I wish that they would reinstate the ferries to Ostende. I usually travel from Lime Street to London and stay overnight before taking Eurostar the next morning. I find it too stressful to hope that an early morning Avanti will get me to London in time for a late morning/lunchtime Eurostar. I would quite like Liverpool-London-Dover, stay overnight (decent micro pubs are available for refreshment) and take a ferry the next morning. It would probably be cheaper than my current route. Oostende is only 13 minutes to Brugge by train which a favourite destination of mine.
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P&O Ferries to permanently stop accepting foot passengers on their Dover to Calais route.
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Trainbike46
Established Member
But anyway, if this is true I really hope either one of the other ferry companies starts taking foot passengers dover-calais or someone start offering a local bus across. Maybe the long-distance coaches (DB IC coach, Flixbus etc.) running across the channel could add a stop in Dover and Calais, to let people travel across that way?
Feuillesmortes
Member
Thank you, I didn't log in.
johncrossley
Established Member
Yes, getting to Belgium is particularly difficult now. There is no low cost air travel between London and Belgium.
The Harwich to Hoek van Holland crossing is rail friendly and gets people using it as a result, despite competing with one of the most intensive flight corridors in the world.
I have a recollection (sorry, no links) that the Port of Calais cut the foot passenger shuttle bus back to day time only. Single shift ?
Don't think they will do that because it takes out a diversionary option if there is disruption either at Dover or the Tunnel.
I used to sometimes get the bus from Folkestone services to Brugge but I was normally the only customer.
AlbertBeale
Established Member
Yes - in terms of day-trips, I only ever used the ferry (or train on the UK side, plus ferry) for day-trips to the French coast (Calais, and Boulogne when it was an option); I doubt that a day-trip from London as far as Paris has ever been very feasible by train and ferry; when the boat-train connections were better, the trains were slower!
Though I did do a day trip in the other direction once from Brussels, where I was staying for some days but needed to be back for a meeting in London; I used an overnight connection on the Ostend route in both directions before and after my day in London.
johncrossley
Established Member
I did a day trip London - Dover - Calais - Lille - Gent - Oostende - Dover - London in the later Hoverspeed days.
Id say that's about right but it doesn't really go up that much even in the summer. Id guess its people that live in Ayr and towns like Kilmarnock and Irvine who don't want to go to Buchanan Street to have to cross Glasgow and come back out.
The problem is that most of the other buses I went past were either empty or had just a couple of passengers. I guess that's why they were withdrawn.
AlbertBeale
Established Member
Yes, the loss of the Ostend passenger ferry connection is frustrating, especially given the integration of the port and station there.
It is highly unlikely that one of the other ferry companies will offer this facility. They all use the same infrastructure and they will all incur the same (out of proportion to the revenue) costs to cater for them. The ferry companies are competing neck and neck and none are going to want the uneconomic operation damaging their balance sheet.
A local bus service would be expensive to provide, both in the actual costs of running plus the back up to cater for unreliable transit/ poor utilisation of assets. I cannot imagine how it could be a commercial operation, or why anyone would wish to subsidise it. So equally highly unlikely.
As @paul1609 says, the long distance coach operators do not want to trade their flexibility to use tunnel or ferry by putting in stops at the Channel port towns, nor do they want to lengthen journey times by going off the motorways (on either side) intermediately for stops. Megabus used to have public stops in both Ghent and Boulogne (which were also crew change points) but the use was very low compared to the major cities (as you would expect)
There are direct buses from London to Brugge again now with Flixbus one morning, one evening and one overnight. Generally about the £20 mark the day coaches go on the ferry so you get a break and the night one on le shuttle.
None of the coach lines will stop in Calais probably because their worried about migrants trying to stow away.
