Does the UK rail industry need to rethink its priorities for helping to tackle climate change?

[Purple Orange]

In many of our cities, the car dominates. Too many people opt to drive in to our city centres because our road infrastructure makes it easy and public transport provision is usually not very good. A railway line with 2 stopping trains per hour doesn’t provide the frequency needed to get people out of their cars. The same line may have several fast & semi-fast services bypassing local stations, yet often those fast & semi-fast services still fail to compete with the car and our motorway network.

Therefore my question is, should we have fewer, but longer, fast & semi-fast trains and more stopping trains, to assist with tackling the climate emergency?

Increasing frequency of the stopping services can attract more people (who live within 15 miles of a city) out of their cars and reducing congestion in our cities. Meanwhile capacity is key on the longer distance services, train length can be the overriding component.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

In many of our cities, the car dominates. Too many people opt to drive in to our city centres because our road infrastructure makes it easy and public transport provision is usually not very good. A railway line with 2 stopping trains per hour doesn’t provide the frequency needed to get people out of their cars. The same line may have several fast & semi-fast services bypassing local stations, yet often those fast & semi-fast services still fail to compete with the car and our motorway network.

Therefore my question is, should we have fewer, but longer, fast & semi-fast trains and more stopping trains, to assist with tackling the climate emergency?

Increasing frequency of the stopping services can attract more people (who live within 15 miles of a city) out of their cars and reducing congestion in our cities. Meanwhile capacity is key on the longer distance services, train length can be the overriding component.

Long distance market also needs to have decent frequencies in order to get people off airlines and hs2 does help with that.

But stopping wise we need a metro style service in cities

 

[JonathanH]

In all reality, the answer to the issue raised here should be electric buses with car use penalised or rationed but such a move isn't politically acceptable yet.

Buses are more flexible over short distance, yet still not flexible enough, and offer a cheaper alternative to building more capacity for stopping services over a short distance. The railway needs to be competitive for concentrated flows of large numbers of travellers and that is best over longer distances. There is no point forcing longer distance journeys onto cars to enable shorter distance ones to be made by railway unless there is a genuine expectation that it will make a difference.

 

[edwin_m]

In all reality, the answer to the issue raised here should be electric buses with car use penalised or rationed but such a move isn't politically acceptable yet.

Buses are more flexible over short distance, yet still not flexible enough, and offer a cheaper alternative to building more capacity for stopping services over a short distance. The railway needs to be competitive for concentrated flows of large numbers of travellers and that is best over longer distances. There is no point forcing longer distance journeys onto cars to enable shorter distance ones to be made by railway unless there is a genuine expectation that it will make a difference.

Agreed, with the addition of trams or even segregated metros where passenger numbers are high enough. Heavy rail generally isn't the best option for providing high frequency short distance services in built-up areas. There are some exceptions but these mostly have intensive rail service already (most of them are parts of the London commuter network).

 

[Purple Orange]

Long distance market also needs to have decent frequencies in order to get people off airlines and hs2 does help with that.

But stopping wise we need a metro style service in cities

Yes HS2 will definitely help, but unfortunately we’re not there yet.

Agreed, with the addition of trams or even segregated metros where passenger numbers are high enough. Heavy rail generally isn't the best option for providing high frequency short distance services in built-up areas. There are some exceptions but these mostly have intensive rail service already (most of them are parts of the London commuter network).

The Birmingham cross city line is such an example, but the point is that these would not be exceptions if priority was not given to long distance services. However it doesn’t need to mean increasing frequency of services on heavy rail to metro levels, just a higher frequency than there is today. For example, Manchester-Birmingham with 2 tph can’t compete with the M6, there is no immediate opportunity to increase capacity through longer Voyagers. Therefore why not stick with the 1 tph pattern with double voyagers and allow a path to be given to commuter services? Same with the London WCML services to Manchester & Birmingham - do they really need to be 3 tph?

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Yes HS2 will definitely help, but unfortunately we’re not there yet.


