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Ellie Zolfagharifard
On the right track
When television’s Richard Wilson was charged £139 for forgetting his senior railcard during the Channel 4 ‘Train Journeys from Hell’ programme, the One Foot in the Grave star couldn’t believe it.
‘I presume this is going to happen on the way back,’ he cried. ‘I’m going to be charged £280, which is ridiculous.’ At one point during filming, Wilson decided to sit in the toilet for lack of seating in the carriage. ‘Is it always like this?’, he asked a fellow passenger.
It’s probably not every day you come across Victor Meldrew in the toilets of your commuter train. But no doubt the experience of being on an overcrowded carriage with one person’s elbow in your face and another screaming dinner instructions into your ear is a familiar one.
The government claims that initiatives such as High Speed Two, the proposed high-speed line between London and the Midlands, will change all of this. They hope it’ll turn us back into a nation of train lovers who want nothing more than to spend a day watching the scenic British countryside roll past as we sit back and relax in our luxury carriages.
But as the McNulty review made clear yesterday, it’s going to take far more than high-speed rail services and refurbished trains to transform our experience of the railways. The industry doesn’t simply need a facelift, it needs a complete overhaul in structure, pricing and operation.
In his report, Sir Roy McNulty, the former Civil Aviation Authority chairman, said the rail industry needs to cut costs by 30 per cent by 2019 to bring it into line with other European railways. He advised the government to undertake a full review of fares policy and structures, ‘aiming to move towards a system that is seen to be less complex and more equitable.’
The main culprits in our poor level of service, according to the report, is fragmentation of structures and interfaces; the ways in which the role of government and industry have evolved; ineffective incentives; and a franchising system that doesn’t encourage cost reduction.
McNulty’s solution, however, is not as radical as some might have hoped. Among other things, he proposes simplification of the system, balancing fares and improving inefficient work practices. Implementing all his recommendations, he believes, could save the public coffers between £700m and £1bn annually by 2019.
Responding to the review, Prof Rod Smith, president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: ‘The report falls short of recommending a wholesale restructuring of the railways and it will remain to be seen whether the proposals will be enough to address the inefficiencies of the current system.
‘Key tests for the new system will be the speed at which new, more efficient technologies can be adopted and whether there will be sufficient confidence from the engineering supply chain to make the investments needed to improve the efficiency of railway projects and operations.’
Technology’s role in all of this is largely focused on the improving information systems, enhancing communication and increasing the sale of tickets — all of these issues have suffered from a lack of co-ordinated action across the industry. But the report doesn’t detail any radical high-tech plans that would provide a silver bullet solution.
And perhaps that’s because there isn’t one. This could be the one area where a common sense approach will provide far better gains to the travelling public than any high-tech system could.
That’s not to say there isn’t a place for radical technological solutions in the rail network. But before that happens, we need sensible solutions that bring the industry together, and that is something politicians still need to work on.
Innovation flourishes under good conditions and the rail network needs to get the basics right before any real change can happen.
Readers' comments (9)
Anonymous | 20 May 2011 12:07 pm
Something needs to be done about the shoddy practices of the franchise operators. Virgin Rail, for example, are constantly leaving passengers bereft of their booked seat due to cancellations etc. So there you are, you think you've booked a seat but you end up standing all the way from London Euston to Manchester. And what do you get by way of compensation? A £5 money off voucher for your next trip. "I don't believe it !" either, to be honest.
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S. Martin | 20 May 2011 1:10 pm
The main issues with the railways have been highlighted. They are also impractical as often they are so expensive, and do not go where people want to go. What's the point of having to take a taxi to the station, boarding a train, change trains, then get a taxi to your destination at the end of your train journey? Then there's the cost, in the great majority of cases for business users it is inflexible, inefficient, and expensive, especially when time costs money.
That's why most of us take the car, or fly.
The railway infrastructure is dilapidated and no amount of upgrades will compete on efficiency terms with a radical rethink and begin from scratch. This also applies to the country's infrastructure generally.
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Anonymous | 20 May 2011 1:22 pm
The rail system should never have been split up. It has resulted in a sales-prevention policy for passengers, a lack of investment and public service. How crazy that the Wrexham line had to close because it wasn't allowed to pick up in Virgin territory? What happened to this 'competitive market'?
HS2 will only benefit anyone travelling to Birmingham by about 20 minutes. What about the parts of the country where you have to plan to take a commuter train at least an hour before you need to because the service is so unreliable?
Without serious investment in better infrastructure and rolling stock instead of closing stations 'for efficiency', the car will still rule.
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Phil Mortimer | 20 May 2011 1:25 pm
Exec Summary Para 10 says it all:NR at times seems to be insufficiently concerned with the needs of its customers (a similar comment could equally apply to most of the TOCs.FOC productivity and efficiency could also stand a serious review and upgrade.
A Second point also in the Exec Summary says TOCs at times are taking a very short term view of an industry that requires long term planning. One could argue that the rail sector would have us believe that none of this is correct and therefore Sir Roy's report is fatally flawed.
How can such a fragmented industry measure its efficiency and be compared with effective state monopolies such as DB & SNCF which seem to be heavily over-manned. Surely the real comparisons should be with the competing modes and the focus needs to be on getting costs down and productivity up to be able to compete on merit and not on Byzantine funding mechanisms and a complex and expensive superstructure (ORR/NR/DfT RSSB) that is endlessly tinkering.
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steve Greatwood | 20 May 2011 4:02 pm
National rail travel is a shambles now; I have been a lifelong fan of railways, but it like Premier league football it is overpriced. Just look at SNCF in France to see how it should be. Buying a ticket is a lottery when you have to consider buying single tickets for return trips.
This is rip-off Britain in action when you consider that the infrastructure was put in place 150 years ago. Why are we paying so much to stand throughout a journey?
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Rob1 | 20 May 2011 5:23 pm
Well, it has to be said, and as has been proved from what has already been commented on, our railways are a shambollic mess. Competition? What competition? On the route from Havant to Waterloo Station, there is only one choice of operator - South West Trains. And I'm sure this is the same for many other routes. So, competition is therefore non-existant. All the comments put forward so far, and I'm sure there will be more to come, are indicative of commuters who are wholly dissatisfied with whatever it is you want to call - it can hardly be called a service. The problem ladies and gentlemen is:- What on earth can be done about it before it gets worse? How can the voice of "The Engineer's" readers be heard, let alone the hundreds of thousands of others of the same opinion?
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John Prendergast | 20 May 2011 9:27 pm
Railways were a 19th Century solution to transport having banned steam carriages from toll pkes. The railways today should have their rail spread apart and tarmack poured in between, then rail routes could be used for lorries and coaches.
This would achieve higher density running and free existing roads of a lot.
My fourth proposal is to put car only top decks on Moroways to increase capacity.
The third proposal is to provide cities and big towns with a modest subsidy to build mini airports for quieter stol intercity jets. Bombardier, Avro, and Embreaer would love to show the way here.
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Anonymous | 20 May 2011 11:09 pm
Am I just being cynical, or is HS2 really intended as a shuttle service to carry passengers from Birmingham Airport to London when their airports run out of capacity.
Dave (Brummie)
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David Widgery | 22 May 2011 11:11 am
In 1842, the Railway Clearing House was set up to manage many of the issues resulting from separate private companies wanting to run through trains with compatible ticketing. It ran very successfully for more than 100 years until the British Transport Commission took over its functions after nationalisation. We now seem to have moved back to a pre-1842 situation. Is there a current equivalent of the Clearing House?
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