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Post by commuter on Dec 16, 2018 13:35:33 GMT
Customer numbers are no longer in decline on rail modes; it was only a short period over which customer numbers were declining on the tube. Week before last for example was underground’s busiest ever week, with Friday carrying the most number of journeys on record.
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Post by MoreToJack on Dec 16, 2018 18:28:01 GMT
A record breaking week does not a decline reverse!
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Post by philthetube on Dec 17, 2018 8:02:33 GMT
GTR's improved services will be a big help though.
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class411
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Post by class411 on Dec 17, 2018 9:10:07 GMT
A record breaking week does not a decline reverse! No, but as Tesco keep reminding us: Every Little Helps. |
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rincew1nd
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Post by rincew1nd on Dec 17, 2018 10:23:22 GMT
A record breaking week does not a decline reverse! No, but as Tesco keep reminding us: Every Little Helps. Tesco stopped reminding us of this a little while back, now it's a little better every day. |
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Post by snoggle on Dec 17, 2018 14:38:24 GMT
A record breaking week does not a decline reverse! Precisely. All the TfL numbers are in the London Datastore so are accessible. It is almost a tradition that the tube experiences its "busiest day ever" at some point in December. The reasons for that are not exactly a surprise. So far this year the tube is up about 4m on last year. However last year patronage on the tube fell by about 21m pass jnys over the year [1]. Not huge but significant given patronage has risen strongly for many years prior to that. TfL have also scaled back plans to increase service kilometrage on the tube. There will be some increases because of the SSR upgrade and NLE but plans are more modest than they were and are later (presumably reflecting delays to Northern Line projects). Bus usage is down every period this year compared to last and it has fallen for the last three years. Buses are in a real mess. In the new business plan TfL have effectively conceded that they will never recover bus usage as each year in the plan sees patronage fall. This is despite the fact that TfL have abandoned plans for massive cuts in bus kilometrage. There will be some more cuts but not as savage as the previous business plan. I am guessing City Hall has taken fright at what the old plan could have meant politically. The Overground, DLR and Trams are all bumping along at last year's usage levels with only tiny gains or small falls in usage. The old days of strong growth have gone. TfL Rail is up a bit on last year but that seems to be because of the addition of services out of Paddington. Hard to see any discernible upward trend on Shenfield line services. It is very hard to see how TfL will get back to a position of regular upward growth on its services given population, employment and technological changes affecting how, why, when and how often people travel. [1] partly skewed by the timing of the Easter holidays. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2018 16:29:43 GMT
They already cut the buses severely.
And I see rather serious fall in off-peak train frequencies on the tube already.
I don't see what else is left to cut, if they don't want to hurt their own revenues.
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class411
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Post by class411 on Dec 17, 2018 18:16:46 GMT
It is very hard to see how TfL will get back to a position of regular upward growth on its services given population, employment and technological changes affecting how, why, when and how often people travel. Surely this is 'a good thing'? No matter how much you love the public transport infrastructure we have in London, ever increasing passenger numbers can only be a bad thing, because, no matter how much money you throw at things, there is a finite amount of space available to operate any form of transport in an already very congested city. Admittedly, If tfl increase the frequency of a service to raise its capacity, the utility of the service is improved a little, but, in reality, we are already at, or will shortly reach, the maximum feasible rate of trains per hour (assuming we actually want to allow passengers to get on and off) on many lines. As a society, the best thing we could do for the underground is to flatten and extend the morning and evening peak bumps. |
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Post by AndrewPSSP on Dec 17, 2018 19:12:18 GMT
(assuming we actually want to allow passengers to get on and off) Why don't we just stuff them in a train and make them go from one end of the line to the other. Sure, it may not be where they want to go but they're theoretically still being transported somewhere.  |
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Post by peterc on Dec 17, 2018 21:30:52 GMT
"the use of free passes may result in otherwise paid for journeys being provided free of charge". Precisely, it is potential revenue that could be generated by charging a fare rather than an actual cost to the provider but that assumes that the journey would be made if free travel were not available. There is always the possibility that people with free travel would make less journeys by public transport if the free travel were withdrawn rather than paying a fare. The result would be another empty seat on an off peak service. Charging pass users (other than under strict ENCTS rules) would probably cut a fair bit of off peak traffic but would also bring in fares from people using 60+ for example for journey to work. Of course cutting back on ENCTS or 60+ availibility would be political suicide. |
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class411
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Post by class411 on Dec 17, 2018 23:07:58 GMT
(assuming we actually want to allow passengers to get on and off) Why don't we just stuff them in a train and make them go from one end of the line to the other. Sure, it may not be where they want to go but they're theoretically still being transported somewhere. Well, I suppose that's possible, but wouldn't increase the time it took to turn the trains around? |
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class411
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Post by class411 on Dec 17, 2018 23:08:43 GMT
"the use of free passes may result in otherwise paid for journeys being provided free of charge". Precisely, it is potential revenue that could be generated by charging a fare rather than an actual cost to the provider but that assumes that the journey would be made if free travel were not available. There is always the possibility that people with free travel would make less journeys by public transport if the free travel were withdrawn rather than paying a fare. The result would be another empty seat on an off peak service. Charging pass users (other than under strict ENCTS rules) would probably cut a fair bit of off peak traffic but would also bring in fares from people using 60+ for example for journey to work. Of course cutting back on ENCTS or 60+ availibility would be political suicide. What does ENCTS stand for? |
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Post by MoreToJack on Dec 17, 2018 23:27:33 GMT
English National Concessionary Travel Scheme.