Trainbike46
Established Member
It is really surprising that this apparently high-cost facility is a problem to provide at the busiest ferry connection of the UK, when it can (and is) provided at many other crossings. Brittany ferries even started providing the option on their Rosslare-Bilbao ferry this autumn
Yes, it is clearly way more expensive to transport the bus across the channel compared to just taking the passengers only (and leaving the deck lane meters for vehicles that actually need to cross)
I'm not sure that flexibility argument really holds, because of the very large difference in crossing time for the ferry compared to the tunnel shuttle, their timetabling would have to assume one or the other.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
There's Eurostar for the premium market and probably coaches for the budget market, or fly to Schiphol and go across by train.
Trainbike46
Established Member
I understand that concern, tbh. From family that work in the HGV road haulage, they don't like stopping anywhere near to Calais for that exact reason. Some companies even decided to refuse transporting to the UK, or to only use other ferry crossings with lower stowaway risk.
How does this affect the PRIV-rate tickets available on P&O? Can they jsut suspend this?
Could you provide a link to these online sources please?
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With respect, the Dover-Calais crossing is nothing like any of the other crossings in terms of road vehicle movements, multiple ferry berths, cramped facilities for the amount of traffic etc. It all depends on the infrastructure, and neither Dover or Calais are set up for this economically (i.e. not with under-utilised buses and drivers ferrying tiny numbers of people about), and it would be expensive to provide such infrastructure, with no hope of getting that expenditure back. No hope at all.
The main method of crossing will be the tunnel, certainly in daytime, and a coach approaching the Tunnel terminal on either the UK or the French side does not pass either of the port towns. The scheduling will assume the fastest journey (to be as competitive as possible) , so if the slower route is used the coach will simply arrive late.
The flexibility is right when Dover Port goes wrong it goes horribly wrong because the traffic snarls up the whole town. The coaches then face the problem of the driver running out of hours before they reach their destination or crew changeover point. All the through coach services now allow a huge amount of time at the port or tunnel to deal with disruption passport controls and customs, think the coach arrives something like 2hours before its scheduled shuttle. The actual crossing time is irrelevant in context.
So is this really the most important consideration? I doubt they are suspending PRIV rate tickets. They are suspending the [foot] service to all ticket holders. As with any other service, PRIV rate is only available on the [foot] services that are operating. If no service is operating, then I would expect no PRIV rate tickets are available.
I know some say that the reason foot passenger numbers are not high is because the demand isn’t there. Obviously a lot of passengers have been lost to low-cost flights etc, but it seems the UK government has helped reduce that demand. By not putting the correct infrastructure in place, and by not financially supporting those options. And yes, Brexit (there were many French/Belgian/Dutch families living in Kent, travelling between the countries, and vice versa Brits living/working on the continent).
Also, even after Covid and Brexit, there are still continental holiday makers holidaying in Kent (as evident by many of the foreign number plates in Kent over the summer). Many of those holidaymakers may have chosen to travel here as foot passengers via Eurostar or ferry if the infrastructure was in place. Of course, some will always choose to drive though.
The other point is that we are being encouraged to make greener choices - however, many of those choices are being taken away.
Also, even after Covid and Brexit, there are still continental holiday makers holidaying in Kent (as evident by many of the foreign number plates in Kent over the summer). Many of those holidaymakers may have chosen to travel here as foot passengers via Eurostar or ferry if the infrastructure was in place. Of course, some will always choose to drive though.
The other point is that we are being encouraged to make greener choices - however, many of those choices are being taken away.
WideRanger
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Think about how Kent (small towns + countryside) to Calais (small city then lots of countryside), in countries that don't routinely allow workers living in one to work in the other, compares to all of the examples you have given.
StephenHunter
Established Member
How? Where are they going to hide?
furnessvale
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Draped over the rear axle is not beyond the bounds of possibility!
Trainbike46
Established Member
Dover-Calais is clearly unique; It is a VERY busy route, run by three competing companies.
It seems very hard to believe to me that much quieter routes overall, such as Belfast-Cairnryan, can generate that many more foot passengers (on most crossings you would not even come close to fitting them all on two full size coaches.)
