public (note that I don't use the phrase of making fares "simpler". That phrase has been so misused as to make it meaningless).

Ownership is a bit of a niche interest to most of the voting public. It might be worth reforming in the longer term, but with the four year election cycle, any incoming government will need something that benefits passengers/potential passengers in their pocket, quickly.

 

[A0wen]

Conservatives set for worst election result yet, research shows

Survey of 15,000 people suggests even party leader Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire seat is at risk

www.theguardian.com

The answer to the exam question posed in the thread title could be a resounding "Yes" if Labour win as large a majority as predicted. However they are cautious about tipping their hand at this stage so as not to fuel the right wing media media or destabilise the exchange rate - this is know colloquially as "not dropping the Ming Vase". The previous Labour administration only discovered "Electrification" in its final days. Tony Blair did not get trains and neither did Gordon Brown, despite Scottish electrification schemes being conspicuously successful both before and after devolution.They had bigger and nastier dragons to slay. The fundamental problem is that with a four year electoral cycle a government can authorise a scheme and the benefits accrue to their successor - IIRC the only electrified rail that opened under the Labour Government was the Crewe to Stoke link - a requirement driven by railway engineering requirements.
P.S. I have not forgiven or forgotten the penultimate Labour Government whose Transport Minister. Barbara Castle, authorised the closure of the Midland Main Line from Chinley to Matlock in 1967, despite it not being in 1963 Beeching Plan. I do not bear grudges - I polish mine everyday.

The problem with your argument is you overlook *why* Labour nationalised the railways in 1948 - and it had the square root of sod all to do with "social provision" or other such mumbo jumbo.

One element was Labour's desire, under Clause 4, for common ownership - whatever that may mean. The subsequent 70 years have shown that isn't a panacea and Labour have moved away from that.

The other was that to reimburse the private rail companies for the use and replacement of assets which had been exhausted under the war effort would have cost far more than buying out the shareholders at face value.

That's not the case here, the rail network is effectively run as a management contract. What is unclear is how, or why, a government run management contract is going to offer a better service and better value to the taxpayer than the current set up after all both Northern and TPE get some if the most vociferous criticism on these boards, yet are government run.

 

[A0wen]

If I were an incoming Labour government, I'd concentrate on getting the railway more affordable and easier to use for the public (note that I don't use the phrase of making fares "simpler". That phrase has been so misused as to make it meaningless).

Ownership is a bit of a niche interest to most of the voting public. It might be worth reforming in the longer term, but with the four year election cycle, any incoming government will need something that benefits passengers/potential passengers in their pocket, quickly.

Well, how would you suggest doing that since staff costs are almost certainly the biggest single bill the rail network has?

Not only that, Network Rail is paying 20% *above* the market rate in many areas

Network Rail maintenance staff ‘paid nearly a fifth more than market rates’

Rail regulator the Office of Rail and Road commissioned a study of rail industry employment costs.

www.independent.co.uk

 

[yorksrob]

Well, how would you suggest doing that since staff costs are almost certainly the biggest single bill the rail network has?

Not only that, Network Rail is paying 20% *above* the market rate in many areas

Network Rail maintenance staff ‘paid nearly a fifth more than market rates’

Rail regulator the Office of Rail and Road commissioned a study of rail industry employment costs.

www.independent.co.uk

I mean more affordable for the travelling public specifically, rather than the state.

In terms of maintenance staff, what are these market rates benchmarked against ? The railway is a very specialist environment, so it's not clear to me that general maintenance work is equivalent to railway maintenance.

If we're scrabbling around for money, those private profits and shareholder payments perhaps need to be looked at first.

 

[43066]

That's a technicality, in practice motoring is subjected to a whole load of additional taxes which other forms of transport or general activities are not. Thus in practice the cost of motoring is more than representative of the cost to deliver the service.

Which cost are we talking about? What’s often forgotten is that motoring also generates a lot of negative externalities that other forms of transport do not, eg cost of policing the roads, cost of injuries from car accidents etc.

