On 5 May, Londoners will choose their new mayor. In doing so, they will grant a single individual the third biggest direct personal mandate of any politician in the whole of Europe (only France and Portugal are larger). That person will have control of a £17bn budget – roughly the same as the entire national budget of Serbia. The lion’s share of that budget – about £11.5bn – will go to Transport for London.
One could be forgiven, therefore, for expecting to find transport – and more particularly a deep and nuanced understanding of it – at the heart of both the Conservative and Labour candidates’ campaigns. Unfortunately, there has been little evidence to suggest it is there.
Perhaps indicative of both Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith’s lack of interest in transport was their noticeable absence at a long-planned debate on infrastructure, with a focus on transport, at the Institution of Civil Engineers. Instead of defending their manifesto promises themselves, outgoing London Assembly Transport Committee Chair Valerie Shawcross AM and Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport Claire Perry MP stepped in for Khan and Goldsmith respectively. Neither gave a convincing performance.
Readers may also have noted the absence of both men from the digital and physical pages of LR. Both Sian Berry, representing the Greens, and Caroline Pidgeon, representing the Liberal Democrats, accepted our challenge to talk openly and in depth about transport issues. The absence of similar detailed conversations with Khan and Goldsmith can be left to speak for itself.
This isn’t to say that both candidates have not commented on transport at all. Both have done so frequently in the press and in various debates. On few occasions, however, have those comments ever revealed more than a superficial understanding of London’s transport issues. More often than not they have been vague statements carefully dressed up as actual answers, soap-box bubbles that pop at the the gentlest application of actual journalistic pressure.
That both candidates suffered early transport scares perhaps helps explain their reticence to stray into the murky waters of actual transport policy. For Goldsmith, this came in November last year when a series of ill-judged comments on LBC betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of bus lanes and, well, buses:
I think that if I am right and I am absolutely convinced I am, that we are going to see a massive shift in the type of cars people own, then within two or three years there will be no point having bus lanes because everybody is going to be driving these things around.
It was a comment that he would later attempt to walk back, claiming that he meant that a temporary removal of some bus lanes would help promote the take-up of electric cars (although it’s very hard to see how his statement could actually have been intended this way). It remains hard to see the incident, however, as anything other than a brutal, early lesson in the dangers of overstepping one’s knowledge of the capital’s impressive, but delicately balanced, transport eco-system.
It was an error that, unsurprisingly, Khan was swift to pounce upon. Yet his own misstep was not far behind. There are two things in life a putative ruler should never do: start a land war in Asia, or pledge a fares freeze in a London mayoral election. Khan did the latter. Tom Edwards at the BBC was quick to question the numbers and Khan’s heated defences of them on television won him few friends, as well as giving Goldsmith’s campaign a solid line of attack.
Like Goldsmith on bus-lanes, Khan has since made multiple attempts to walk his figures back. We will look at how he has done so shortly when we consider his manifesto in more detail. That it remains, however, perhaps the only regular non-race card still played by Lynton Crosby in Goldsmith’s ongoing campaign somehow manages to speak badly of both candidates.
If both candidates have hewn firmly towards safer transport ground since then it is perhaps no surprise. It is important, however, for us to at least attempt to build a picture of what their future policies are likely to be. So, let us look at some of the key sections of their respective manifestos, which in this context are very important. They will form the basis of the victor’s Mayor’s Transport Strategy – a five year plan on the priorities and projects the new mayor seeks to achieve in this term.
Breaking down the manifestos
At first glance both of their manifestos seem to promise Londoners a lot of rail projects – ones we’ve seen in the news and heard about. We have certainly heard the narrative that London needs Crossrail 2 and the vision of a South London Overground. If it all sounds familiar it is because Transport for London is already working on these projects. It is thus clear that both Khan and Goldsmith have taken their lead from Transport for London on which projects to list in their manifestos. Superficially, this seems sensible. Transport for London is the technocracy established to run transport.
But the barrier to delivering many of these projects is not strategic will or desire on the part of TfL, but money. And neither manifesto offers a coherent and funded strategy to meet the needs of those projects, maintain the legacy infrastructure or expand the network.
So the candidates are setting themselves up to be ill prepared for the term ahead. Projects are now committed to without full analysis of them – meaning possibly projects better suited to address the issues are already dismissed.
In Zac’s case, depressingly, even here this narrative is augmented by one of fear, presenting a vision in which it is repeatedly reiterated that if Sadiq Khan was elected all of TfL’s projects would somehow be in jeopardy.
Fare shake up
That fear is, in part, built on the perceived impact of Sadiq Khan’s fares pledge.
In Khan’s manifesto that pledge is refined and laid out in full. It is a pledge to freeze public transport fares at 2016 prices for his 4-year mayoral term. It is an eye catching proposal – and one he clearly hopes will prove popular with voters. As Khan explains, he wants to reduce the transport cost burden so families do not have to choose between putting dinner on the table or clothing their children and using public transport.
Before breaking down the numbers it is perhaps worth noting that the idea is not a new one for Khan, or London Labour. Indeed whilst Khan has occasionally been accused by his rivals of being a man prepared to be “all things to all men”, his commitment to an (effective) fare reduction has actually been lengthy and consistent, with him first going on record with the idea in 2013.
The devil, however, is in the numbers. Khan estimates the policy will cost £450m for the term. He envisions that the budget reduction can be bridged by finding efficiencies within TfL – such as merging departments – and reducing the use of consultants and agency staff. Indeed Khan claims Transport for London ‘wasted’ £383m last year on consultants and agency staff, and wants to halve that bill – a promised saving of £190m a year then.
Khan is not alone in insisting that further efficiencies can be found within TfL. It has also been a familiar refrain from Pidgeon and, to a lesser extent, from the other candidates as well. It is also almost certainly true. Any organisation of TfL’s size inevitably accrues fat. In all cases, however, talk of cuts to TfL as a source of funding fails to take into account the fact that the organisation was, and is, already undergoing an extensive exercise to do exactly that. Not to raise additional funds for the incoming mayor, but in order to meet the £2.8bn cuts to its Government grant that are already on the table. For any candidate to rely heavily on the ability of TfL to find extra efficiencies in the short term whilst maintaining the same level of delivery of both services and projects is a dangerous game indeed.
In addition, Khan proposes to meet any remaining short fall by creating a trading arm ‘that can run bus and other local transport services at home and abroad’ as well as a TfL consultancy that will sell best practice and lessons learnt to others around the world — to other transport agencies and those looking to improve transport in their city. The former seeks to replicate the success that other European state owned railway businesses, such as Deutsche Bahn, that run the London Overground, have had.
Khan argues that by Transport for London bidding and running services elsewhere, the profits realised can be funnelled into keeping transport fares low in London. The latter proposal to create a TfL consultancy sounds similar to London Transport International – the consultancy arm of TfL’s predecessor that advised over 25 metros around the world between the mid 1970s and the mid 1990s when the organisation was shut down. Of all the rail ideas in both manifestos this is perhaps the most intriguing, but at the and it being same time it is far from an assured success. The transport elephant in the room is that the “foreign” market that has until now proven such a quick and easy cash-cow for the European railway operators (which Khan suggests TfL emulate) has been the UK. That is a market that almost certainly will not be available to TfL.
Building up a successful overseas presence will thus take time, resource and money, and inevitably questions will be asked about whether it is worthwhile on balance, even should the enterprise prove to be a long term success.
In addition, Khan suggest that TfL can support the fare freeze by putting ‘spare TfL land to better use, retaining ownership while building affordable and market homes, as well as commercial space, [to] generat[e] long-term and secure revenue stress’. Again, this is indeed possible, but again TfL already has an ambitious plan to generate £3.4bn in non-fares commercial revenue by 2023 through partnerships with property developers. That £3.4bn is already set to be reinvested in London’s transport network. In February, TfL announced the appointment of 13 major property developers and consortia to bid for work on 50 TfL sites across London. Based on a the brochure put out by Transport for London for property partnership opportunities 65% of the 50 opportunity sites on TfL land are in zones 1 & 2 – all the best sites will already have been factored into its financial calculations.
Khan’s ability to meet the cost of his pledge is thus already on shaky ground. The real controversy associated with the fares pledge, however, has grown up not around this but from a broader question – whether Khan’s assessed headline cost of £450m was accurate at all.
After the pledge became public, Ian Brown, former MD of London Rail at TfL and non-executive director of the Crossrail Board, admitted that Transport for London was worried about the impact of the fares freeze pledge in a webinar with the Washington-based transport think tank ENO. Unlike Khan, Transport for London estimates the price tag for the policy to be £1.5bn for the four years.
For the sake of clarity, it is worth noting here that figure again – £1.5bn. the widely circulated £1.9bn figure is actually for five years. This poorly reported revision was clarified in the London Assembly Plenary Meeting on the 10 February.
For such a gap to exist between a major candidate’s forecasts and those of TfL was astonishing. This, combined with the initial vehemence with which Khan insisted that TfL had told him his figures were accurate in the face of their denials, suggests that there is more to the events that caused this discrepancy than meets the eye. In the spirit of never assigning to malice what is equally possible to have been caused by accident, the betting money at LR Towers has always been on a miscommunication between candidate and transport authority. A wrong or ambiguous question was asked, perhaps or a wrong or ambiguous answer was given, and neither party spotted the issue until it was already public.
Indeed in the same February meeting it was hinted that the discrepancy between the Labour candidate’s campaign and the TfL figures might hinge on different inflation forecasts – Labour assuming inflation levels to continue at current low levels around 1% and Transport for London assuming higher figures upon recommendation from the Bank of England.
We will likely never know the precise cause, but it seems almost certain that whatever has transpired behind the scenes – positive or negative – between Khan and TfL will likely have set a tone for their relationship over the next four years, should he win the election.
Ultimately, whatever the discrepancy, it is clear that a financial gap will exist. Transport Commissioner Mike Brown has admitted that he thinks it will be hard for Transport for London to pay for the fare freeze through efficiencies. That does not mean that he has said the freeze couldn’t happen, simply implied – heavily – that a freeze could lead to a scaling back of TfL’s large investment programmes. It remains to be seen whether that’s a price that Khan (or indeed London) could afford to pay.
Sir Peter Hendy, Brown’s predecessor at Commissioner, once described to us his own approach to a mayoral change thusly:
When Boris was elected we wrote down everything he said. And the first time I went to see him I said: ’Here’s a list of what we can do today – because that’s what politicians want to do – here’s a list of things we can do in a bit. Here’s the list of things that are more difficult. And here’s a little list of the things you probably shouldn’t have said and that we’re going to find bloody difficult. I didn’t say weren’t going to do them – but that we’ll find really difficult.
Luckily Mike Brown is a shrewd and accomplished political operator in his own right. For should Khan win then Brown will likely require his own version of Hendy’s little speech.