The Birmingham cross city line is such an example, but the point is that these would not be exceptions if priority was not given to long distance services. However it doesn’t need to mean increasing frequency of services on heavy rail to metro levels, just a higher frequency than there is today. For example, Manchester-Birmingham with 2 tph can’t compete with the M6, there is no immediate opportunity to increase capacity through longer Voyagers. Therefore why not stick with the 1 tph pattern with double voyagers and allow a path to be given to commuter services? Same with the London WCML services to Manchester & Birmingham - do they really need to be 3 tph?

Less frequent services discourages travellers. Frequency is important so stick with 2tph and 3tph respectively!

ps. Yes they do need 3tph long distance service have recovered more quickly post covid!

 

[Fyldeboy]

For long distance journeys, the first hurdle is that many passengers will start their journey in a car and, unless the transfer to rail is seamless, many will prefer to just stay in the car.

A ploy often used to keep city centres traffic free is exhorbitant parking fees - nooooo - we want to encourage people to park at the train station, ie make it low-cost and easy. As an alternative, parkways are just waiting for the green lobby to start promoting them.

 

[JonathanH]

For example, Manchester-Birmingham with 2 tph can’t compete with the M6, there is no immediate opportunity to increase capacity through longer Voyagers. Therefore why not stick with the 1 tph pattern with double voyagers and allow a path to be given to commuter services?

While retaining 1tph on Cross Country may have its virtues, it isn't clear to me that the use of the released track capacity to run more stopping trains actually does much to move people out of cars. The thing is that the local stations aren't necessarily going to generate more custom even at a higher frequency.

One if the issues is that the catchment areas for local stations are fairly small. How many people are going to walk 30 minutes to take a 10-15 minute train journey on a daily basis? Often the railway will run through part of a town or city without much development because industry built up in that area and the sprawl of that town or city is away from the railway.

We can discuss feeder bus services in this context but the reality is that matching them up isn't necessarily easier than just running the bus services to the major centre with suitable priority measures.

Even considering somewhere like Stockport with a very frequent service to Manchester, how wide is its catchment area, how many people still drive into Manchester when they live fifteen minutes away from the station, yet would walk to Stockport station if they were going to London.

A ploy often used to keep city centres traffic free is exhorbitant parking fees - nooooo - we want to encourage people to park at the train station, ie make it low-cost and easy. As an alternative, parkways are just waiting for the green lobby to start promoting them.

I'm not so sure. Encouraging people to drive to a station when they are within a suitable distance to walk or cycle is not great. It is difficult to rationalise the the balance.

If someone lives in Blackpool, do we want to make it easy for them to drive to and park at Preston or get them to take the train from Blackpool?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm not so sure. Encouraging people to drive to a station when they are within a suitable distance to walk or cycle is not great. It is difficult to rationalise the the balance.

It is better that people drive in suburbs than in city centres where cars cause most harm, though. P&R is a solid concept.

 

[JonathanH]

It is better that people drive in suburbs than in city centres where cars cause most harm, though. P&R is a solid concept.

Yes, I agree but at the same time all short car journeys need to be discouraged when someone could walk or cycle instead.

 

[edwin_m]

The Birmingham cross city line is such an example, but the point is that these would not be exceptions if priority was not given to long distance services. However it doesn’t need to mean increasing frequency of services on heavy rail to metro levels, just a higher frequency than there is today. For example, Manchester-Birmingham with 2 tph can’t compete with the M6, there is no immediate opportunity to increase capacity through longer Voyagers. Therefore why not stick with the 1 tph pattern with double voyagers and allow a path to be given to commuter services? Same with the London WCML services to Manchester & Birmingham - do they really need to be 3 tph?

Running a full double Voyager every hour instead of a single one every 30min carries the same number of people so avoids the same amount of environmental damage (assuming for these purposes that travelling in a heavy diesel Voyager is actually less damaging than driving, which it may well not be). But if the hourly train is still full then this is an indicator that there is suppressed demand and a longer train at 30min intervals would probably attract more passengers very quickly if it started running tomorrow. Doing that would therefore be a relatively easy way to get people out of cars.