The reality is that there’s clearly a need for both road and rail, and we can (or should be!) well able to afford both. Judging by the shocking state of the roads in this country they’re being run down as much as the railways at the moment.

Well, how would you suggest doing that since staff costs are almost certainly the biggest single bill the rail network has?

Not only that, Network Rail is paying 20% *above* the market rate in many areas

How exactly was that benchmarked I wonder, given the highly niche nature of many of the roles? You’re as usual digging out staff for earning modest wages, while ignoring rolling stock leasing costs etc. We have all seen the results of your favoured approach to the railway over the last couple of years: penny pinching and paralysis leading to unreliability and preventing revenue growth, and an ideologically driven industrial dispute that has cost the taxpayer more the settling it would have.

Hopefully the next government will adopt a more grown up approach.

 

[Technologist]

Which cost are we talking about? What’s often forgotten is that motoring also generates a lot of negative externalities that other forms of transport do not, eg cost of policing the roads, cost of injuries from car accidents etc.

The reality is that there’s clearly a need for both road and rail, and we can (or should be!) well able to afford both. Judging by the shocking state of the roads in this country they’re being run down as much as the railways at the moment.

But if we want to price in the negative externalities we have to price in the positive externalities as well, given that roads do 85% of passenger miles the positive externalities pretty much always dwarf the negative which is why building roads is relatively easy to justify from an economic perspective. This is with the obvious caveats that we can't capture everything in any calculation.

I think a number of posters have covered the point that from a management perspective its not apparent that a civil servant would out perform a TOC manager. There is also a good argument that there probably isn't massive improvements in cost or service to be pulled out of the existing mostly at capacity infrastructure. There isn't legions of people doing something useless or easy to automate.

This therefore suggests that the only methods for increasing the usefulness of the railway and improving the per passenger cost is to use it more intensely. This is because a large proportion of the costs are actually fixed and thus don't change much as you increase the service or are costs that decline on a per passenger mile basis. At this stage given that much of the system is at capacity this means large infrastructure improvements and new lines are needed. This is something we've not been good at which means that the treasury is suspicious and there is relatively little political capital thrown behind developing long term visions when the public rightly asks if these will ever happen and even if they do it's likely that the success will be enjoyed by the current opposition.

The other issue with long term bold visions is that the environment around transport and rail is changing faster than rail itself. Thus a long term plan to link every major population center to high speed rail and build a suburban rail network for all the big conurbations plus develop the denser suburbs that would support said network may be completely overtaken by events in the 40 years or more it takes to pull off.

The largest issue is likely to be autonomous cars, the fact that robotaxis are running in the wild indicates that this will get solved and even if it takes 5-10 years it's still well within any payback period for a rail scheme in progress never mind planning. To put this into context if we doubled capacity on the rail its likely to take, decades and cost an amount most easily expressed in trillions. To achieve the same increase in passenger miles we could increase the average occupancy of cars from 1.6 to 1.75.

We already have an "in" for autonomy in the form of taxi services which means that autonomous cars could scale very quickly even if early models are capitally expensive. The reduction in cost versus the human driven taxi is likely to result in a large number of people rapidly giving up having their own car plus far more journeys being made. The net impact on traffic will then result in traffic chaos and road pricing being imposed to mitigate this (which is relatively easy to administer in a licenced autonomous taxi app). The providers will therefore implement relatively frictionless ride sharing in their apps to mitigate the road pricing. It's likely that road pricing won't need to be implemented on self owned vehicles as shared autonomous vehicles will have a much lower cost of use and will rapidly supplant them, plus once a large amount of people are used to using the autonomous cars it takes the political sting out of congestion pricing anyway.

Once you have swapped the manually driven cars for self driving ones you then start looking at what the infrastructure looks like for them at which point it all goes a little crazy. Most car parks disappear and get replaced by autonomous car "stations" plus lots of development. The autonomous cars can drive themselves down narrow tunnels with tight turning radii and steep climbs. The cars themselves will likely change in form factor as they no longer need to be all purpose vehicles, a lot of them might be single or two seaters, in fact what if those 1/2 seaters ride two abreast and form themselves into "larger vehicles" by platooning. At this point I would expect significant disruption to any rail plans.

