Cutting services to save fuel

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From The BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

Airlines can cancel flights in advance over fuel shortages under new plans

Airlines will be able to cancel flights weeks in advance, without losing valuable take off and landing slots at busy airports, if they face fuel shortages this summer.

New contingency plans have been drawn up by the government to let carriers plan ahead, helping to avoid disruptive last-minute cancellations for passengers.

The proposals would allow airlines to merge flights on routes with multiple trips to the same destination on the same day, meaning passengers could be moved from their original booking to a similar one to save fuel.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said she was confident most people travelling this summer would have a similar experience to last year.

Travel journalist Simon Calder told the BBC the aim was "prioritise holiday flights over business departures."

What do you think of the idea?  Should it be available to other forms of public transport?

[Mark A]

Thinking of surface public transport, for distances not able to be covered on foot or cycle, that's hopefully more fuel efficient than everyone making their own arrangements to travel. Cutting services to the extent that people are displaced and make their own arrangements would not save fuel.

(Public transport services cut to save money -  that's another matter.)

{Narrator: 'The DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)' has entered the chat...}

Mark

[Surrey 455]

Most bus routes in London are fairly frequent, in some cases every few minutes. As long as it doesn't affect crowding too much I would consider reducing the frequency on those turn up and go routes.

[Clan Line]

As long as it doesn't affect crowding too much I would consider reducing the frequency on those turn up and go routes.

The problem is with that approach is:  what do you do with the buses that you make redundant by reducing the frequency ? I hear people saying that you still need them for the busy periods. Then the finance dept start saying why do we have a thousand (or two) buses that are only in use 4 hours a day ? - we can save £X million a year if we get rid of these under-used vehicles and not have to pay drivers, etc to operate/maintain/clean them.

An idea - buy short buses that you can join together into longer buses for busy periods................hang on though, I think that other transport suppliers have already tried that and you just end up with short buses most of the time............

[Electric train]

Public transport should be one of the last forms of transport to be reduced to save fuel, the first measure should be as with the 1973 fuel crisis a temporary measure to reduce fuel consumption a 50 mph speed limit on all roads was introduced.  (This did result in the 1974 of the introduction of the National speed limit of 60 mph and 70 mph)

[bobm]

Nice to see you posting again.  Retirement can be so busy. 

Returning to topic.  Domestic users also had to apply for fuel coupons.  They were never used but focussed the mind.

Weekend leisure driving was also discouraged.