Your suggested alternative would presumably be to make the Cross-City line even more frequent than the 10min interval operated (alongside 4TPH of longer distance trains) before Covid. That would also get people out of cars, if the trains were well filled, but would they be? I'm not expecting an answer to that question but it illustrates that there are many other factors that mean a blanket policy of reducing long distance rail is too simplistic. There might be other options such as improving the bus service to make it more convenient for shorter journeys, leaving the suburban train for medium distances, or building a parallel tram route to replace the suburban trains (not sure that's very likely for Cross City but might be elsewhere). There are also very many (probably most) journeys within an urban area that can't practically be made by train at all, because one or both ends isn't near a station or the rail lines run in the wrong direction. Buses and active travel have the potential to get these people out of cars, but trains don't.

For long distance journeys, the first hurdle is that many passengers will start their journey in a car and, unless the transfer to rail is seamless, many will prefer to just stay in the car.

A ploy often used to keep city centres traffic free is exhorbitant parking fees - nooooo - we want to encourage people to park at the train station, ie make it low-cost and easy. As an alternative, parkways are just waiting for the green lobby to start promoting them.

There's a difficult balance to be struck here.

If city centres were re-designed to allow everyone (not just rail users) to drive in easily, then they would end up looking like most American cities and Milton Keynes, where density is much lower with much space given over to parking. This also spaces everything out much more, making access by public transport and active travel that much more difficult, not to mention the safety and pollution consequences of increased car use. I don't think many people would welcome that.

If that sort of easy car access doesn't happen, then cheap unrestricted car parks next to city centre stations will just fill up with non-rail passengers who could probably have accessed the centre in a less damaging way, and intending rail passengers would then miss their trains due to not being unable to park. There needs to be a better approach to charging, such as guaranteeing a space at a cheap rate when bound as an add-on to a rail ticket, which probably means if you just turn up hoping to park then you'll only be able to if space is available, and will probably pay a lot more.

But someone driving into a city centre to catch a train is causing more environmental damage than someone making the same train journey but accessing it by foot, cycle, suburban train, tram or bus. So it is right to impose some level of penalty on those who choose to do so, especially if there is a parkway station they could have used instead. This doesn't in itself justify the prices charged by train operators for parking at their stations, but the commercial imperative does align to some extent with sustainability objectives.

 

[SynthD]

Are there surveys into how many urban and suburban journeys to a local train station are a) to the nearest station, b) by car, c) need to be by car (eg disabilities, luggage, lack of bike/bus)?

 

[Failed Unit]

I must admit I am concerned about the current situation with the talk of cost savings.

let’s take Grimsby - Lincoln. Currently a train every 2 hours. Franchise commitment to go hourly. This to me will have an impact to get people out their cars. However now I suspect this will never happen and people will still prefer to drive as if their appointment over-runs waiting 2 hours for a train home is not acceptable.

 

[tbtc]

If I've understood the OP's premise then I think I agree - there are two very different types of passenger/journey:

• "local" (where you want to be able to turn up and go, not have to consult timetables, don't need to book in advance, passengers want a simple service where you don't spend longer waiting at the station than you do on your train journey - e.g. I'll put up with a five minute wait for a twenty minute journey, but I'm less likely to put up with a twenty minute wait for a five minute journey)
• "longer distance (where people are more likely to have a specific seat on a specific train, so the frequency is less important

In that case, yeah, I can see the logic in reducing some InterCity services in frequency and using the paths for more "local" trains

However, some problems with this:

• services don't always fit into neat "intercity" / "local" brackets
• sometimes there are no properly "local" trains on a line - a lot of short distance journeys are done on long distance trains - so you have to consider the impact of thinning out the longer distance trains (e.g. Chester le Street, Dronfield, Alnmouth, Diss)
• you could look at running "local" trains to replace these, but would they be able to pick up additional stops whilst still running in the same slot (e.g. you could argue that XC should lose their "via Doncaster" services with everything running via Leeds, but can a replacement "local" train from Doncaster to Sheffield serve any "local" stations that XC doesn't already stop at without missing it's slot into Sheffield station?)
• if the answer is just "run a replacement service from York to Doncaster and a replacement service from Doncaster to Sheffield and a replacement service from Sheffield to Chesterfield" then at what stage do we accept that it'd be better to tie all of these slots together and just continue to run one combined service between the stations

