No more rush hours? Compulsory Reservations coming?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

THE traditional morning and evening peaks on the railways might never be restored in full, it is being claimed.

From Railnews

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has predicted that ‘the world will probably not go back to how it was before in a whole manner of different ways’. He told the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) that business would start to ask: ‘Actually why does everyone have to get up and travel during the rush hour at a particular time in the morning? Why don’t we have more distance through the day?’

Mr Shapps said staggered working hours were also to be expected, which would mean more people travelling in what is now described as the ‘off peak’ period.

Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy is reported to be suggesting that the numbers of commuters allowed on ‘rush hour’ services could in any case be capped, because social distancing may remain necessary for a long time to come. He is also said to be predicting compulsory reservations on intercity trains, so that every passenger has a seat.

later ...

The predictions from Mr Shapps and Sir Peter have followed a suggestion by chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance that working from home is likely to be encouraged for some time, even after the full lockdown has been relaxed. He told a Downing Street press conference: ‘There may be a number of measures that need to continue … whilst vaccines and therapeutics come along.

To be a pedant - compulsory reservations are not a measure that would "need to continue", surely?    As I write (20.4.20), there is no such restriction to my knowledge and if it were brought in it would be a new measure and not a continuing one.  Safety and lives are paramount, and if there's a life case for compulsory reservations, fair enough.  If it is to be sneaked in as a convenient way to level out demand ... well, it should not be sneaked it - it should be discussed and at the very least the powers that be should be honest about it being a new restriction.

[Robin Summerhill]

There are many potential problems with introducing compulsory reservations, and most of them would result in traffic switching from rail to  road, so I fail to see how they would be to anyone's long term advanrage. Just off the top of my head, here are a few that immediately spring to mind:

. It is all very well saying "compulsory reservation on inter city trains," but the way the railway currently functions is to serve intermediate stations which essentially turn these trains into local services.

The Paddington to Bristol services, for example, normally call at Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath and Bristol. Whilst you could say that London to Bath and Bristol, and possibly Swindon, is an “inter-city” journey, that description could hardly be applied to a ticket from Reading to Didcot, or Chippenham to Bath. So immediately the question arises “what are you going to do about that?” You could introduce “set down only” services on the route, but then you would need another set of local trains to cater for the traffic between the intermediate stops. This doesn’t sound like good business sense to me.

And of course the Paddington to Bristol service is only one of many. Plymouth bound services are calling at Exeter, Newton Abbot and Totnes; WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) services stop at Lancaster, Preston, Wigan and Warrington; Midland Main line services call at Market Harborough, Leicester, East Midlands Parkway and Nottingham. And so on (and the less said about XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services on the NE/SW route the better...).

Secondly, prior reservation is not always possible. If you are swanning off on holiday from Heathrow to Florida (just to take one example) what guarantee have you that your return flight will be on time, if indeed it runs at all?  You have none so, unless the railways are going to revise their refund policy and give refunds just because people don’t turn up for their booked service (and I can’t see them wanting to do that any time soon), the net result could be a lot of empty seats on inter-city trains and a lot of extra trade for long term parking providers at Heathrow.

 Similar considerations would apply to people going to interviews or business meetings where the length of time that they will be there cannot be predicted beforehand. And exactly the same principle would apply to people using “inter-city” trains to tootle off from Chippenham to Bath, or from Neath to Swansea, or from Chesterfield to Sheffield for shopping or general leisure trips. Do you always know in advance how long that is going to take you, especially if you had an ex-wife like mine who could wander a shopping precinct for four hours trying to find a pair of shoes and still come back empty-handed... More potential car journeys, methinks.

As I used to say frequently during my working life: “Have a good idea by all means, but think through the implications of that idea before you introduce it.”

[Bmblbzzz]

Shapps and Hendy seem to be talking about commuter services not intercity ones. Though of course there are intercity commuters too, Bristol to London being just one example.

I think they're right that wfh is here to stay though not necessarily in its current form; maybe a hybrid pattern of eg 2 days in workplace, 3 days at home (and that assumes the continuation of a 5-day week... ). But even in 2020 a lot of people have non-office jobs which need to be done in a specific location and often with specific people; anything from engineers to hairdressers. Some of these even depend on dayight, so commuting hours are not flexible.

[southwest]

It won't happen, To be honest most of the coronavirus stuff in this section is stupid I can't even be bothered to reply.

Are we going to a instant return to normal, NO. Will everything go back to how is was in 2019?, No, some minor things might change, more people working from home some or all of the time. However, to make out we will have a new normal is complete and utter rubbish. Things might not be exactly the same, but in 2 or 3 years time we will still see overcrowded trains, busy railways etc it's just going to take time.

One of the few things i'm hoping that will change is improved hygiene on our trains, as too often before cleaning was often limited or poor.