Plus I think you are overstating the cost of having a bus pick people up and drive them on a ferry, and for the vehicle to then leave the ferry again. obviously you would need to have somewhere to do a security check, but that is no different to security checking people on long-distance coaches, so you could share facilities for that.
Also, clearly P&O has facilities already, so they don't have to be constructed from new.
However, P&O is clearly showing once again that those in charge do not have the right attitude for it, as their answer to every problem appears to be cutting back, without ever considering how they could grow business.
I don't even get PRIV (I don't work in the industry) and it clearly isn't the most important consideration. The reason I asked is because that seems like the only way in which there might be an agreement that requires P&O to transport foot passengers. Maybe not though, or maybe P&O is once again going for the strategy of breaking agreements and damn the consequences.
Frankly, I think it doesn't seem right that a sensible transport option, primarily for the people in Kent, is being taken away.
I fully agree with this.
It seems funny how P&O specifically only seems capable of reducing or removing services, while other companies introduce new ones or expand existing ones.
For example, Brittany has started taking foot passengers on new routes. DFDS, Stena and Brittany are introducing new, bigger ships.
Luggage compartment? It isn't really about whether the migrants could succeed. If they try, it can get the transport company in trouble, as well as causing really big delays, so definitely something to avoid.
furnessvale
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An HGV driver friend of my brother was stopped in Calais by a following HGV who advised him that several migrants had climbed into the back of his lorry.
His unconcerned reply, "That's OK, I'm on my way to Italy".
In reality the decline of the foot passenger on the Dover Calais route predates Brexit by at least a couple of decades. Numbers had been declining for several years when the channel tunnel opened in 1994. At the same time as the tunnel opened retail in the Calais area swapped from the town centre to City d" Europe a large out of town retail park next to the tunnel at Frethun. At a stroke the foot passenger arriving on the ferry was more of less replaced by the english arriving by car or coach via Le Shuttle. Once they'd finished loading their duty free they might possibly visit Calais town for a lunch in a restaurant but quite a few of them instead headed down the A16 to the more attractive Boulogne. Then in June 1999 the EU abolished duty free and overnight the day trip market was slashed. At the same time the strength of the Euro against the Pound meant that it was no longer advantageous to shop in France and we began to notice French plated cars in the car park of Tesco at Junction 10 of the M20 and the Designer outlet centre next to Ashford station. In a couple of years the Tesco in Cite de Europe closed down.
People still go over but these days its more likely to be by car for a weekend and its more likely to be to Brugge a couple of hours drive away or down the coast to Le Touquet or Baie de la Somme or to Lille. There also been a resurgence of war sites in recent years that are not particularly easy to tour by public transport.
I feel sorry for the people of Calais the town has suffered greatly from the opening of Tunnel which has not be helped by the out of control migrant crisis. Its not really surprising that the foot passenger traffic has dropped to the point where its no longer viable.
As I said in an earlier post if you want a long day trip/ short break where you can walk from the ferry in to an attractive french town Dieppe (from Newhaven) is really so, so much better. A lots made of the difficulty of getting to Newhaven by Rail but the reality is that you have direct frequent trains to Brighton from London and much of SE England. Its then a level cross station walk with no barriers to the 2tph Seaford Branch train. At Newhaven Town its then a 300yd flat walk to the ferry terminal.
The biggest issue for the Newhaven ferry is the 4-hour crossing time, against Dover's 90 minutes.
The crossing times also aren't massively favourable to day trips, even with the 3 sailings a day timetable in summer. The Current winter timetable is 10:30 off Newhaven for 15:30 in Dieppe, but the return departure is 18:00 so basically you've only got time for a late lunch and a quick paddle in the sea before you've got to head back. The 3-departure sailings isn't much better, where the 11:00 off Newhaven gets you 2 hours in Dieppe before the 18:00 return crossing, or you have to hang around for the 23:59 departure).
Newhaven works great for overnight stays in France, but a day trip is not really practical. I do remember we used to do day trips to Dieppe for family Birthdays with the 2-hour crossing time of the SeaCat.