Acronyms and initialisms should always be explained on first usage please, folks!
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Post by commuter on Dec 18, 2018 6:50:48 GMT
A record breaking week does not a decline reverse! I didn’t say it did. However the figures published elsewhere speak for themselves, customer numbers as a whole, measured per period/quarter, are not in decline, and are rising. |
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Post by revupminster on Dec 18, 2018 7:39:32 GMT
The Freedom pass should never have been made valid before 9.30 which hits revenue. The pass has been a political football going back to the early days of the GLC when it has been used to buy the pensioners vote giving more and more concessions until there is nothing left. It just reinforces how London is a separate country to the rest of England where the pensioners stand round waiting to get on a bus after 9.30.
I like to know from other readers what concessions in addition to buses do pensioners get in their area. In my area, it is only buses after 9.30.
The decline in TFL's traffic is a result of white flight to the shires and commuting over longer distances and now the jobs are beginning to follow them. The growth of London's population may well be coming to an end as housing projections have been reduced. Families don't want the thousands of flats being built in London. Only property investors from oversees. These are the slums of the future.
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Post by MoreToJack on Dec 18, 2018 9:41:31 GMT
A record breaking week does not a decline reverse! I didn’t say it did. However the figures published elsewhere speak for themselves, customer numbers as a whole, measured per period/quarter, are not in decline, and are rising. One would still argue convincingly that a rise of less than the decline of recent years is still a net decline. Certainly the inference from having the busiest ever week was that this was somehow a sign that everything was suddenly rosy with TfL: it isn't. If anything, it only furthers the point that, again, in real terms numbers are declining. Every year the busiest week is busier than the last, by and large, yet overall numbers aren't meeting that rise... |
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Post by ducatisti on Dec 18, 2018 10:06:44 GMT
If it dropped hard and came back up more slowly, it's quite possible to have more this year than last, and still be on a lower number.
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class411
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Post by class411 on Dec 18, 2018 10:13:02 GMT
I didn’t say it did. However the figures published elsewhere speak for themselves, customer numbers as a whole, measured per period/quarter, are not in decline, and are rising. One would still argue convincingly that a rise of less than the decline of recent years is still a net decline. Certainly the inference from having the busiest ever week was that this was somehow a sign that everything was suddenly rosy with TfL: it isn't. If anything, it only furthers the point that, again, in real terms numbers are declining. Every year the busiest week is busier than the last, by and large, yet overall numbers aren't meeting that rise... I would still maintain that, within reason, fluctuating around the current levels - a little more or a little less - is probably the ideal state of affairs. The transport system can de-facto handle the current load and already decided improvements will able it to do so more efficaciously in the future. A small decline in numbers can easily be handled in the longer term. A continuing rise, however, will mean the system will become ever more overloaded as the possibility for capacity increases are limited. It would appear that the problem at the moment is that the finances for the current round of improvements were predicated on ever rising passenger numbers. |
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Post by ducatisti on Dec 18, 2018 10:21:37 GMT
the only problem with that is that *if* London continues to increase in population, and *if* people continue to make journeys, then if they aren't on TfL they are going by some other means, which are *probably* less environmentally desirable (private car or taxi)
There are a bunch of assumptions in there, but I'd say it's only number of journeys/head that is actually likely to have potential to be wrong (ie population is incredibly unlikely to be going down, and any journey over more than a few bus stops will be with some kind of powered assistance).