Commuter rail take over
Both candidates are also calling for TfL to take over management of the railways in London. The vision is to replicate the success of London Overground across the capital.
A jointly published DfT and TfL consultation document, covered by a lot of media outlets as an announcement of the intention for TfL to take over South London mainline rail services, indicated the things were moving towards TfL playing a greater role in the management of the train services in South London. Again here both candidates’ policies align with a strategy TfL is already pursuing. Whether this means that TfL will adopt the routes and a similar structure as for the incumbent London Overground for South London, or just have more say in stipulating the details of franchise agreements, is not clear.
What is relatively clear is that the publication of the joint document, the timing (if not the contents) of which clearly took TfL slightly by surprise, appears to have been done to position Zac Goldsmith favourably – rather than map out a plan to realise ‘turning South London orange’.
In theory, Transport for London adopt the first South London routes in 2018 as franchises expire. According to TfL Rail’s head of planning, Geoff Hobbs, it would take approximately two years for the transport agency to prepare a management take over. This is why South West’s network is unlikely to be added to TfL’s rail services when the franchise expires next year.
Missing once again though from both candidates manifesto pledges and the wider hype of ‘turning South London orange’ is a coherent funding plan. The success of the London Overground orbital was reliant on over a £1bn in infrastructure as well as refurbishment of stations and new trains. Yet neither Khan nor Goldsmith go beyond the hollow promises that they hope will win them support south of the river.
Without a robust plan and sufficient funding the South London Overground endeavour will not be a success.
Crossrail 2
Hot on the heels of Crossrail, both candidates also pledge to work with the Government to realise plans for Crossrail 2 – a new link from the South West via Central London to North East London. Again this project has already been in the works for a while. The National Infrastructure Commission concluded that London ‘would grind to a halt’ without it. The national government also announced in its budget in March that it would provide £80m, which it expects Transport for London to match, to develop the Crossrail 2 scheme further. This is only a drop in the ocean of the project expected to cost twice as much as Crossrail – rolling in at between £27bn -£32bn.
A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that half this cost could be met within the current funding mechanisms available to the mayor. These include the Business Rate Supplement, Mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), council tax precept and the resale of land and property compulsory purchase to build the new underground railway. Neither candidate goes beyond regurgitating this potential and neither suggests a plan to find the missing funding beyond the nebulous rhetoric of working with government.
South London
Khan also promises to secure funding for the Bakerloo line extension to South London. This project seeks to unlock areas for higher density housing in South London and has already been consulted on a number of times. The most recent survey indicated that 96% were supportive of the extension from the current terminus at Elephant and Castle in principle. The debate continues on which route south the Bakerloo will take. As of this year, TfL are developing a technically detailed case. Goldsmith meanwhile is prioritising new trains on the existing network over a Bakerloo line extension.
Instead of committing to the Bakerloo line extension Goldsmith has promised the extension of the tram network in South London. Transport for London has already committed £100m to the project. It is estimating the full cost would be triple that amount and seeking a £200m contribution towards the project from the local borough, Sutton. The project is currently stalling as no agreement has been made with the local borough and Transport for London. Goldsmith fails to indicate how he will plug that gap.
Khan meanwhile envisages planning for the long term to include projects such as Crossrail 3, new orbital links as well as DLR and tram extensions
Night Tube
Both candidates are committed to implementing the Night Tube service which was not implemented as planned in September 2015 following disputes between unions and management, leading to strikes on the network.
Zac Goldsmith’s manifesto appear to outline plans to add all night weekend service on the London Overground in 2017 and the Docklands Light Railway by 2021. However, the extension of the Night Tube is already in place. The Circle, Hammersmith and City, District and Metropolitan lines will join once the modernisation programme is complete – completion date currently set for 2019. TfL also plans to add the London Overground and the DLR in 2017 and 2021 respectively.
Whilst Khan seeks to address further discontent between management and the unions, and prevent escalation to industrial action by engaging with the unions. Goldsmith pledges to clamp down on TfL staff’s ability to strike.
Buses
Sadiq Khan wants to shake up the bus fare structure by introducing a one-hour bus pass to replace the single fare passengers pay when they board a bus. Whilst not a new idea (nor even originally a Labour one – it was a Liberal Democrat proposal in the last election when Caroline Pidgeon was on the political undercard) this does seem to be one that is finally about to have its day.
It tackles the discrepancy between the bus and rail fare structure. It will provide a fairer fare structure for those that live in less accessible areas, with low income travellers now able to use multiple buses at the current cost of one to get to their destination. The next step from here could be to integrate bus and tube fares.
Levelling the playing field between bus and tube fares could encourage passengers to use the bus instead of the Tube network – reducing demand on the tube network without large scale infrastructure building.
The only policy Zac Goldsmith has to improve the bus network, meanwhile, is to conduct an urgent review into the outer London bus network. The review is to ensure that outer London is appropriately served by frequent routes. This promise seems directed at a particular voter base rather than focused on the most pressing issues. Importantly, there is no detail on who these new buses might be funded by or whether the findings of the review will be acted upon. Whilst it may represent a safer path to electoral success, therefore, it will not automatically translate to good government.
Whistling the same, safe tune
This, effectively, can be said to hold true for much of the remainder of both candidates’ manifesto promises on transport. It is not our intention to go into details of them all here. Our goal was simply to give a feel for some of the ways in which both candidates are equally lacking.
Indeed we suggest those keen to find out both Khan and Goldsmith’s views on roads, cycling and walking engage in a little mental exercise:
Before looking at their respective manifestos, ask yourself a series of general questions about a basic issue and take a stab at concocting the least offensive reply:- Black Cabs? Good. Keep them. Pollution? Bad. It should go. Cycling? Yes. It’s nice and should be safer.
As long as any real effort to describe how those things might come to pass, or fund it, is avoided, then more often than not you will find yourself surprisingly close to your chosen candidate’s policy.
Looking to the future
If we have painted an overly harsh image of our two lead candidates in this article, then that is perhaps not entirely fair. Both men have their flaws, certainly. Both men, in town hall meetings and debates, have frequently demonstrated a willingness to say precisely what is required of them within that individual setting at times, for example, whilst having no qualms about holding an opposing view at a different event. For Zac in particular this has been notable on the issue of mini-Hollands and outer-London cycling, where his commitment to London’s cycling future seems to wane considerably at campaign meetings in boroughs were the motor car rules supreme.
But both – generally speaking – have also demonstrated positives and the potential to lead. When it comes to transport at least it is so far little more than that – potential. In a few short days one of them will likely stand before the city as the latest holder of one of the most powerful and important transport jobs in Europe. The problem is that right now both seem to be lacking the understanding or policies necessary to hit the ground running.
There comes a point, for example, where you have to know more, as London’s mayor, about buses than simply that your father used to drive one. Although even this towers above Goldsmith’s own biggest use of buses in his campaign – which was to write a dog-whistle attack article featuring images of buses from 7/7 in the Mail on Sunday. An act that is well below the standard of politics and basic decency that the city he claims to wish to serve deserves.
Ultimately, both men will need to rapidly up their transport game. Not just for their own political benefit but because in London, arguably more than anywhere else in the UK, transport really matters. Transport in London plays a critical support role in meeting wider social policy objectives such as housing, employment and education. And yet at the same time pressures on transport are mounting due to continuing population and employment growth in London as many, many reports have detailed.
A robust, functioning transport network is key to accommodating the two Tube trains full of people moving to London every week. It is key to helping the city grow and survive. It thus requires a mayor who is capable of understanding, supporting – and most importantly – of funding that.
It is just a shame, and a concern, that neither Sadiq Khan or Zac Goldsmith have presented any real evidence of being able to do that thus far.
Depressing but at the same time unexpected.
Errata:
Excess ,] in second paragraph of Breaking down the maifestos.
Heading “Nigh Tube” probably wants an additional t.
Second para final section begins with a lower-case letter.
More Errata:
Square brackets appear to be randomly multiplying and inserting themselves through the article in 5-6 places.
Ta. Sorted (I think). Not sure what happened there.
What will be interesting is who they appoint to do the heavy lifting. If Sadiq is elected and gives Christian Wolmer a significant role I would be much encouraged. London’s transport is a like a Swiss watch as we know, every time something gets in its way (traffic accident, broken rail etc.) it grinds to a halt to some extent, so I hope they choose advisors who know this.
Jon Davies
PS ‘Night’ not ‘nigh’ buses surely unless tending to an ‘end is nigh’ armageddon suggestion.
I know that it is depressing that neither candidate seems to have a coherent strategy on transport but was Boris any better? (not that this is any comfort…)
Another examples of Goldsmith’s ability to hold contradictory views is his claim “I’m a localist”. Of course, he is when it is convenient for him and he isn’t when it isn’t, like with his support of road tunnels and free parking.
Both Khan and Goldsmith are running scared from any form of extension of congestion charging or road pricing. I thought it was notable that Boris has said this will inevitably be something the next mayor will need to consider. Again, it is disappointing that neither candidate is facing up to this in public, undoubtedly because they think it will scare off voters but my guess is public opinion may be more receptive than they think.
Within the LR readership it’s unsurprising that the lack of transport detail has been met with disappointment, but I think both candidates have understandably steered clear of detailed transport proposals for a number of reasons:
– Housing is now THE issue of this campaign, and rightly so. While it is tied to transport provision in terms of where it is located and how some of it it funded, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that transport has taken a back seat to it.
– Trust in TfL: The article alludes to it (TfL being the “technocracy”), but all of candidates are standing back and giving the impression that they trust TfL to be a non-partisan advocate of London’s transport. In part, this is because it is easier to approach central government and institutions for capital funding if TfL is seen to be independent, but also it is to distance themselves from the legacy-seeking projects that have dominated the headlines during Johnson’s two terms.
– The Mayor’s role is to act as a figurehead for the city and in particular to champion its cause to central government based upon recommendations and advice given by deputies and commissioners. The skill of the mayoral post lies in appointing suitable experts who do understand the detail and can work with the teams involved on a day-to-day basis. Gilligan has been a surprising success in his role at cajoling, pushing and pulling the cycle superhighways through in the past couple of years, and I’d like to see Wolmar brought into the fold too, assuming Khan wins the election.
– And finally, unfortunately, has been the campaign run by Goldsmith/Crosby/Evening Standard. It’s been very difficult to get any debate or media discussion to focus on transport (or in fact, most of the serious issues), with dead-cats and dog-whistling being deployed on an almost weekly basis.
“Before looking at their respective manifestos, ask yourself a series of general questions about a basic issue and take a stab at concocting the least offensive reply:- Black Cabs? Good. Keep them. Pollution? Bad. It should go. Cycling? Yes. It’s nice and should be safer.”
