Coronavirus Implications For London's Transport

Off peak service frequencies do not need to be anywhere close to full to be worth operating / cover their costs. There is a good deal of misunderstanding among both rail enthusiasts and railway staff of the purpose of high frequency off peak services and what frequency is worth operating. It seems to be widely assumed that the correct frequency is the minimum number of services that will carry the expected passenger load. However, if this were the case there would be some UK rail routes that would need only daily or less than daily services (as some Amtrak routes in the US). Having a frequent service is desirable because it increases opportunity to travel and reduces time spent waiting, either at the origin or the destination. People seek to arrive at a target time that does not require time to be wasted, for example by arriving much earlier than their ideal time or appointment, aside from whatever margin a passenger adds for possible delay.

On the least frequent National Rail lines, such as those to the far north of Scotland or Middlesborough to Whitby, some people will have to travel many hours earlier than they need or even the day before. This makes the service much less attractive than road travel, where the opportunity to travel is always available (though of course such journeys will still have their own margins for disruption). On a suburban London rail route with an off peak service of2 trains per hour (tph) - as many still are, it might mean having to get to the destination 25 minutes before you need, as the next service would get the passenger to their destination 5 minutes too late.

On frequent (turn up and go) Metro services (such as the examples in your post) this time is effectively the extra ‘waiting time’ at the station that is added at the start of the journey to allow enough time for the longest gap between trains. All of this extra wasted time is part of what is known as the ‘generalised cost’ of rail travel and the more of it there is, the less likely people are to make extra journeys, so lower frequency services are less attractive and get fewer passengers.

The other key point that makes higher off peak frequencies sensible concerns the cost of operation. Trains and the infrastructure they need are very expensive buy (high fixed costs), but fairly cheap to run (low variable costs). This means that it is worthwhile operating trains that attract enough extra passengers to cover their variable costs and make a contribution towards the fixed costs. The costs of the crew and the power / fuel do vary directly with the amount of service kilometres operated, but even train and track maintenance is only partly variable. Other maintenance, such as signalling hardly varies at all with service volume; after all you need the signalling system to be functioning even to operate the first two trains. Thus the variable per kilometre cost of running a typical metro train is around the same as a licensed taxi fare. A typical metro journey from terminus to terminus will break even on its variable costs even with as few as 30 passengers at its busiest point.

Population growth has led to increased traffic across the whole of London at all times, but [non crisis] off peak traffic has grown by a greater proportion than peak traffic and lines across London whose off peak services have been increased have mostly seen far greater growth. In the current crisis, high off peak services are allowing more passengers to make journeys while being able to maintain a good level of social distancing and as demand begins to recover across the rail network, even if it takes some years to return to its previous levels, companies will need to be wary of service cuts – they may find that with less attractive services, their revenue falls to a greater degree than their costs. Previous rounds of rail cuts have amply demonstrated that it is hard to escape the spiral of decline and that there is no profitable trunk waiting to be revealed by simply pruning a few loss making branches…

Glad I don't live in a police state like France!

Thanks for clarification. Just quoted what my daughter told me! Chinese whispers! Nevertheless, it must have been very inconvenient for the passenger. I wonder if he thought it was worth it.

The customer has voted, with their feet, and left public transport and retail in dire straits. What is there to go London for? How long can service levels be maintained? I said in an earlier post, the underground has been put back 40 years.

I expect working from home to be more common than it was pre-Covid, although I think a lot of workers actually miss being in the office and seeing colleagues / friends.
It may be a case of 4 days in the office, 1 day working from home. A lot of bosses are very uncomfortable with staff working from home for extended periods.

Recent analysis shows that by certain statistical measures, the economic “heart” of the capital in terms of activity has shifted outwards to areas including Southall and East Ham. Indeed having been around Inner London and parts of suburbia, pockets do feel as busy as they were before and there’s no way the road network is soaking up all of that demand.

Link to article from Centre for London here.

I do hope that there will be a greater emphasis on tackling the "I'm driving because I think it's safer" brigade head on. Large scale studies in France, Japan and South Korea are reaffirming the nominal level of risk when using rapid transit although I don't know what the narrative over travel has been in said countries.

More like 4 days at home,  1 day in an office, I'd say, with hot desking. The economics stare you in the face. As for shopping, nine times out of ten online is more convenient...

I disagree on things being harder from home - but this varies hugely by job. Some things in my line of work require being on site; if I'm working on something detailed for a project and don't want interrupting I'm much more productive at home. When some of my colleagues required help with quoting for clients etc I'm much more productive in the office where I can have my ear bent.