Now you can naysay around autonomous cars, but it's the weakest strategy on the planet to hope that the other guy fails.

 

[eldomtom2]

Now you can naysay around autonomous cars, but it's the weakest strategy on the planet to hope that the other guy fails.

Equally, only a fool would act on the presumption that every in-development technology will come to fruition. This all smells a bit bionic duckweed...

 

[yorksrob]

This therefore suggests that the only methods for increasing the usefulness of the railway and improving the per passenger cost is to use it more intensely. This is because a large proportion of the costs are actually fixed and thus don't change much as you increase the service or are costs that decline on a per passenger mile basis. At this stage given that much of the system is at capacity this means large infrastructure improvements and new lines are needed. This is something we've not been good at which means that the treasury is suspicious and there is relatively little political capital thrown behind developing long term visions when the public rightly asks if these will ever happen and even if they do it's likely that the success will be enjoyed by the current opposition.

There's quite a lot that can be done to increase intensity of use on the existing network before we get to the grandes projects.

Many of our main lines run trains that are historically shorter than in the past, and we still have a pricing structure that's uncompetitive compared to some countries.

Incremental capacity improvements such as lengthening trains and platforms wouldn't be free by a long chalk, but could go some way to increasing usage.

 

[may032]

But if we want to price in the negative externalities we have to price in the positive externalities as well, given that roads do 85% of passenger miles the positive externalities pretty much always dwarf the negative which is why building roads is relatively easy to justify from an economic perspective. This is with the obvious caveats that we can't capture everything in any calculation.

I think a number of posters have covered the point that from a management perspective its not apparent that a civil servant would out perform a TOC manager. There is also a good argument that there probably isn't massive improvements in cost or service to be pulled out of the existing mostly at capacity infrastructure. There isn't legions of people doing something useless or easy to automate.

This therefore suggests that the only methods for increasing the usefulness of the railway and improving the per passenger cost is to use it more intensely. This is because a large proportion of the costs are actually fixed and thus don't change much as you increase the service or are costs that decline on a per passenger mile basis. At this stage given that much of the system is at capacity this means large infrastructure improvements and new lines are needed. This is something we've not been good at which means that the treasury is suspicious and there is relatively little political capital thrown behind developing long term visions when the public rightly asks if these will ever happen and even if they do it's likely that the success will be enjoyed by the current opposition.

The other issue with long term bold visions is that the environment around transport and rail is changing faster than rail itself. Thus a long term plan to link every major population center to high speed rail and build a suburban rail network for all the big conurbations plus develop the denser suburbs that would support said network may be completely overtaken by events in the 40 years or more it takes to pull off.

The largest issue is likely to be autonomous cars, the fact that robotaxis are running in the wild indicates that this will get solved and even if it takes 5-10 years it's still well within any payback period for a rail scheme in progress never mind planning. To put this into context if we doubled capacity on the rail its likely to take, decades and cost an amount most easily expressed in trillions. To achieve the same increase in passenger miles we could increase the average occupancy of cars from 1.6 to 1.75.

We already have an "in" for autonomy in the form of taxi services which means that autonomous cars could scale very quickly even if early models are capitally expensive. The reduction in cost versus the human driven taxi is likely to result in a large number of people rapidly giving up having their own car plus far more journeys being made. The net impact on traffic will then result in traffic chaos and road pricing being imposed to mitigate this (which is relatively easy to administer in a licenced autonomous taxi app). The providers will therefore implement relatively frictionless ride sharing in their apps to mitigate the road pricing. It's likely that road pricing won't need to be implemented on self owned vehicles as shared autonomous vehicles will have a much lower cost of use and will rapidly supplant them, plus once a large amount of people are used to using the autonomous cars it takes the political sting out of congestion pricing anyway.