I can see the theory - I'm sure that there are some places where the OP's approach would work in practice, but it really depends... what I wouldn't want would be to decimate local buses/cycling by offering thousands of free car park spaces in town centres for the sake of benefitting the lower number of people who'd use them to park to take long distance trains - if the priority is "helping to tackle climate change" then we'd be a lot better focussing on boring things like short distance car journeys (e.g. electric buses providing shuttles around town/city centres, maybe look at putting money into "Lollypop Men" to make walking to school more realistic, since at the moment there are a lot of parents who drive their five year olds to school because they aren't capable of walking there independently but then continue to do so even when those kids are eight/ ten because they've always done so, and the one busy road near the school is too dangerous because hundreds of people are driving their kids to school!)

 

[Purple Orange]

Some rather interesting comments on here so far. Rather than go in to every one, I think this issue is more about the principal of looking at ways of reducing car journeys on our roads and therefore can it be applied in practice? There are a couple of caveats to consider:

1. On a long distance route where there is no possibility of increasing capacity or frequency, or improving journey times, but reducing frequency and increasing train length has no impact on patronage, therefore not pushing passengers back in to their cars
2. A marginal increase in frequency of a stopping service has the benefit of attracting people out of their cars who instead make short distance journeys in to their nearby city centre. Moving from 2 to 3 tph could have a more significant impact than maintaining a frequency on a long distance service.

 

[NoRoute]

I don't see one answer for the whole of the UK because the rail network and density of stations varies significantly, which affects the kind of services needed and journeys it can serve.

For large cities with lots of suburban stations and commuters, like in the South East or major cities then more stopping services within the commuter belt might help but these generally have decent local services already, it's marginal improvement.

Outside those major cities, there's a lot of towns and cities where there are too few stations, or with too few rail routes or poor connectivity to make rail attractive for local journeys even with more stopping services. Given the limitations of the UK rail network, the focus needs to be on making it attractive for long distance journeys on the routes already available, where the rail industry needs to realise that it is only part of the journey and needs to integrate itself better with other modes of transport, making it easier and cheaper to get to the station with better parking facilities and better integration with the bus network, and the same at the destination station for the journey onward from the station to the end destination.

 

[Dr Day]

Suggest the thread title should be more like "should the UK's transport policy (and funding) and strategic planning be re-thought to tackle climate change"? It isn't really the rail industry's role (ie the TOCs and Network Rail) to manage climate change, although the things they do they should do in the most practicable sustainable way where feasible. The rail network has to be considered not in isolation but part of an integrated public transport/walking/cycling network to provide an alternative to driving for as many door-to-door car-km as possible, and on the freight side as many lorry-km as possible. And where people live/work/shop/do things needs to be planned to minimise the need to travel 'unsustainably'.

Rail is efficient for certain elements of trips, but less so for others where if the funding was diverted to, say, a high priority electric bus or tram network more trips could be taken out of cars.

 

[HSTEd]

I'd argue that the trend should be towards further "metro-isation" of the railway, with simpler timetables run at high intensity - with the objective of turn up and go service, after all we are competing with the turn up and go service provided by the car.

We need to make changes easier and more intuitive, and we should probably run trains at limiting lengths in fixed formation sets.

If trains are empty we need to cut fares to fill them and draw off as many car journeys as possible - railways are bulk public transport systems, with emphasis on "bulk".

But it also comes down to the government's willingness to bear bigger cash losses on the railway if it improves society's position as a whole.

 

[Bletchleyite]

"Turn up and go" frequencies are not viable on most lines. However I would agree with the general principle, and would go as far as to say we need to completely recast the whole country into a new Grossbritannientakt, with "standard hours" on all lines ("standard two hours" on rural stuff) and planned connections, and any infrastructure work (e.g. extra platforms, or flyovers to allow for cross-platform fast to slow connections) done that is necessary to support that.