Feuillesmortes
Member
The French don't eat between 15:30 and 18:00 so you'd have to take sandwiches!
P&O have been operating this foot passenger service for the last twenty five years or so and have not been making any money out of it. Quite the opposite - a drain. This is with them having a monopoly on such traffic, as their competitors have not taken foot passengers for a very long time (if ever in their current ownership); which rather shows that they don't see it as a pot of honey either.
It is pure romanticism to think that there is any economically worthwhile trade in foot passengers - the separate check in facilities at the entrance to the port, the cost of the buses and their drivers. The other ferry companies clearly don't have the right attitude either - I am unsure why you are picking on P&O who are clearly having to bring their costs down to the same as their competitors.
These people have clearly not been using the foot passenger facility hitherto. Why would a ferry operator want to throw good money after bad continuing with this service. If Government (of UK and/or France) sees this this as a socially necessary service, they can pay for it. Good luck with that at the moment.
This is clutching at straws. I doubt P&O are breaking any kind of agreement. They are no doubt still offering PRIV fares on any foot passenger services that they operate (which were formerly Sealink routes). They no longer operate a foot passenger service, so PRIV fares are no longer available. If P&O had not gone the road of restructuring their costs, they would have withdrawn the services, leaving the route to the other two operators, who don't offer foot passenger facilities either.
If the sensible transport option, primarily for the people in Kent, which is hopelessly uneconomic , is to continue it will need to be subsidised. However, I cannot see Kent County Council seeing this as a priority at present.
dutchflyer
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DB-IC has long since gone-even before covid hit.
FLIX DOES offer these stops on some trips-but as they are very keen to follow demand it often changes. Plus that in most cases with bookings say 4-5 days before their whole trip fare Lon-Par/BRU is even lower as the 31 GBP/€ that the Newhaven ferry seems to cost.
(as was already stated some posts before too)
In fact there are thousands of cross-border/commuter workers FR-BE-most of course using the more or less same language, but in the past also Flemish working in FRench-but nowadays due to economics more the reverse way. This dates back to even before 1900.
For daily commutes even low ferry prices and time needed are prohibitive-but I kind of recall that in times when GB was in dire economic straits British went for work to FRance as weekend-commute. The same-but much better paid then EU-burocrats, those who started even the fines that airlines and later railways have to pay when running far too late.
@1. RYAN serves plenty-but into Charleroi, billing itself as ´your friendly airport´ and often thus strike-hit in Belgian custom (wallon to be more exact).
THere are also-if booked smartly cheapish prop-flites from London City to Antwerpen.
@2. no, in fact the nr of remaining foot-pax on this ferry is low-so low that they have also contemplated stopping it alltogether, due to cost of all the epople needed for the gaurding of borders and keeping illegals away etc. Stating that it competes with the airline is a bit overdone.
BTW- other ferries carry far more foot-pax, mostly as short daytrippers, to Hull and Newcastle from NL
At least pre-covid the BUS (as said before) was the main competition, if looked at nr of pax. Though even then the nr of bus-pax could probably fit in 1 bigger airplane.
That was daft easy: ONLY these ferry trips also allow/ed foot pax the last yrs.
But I kind of recall the bus on the FRench side was cancelled alltogether leaving people really stranded in the height of covid-when of course demand was also ultra-low-or maybe even cancelled as such for some weeks.
In pre-tunnel days the RMT who ran the Oostende ferries offered, in coöperation with NMBS=BE railways, cheap daytrips to ´shop in the UK´ which in some yrs was a big draw due to then much lower prices there. This was also my very first trip to GB, age below 20, on night 1 to and night 2 back-not really the most comfortable way to do that. I was smashed by the then still in use BR-Southern region trains with compartments all apart and the doors that had to be opened by lowering the window and reaching out. Completely incomprehensible for naive continentals then. That was also long before there was even a hint of through coaches (bus) running.
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