‘Black Cabs’ regulated by TfL are the Capital’s Taxi service that has been over regulated in order to satisfy various passenger focus and advocacy groups. ‘Make them wheelchair friendly!’ ‘Make them greener!’ Reality is, a vehicle that was cheaper than a Ford Granada in 1985, is now £43,000 with finance charges that cost £10,000 over 5 years…..the licence fees are non-profit raising so cost the Mayor virtually nothing in terms of administration. What should be a thriving Taxi service has been undermined by TfL to allow a smartphone app, promoted and marketed by an American company, that neither owns a single vehicle, nor employs a single driver but whose policies cause congestion and pollution to make obscene amounts of profit and dictate to both officials and politicians whilst hardly paying any tax.
To simplify it as keep or go, good or bad, doesn’t even scratch the surface of what is going on behind the scenes regarding power and influence. A few FOI’s might help LR understand the corruption and power struggle currently being waged that could see Über buses, Über freight and Über politicians who dictate how our services are delivered in order that parties in Gov’t can boast to be Tech savvy or innovating not realising that eventually Über will dictate Gov’t policies the same way as they dictate how transport is run.
It’s not as simple as good or bad, it’s more like Good v Evil.
Like last time, we have a choice between two candidates who are unsuited to the role. In effect, the real election happened with just the Labour members when they chose their candidate, and sadly both parties’ members are on the extremes of politics, rather than towards the centre. Anyway, it would be amazing if Kahn didn’t win at this point, particularly given Goldsmith’s lacklustre and disgusting campaign.
As a blogger on rail investment, I fear for the next 10 years. A fares freeze is a real terms cut, and means the TfL budget will inevitably be curtailed somewhere. The most likely candidates would be the Sutton tram or Bakerloo extension, as CR2 has national profile and serves Kahn’s area of Tooting. London can’t afford more years of inaction, so I encourage those at TfL to be “robust” when having discussions with the new Mayor.
I just wish the population of London and media could look beyond the two main parties – both Caroline Pidgeon (Lib Dem) and Sian Berry (Green) would be better mayors IMO.
I suspect Khan will have to alter his fares policy, say by offer a freeze during his first two years followed by low increases, and also seek income from his only other real funding sources – the CC and the mayor’s share of CT. Look out for lots of warning speeches about the grow of traffic causing economic and environmental harm followed by an expansion of the CC zone and/or a hike in its tariff towards the end of 2016 (no bad thing in many ways). I also suspect we’ll hear lots of talk re. the removal of TfL’s general grant requiring a need for small increase here.
A couple of very minor pedantic points: Vladimir Putin might disagree with the “third largest individual mandate in Europe” (third largest individual mandate in free and fair elections, perhaps), and the appalling 7/7 dog-whistle article with the bus picture was in the Mail on Sunday, not the Evening Standard.
It would be interesting to go back and look at the previous mayors’ manifestos before they were first elected. From memory Ken promised to protect the Routemaster, bring back bus conductors on other routes, and not close any ticket offices, while Boris promised an urgent rail summit, a network of orbital express buses and new tram lines in South London. Both in office largely ignored these promises and mostly did what TfL wanted. Boris’ pre-election moment of stupidity he had to walk back from was when he implied London’s buses should be deregulated.
A couple of very minor pedantic points: Vladimir Putin might disagree with the “third largest individual mandate in Europe”
Fair point! But I’ll hide behind the ‘freely elected’ bit! Have fixed the Mail reference as well.
@Anonymous 10:51 – rest assured, the complexity of the Taxi debate is something we are fully aware of and have written about. That comment was just giving an example of the excess simplicity that exists in the manifestos.
I’m not convinced that allowing TfL to bid to run other transit systems is going to make much of a dent on the deficit created by the fares freeze. Given TOCs typically make around 4% profit margin, applied to a contract like the Crossrail Concession which is worth £1.4bn over eight years, that comes out at only £7 million a year. Plus that potential profit is only if delivery meets the performance measures in the contract, plus they have to win a competitive tender first, with the associated bidding costs estimated to be between £1m and £2m currently for UK rail contracts, which would probably be similar overseas.
@Ian J – Boris also promised to “smooth traffic flow” in his manifesto commitments so just about every TfL press release about changes to roads contained something about “helping to smooth traffic flow”.
Nothing changed, of course, and I’d speculate that after 2 terms Boris realised that it was an impossible objective. His parting shot was that extension of congestion pricing or road pricing needed to be considered. Easy to say, of course, given he wouldn’t be responsible for implementing it!
I’m surprised none of them has promised a permanent tailwind on all the cycle superhighways.
Thank you for a good summary of the main candidates’ views. I am not remotely surprised that they declined to be interviewed on transport. I expect their advisors told them not to wade into “shark infested waters” of an interview with a transport geek (sorry JB!).
Watching the candidates on the recent BBC London interviews with Eddie Nestor and Riz Lateef it struck me that Mr Khan has been practising the script for months and months and has even done sessions on “rogue” questions about personality and style. Mr Goldsmith has struggled to keep the Crosby implanted script going and clearly hates impromptu questions. He also can’t do “normal” (witness botched beer drinking, milk delivery, tube line names, Bollywood stars). Mr Whittle has struggled but Ms Berry and Mrs Pidgeon have appeared more natural on screen and perhaps less “polished” than Mr Khan but that’s not necessarily a bad thing (IMO).
I’ll stop this comment here but have opinions on just about everything raised and will comment later in shorter posts (as per the Mods’ edicts).
A sobering article. 2016 seems to be the year of uninspiring election candidates (on both sides of the Atlantic).
One consequence of the likely Khan victory is a Government go-ahead for Heathrow R3 in the next few weeks. Goldsmith might be more likely to sway the hand of Osborne and Cameron, or at least persuade them to kick the can down the road behind the long grass down the road!
Fares – well where to start. I frankly don’t believe that Mr Khan can keep his promises. Given Travelcard is a jointly priced product with the TOCs then we will see Travelcard prices rise every year because the DfT will demand it. The SoS has to sign off the fare deal each year. Mr Khan can’t get round that. This then leaves him with a dilemma – does he go back to the bad old days of a TfL only product (LT Card anyone?) whose prices he can control? That does nothing for simplicity. Daily capping prices involving rail services will also rise unless Mr Khan is going to ship tens of millions of quid from City Hall to the DfT to “compensate” the TOCs for the divergence from their bid projections? I think we should be told.
Furthermore I can see tremendous problems arising given the commitments that TfL is legally tied in to over Crossrail revenues and fares levels. We know similar constraints apply to Overground services that cross the Gtr London boundary. Can we see TfL being able to freeze fares on the Shenfield Line, West Anglia and GWML services (when Crossrail takes over) when they could greater ever larger “step changes” to cross boundary fares? I can’t see it *at all*. Again to ignore all this is either plain ignorance or hiding reality from the voters. The commitments on fares are in the public domain so this is not wild speculation on my part.
The final area where rail fares are an issue is the potential takeover of more TOC suburban lines. As already covered by LR we know there are constraints and commitments there about fare levels, cross boundary fares etc. These were key to securing stakeholder support from bordering county councils (all Tory run). Now do we expect the DfT to be all “lovey dovey” and go “oh yes Mr Khan of course you can lower fares and then freeze them on South Eastern and Southern when TfL takes over” or do we think they might say “tough, this is the deal on the table. Fares go up every year on these services or else you don’t get the services transferred.” Methinks it might just be the latter. Clearly Mr Khan could portray the government as “bleeps” if he wished but do we really think he will sacrifice an electorally popular takeover of services? I don’t. Regardless of who wins the Assembly constituency seats in S London he will be under tremendous pressure to secure a TfL takeover of these suburban routes as there has long been cross party support for such a change. A failure to deliver it will go down very, very badly in South London. It will also be a once in a generation chance to do it (IMO).
The whole fares and revenue thing is a complete mire. I think a fares freeze is as unpalatable a proposition as Mr Goldsmith’s “I can’t tell you anything about fare levels” stance. More nuanced policies involving some cleverness over product design, zoning and pricing could have been offered instead along with RPI only increases. That would have been a more saleable, if more complex, proposition than the nonsense from both candidates.
@marckee is on to something when he says housing is this elections #1 issue and transport, because TfL has become (has always?) just so good at provisioning for needs that it’s no longer a focus of the public and so the politicians.
Keep up the good work lads – LR is going from strength to strength. The magazine and web site are simply splendid.
Buses – oh dear. This is probably the area that makes me fume the most. (Quelle surprise say the Mods). None of the candidates have paid much attention to buses. Oh to have the prospect of the 2000 election promises from Ken all over again but no we must be disappointed.
I don’t really agree with depressing income on the bus network so the 1 hour bus ticket idea is non starter. *if* bus network finances were in better shape then perhaps I’d think about it but they’re in dire shape because ridership has fallen as has service performance. The cost efficiency of the network is also declining for a variety of reasons.
I don’t believe Mr Goldsmith ever uses buses so how he could “urgently review Outer London bus services” is beyond me. What competence does he have for even framing the objectives of the review never mind doing it? There are issues with buses in Outer London but they vary by location and there isn’t a single solution to those issues. There is also very considerable opposition to increasing network density when it involves sending buses down residential roads or even converting busy single deck routes to double deckers. There is a “hearts and minds” battle to be waged and won first before you can really ramp up the attractiveness of Outer London buses.
Mr Khan has said next to nothing about bus service quality, bus network service levels or expanding services to cope with new housing developments and population increases. This is an abdication of responsibility and shows a lack of thought. The same applies to Mr Goldsmith. The lack of comment about the implications of pedestrianising Oxford St and what that means for bus passengers, cyclists and pedestrians trying to get round Central London is also a major failing. When this comes forth I imagine it is going to cause enormous upset once the implications become clear to people. Worse it has every prospect of becoming a disaster post implementation meaning a rapid reversal of the changes.
An excellent article. As a highly biased partisan for one of these candidates, I shall forbear from further comment, other than to note with extreme disappointment my chosen candidate’s paucity of performance on the transport issue, borne out by this excellent summation of the two leading candidates’ performance on the issue over the campaign. A sad contrast with both Caroline Pigeon and Sian Berry.
Errata:
“both the Conservative and Labour candidates’ campaigns” Two candidates – one Labour, one Conservative – possessive apostrophe follows plural ‘s’.
Superfluous “then”: “if both candidates have hewn firmly towards safer transport ground since then it is perhaps no surprise then.”
“It is an eye-catching proposal” needs a capital “I” at the start of the sentence.
“Washington-based transport think ENO.” Should this be “think-tank”?
“Again here both candidates’ policies align” apostrophe again.
“The project is currently stalling” two ‘l’s in “stalling”
“remainder of both candidates’ manifesto promises” apostrophe again.