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Post by Chris M on Dec 18, 2018 10:28:05 GMT
revupminster your comments about "white flight" have been discussed previously and, irrc, pretty much completely debunked - although it's tricky to do so without breaching the forum rules about political comment. The problem with development in London is not the scale of development (London-wide, there are exceptions on a local level) but that the type of development does not match demand. Unfortunately for reasons of time I have to leave it there, but suffice to say it's a lot more complicated than you portray.
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Post by snoggle on Dec 18, 2018 13:49:39 GMT
They already cut the buses severely. And I see rather serious fall in off-peak train frequencies on the tube already. I don't see what else is left to cut, if they don't want to hurt their own revenues. To be honest they haven't cut the buses that severely. Yes on the Oxford St axis and routes serving Paddington there have been some big reductions but that's about it. The next planned round for Central London routes is fairly severe but this is nothing like what happened in the 1980s (or earlier). I don't like what is happening or is planned but it's a world away from where we were in the 70s and 80s. The key differences is that we are starting from a higher base level of service and service reliability is much better even if operators are really struggling with recruitment and retention. I'm not aware LU has formally cut any tube frequencies. The actual day to day performance may be appalling (not mentioning the Picc Line) but that's a failure of service provision not a cut. My argument would be that that you could cut off peak frequencies on the tube to save some money. IIRC both the Central and Bakerloo line fleets need substantive works done to them so easing demands on those lines could make sense. In the new Business Plan TfL are forecasting a drop of 16m pass jnys in 2019-20 which I assume is to do with a transfer of pax to Crossrail but that's still a big drop. I also wonder if some modest savings could be made on the DLR, Tramlink and London Overground. All three operations have problems with either rolling stock reliability or the need to undertake upgrades / refurbs to trams / trains to achieve other objectives. Easing the pressure on fleet utilisation is probably no bad thing in the short to medium term. |
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Post by aslefshrugged on Dec 18, 2018 14:02:44 GMT
On the Central Line we've been told that the new timetable due in next year has been shelved so the only changes to frequency are down to shortages of stock and staff.
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Post by snoggle on Dec 18, 2018 14:05:08 GMT
It is very hard to see how TfL will get back to a position of regular upward growth on its services given population, employment and technological changes affecting how, why, when and how often people travel. Surely this is 'a good thing'? No matter how much you love the public transport infrastructure we have in London, ever increasing passenger numbers can only be a bad thing, because, no matter how much money you throw at things, there is a finite amount of space available to operate any form of transport in an already very congested city. Admittedly, If tfl increase the frequency of a service to raise its capacity, the utility of the service is improved a little, but, in reality, we are already at, or will shortly reach, the maximum feasible rate of trains per hour (assuming we actually want to allow passengers to get on and off) on many lines. As a society, the best thing we could do for the underground is to flatten and extend the morning and evening peak bumps. I sort of understand what you're saying. However settling for a level amount of capacity really means that you're saying that the economy and employment will stagnate. Transport's only there to facilitate other purposes. The other implication is that static demand removes a great deal of pressure on the Treasury to find money to actually improve the system. They'd much rather provide as little money as possible and they're not far off that objective already. We really do not need a return to the bad old days of delayed asset renewals and increasing unreliability. There are already worrying signs of some of this and it should not be allowed to get any worse. At some point in the future the economic cycle will improve and we might get past some of the political lunacy the country is currently suffering from. That should bring about an increase in activity for which people need a decent and growing transport system. The worry is what happens in the meantime. Wishing for the peaks to flatten significantly is a bit of forlorn wish. Both peaks have spread over the last 20 years but all that has meant is that more people overall travel at peak times not that the peak of the peak has reduced. The only way to really flatten the peak is to have an enormous and long lasting recesssion which would be ruinous for TfL's finances. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2018 15:02:49 GMT
Yes on the Oxford St axis and routes serving Paddington there have been some big reductions but that's about it. I guess that explain it, as it is indeed my hood. I'm not aware LU has formally cut any tube frequencies. The actual day to day performance may be appalling (not mentioning the Picc Line) but that's a failure of service provision not a cut. My argument would be that that you could cut off peak frequencies on the tube to save some money. I don't have any numbers to back it up, just anecdotal evidence - but I do notice increased intervals on the Jubilee line around 10-11pm weekdays compared just to a year ago. |
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Post by aslefshrugged on Dec 18, 2018 15:34:18 GMT
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Post by 35b on Dec 18, 2018 15:36:55 GMT