Once you have swapped the manually driven cars for self driving ones you then start looking at what the infrastructure looks like for them at which point it all goes a little crazy. Most car parks disappear and get replaced by autonomous car "stations" plus lots of development. The autonomous cars can drive themselves down narrow tunnels with tight turning radii and steep climbs. The cars themselves will likely change in form factor as they no longer need to be all purpose vehicles, a lot of them might be single or two seaters, in fact what if those 1/2 seaters ride two abreast and form themselves into "larger vehicles" by platooning. At this point I would expect significant disruption to any rail plans.

Now you can naysay around autonomous cars, but it's the weakest strategy on the planet to hope that the other guy fails.

While self-driving taxis will be very disruptive, especially to car ownership, traditional taxis, and local bus networks, I don’t see how congestion is dramatically reduced and long-distance travel times are reduced to compete with urban and inter-city rail services.

 

[Technologist]

While self-driving taxis will be very disruptive, especially to car ownership, traditional taxis, and local bus networks, I don’t see how congestion is dramatically reduced and long-distance travel times are reduced to compete with urban and inter-city rail services.

In the short term if all the cars on a motorway are doing a constant speed and have more people in them on average you have just massively upgraded the trunk road network. The more longer term question is if all the cars are autonomous what should the speed limit be, UK motorways have a design speed of about 130mph but that is based on 60's cars.

The interesting point about road pricing in a shared mobility environment is that in most cases road capacity flexes to accommodate demand. If lots of people want to go on a road a vehicle path price goes up until people either choose not to travel or more likely the system amalgamates them into a larger shared vehicle. Given that the average vehicle has 1.6 people in it if those trips were amalgamated into a mostly full minibus with 12 seats were just upgraded the capacity of that road by an incredible amount.

This undermines the case for most modes of public transport, for rail it leaves you with high speed, high capacity and freight only only. On the freight side a bunch of autonomous lorries could also turn themselves into virtual trains again massively increasing capacity. I would not rule out there being a surge of road building following autonomous vehicle adoption

Equally, only a fool would act on the presumption that every in-development technology will come to fruition. This all smells a bit bionic duckweed...

The question would be:

1: Are autonomous cars feasible, the answer is yes they already exist they don't work everywhere, they require either human intervention or very unscalable features like continuous mapping and telepresent operators. However autonomous cars profit off Moores "law" processing power nearly doubling every two years. Even by pure computational brute force all the issues will be solved. It won't be plain sailing but the example of the internet is that all the hairbrained schemes from the late 90's that bankrupted investors either work today or are obsolete.
2: Is there any reason for people working on them to give up, no, the reasons why some technologies don't happen tend to be limited to something better happening instead, I don't see the better option coming to make autonomous cars irrelevant. Some people have suggest bikes and micro mobility, I think the affect of these will just be that you don't need a road coming right to your front door.
3: Is there are route from today to this future, yes, feasible technologies often don't happen because they require lots of people to agree and work together (nuclear power) with lots of vetos, this doesn't appear to be an issue autonomous cars which are backwards compatible. To make them really work we need to get rid of all the manually driven ones. However a lot of reasons why old technology persists don't apply here, there isn't an upgrade cost to shared autonomous the old and poor benefit the most.

My take away would be that they will happen, the change will be massive but I have no idea at what rate they will be adopted.

 

[eldomtom2]

Even by pure computational brute force all the issues will be solved.

My experience has been that computational brute force is actually quite good at not being able to solve things.

2: Is there any reason for people working on them to give up, no, the reasons why some technologies don't happen tend to be limited to something better happening instead, I don't see the better option coming to make autonomous cars irrelevant. Some people have suggest bikes and micro mobility, I think the affect of these will just be that you don't need a road coming right to your front door.

See if you phrase it as "giving up" it sounds silly. If you phrase it as "they find other things that they'd have more success/be paid more working on", it doesn't.

To make them really work we need to get rid of all the manually driven ones.

Good luck with that.