@WW re. buses (and fares, to a certain extent):
I’d probably give all the candidates a modicum of the benefit of the doubt about the lack of depth to their grasp of the issues AT THIS STAGE. The fact is that TfL are in the best position to evaluate proposals and their implications, and it is not within TfL’s scope to appraise each of the candidates’ manifestos in the lead up to the election, and it is not within TfL’s scope to brief each of the candidates in detail on the current state of the system.
I’d be more worried if the Mayor and his/her advisors were coming out with this stuff six months down the line, when TfL have had the chance to bring them up to speed and scrutinise the pledges with a mandate.
@WW And it’s also worth saying that the candidates are, obviously, tailoring the contents of their manifestos to include that which will help them get elected.
If the candidates were to devote the huge resources necessary to draw up a comprehensive bus strategy ahead of the election, it would be for what – about 500 votes across the whole capital? I’d be worried about a candidate’s ability to prioritise and delegate if they saw that as a worthwhile endeavour!
New TfL revenue sources / efficiencies. As the article already points out TfL have been slowly reorganising their business structures, taking out staff and processes and improving commercial performance for years. The bit that’s not made public is the range of activities that have simply stopped because they were not mayoral priorities (bus priority was a good example, local travel plans is another). Clearly the “commercial development” arm has been in the ascendancy in recent years (a cyclical thing inside LT and TfL in my experience). Clearly there are things that can be done but I am not convinced that “pop up” shops at Old St or Amazon lockers in stations are ever going to make much difference. You then have the “redevelop” (ahem!) Earls Court plans which are vastly more controversial and it remains to be seen how TfL emerges from that scheme both financially and reputationally. There are other places like South Kensington where I’ll be astonished if it is ever developed given the local opposition to any over station development.
Mr Khan’s various public ideas about “more money” or “efficiencies” all have potentially serious flaws. The article rightly touches on the “TfL International” idea. My view is that this will eat up resources, money and effort which should be spent in London. This are no guarantees that TfL would win (after all most of its service provision is outsourced already) a contract nor that it would be a money spinner. All these ventures are laden with risk and I really don’t think TfL bidding to run a metro line in China or Africa or a bus network in France is a good use of Londoner’s and national taxpayer’s money.
Proposals to merge engineering departments make little sense to me when you have a massive investment programme to deliver with many complex projects. Do you really want to demoralise all your engineering talent in one go? Do you really do this to people with skills that are in short supply across the world? Do you really want to push people with the longest service and greatest accumulated knowledge to walk out the door? How do you fill the gap if they go? Oh yes – buy in consultants. Oh hang on – we’re not allowed those either in Mr Khan’s brave new world. I also don’t believe you can make huge financial savings by merging engineering departments. We’ve already seen the huge problems TfL has had in delivering cycling infrastructure – down to a lack of knowledge and experience amongst UK highway engineers and a reluctance by TfL to buy in experience from Europe. Do we really want the Sub Surface resignalling project or Picc Line upgrades to be further delayed because we haven’t got signalling, track and rolling stock engineers of sufficient calibre? Don’t be surprised if Mr Waboso’s departure to Network Rail doesn’t see “transfer” of people from LU to NR.
Finally – stop those nasty foreign governments from running our buses and trains and stealing the profits. Oh dear. I assume Mr Khan has secured the parliamentary time to rewrite the GLA Act and has got Mr McLoughlin’s say so to not tendering operation of the Overground and Crossrail routes? Nope didn’t think so. A complete and utter non starter of an idea and that’s before we get to issues of probity over TfL running a bus company and being the tendering authority or potential state aid concerns / legal challenges from bus companies.
You might detect I’m not impressed. Oh and Mr Goldsmith has *nothing* to say on any of this which is possibly worse than saying a load of old cobblers. 😉
They will form the basis of the victor’s Mayor’s Transport Strategy – a five year plan on the priorities and projects
Cynical old me says: There will not be any “transport strategy” from either of these two.
Merely another 5 years of drift, plus a few hand-to-mouth expedients.
Oh dear(1)
“Crossrail2” – so according to this article it can only be funded by magic money or guvmint “subsidy” & London will grind to a halt without it.
Oh dear (2)
Ultimately both men will need rapidly up their transport game.
Except that, probably until it is much too late (i.e approx late 2019) they almost certainly won’t.
Oh dear (3)
I get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that not only do either or both of these two not know about Transport in London, [Snip for personal attack. And you were doing so well. LBM]
@ Marckee – I was not asking for a detailed bus strategy. Something along the lines of “where we have new houses or lots more people living and working in an area then I’ll ensure TfL review and improve the bus services” or
“I know that NHS changes have changed transport needs for people. I will make sure TfL work with the NHS to identify where we can put in new bus links for people” or
“I will tell TfL to work with the Boroughs and residents / employers to identify where bus services can be improved.” or
“I will tell TfL to review the times of buses in the evenings and on Sundays so that people have convenient connections with main line and Underground trains in Outer London.”
Oh and “I will ensure TfL has £xm a year dedicated to expanding and improving the bus network”. These are all simple, realistic, practical propositions that people can relate to and understand. They are also all *known* issues that Londoners already face. Heck the London Assembly wrote a report about it – it’s not difficult. 😉
@ Marckee – On fares I am going to disagree about “detail”. These are fundamental to most Londoner’s personal finances and also to TfL’s finances. I am deeply sceptical that TfL can cope with the loss of revenue grant without some very unpalatable changes that will impact on passengers’ experience of bus, tube, tram, DLR and Overground services. This will be both short term (cuts to services) and long term (undermining the investment programme and thus service quality / volume later). A fares freeze on the top is just adding to the agony when it’s not remotely clear how the shortfall can be funded.
While I fully understand why Mr Khan has not published any detail (why hand your opponents a stick to beat you with?) I am not convinced he has a plausible funding solution. He claims he has “agreement” with the Commissioner. I don’t believe him. He has probably had a discussion with the Commissioner and quite likely told the Commissioner “how life will be” if he wins and to keep his gob shut. Not quite an agreement if you ask me. Mr Brown’s only been there a short while as Commissioner and, IMO, is vulnerable to being pushed out if he’s too “awkward” for an ambitious new Mayor who wants things done his way.
The ferocity of Mr Khan’s reaction when challenged by both Tom Edwards and Tim Donovan of the BBC on the fares issue betrays a part of his character he’s tried to hide from voters and shows he is very sensitive to tough challenges or criticism. That not only suggests to me there are issues with funding his fare freeze but also how he would act under pressure on a load of issues that will come his way.
Mr Goldsmith has been equally deceitful by spinning in the other direction and predicting woe and misery for passengers but not saying how much he’s going to pull from their wallets. Fares in London are dreadfully expensive for a lot of people. Some of that is down to Government policy and some to Mayoral policy. Promises to “bear down” on fares are worthless because we know from 8 years of Bozza what that means – at least inflation level increases every single year. Bus fares that are 66% higher than in 2008, goodness knows what the percentage is for One Day Travelcards given the reduction in the product range.
None of this is easy – don’t get me wrong. However we have policies from the two main candidates that are equally implausible, unaffordable (in different ways) and impractical. I’d also say the same for the Lib Dem and Green Party fare policies too. Voters actually deserve better that this.
Khan giving Wolmer a role would be very welcome.
Turning Southeastern’s metro routes over to LO control would never cost as much as the initial stages of the Overground did. No big capital projects for one. Capacity is already at the limit in the peaks and London bridge rebuild will be handily completing just as it occurs.
The costs will be relatively small – some extra off-peak services where plenty of paths exist, and safer and staffed stations to reduce the massive levels of fare evasion. That may well pay for itself.
Little new stock needed either – the Networkers have years left in them. So just an internal refurb and probably a small order of new stock which leasing companies will pay with the additional leasing costs recouped from higher passenger numbers brought about by mass housebuilding and the wonders that the LO logo brings in terms of advertising services.
None of that comes close to the £1b spent on the East London line, new curve round to Peckham etc.
One issue not covered who is likely to have more success at lobbying Westminster and Whitehall to be given more devolved power?
A fare freeze might be possible if the Mayor can gain more taxation and spending freedom.
Of course, Goldsmith would be more likely one would have thought, but is he even interested? How combative is Khan? is he pragmatic and likely to win any concessions from the local govt minister Clark, Osborne and the Treasury? Very unlikely but possible? Also, what impact of devolution of business rates?
@WW You’re right, I don’t think any of those are unreasonable at all, I’d just wonder how many potential votes there are in making those kind of statements.
That one of these two men will become the next London Mayor is highly likely, which utterly scares me for the near-term future of our transport services. As noted above, neither have demonstrated any feeling for London as a city, just as a pool of electors to be won over (or scared off, depending on your viewpoint).
It is to be strongly hoped that ‘behind the scenes’ actions can rapidly educate them and their teams once one takes office, otherwise it is (almost) worth considering moving out for the next four years.
I see that Zac Goldmsith has now promised to ‘go knocking on the Chancellor’s door’ to get control of vehicle excise duty, so that he can reduce taxes on EVs and increase them on ‘gas guzzlers’. This is a classic example of a last minute policy promise which looks good, sounds good, yet commits him to absolutely nothing.
It is highly unlikely that the Chancellor would give over VED when he has not even been prepared to talk about handing over part of stamp duty (which was recommended by Boris’s own London Finance Commission). Even if he was, the operational difficulties of stopping things like tax shopping between London and the Home Counties – the DVLA won’t care where a car is registered – are significant.
Yet Zac could achieve the same ends by adjusting the congestion charge and the ultra low emission zones, yet he has refused to do this on the grounds that this would be more expensive for motorists!
If they want to fix VED to penalise polluting vehicles within London, then they need to make NOX emissions (from diesels) a factor in the taxation calculation. I’d argue that in a city, there is an argument for a local VED surcharge to take these things into account – not that anyone would actually vote for that.
Regarding EVs and zero VED: Many, if not most, Londoners run old cars – they aren’t used frequently, it’s not worth buying new cars. So any policy letting off EVs is actually really a benefit to people rich enough to buy EVs. This type of policy should be coming into place in a few years time, once there is a second hand market, once the prices are lower, and so on, to encourage the masses to switch, not the early adopters. One exception can be made for commercial vehicles, which are cycled more often. Especially taxis.
@ Ed 1530 – I don’t agree with giving Mr Wolmar a role at City Hall. I’m afraid I don’t think he is sufficiently “well rounded” on transport issues to cope with the inevitable compromises. He would be too singularly focussed on one or two themes to the likely exclusion of others and that is where you end up with failure. I also can’t see Mr Khan giving him a role. I do foresee Tessa Jowell and Val Shawcross possibly being given roles at City Hall if Mr Khan wins.
I’m confused about the comment about VED for Electric Vehicles – are they not exempt from VED already?
