My suggestion for Season tickets to not be sold for travel on HS2

[Bletchleyite]

You can yield manage the trains to being full by simply slashing middle of the day fares to negligible levels.
Once you have the rolling stock for peak time services, running it up and down all day costs virtually nothing.

To a point. But why don't SE TOCs already do that? Because, simply, there are times of day when people don't want to travel even if it was free. Early Saturday afternoon and early Sunday morning are two examples - almost nobody is about even though Advances are dirt cheap at that time.

 

[The Ham]

Don't forget what happened in Kent as well as the premium for us

Just because HS2 and HS1 are called similar things it doesn't mean that they will work in the same way.

For starters the trains will have very different numbers of seats, and as we've established the longer a train is the lower the staff costs are.

 

[HSTEd]

To a point. But why don't SE TOCs already do that? Because, simply, there are times of day when people don't want to travel even if it was free. Early Saturday afternoon and early Sunday morning are two examples - almost nobody is about even though Advances are dirt cheap at that time.

Well there are precious few reasons a Londoner might want to visit Ashford in the middle of the day.
Birmingham and Manchester are rather more attractive in that regard.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well there are precious few reasons a Londoner might want to visit Ashford in the middle of the day.
Birmingham and Manchester are rather more attractive in that regard.

Go travel on the WCML at the times I suggest and you will see that it is very quiet.

Generally speaking, for a Saturday day out you want to go in the morning, and for a weekend away it'll be out late Fri/early Sat and back Sunday afternoon. Sunday day tripping is much rarer as less is open and the railway is seen as unreliable on Sundays. Fundamentally even if it was free it would be quiet at those times.

You can see that similar sorts of times exist for bus travel too even though it IS free for a great many of its users.

The only people that will travel at this sort of time are enthusiasts (who are travelling for the mere sake of travelling and may not mind when), and enthusiasts aren't enough in number to fill the seats.

 

[The Ham]

Go travel on the WCML at the times I suggest and you will see that it is very quiet.

Generally speaking, for a Saturday day out you want to go in the morning, and for a weekend away it'll be out late Fri/early Sat and back Sunday afternoon. Sunday day tripping is much rarer as less is open and the railway is seen as unreliable on Sundays. Fundamentally even if it was free it would be quiet at those times.

You can see that similar sorts of times exist for bus travel too even though it IS free for a great many of its users.

The only people that will travel at this sort of time are enthusiasts (who are travelling for the mere sake of travelling and may not mind when), and enthusiasts aren't enough in number to fill the seats.

I'd suggest that you may wish to look at somewhere like Basingstoke or Guildford or Winchester (similar sort of time distance from London as the likes of Birmingham and Manchester will be in the future), as although they are not as busy as they are during the peaks there's still quite a lot of people moving about.

There's also quite a few people moving about in the late afternoon to go to the theater (even though they have their own venues) in London or for some other evening activity (clearly not currently).

As long as you've got a selection of services to get you out of London after 10pm and home before 1am then people will use them, even mid week.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As long as you've got a selection of services to get you out of London after 10pm and home before 1am then people will use them, even mid week.

Have you ever taken the 2300 Euston-Manchester or 2330 Euston-Birmingham? I would venture that you have not. They are not busy trains - 20% loading at absolute most.

 

[paul1609]

Well there are precious few reasons a Londoner might want to visit Ashford in the middle of the day.
Birmingham and Manchester are rather more attractive in that regard.

Its not my thing but the Retail Outlet next to Ashford International attracts visitors from London in their thousands. Canterbury, Margate and increasingly Folkestone are popular destinations. The really serious weekend crowding on the East end of Marshlink is largely people coming down from London for "Sun £7.50" holidays at places like Pontins at Camber Sands and the many thousands of mobile homes on the Dungeness peninsular. HS1 with Stratford and St Pancras has opened up a very attractive holiday destination to parts of London that wouldn't have been associated with the area when it involved a trek across Central London on the Tube.

 

[snail]

Have I got something wrong here but why are so many presuming the 2020 railway will exist in the same form in around 10 years time? A lot could and will happen in the next few years to affect transport. I know it's only speculation but who's to say packed trains in any form will be a thing of the future?

 

[The Ham]

Have you ever taken the 2300 Euston-Manchester or 2330 Euston-Birmingham? I would venture that you have not. They are not busy trains - 20% loading at absolute most.

The 23:00 would only get you home before 1am in you live in Watford.

Likewise the 23:30 would only work if you lived in Milton Keynes.

Under HS2 a train leaving Euston at 23:30 would get you home (allowing some time to get home from the station) in Manchester or Birmingham before 1am.

As such such trains are more likely to attract more passengers, even if the loading factors aren't much different.

 

[HSTEd]

Have I got something wrong here but why are so many presuming the 2020 railway will exist in the same form in around 10 years time? A lot could and will happen in the next few years to affect transport. I know it's only speculation but who's to say packed trains in any form will be a thing of the future?

When even a recontrol to a semi centralised signalling system based around the ROCs is projected to take until ~2060 (closure of Morpeth box)..... it is likely the railway in 2030 will look very much like the 2020 one.

 

[Ianno87]

Have you ever taken the 2300 Euston-Manchester or 2330 Euston-Birmingham? I would venture that you have not. They are not busy trains - 20% loading at absolute most.

The 23:00 would only get you home before 1am in you live in Watford.

Likewise the 23:30 would only work if you lived in Milton Keynes.

Under HS2 a train leaving Euston at 23:30 would get you home (allowing some time to get home from the station) in Manchester or Birmingham before 1am.

As such such trains are more likely to attract more passengers, even if the loading factors aren't much different.

A 2300 Euston-Manchester HS2 service would be in Manchester (with Phase 2b) by about 0015. In time for the last Metrolink on to Bury on a Friday or Saturday...

Feasible to live in Besses o' th' Barn and have an evening Theatre Show in the West End and return via public transport...

 

[The Ham]

Have I got something wrong here but why are so many presuming the 2020 railway will exist in the same form in around 10 years time? A lot could and will happen in the next few years to affect transport. I know it's only speculation but who's to say packed trains in any form will be a thing of the future?

Conversely it could well be that rail is much busier than it is currently.

As I've pointed out in another thread we could drop down and then rise back to 87% of the number of people traveling between London and Birmingham/Manchester and we'd still meet the predicted growth figures for the opening of Phase 1.