Before anyone says "too complex", Germany are doing such a national recast, I believe.

I would use 2tph as the base for this on most of the network. Specific lines justifying 4 could have two more added without them needing to completely fit the pattern, and peak extras can, as they do in Switzerland, sit on top.

 

[SynthD]

But it also comes down to the government's willingness to bear bigger cash losses on the railway if it improves society's position as a whole.

I like your aim, but it just highlights that the question needs changing. Does the rail industry need to lobby the government to get some extra spending on the environment and the railways as part of that, or accept that the government currently doesn’t care for funding good things? It’s hard to consider doing better than NR currently is without directly challenging the Chancellors choices.

 

[NoRoute]

But the railways are getting a lot of funding, certainly at the moment and into the future with huge investments into HS2, the elephant in the room with the railways is not so much the lack of funding but rather UK railway's incredibly high cost base and inertia, which makes it difficult to expand services and the network, combined with high ticket prices and parking costs which deter people from using it.

 

[adrock1976]

Suggest the thread title should be more like "should the UK's transport policy (and funding) and strategic planning be re-thought to tackle climate change"? It isn't really the rail industry's role (ie the TOCs and Network Rail) to manage climate change, although the things they do they should do in the most practicable sustainable way where feasible. The rail network has to be considered not in isolation but part of an integrated public transport/walking/cycling network to provide an alternative to driving for as many door-to-door car-km as possible, and on the freight side as many lorry-km as possible. And where people live/work/shop/do things needs to be planned to minimise the need to travel 'unsustainably'.

Rail is efficient for certain elements of trips, but less so for others where if the funding was diverted to, say, a high priority electric bus or tram network more trips could be taken out of cars.

When I first saw the title of this thread, I thought it would be about the operational side of the railway, rather than how passengers access it.

For people to access the railway, ideally there should be shuttle buses timed to meet trains at stations such as those with a 30 minute or less frequency so as to join up journeys. After all, regardless of which mode is used, we are all pedestrians at some point during a journey (ideally the beginning and the end).

For the operational side with regards to environmentalism (and more so for air quality), I would ban diesel trains from terminating at places like Birmingham New Street, Leeds, Manchester Victoria and send them to continue elsewhere e.g. the Stansted/Leicester could run via Camp Hill and Lifford Curve to New Street, returning directly via Proof House and Grand Junctions - the Nottinghams could run the opposite way round. Also, diesel trains terminating at Leeds from the east side could be sent to Bradford Interchange out of the way, likewise those from the west could be sent to York or Selby. Diesel trains terminating at Man Vic from the east (such as the Newcastle TPE) could be sent to Wigan North Western out of the way.

 

[EastisECML]

It seems like the problem is we have no where near enough light rail and metro networks to handle high frequency local journeys.

For example just outside Newcastle the ECML runs through Forest Hall, West Moor, Quorum business park, Killingworth, Camperdown and Dudley. Basically collections of houses which have formed one large outer suburb. Should ECML services serve these places? Or should we instead add a branch to the near by metro line (not near enough for walking btw) and have it run alongside the ECML to Cramlington?

Or maybe we need more fast tracks bypassing existing tracks so they can be better utilised by local trains? Such as bypass of Chester-le-Street and Durham and of Cramlington and Morpeth.

Additional comments: I think I'd go with light rail/metro over heavy rail for local services. That way rail services can be kept simple and focus on medium and longer distance trains. And avoid having existing mainline hubs further over burdened with what would be frequent but small trains I assume.

In the case of Newcastle, I think it would worth adding metro branches alongside the ECML from Benton to Cramlington, from Chillingham Road to the coast road & from Newcastle to Chester-le-Street via Dunston and to Prudhoe. Although it might be difficult to justify given the thin spread of the population. Something which really needs to change.

And Manors mainline station may aswell be closed. Perhaps Heworth as well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I certainly do think we need to be building tramways and trolleybus networks. Batteries are useful but are not a panacea; over-reliance on them is just switching from over-reliance on one unstable foreign regime instead of another. They had it right in the 1930s.