Goldsmith really is quite consistent about avoiding anything that will impact private cars, whether this is extension of congestion charging, road pricing, bringing forward the ULEZ or diesel bans.
I’m sure that Richmond being the borough with the highest car ownership rate in London is purely a coincidence.
@ Ed 1530 – I fear you may be under estimating the scope of what TfL would want to do with a TOC takeover in South London. In the early stages it may be straightforward as you suggest but extra staffing coverage doesn’t come cheap unless it’s all sub contracted to security / facilities companies. Running more off peak trains still needs drivers in the cabs. It’s medium term where I think the costs come – new trains being ordered to raise capacity, station upgrades, refurbs of some existing trains, improved depots and sidings. You’re still talking about hundreds of millions being spent to achieve this.
You then get to a crunch point – do you stop or do you incur some real “big ticket” expenditure (many hundreds / billions of pounds) to fix the infrastructure issues discussed many times on here? This is where the strategic intent (or lack thereof) of the candidates becomes important. Londoners have had a carrot dangled in front of them with the “Rail Vision” stuff launched 6 months ago. Will it get delivered? If something “half hearted” is done (due to lack of money) what does this say about TfL’s approach to rail services and will it damage their reputation? It may also damage the whole idea of rail devolution.
The proposal to revive London Transport International mirrors Network Rail’s current reinvention of Transmark. These were both consultancies: enlarging the role from advising people how to run their railway to bidding to run it for them pre-supposes you have spare operators and engineers who can be seconded from their current roles.
Transmark was seen as providing jobs for managers in their later years with lots of experience to pass on. Running a metro in a foreign country is more demanding. In 1989-90 when BR had a turnover of £3.25bn Transmark made a profit of £500,000 on a turnover of around £7.4 million. In three of the previous four years it had made a loss.
For those who might want a current polling analysis, relatively transport-free, here is a dispassionate (despite the source) review from a pollster about possible outcomes tomorrow, and why: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/05/low-turnout-may-not-be-enough-save-zac-goldsmith
I agree with WW’s latest insight, that Tessa and Val might be well placed.
I also note that DfT has already warned that any negative impact (eg through zero-increase fares) on DfT-controlled franchises – think of GW and East Anglia here – will be levied back from London to national… Crossrail 1 is rather important here.
@WW – Having drawn a bead across Wolmar as a potential associate in a previous existence, I would agree – he is knowledgeable on selected issues only (and may not have moved on with the issues over the last decade or so) but he is probably a long way better than anyone else that the politicians might invite into the tent. It will be interesting to see who else may be invited in by other parties. Any indicators?
@Captain Deltic – they never learn, do they ? The Shaw report (insofar as it will be implemented) envisaged the NR consultancy becoming a route support service which would/will certainly do for it, as the routes are saying… Having worked with numerous consultancy offshoots of national railways such as CIE consult and SYSTRA, I am still puzzled as to the added value they bring (OK SYSTRA is about selling Alstom products but why anyone would pay for a load of salesmen to camp in their offices beggars belief – certainly paid dividends for the French economy, tho’).
I’ve deliberately not commented on all the political analysis; there is always a gap between the rhetoric and the dawn of reality and the entertaining thing for officials is watching the subsequent twisting, the spread of blame to third parties -Life of Brian, passim.
Having met two of the names mentioned in earlier discussions, and despite being sympathetic to one of them, it didn’t come as a surprise that their all-round transport knowledge was very limited.
‘Sound bite transit’ seemed to be the scripted delivery (I wanted so much more) and when detail questions were asked about major issues not (yet?) on their drawing boards, the holding pattern of responses made me weep for those who won;t (if they can’t already) board buses, trains and ‘tubes’. I’ll still vote, because that’s what people fought and died for, but with no great hope.
Maybe I and fellow (former) transport workers had enough technical and operational knowledge to make someone listen (they never go without ‘minders’) and something seen as glorious rubbish from my lips may emerge as gold-dust from theirs?
For example – no-one has yet seen real sense over pedestrianising Oxford Street. When pollution was first measured there, that was with near-100% diesel buses – when it was last measured, nearly every bus in Oxford Street was a hybrid, and fewer of them due to routes being cut back. The second set of pollution measurements were little different from the first, so it ain’t the buses (alone) responsible. Withdrawing buses from Oxford Street will inconvenience people with mobility problems, will not give easy access to the Underground as both Marble Arch and Oxford Circus stations are not step-free, and doesn’t address where 370 bph will go instead, given the lack of convenient alternative roads and few suitable new/enlargeable turning points, let alone what will happen to through passengers. Amazing how inconvenient facts still never spoil a story.
And apologies for the epidemic of brackets.
One of the difficulties facing Network Rail Consulting is Network Rail’s very public shortcomings in managing projects on home turf (e.g., Great Western electrification).
In the same way, a future ‘London Transport International 2.0’ might face some difficulties in exporting its know-how. If British governments had regarded London Transport as a centre of excellence and national champion, would they have privatised London Buses, and attempted to outsource maintenance of the Underground?
Great article, and it’s a shame that both contenders seem so clueless…
“There are two things in life an erstwhile ruler should never do:”
I don’t think you mean “erstwhile” — “putative”, perhaps?
Excellent analysis, and depressing reading for someone struggling to decide who to vote for!
Both individuals have a depressing lack of “vision”, neither seem the sort of individuals who will use the post to its maximum.
More errata
“that pop at the the gentlest application of actual journalistic pressure”
“[to] generat[e] long-term and secure revenue stress” or should it be streams?
” Goldmith meanwhile is prioritising new trains”
@marckee
You know London has a fleet of over 8000 buses on over 600 routes supporting over 6 million passenger journeys every day right?
I think that’s worth rather more than “about 500 votes” !
@ Captain Deltic 1703 – Some of us got called in to travel to the other side of the world to “validate” Transmark’s work. To say that it took a matter of minutes, as a pretty junior LU employee at the time, for me to pretty much destroy the advice Transmark had provided to a large transport operator shows how much they knew on the specific topic of automatic fare collection. I was also nearly “sold on” by LU to provide advice on integrated ticketing in Bangkok but that particular opportunity came to nought. The whole notion of outsourcing LU’s management as consultants to other operators pretty much died the death back then. In more recent years, as you will know, there has been more cooperation and knowledge sharing through UITP and COMET.
@ Bel Eben – be careful about leaping to conclusions about “management competence” and the privatisation of London Buses. There is a good, recently published, book called “Privatising London’s Buses” which has a great deal of insight from those involved. It’s a recurring theme in the book that the centralised bureaucratic culture of LT was pretty stiffling and prevented local initiative and innovation. There’s little doubt that the LT Management Training scheme at the time did create accomplished bus managers but they needed to be given “space” to exercise their skills. The move to smaller operating units, tendering of routes and eventual privatisation gave some of the necessary stimulus. It’s worth noting that Sir Peter Hendy was one of those bus managers! Privatisation was essentially a political decision and quite possibly unnecessary given what was happening with the bus operating units once they were allowed to be innovative and negotiate revised employment terms with their employees.
@ Graham H – my only “hunches” about appointments are what I’ve already said. I can see Tessa Jowell being brought in to look after housing. I can also see Val Shawcross doing transport. Whether she’d *want* to do it after many years as an Assembly Member is open to question. Val does have a lot of knowledge on London Transport matters so could “do” the role but in a different way to Ms Dedring who was Boris’s lucky find. Whether there is another person with Ms Dedring’s intellect and political radar lurking in the wings I don’t know. I dare say we will find out in a few day’s time. Unfortunately we don’t get the Mayoral Election results until late Friday or Saturday (depending on turnout) and the new Mayor doesn’t take office until 2 days later so Bozza’s still got a few more days to go. Time to lurk near City Hall and listen for the noise of shredders doing overtime. 😛
[An excess of zeal snipped! LBM]
Heathrow – I suspect that whoever wins, any attempt by central guvmint to impose 3rd-runway is going to produce an immense backlash from all of London, irrespective of party.
And echo previous commenters on what a sad pair these two are, in transport terms, at least.
Re Milton,
In terms of poll quality I do wonder if we aren’t going to potentially have another issue similar to last years GE “surprise” because of poll quality – the pollsters aren’t asking everyone who their first and second choices are and aren’t reallocating votes to replicate the d’Hondt type method…
Pollsters in other countries will tell you that this makes a difference.
@Ed 1530 – re networkers having years’ of life in them
IMHO not without a major project to install aircon (a la 365s?) they are now the least comfortable but paradoxically most modern heavy rail trains operating in South London.
(The 319s at least had comfortable seats and the 455s now have aircon – networkers have neither!)
@JB
My first reaction was ‘why is this appearing now?’. But, for the same reasons Sadiq and Zac weren’t interested in being interviewed by you, it really doesn’t matter. Our audience is largely middle class and politically decided on our vote, many live outside London, and it isn’t transport which decides who we vote for. Had I been advising Sadiq, I’d have told him to stay clear because it’s a waste of time. Had I been advising Zac, I’d have told him it’s a waste of time and an opportunity for a gaffe.
I was a little disappointed you didn’t look at the benefits of Sadiq’s (sorry, Caroline’s) proposal regarding buses in detail. Yes it’s likely to cost more than he has suggested, but TFL work for Boris now, and let’s see an independent analysis should Sadiq be elected. The point about many people at the lower end of the pay scale benefiting from this proposal needs to be made clear. It’s a big transport difference between the two major candidates.
In defence of Zac I believe his clarification around ‘scrap all bus lanes’ was actually that he’d scrap the perk of allowing electric vehicles in them after three years rather than scrapping bus lanes for or after three years
Of course this is a highly problematic policy to begin with. And his claims that he was misquoted really don’t stack up given that he said he’d scrap ‘them’ which any non psychic would reasonably assume meant bus lanes
to correct my earlier quote he said ‘in 2-3 years there’ll be no point in having bus lanes’ when he meant in ‘2-3 years there’ll be no point in having EVs in bus lanes’
@Anon
The precise quote was:
‘then within two or three years there will be no point having bus lanes’.
It’s pretty difficult to explain that away even with his ‘clarification’.
I believe I have corrected all the errata currently pointed out (including a whole host more by Anomnibus). It seems worth getting it right as I think it is a rather good article and have also been pleasantly surprised by the quality of comments and the fact that they seem to abide by house rules.
If there are any more then do point them out. You can email us privately at [email protected] if you prefer.
Great article, very interesting analysis, thanks.
Still able to find typos, e.g.
seem to promise Londoners a lot (of) rail projects
Sadiq Khan want(s) to shake up the bus fare structure
Gold(s)mith meanwhile is prioritising
[Well those ones have been fixed now. PoP]
I am not impressed by either Sadiq Khan or Zac Goldsmith and, in any event, I loathe the politics of their respective party. Having actually sat down and read the points of all the mayoral candidates, I have decided that the Green Party comes closest to what I want to see for London. However, for the winner, actually delivering the commitments will be the real test.
