So curiously Go-op has now applied for a service that goes nowhere near Oxford, but ...
I can't help thinking that all the time and energy spent in dreaming up routes and dreaming of running their own trains might not have been better spent engaging with GWR▸ or other TOCs▸ lobbying for services to fill gaps in current services and carrying out customer research to demonstrate that there's demand to justify them.
I'm noting these comments and went to sleep (after an eventful day that "Transport Scholars" will have read about) answering in my mind - and it's a very long answer.
You are right to raise these issues - and more. Yet some of them have significant and excellent answers and whist certain concerns remained to be resolved, others are far more logically correct from looking at public evidence in numbers than you might expect. A full answer to follow as I get the opportunity - just wanted to flag "not as daft as you might speculate".
) and double dipped claims of the same dividend.In summary, I believe that there is double-plus evidence reaching the same conclusion in different directions,
that there are untapped passengers flows - unaddressed travel requirements - on just about all legs of the proposed / suggested Go-op routes. There may not be a glossy case statement, the result of an expensive survey putting this particuar set of evidence together, but there's some pretty well known stuff in the 'right circles' there and I could easily enough cobble together a paper if only I had the time. And, yes, I note the tails now wagging with Nuneaton becoming Newport and we're back to Dorchester and Taunton. The areas are riddled with good cases - some gooder than others.
Just because there are good cases, services will only work if all the ducks are in a row. Trains, paths, crew, price, passenger confidence in the service, timed when they want to go, advertised, appropriate cross ticketing and easy ticket purchase, information, comfort, ability to share station facilities, etc. I know some of those overlap something rotten - this is a very quick morning note not a full list or report. For a franchised service, or one sponsored by a local authority or grant body for a trial,
risk looms huge, with elimination of public / taxpayer risk being frustratingly high up the agenda. Political expedience and planning something which fits best into a grand overall government infrastructure is also key and can frustratingly hold a scheme back (or propel it forward even if risky!). But with an open access provider, only the safety risks and the risks of the service interfering with someone else's trains really need to be robustly and publicly considered - it's their shareholders who take the financial risk in the setup, and the risks of carrying fresh air or of not having enough serviceable trains or staff to run the service. So if they're happy, that means far less studies for open access. We 'grin' at the lack of detailed studies, etc, on parts of the route, perhaps. Or perhaps we are simply not privy to matters commercial in confidence. Either way, that's OK.
I do look at some previous open access services and note their lack of robustness over quite short lead times. And for than reason I was concerned at an earlier point at suggestions that my town's service might almost exclusively be run by such a service. The risk of it going "belly up" in early build-up days was a risk I would prefer to be without, and such a risk if perceived in public would put people off making life changing decisions based on the service in question. Open Access has no government guaranteed safety new such as that we see repeatedly used on service such as franchised express trains from London via Peterborough. And this lack of guarantee on an operation that provides virtually all services to a place would be a hurdle putting people off using it - no safety net - resulting in many having an objection to using it, and traffic not being what they wished.
Now – take a line / service that's running anyway - that's moved up from an unusable service of 2 trains each way per day to a frankly poor service of 8 or 9 trains each way per day. Serving a town which should generate 350,000 journeys per annum but which has only moved up from 3,000 to 75,000 and paused there because no more people could fit on the trains. And whilst the trains are longer is still growing again only slowly because of gaps of 132 minutes (and going up to 150 minutes!) at peak shoulders for a typical journey of 10 to 28 minutes and you see
a gap which could be well filled by another service combed in, to the mutual profitable benefit of both operators. Food for thought, and I can come up with other data that's not purely Melksham numbers but for the line / service as a whole, less spectacular in proportion, but far higher in magnitude.
I am not reaching any conclusion as to whether all ducks are in a row. But I have some more evidence and more thought than many that, perhaps, they are. And I have far more evidence and thought that a combined service that's hourly on the Swindon - Chippenham - Melksham - Trowbridge - Westbury - Frome - Yeovil and/or Taunton corridors would / will be capable of generating spectacular further passenger numbers growth, however changes of train at Westbury work out; in may ways, it's two different flows joined end to end.
Edit to correct some of the more major spelling issues, and highlight key points in the mass of text!