 

[Purple Orange]

I certainly do think we need to be building tramways and trolleybus networks. Batteries are useful but are not a panacea; over-reliance on them is just switching from over-reliance on one unstable foreign regime instead of another. They had it right in the 1930s.

On the subject of trams, I think Liverpool & Newcastle would have a fantastic metro rail networks if they could get the investment for it.

 

[NoRoute]

I certainly do think we need to be building tramways and trolleybus networks. Batteries are useful but are not a panacea; over-reliance on them is just switching from over-reliance on one unstable foreign regime instead of another. They had it right in the 1930s.

The issue with tramways and trolleybus networks is their very high infrastructure costs, they were financially viable (ish) in the early 1900s before motorbuses came along and while their main competitors were steam powered road vehicles or horse-pulled trams or coaches, but once the motorbus reached maturity it quickly killed off most of the tramways and trolleybuses because it was much more flexible and had lower costs.

Trams and trolleybuses continue to suffer exactly the same problem as the railways, high costs and inflexibility, so needing high passenger volumes and heavy on-going public subsidy, I can't see the UK making that investment and providing those subsidies in the next decade or more, so like in the 1930s-1950s I reckon it will be the electric bus which will win, simply by being lower cost and not needing the public investment in the infrastructure.

 

[miklcct]

The railways and buses have failed me again in the coming Sunday and as a result I have to hire a car again. I am being fed up already and will definitely move away from Bournemouth at the earliest opportunity.

On Sunday I will do the British Orienteering Championships, with the relay in Liphook and TrailO in Bordon. They are held with the expectation that we can participate in both races. These races are in the same series as the Saturday long race and TrailO as well, both in Liphook with a short walk between them.

The races in Liphook are all within walking distance from the train station, although the line is closed by engineering works and replacement buses running. However, despite this, the whole transport infrastructure has failed me on a Sunday and I have to hire a car as a result.

I live in walking distance from Bournemouth station. However, the Sunday service starts much later than Monday - Saturday service so the first available itinerary to Liphook will be too late for the relay race (regardless of engineering work or not). This has already made me skip a few interesting races further out in the past, or has resulted me to book a night of hostel stay in London if the race is a high-level one making me worthwhile to do so.

There is a bus connecting Liphook and Bordon, but it runs on Monday to Saturday only. If the race organiser swapped the days of the race I wouldn't have a problem taking a bus in between. The only bus serving Bordon on a Sunday is a dead-end route heading north-east for Farnham and Aldershot, which renders it completely useless for use after the race to go home in the south-west.

As it's a relay race, it's in our best interest to share cars to the event. However I have failed to do so as my teammates are not living nearby and not on the route to the event (those living west of Bournemouth have already a full car, and it's not possible for me to even get to Ringwood by bus to join other cars as well because the first bus on a Sunday starts after 09:00 in the reverse-commute direction, with the depot located in Ringwood) and also none of my teammates are doing TrailO in addition to the relay.

For comparison, the first train from Bournemouth towards the City starts at 05:42 on a Saturday and arrives at 07:52; however on a Sunday the first train starts at 07:36 and arrives at 10:15 with calls at Fleet and Farnborough where no Mon - Sat trains from Bournemouth call, that's more than 2 hours later on a Sunday. This late arrival has made getting to many early events on Sunday impossible, while I generally don't have a problem getting to races on Saturday in most of the South East using public transport.

Because of the unavailability of early trains and buses on Sunday, people are forced to use cars if they are attending events for leisure on a Sunday. driving away many potential leisure travellers wishing to make the most of the day out on Sunday. In contrast, my experience in Hong Kong is that most all-day public transport routes start and end at the same time every day, Monday to Sunday, with Sunday frequency lower than Monday - Saturday (for example, a route running every 10 minutes on Monday - Friday may only see every 30 minutes on Sunday morning).

Therefore I think that extending the operating hours on Sunday to be the same of Saturday can be a great help in removing cars on the road, as people can have a full Sunday out like a Saturday.