A couple of comments
If a Mayor’s only housing concern is the number of new homes then he needs to focus on transport. There is no shortage of willing property developers and there are plenty of potential sites. They just need “unlocking”. If their issue is affordable homes then that is a different issue.
The proposed fares freeze during their term of office does not, at first glance, appear to be a great sum of money in the scheme of things although it is hard to see what can be dropped to pay for it without some undesirable consequences. What is more worrying is that the next Mayor will be saddled with the fares being too low for years to come even if they reintroduced fare increases. Of course, they could have a massive bump up to counter the previous policy but that would probably me much worse than a steady increase over the years roughly in line with inflation.
@GrahamH What Transmark failed to grasp was that the role of the state railway consultants, like Sofrerail and D-Konsult, was to promote the products of their national manufacturers in the guise of impartial advice.
Transmark believed they really were impartial consultants, and since BR engineers
thought that anything foreign was inherently superior to the products of their domestic suppliers, they often made their recommendations accordingly. This led to an exasperated George Curry, the Director of the Railway Industry Association, commenting to me ‘Transmark is the only organisation that can win a £100,000 consultancy contract and lose British industry millions in exports’.
@Captain Deltic – that sorry tale could be replicated across so many sectors in the UK (except for defence). Ministers are as much to blame as the industries themselves, with their reluctance to sell UK “soft expertise” as a portal to hardware sales*. This partly reflects a discontinuity between consultancy and manufacture which is encouraged by the dominance of the Big Four and the banking sector in the UK, and seems partly because DTI (or their latest incarnation) officials show no interest in targetted selling – as I discovered when going on various City trade missions to eastern Europe to promote the joys of PFI (!)- support from either DTI or local embassy staff was always zero.
________________________________________________________________________________________
* I particularly recall trying to get a Minister (any Minister, DTp or DTI) away from his mince pies one Christmas to support a BREL bid to sell some kit in Sweden against a French rival. None of ours would go, but the French turned out an ambassador on Boxing Day followed by the relevant Minster the day after. They won.
BTW, a particularly good “cheat” by the French is that consultancy work for a state-owned entity counts as national service and is therefore free to the client….[ I discovered this in Macedonia, where we were called into clear up the French mess, and their team leader explained that they were all leaving shortly because their National Service was about to expire. How we laughed].
Graham H…..I’m not advocating leaving the EU, or staying, for that matter – that’s for another debate, but how on earth does the EU promote a level playing field with all that going on……or putting it another way….
Would the Britain in the EU be Ok but for the over zealous interpretation of EU rules by the Civil Service?
@130 -Eh? I never mentioned the EU as I thought it would be (a) snipped,and (b) hardly relevant to Mayoral policies.
If,however,I might answer your specific question before taking my hat, as it were, having led DTp’s representation in Brussels for a year, it is certainly the case – and has been for many decades -that we actually try and apply the various Directives completely – hence the splitting of long-distance bus services, and a move – pushed back by civil servants on the policymaking side fortunately -by DfT lawyers egged on by the CMA’s predecessor – to enforce the tendering of individual bus journeys rather than routes.
Whether any of this is or is not an argument for Brexit, I refuse to say -I’m sure with a bit of thought we could come up with even more daft pieces of non-EU legislation that we thought up all on our ownsome…
Overall, this is a very good article and, as ever, so many comments are also enlightening. This site really is superb. However, when it strays into politics (rather than matters of transport policy) I’m afraid it starts to seem somewhat less knowledgable.
“perhaps the only regular non-race card still played by Lynton Crosby in Goldsmith’s ongoing campaign”
Lynton Crosby? He’s not working on this campaign. His business partner is managing it instead, the “F” in his “CTF Partners” company. Perhaps you know that Crosby is personally involved? If so you should ideally say what it is because it’s contrary to what’s on the public record or, if source confidentiality prevents that, at least say so.
“Goldsmith’s own biggest use of buses in his campaign – which was to write a dog-whistle attack article featuring images of buses from 7/7 in the Mail on Sunday. An act that is well below the standard of politics and basic decency”
Goldsmith’s team would have written this article. The man himself might even have done so, and he would have checked it if not. But it is unlikely that his team would have had any knowledge about the selection of the photo. Your article doesn’t say otherwise, of course, but I worry that many of your readers will infer otherwise. Also, was the article unwarranted? For what it’s worth, personally, I genuinely can’t decide. I’ve read many strong arguments which assert that it’s valid and many others asserting the opposite. It’s reasonable to take the view you have, I think, if based on a reasonable analysis. But this kind of breezy assumption that it both an unwarranted line of questioning and that it contravenes basic decency without a reasonable response to the contrary view doesn’t suit the site’s otherwise admirably full and reasoned approach to explaining issues and justifying opinions where they emerge.
But as I said at the start, niggles about non-transport stuff aside, I enjoyed reading the article. There’s a lot of criticism of the candidates in it, and rightly so. Thank you.
LadyBracknell 5 May 2016 at 09:40
You have a second vote for Mayor
Decision time between the two you’re not keen on.
@Harry Crayola 🙂
Graham: I was going to mention the Dangerous Dogs Act but that’s off-topic.
The popular mandate is all very well but what the article and many of the comments illustrate is how little room for manoeuvre the Mayor has, eg on fares.
Roll on Monday & we’ll start to see how the new man copes.
Having just held down backspace to delete a political response to a political comment made above, I have a purely transport question to ask:
“Levelling the playing field between bus and tube fares could encourage passengers to use the bus instead of the Tube network – reducing demand on the tube network without large scale infrastructure building.”
Could I ask for more detail on how this works? I’m assuming “levelling the playing field” doesn’t mean charging the same for a bus single as for a tube single, since that would mean an unrealistically astronomical hike in bus fares, (or an equally unrealistic slashing of tube fares) and have precisely the opposite effect to reducing demand on the tube as passengers have no incentive to choose a longer but cheaper bus journey over a faster but more expensive tube journey.
The phrase must mean something else, then, something that makes buses even more attractive, but in some way rationalises the fare box for TfL. What is it I’m being too dim to understand?
Presumably “Levelling the field” just means that you can change buses without additional charge, like Tube/Rail, albeit within one hour.
@Elshad, 5 May 2016 at 15:39
Presumably “Levelling the field” just means that you can change buses without additional charge, like Tube/Rail, albeit within one hour.
I assumed that was what was meant. Allowing transfers in regular use could incentivise more users on fairly short journeys to interchange between buses. This could lead to more travellers in total but conversely might also allow a thinning of routes on particularly busy corridors like Oxford St. At busy times and in disruption it would also incentivise people to catch the first bus going along a corridor in the direction they want to head for rather than waiting for their specific route all the way to their destination. They might then be able to pick up a short turn on their particular route, or another route entirely that takes them nearby at some other hub along the corridor. At the moment that strategy would be costly for anyone who wasn’t already budgeting for a transfer later on, but it could be useful for the operator too in clearing crowds.
@ PM – my reading of the phrase was that by allowing free transfers within a time period on the buses and charging one through fare this would put bus fare charging on the same basis as the tube / rail networks. I assume the argument being put forward is that by making buses cheaper / more convenient that some people will be attracted from the tube network.
I’m not sure I agree although I understand the point being made. The daily bus and tram cap is already £4.50 (equivalent of 3 fares). It takes little effort to reach the cap if you’re making regular journeys or need to change buses and are making a return trip.
I am also sceptical that in the current traffic conditions that buses are sufficiently attractive for some journeys or to effect modal transfer from the tube. Waiting and journey times have increased on many routes in Zones 1 and 2 where any transfer from tubes would be most effective. People have voted with their feet and walked, cycled or switched to rail over the last two years because buses have become so unattractive. We are not back in the heady days of 2002 and 2003 where bus capacity was being increased and the congestion charge removed a lot of traffic thus improving bus journey times markedly. We now also have the loss of road capacity on certain key corridors and junctions as a result of CSH and gyratory removal works. These have also affected the efficiency of the bus network. Finally we know TfL have an effective policy of dismantling key links in the Z1 bus network and removing capacity and worsening the service in order to save money / free resources up to deploy in the Outer Suburbs. I do not see a change in price being sufficient to override these negative trends.
We should hopefully have the TfL bus route level stats for 2015/16 published in the next few weeks. It will be instructive to see how badly some services have fared in terms of their patronage over the last year. We already know that TfL are forecasting a significant shortfall in the network level total patronage numbers.
A recent series of jocular comments (and comments on them) have been removed. It is understood that quite possibly there was no malicious intent, and those who understood the references realised this. However, many of our readers (perhaps particularly those from outside the UK) do not have this background, and to any such readers, they looked like crude political sloganizing.
In spite of attempts to link the comments into a transport theme (references to tube trains and railway bridges) they were really unrelated to any serious transport discussion.
Occasional jokes (even obscure ones) are not totally banned from this site. But in general we prefer to ensure that most comments are on topic, and understandable by all.
@WW Thanks for the explanation. I understand now. It’s interesting philosophically, though – as pointed out by Sian Berry – as to whether a bus journey from A – C via a change at B counts as a single journey at all. With the tube / rail, theoretically (though not always in practice), one is behind a gateline, so one is in the state of making a rail journey at every point from entering the ticket barriers to exiting at the other side. This is even facilitated by the pink Oyster readers and certain recognised “out of station interchanges”. But Sian Berry pointed out that by travelling from Tufnell Park to Camden and back again in a single hour, one is really making a return journey, not simply changing buses. At the same time, it is genuinely infuriating to be charged twice for what is self-evidently two legs of a single journey. The problem is that buses don’t have an equivalent of the ‘paid’ and ‘unpaid’ sides of the rail network.
I don’t think that the philosophical point about gatelines holds up at all; it is completely kyboshed by the existence of OSIs (Out of Station Interchanges).
What should count as a single journey is entirely for the operator to decide. It was realised early on in the development of railways that through ticketing even when one has changed conveyances is welcomed by passengers. But the main attraction is that it makes certain journeys cheaper – what is not always realised is that, behind the scenes, it is making certain other journeys more expensive – as operators have to get fares somehow!
Comparing tube arrangements with bus arrangements is all very well, but interchange is not the only existing difference. Single bus journeys in London are currently charged distance-independently: I doubt if the proponents of transfer bus fares would envisage the re-introduction of zoned fares to “even things up”.
A further point: much of the DLR dispenses with gatelines, and therefore with paid and unpaid sides. Passengers touch in and out on the same machines on the platform. I think something similar happens on Amsterdam buses, and London buses could (in theory) be made to work the same way (with “incomplete journeys” resulting if you forgot).