Surely this is 'a good thing'? No matter how much you love the public transport infrastructure we have in London, ever increasing passenger numbers can only be a bad thing, because, no matter how much money you throw at things, there is a finite amount of space available to operate any form of transport in an already very congested city. Admittedly, If tfl increase the frequency of a service to raise its capacity, the utility of the service is improved a little, but, in reality, we are already at, or will shortly reach, the maximum feasible rate of trains per hour (assuming we actually want to allow passengers to get on and off) on many lines. As a society, the best thing we could do for the underground is to flatten and extend the morning and evening peak bumps. I sort of understand what you're saying. However settling for a level amount of capacity really means that you're saying that the economy and employment will stagnate. Transport's only there to facilitate other purposes. The other implication is that static demand removes a great deal of pressure on the Treasury to find money to actually improve the system. They'd much rather provide as little money as possible and they're not far off that objective already. We really do not need a return to the bad old days of delayed asset renewals and increasing unreliability. There are already worrying signs of some of this and it should not be allowed to get any worse. At some point in the future the economic cycle will improve and we might get past some of the political lunacy the country is currently suffering from. That should bring about an increase in activity for which people need a decent and growing transport system. The worry is what happens in the meantime. Wishing for the peaks to flatten significantly is a bit of forlorn wish. Both peaks have spread over the last 20 years but all that has meant is that more people overall travel at peak times not that the peak of the peak has reduced. The only way to really flatten the peak is to have an enormous and long lasting recesssion which would be ruinous for TfL's finances. You assume that this can or should manifest in additional activity in London. There’s a perfectly valid argument that what’s good for Britain as a whole may not be what is good for London in particular, and that the investment should be rebalanced in favour of other places. |
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Post by revupminster on Dec 18, 2018 16:50:54 GMT
revupminster your comments about "white flight" have been discussed previously and, irrc, pretty much completely debunked - although it's tricky to do so without breaching the forum rules about political comment. The problem with development in London is not the scale of development (London-wide, there are exceptions on a local level) but that the type of development does not match demand. Unfortunately for reasons of time I have to leave it there, but suffice to say it's a lot more complicated than you portray. Who has debunked it? It's not political; it's a transport planners problem. Crossrail and Thameslink are the answers to how to move a lot of people into central London that have moved out. I was brought up in Newham. you knew the area was in trouble when M&S in Upton Park, East Ham, and Stratford closed and this was the 80's. This was before internet shopping. I look at Upton Park and the bus garage and Boleyn ground where hundreds of flats are being built. These are problem areas of the future. How many of the flats in Stratford are occupied and not bought as an investment by overseas buyers. All the big cities are the same. Bristol has a huge commuter flow to Taunton where hundreds of houses have been built and to Tiverton Parkway and in their cars to hundreds of house being built around Devon. Exeter, which for a town of it's size has 8 stations, is growing from 120,000 people to 150,000 in the next 20 years. The whole eastern side of the city is being built upon. It has made Torbay into a commuter town for which the Devon Metro has been planned postponed from January to May because of last May's timetable fiasco. Exeter train depot is being doubled in size. Torbay, population 131,000, is a misunderstood, where it is not all retirees, area where hundreds of new houses are being built that because of the schools, Paignton has the over subscribed Oldway primary (700 pupils, biggest in Devon) three grammer schools (2 in Torquay, 1 in Churston) and an ever expanding college that has university status with links to Plymouth University. A growing high tech area the remnants of the Nortel closure (the 5000 lost jobs killed Paignton) that is attracting families. It is a joke in Paignton that there are more people from London and Birmingham than locals. You must travel out of London North, South, East & West to see what is going on or at the least watch the regional BBC news programmes. |
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Post by ducatisti on Dec 19, 2018 9:06:06 GMT
And how is that "white"?
Most of the renters are "white"
Many of those moving out are not "white"
I grew up in Surrey and my family are from the north west, my wife is from the west country. You don't have a monopoly on "understanding" the regions.
What you are also missing is that rentals are on the rise in all these regional places - in fact the smart money in BTL is now all about the regions, and houses being built for ownership are still happening in London.
You are confusing a macro trend for a London-specific trend, and then putting what frankly looks like a racist veneer on it. It's not "seeing what is going on"
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Post by whistlekiller2000 on Dec 19, 2018 9:19:07 GMT
Be in no doubt......if this descends any further into an argument about who's being racist or not, it'll get locked. 
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Post by brigham on Dec 19, 2018 9:53:30 GMT
'Renters' has lost its unsavoury nuance, I take it!
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