I am not advocating this, it would be wildly, amazingly unpopular.
The President of the Czech Republic seems have a larger mandate.
@” The daily bus and tram cap is already £4.50 (equivalent of 3 fares). It takes little effort to reach the cap if you’re making regular journeys or need to change buses and are making a return trip.”
If that’s the case, then surely such a 60 minute ticket shouldn’t have a significant effect on fare revenue (but obviously have costs for implementing a change in the system).
TfL would therefore lose out 1 fare per day for passengers taking 3+ buses.
Though as the lost revenue figures discussed are significant, I assume there’s a lot of people taking 2+ buses to work.
I’d be intrigued to see how much could be saved through route rationalisation – making the system more efficient and encouraging interchange seems a fair fare trade. Not that forcing people to spend more time on the kerbside in the rain would be popular – and only really a goer on high frequency routes.
Shame an experiment can’t be run to establish what people’s actual preferences are when faced with the trade-off.
Londoner wishes there could have been an experiment.
I don’t think that is necessary. There is a general principle, which would apply to any politician mucking around with fares in London. Either the change will cost a lot, which would be a disaster for the finances of the whole system. Or, if it doesn’t cost much, then not many people will benefit much, so it won’t be worth doing.
As for the zero-cost changes, if such things exist, they consist of robbing Peter to pay Paul. And we know that Peter screams with enough outrage to totally drown out any screams of delight uttered by Paul.
(In my previous comment, I was only thinking of rapid changes. Changes carefully spread over a decent amount of time might escape my impossibility proof).
Except reading the Guardian’s Comment is free on Khan, all the BTL commentators say fares are too high, fares are more important than capital spending as it is all wasted anyway and all this money spent has produced no real benefits other than some newer trains etc etc. People are ignorant and for the most part don’t want to look things up when they already know the answer. If some one tells them they can have a free lunch many will not look to closely how the ingridiants were cobbled together and not expecting a bill, well are expecting someone else to pick up the tab.
Graham H……. my mention of the EU followed yours about the interesting behaviour of French trade missiones masquerading as consultants!
As for your subsequent comments, I will prepare my tender documents for my next bus journey from home to the railway station. I have a choice of two routes operated by two different operators so they can compete over my journey for which I use my bus pass! However those suggestions are no more bonkers than suggestions that we should have a competitive electricity or gas market (what, you mean there is competition?…but it’s the same gas and electricity in the pipes or wires. Ah I understand, it’s competition for the right to issue bills for the wrong amount, from time to time). I think the scissors beckon. (Or the men in white coats)
@130 – don’t get me started on the activities of the CMA (Mods – that’s a promise). The trick the French most commonly use is to recommend a technical spec which can be met by – surprise, surprise – only a French product. The Saudi high speed network was a classic example. The failed Vilnius tramway and the reform of the Lithuanian railway network were other examples with which I have been involved. The British really struggle to advocate open source systems.
@ Malcolm 1818 – I fear I must disagree with you about paid and unpaid areas. These exist on all stations and must do where a penalty fares regime applies. DLR has red painted lines at relevant points in each ungated station. Ticket machines and validators are located at positions before you reach the red line. These also exist where there is open interchange between DLR and another mode such as South Eastern trains at Greenwich and Woolwich Arsenal. I am pretty certain that similar “red line” delineation applies on Tramlink stops too. At Walthamstow Central we used to have a red line painted on the Chingford Line platform that delineated the National Rail paid area and the unpaid access between the street and the Victoria Line gateline downstairs. When NR revenue checks were done tensa barriers were installed along the red line to make the distinction more obvious to people. Even OSIs have to have a marked distinction between when you are inside the system and outside it. This may be a gateline or it may simply be a line on the floor or a sign indicating where the paid area starts / ends.
While buses don’t have a red line on the floor it would be a reasonable position to assume that if have someone has validated a pass or bought a ticket and gone past the driver’s cab they are inside the bus paid area. Ditto if they’ve walked past a validator at another door where open boarding is allowed. If TfL had exit validators on buses then once you had “touched out” and alighted then you would be in the unpaid area. This is how it works in Singapore. Sorry but you did wander into my former area of expertise. 😉
I understand it’s difficult to have more sophisticated fares on buses with only a single entry card reader. One way of allowing transfers on single fares could be to have optional tap out on exit . If you didn’t tap out no problem, you’d be charged a new single fare on tapping in again if appropriate. Again not a problem if you’d already got a suitable ‘season’ product on your card that covered it or had already reached a cap. However if you were doing a single transfer that could allow you to tap in again within a time limit on another bus free of additional charge (and/or geographically limited by some clever GPS means on board the vehicles perhaps). Instead of an hour free for all it could be a limited number of out/in transfers in a time period, say within 30 minutes of a first tap out. The potential saving could be the incentive for the customer to perform the optional tap out.
WW: You must be right. At my local station (not in London) there is a penalty fares regime in place, yet I have never noticed a red line, nor at other nearby stations. I am now wondering how many fines I have inadvertently left myself liable to, by general wandering about. (The penalty fares information on the South Eastern website does not mention areas of stations (so far as I can see), it seems to be all about travelling).
The conspicuous red lines which I have noticed (and respected) are in various stations abroad. In Britain I generally assume that without a ticket I can go anywhere ungated, so long as I don’t get on a train. Perhaps wrongly.
Trams don’t have a ‘red line’ equivalent either (excepting Wimbledon obviously) as in many cases the platform doubles as pavement. Presumably the ‘red line’ is at the tram doors.
The only place I have noticed a red line was on the Tyne and Wear Metro. At my local station, despite the gates the signs say you must not board a train without a ticket so presumably walking through the station when the gates are open is OK.
Malcolm: what do we want? Rational change! When do we want it? In due course! Burkean conservatism at its best.
@Malcolm, WW:
I worked on the upgrade of the London Overground stations back in 2009-ish, prior to the phase of works that installed gatelines across the remaining stations on the network. One of the new signs that we installed in many stations was a penalty fare sign, fixed to a wall, saying (if I can remember correctly) “You must be in possession of a valid ticket beyond this point” or words to that effect.
A physical, painted line was not painted on the ground, but it was implied via signage.
@Malcolm: Either the change will cost a lot, which would be a disaster for the finances of the whole system. Or, if it doesn’t cost much, then not many people will benefit much, so it won’t be worth doing.
But what if the change encourages usage and so increases the number of passengers even as it decreases revenue per passenger? Then it wouldn’t cost much but would benefit a large number of people. The canonical example would be the introduction of the Capitalcard/Travelcard in the 1980s (itself a response to the collapse for legal reasons of Fares Fair, the original radical fare cut). This is dependent on there being spare capacity of course but it shows that fares aren’t completely a zero-sum game.
The other possible solution to funding a fares freeze, which I don’t think has really been mentioned much either in the campaign or the comments so far, would be to raise the Mayor’s Council Tax precept. I think this would be entirely justifiable as non-TfL users still benefit from the existence of TfL services and at the moment TfL’s passengers are expected to pay a much higher proportion of costs than in most similar cities.
@ Marckee – the alternative, as you say, is a sign at the point at which you enter the paid area. On the assumption that the NR P Fare legislation is similar to LU’s then there MUST to be an indication (fixed sign or red line) as to when you enter an area where you are expected to be in a possession of a valid ticket or other authority to be there. Ticket gates should have a sticker on them advising about P Fares applying once you’ve entered the system. I shall have to pay extra attention next time I use a TOC, DLR or Tramlink service given all the comments about no red lines.
Ian J: you are quite right to point out that fares policy need not always be a zero sum game. But you also point out that there needs to be some situation (such as spare unused capacity which can be filled at little extra cost).
As far as I know, there is no such situation around at present, though I (and probably everyone else) would be delighted if it turned out that there was, and there was a way to cut or freeze fares with no downside. Perhaps we need to wait and see…
@ Mark Townend – there are two smart card based systems that allow bus transfers. In Hong Kong there are defined interchange points between defined service groups. There is no exit validation on HK buses as a matter of routine (there are a couple of special exceptions). Provided you have arrived on a valid route within a defined time period and then board at the specific location to a defined “connecting” route then you receive a discounted fare on the second leg. There is no overall “through” fare as there is with railways.
In Singapore there is exit validation on buses. The exit readers only become active within a short distance of arriving at a stop. I understand they’re linked to a GPS system. You can interchange to other buses or to the MRT and you are charged an overall distance based fare. There are time limits for the overall journey plus one or two other restrictions such as 5 journey legs in total but only 1 MRT (rail) leg.
I suspect London’s 1 hour ticket (if a certain candidate wins) will be a rather blunt instrument that will allow return trips on the same route within an hour. I suspect TfL won’t want to allow this but the detailed programming to prevent it would be very complex and take too long to develop and test given the undoubted political imperative to bring it in quickly. This means the revenue implications could be to half revenue for those trips where people make a return journey within a shortish time period (e.g. my weekly trip to the supermarket).
WW: My guess would be that excluding some return journeys would be pretty simple to program and test. (Though I know only too well that what seems like something “pretty simple” from outside is often anything but when you get down to it). The return journeys that could “easily” be excluded would be those on the same route in the opposite direction.
The ones which might have to be left as an unavoidable bargain would be if passengers were able (deliberately or otherwise) to get on a different route to return. That would of course be very complex (sometimes impossible) to determine (or even define) whether or not it is in the opposite direction.
@Malcolm: spare unused capacity which can be filled at little extra cost…. As far as I know, there is no such situation around at present
Off-peak and counter-peak buses? Outer London bus capacity in general? Time for a return to a separate, cheaper Outer London bus zone, or “short hop” off-peak fares?
I find it a little bemusing that a one hour bus ticket is seen as a great leap into the dark – timed single journey tickets (paper and/or smartcard) are pretty much standard across Europe. For example in Paris you can take as many buses as you like in 90 minutes on a standard ticket (which also works on the Metro and RER). It strikes me that a simple time limit from first validation is much easier to program into the system than the complex arrangements in Hong Kong or Singapore.
Sometimes there are rules about doubling back – so in Paris can’t use it twice on the same route, which seems like a very simple way of stopping it being used for most round trips and not necessarily hard to program (I believe an Oyster card contains details of the last five boardings). But if the average bus journey in London is 17 minutes, then once you figure in waiting time and time to walk to and from stops, it would be hard to do much at your destination within a one hour time limit anyway so it would probably be better just to wear the small revenue loss.
@ Ian J – clearly there is *some* spare capacity on the bus network and at certain times of day. However we are not in the same position as LT was back in 1982/3 when Travelcard emerged. You are spot on about the effect it had and the backdrop to allowing the demand stimulus. These days we have free child travel which rams buses full in the peaks plus a generous set of other concessions that are blind to the peaks. Over and above all of this is the fact that some places do not have anything like enough bus capacity in the peaks. People can’t get on buses at all and face long waits and a fight to squeeze on board. What on earth is the point of lowering travel costs and your revenue base in those circumstances? You need as much money as possible *and* extra funding to bolster capacity or add new routes. This is just the same argument as people screaming for more frequent tube services, more spacious trains or longer trains. I know I will be unpopular for saying it but we’re way past the point of needing a fare stimulus package. We need sustained investment in all modes to ensure people can travel efficiently. The only way you can cut fares in some sort of sensible fashion is to have alignment with Government on fare levels and funding and, ideally, recourse to a wide and locally controlled set of revenue / taxation schemes that give the money and flexibility to improve value for money / affordability. There’s no sign of that happening.
I expect you are spot on about the Council tax precepts. If Mr Khan wins then I fully expect him to increase that as far as he can although he’s been bequeathed a rather nasty legacy by Boris who has shoved the Council tax down in his final budget having deliberately used the higher level in preceding years. There are multiple risks to the TfL budget – fare freezes, declining bus patronage, Uber taking passengers off public transport, revenue grant cut, insufficient investment grant, diverting money on “flights of fancy”, non hypothecation of business rates allocation, possible changes to TfL’s credit rating. Trying to deal with all of that is going to stretch the capabilities of TfL’s finance people.
@WW: These days we have free child travel which rams buses full in the peaks plus a generous set of other concessions that are blind to the peaks
I suspect you have put your finger on the problem there – the revenue base is too narrow. If you means-tested all the free travel concessions (or at least restricted their use in the peak) then you could cut fares for the working poor, who are currently subsidising free travel for wealthy pensioners and middle class children.
None of the candidates from any party would dare point this out because of the importance of the pensioner vote, but if your predictions come true and there is a financial crisis, this would be an ideal excuse for TfL to jettison some of its unsustainable concessions.
@WW – Re: Tramlink paid and unpaid areas – interesting one, for the relevant Byelaw includes these passages:
“19. Compulsory ticket areas
(1) No person shall enter a compulsory ticket area unless he has with him a valid ticket for his entire journey on the Tramlink System.
(2) (ii) there was a notice displayed at the tramstop indicating that it was permissible for passengers beginning a journey at that tramstop to enter a tram without a ticket;
(4) No person at a tramstop or a station compulsory ticket area shall be in breach of this Byelaw 19 unless he came there by alighting from a tram.”
In other words, (4) permits a passer-by to use the Tramlink platform as the pavement, which indeed it is in several locations.
Reverting to the NBfL bus with its three points of entry, I have been observing passenger behaviour on my local route (68), which has recently converted to such and it has become unquestionably clear that the boarders who (deliberately) fail to touch in have swiftly learned that the rear entrance is the way to go. None I have observed would be in any way described as children. Maybe an onslaught of on-board inspections would stem the tendency but until there is, then I can only see fare evasion on these buses spreading. Inspectors need only spread their nets around the rear of the upper and lower decks.
Graham Feakins….regarding touching in on the NBfL, whilst your suspicions are understandable and, in some cases true, there are an awful lot of users of this service who won’t have a smart card and/or won’t need to touch in. This includes anyone with a paper travel card (lots of people to/from Euston and Waterloo), lots of people with Travelcard products and anyone with a free pass of some description.
I am in that category, and go for the rear door, mainly because it’s usually less crowded and I am one of those that doesnt need to touch in.
Rational Plan
People are ignorant No, actually, ignorance is cureable, anyway.
People (some of them, at least) are STUPID – & that’s not cureable, unfortunately.
Otherwise how would politicians (no names, please!) ever get elected?
Oh dear (4)
[Even though it is not directed at any individual, this denigrating of parts of the population (whether for ignorance, stupidity or any other negative attribute) is distateful. Would everyone (not just Greg) please keep it to a minimum. Malcolm]
Graham H
Off topic, but amusing … didn’t the French approach to specifications fail in the end, when an ICE was challenged to make it up Liege Bank on half-power … & the Germans then turned round & said – “but can your product do it as well?”
Oops, as the saying goes & end of digression.
CXXX
…/ and I am one of those that doesnt need to touch in.
You are a “geriatric” like me?
[There are many categories of passholder. No-one need say which one they fall in, if any. Malcolm]
But I usually touch in.
Or do you mean just on a Borismaster, where you don’t need to get in by the driver?
Same as on the missed “bendies”?
@Alan Griffiths: 5 May, 12:23 – I gave my second choice to …
[We really are not interested in how you voted. And derogatory comments are not acceptable – they weren’t even on-topic. Your comment failed the “Greg Test” (if Greg had written it would we have allowed it?). PoP]
Ratonal Plan- It’s best for your sanity if you don’t read BTL comments anywhere, except of course LR and one or two other distiguished forums!
@ Greg – I know real life practice diverges from theory [1] but everyone with an Contactless Payment Card / Oyster based pass or ticket *should* touch in (and out where applicable) everywhere – validator equipped stations, on Tramlink, on open boarding buses. On the NB4L paper ticket holders have to board via the front door! – a direct quote from the TfL website.
Passengers with a printed Travelcard or other printed pass or ticket must use the front door and show these to the driver.
[1] therefore no one needs to list exceptions or their own observations!
@Londoner yesterday. Yes. A lot of assumptions about the financial impact of one-hour bus tickets or other schemes for free bus-to-bus connections don’t seem to be considering the possibilities created for the full-scale rationalisation of bus routes in central London that are opened up once losing a single-seat journey doesn’t mean doubling the fare. It is flatly bonkers by modern network design standards that we have, say, thirteen different bus routes along Oxford Street between Oxford Circus and the Baker Street/ Gloucester Place interchanges, or four different ones on the Russell Square-Holborn-Aldwych-Waterloo axis.
@Doubting Terrapin – I agree with what you say about the problems of full pedestrianisation for Oxford Street, but by the time anything is likely to happen, Crossrail will be operating and Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street will have step free access (with entrances at each end of each station, reducing the distance from any random shop to an entrance).
And in relation to the main article, I think Goldsmith’s early controversial comments about bus lanes weren’t from ignorance or miscommunication, I think that they were a calculated attempt to appeal to the hardline poop-poop “bus lanes are a Stalinist crushing of MY HUMAN FREEDOM” element of the Conservative core vote while still appearing “green”.
Greg, WW?…..As a small digression, the Netherlands system requires touch in and touch out on most public transport (I am sure there are exceptions) I was surprised, in Amsterdam, to find that on long trams every boarding passenger has to get on at one door and file past the conductor seated in what resembles a very small booking office. Then when you get off you can use any door but have to remember to touch out. Dwells seemed rathed long, especially when a bunch of 25 Brits fetched up all of whom were unfamiliar with the system!
Re ‘red lines’ and wandering around ungated areas, do platform tickets even still exist?
On touching out of buses I note that the “new routemaster” (sic) is about to lose its rear door and a staircase on the newer, shorter version. Makes you wonder – again – why people ever bothered*. So far as routes are concerned recall that since the 80s many (all?) have been chopped in half somewhere in the central zone.
Ian J: I was never really clear on why children were given free travel *at all times*. The might be an argument for getting them to and from school, but the way that gangs of them get on a bus only to alight at the next stop increase dwell time alongside frequently blocking other passengers from getting on the bus in the first place.
* rhetorical – “Boris’ legacy” is the answer 🙁
AlisonW. The photo I have seen of the shorter NBfL still has three doors, but one window bay removed (shades of RM, RML and ERM).
Isn’t there a 2-door ADL bus that has cribbed many of the NBfL visual cues without looking quite so odd at the back?
Three doors but a window bay removed? Why don’t they just make the lower half of the side fold up (or down to form a ramp) in one piece? :O
at the risk of being too far off topic:
Having lived for 7 years in Brussels and worked across Europe then I can say that slavishly following the rules / process is very British. The French (in business, not just EU) in particular don’t do this, but start by considering what they want. One of the interesting (not in the UK sense of the word) points of working across cultures.
Back on topic then I suppose we will now, in time, see what a lower revenue thanks to a fare freeze actually translates into money available for investment.
@ Alison W – just for clarification this is where we are on NB4Ls and look alikes.
NB4L – original Borisbus, 3 doors, 2 stairs, 11.3m long
Short NB4L – only 1 so far, 3 doors, 2 stairs, 10.6m long. Developed for routes with clearance problems when tested with the 11.3m version. The sole example is rumoured to be entering service on route 91 when it converts to NB4Ls on 7 May 2016.
SRM – a variant of the Wrightbus NB4L body but on a Volvo B5LH hybrid chassis. 2 doors, 1 staircase. I think this is what you may have seen pictures of. 6 of these are on order for use on route 13.
Alexander Dennis E40H City – a look alike variant of the ADL E40H MMC but with a different body design with glass sided staircase and more curved design. Currently on route 78, on order for route 26 and Blackpool Transport have also ordered some.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Well as we now have the official Mayoral result I can hang up my keyboard fingers as Mr Khan has effectively cancelled the next 4 TfL Fares Revisions. No need to prepare any LR articles on the annual fares increase. 😛 😉
And, just for further background information, real Routemasters are 8.38m long, or 9.14 for the “extended” ones introduced from 1961. So the short borises are still significantly longer than the long Routemasters.
@ Philip 1252 – While I understand your comments about the bus network and the possible options for rationalisation here are some factors to consider.
1. Many routes are *very* long established with high levels of demand. You muck with that at your peril given the massive reliance on buses in the peaks. TfL are on record as saying large scale change is deeply unpopular with passengers.
2. If you create “mega routes” on key trunk sections then you need a very large number of buses. Few operators can run such services given scarcity of garage space (even if other routes are withdrawn / scaled back). This reduces competition for route contracts which TfL may not want given the possible budgetary impact. Certain large scale routes only get 1 tender.
3. While passengers are used to having to change to make some journeys they also enjoy being able to make decent length journeys without changing. Enforced interchange on a large scale is unlikely to work. Do we really want hundreds of people routinely queuing for buses on single routes all over central London and then having to change again en masse in the suburbs or edge of Zone 1 to a multiplicity of other routes? London’s transport needs are too complex. Even in Hong Kong which has done some route rationalisation off the back of through ticketing discounts there has not been a move away from their hierarchical structure of bus services.
4. My views about Oxford St pedestrianisation and its impact on buses are well known. I am afraid I do not see Crossrail as any sort of viable replacement for buses given they will not have access to Bond St station if Oxford St is pedestrianised. Crossrail can only try to replace buses if buses provide a seamless interchange to an accessible station. I expect mass removal of buses from Oxford St will fail on equality impact grounds because of the loss of accessibility for those who have mobility issues. Buses get people far closer to the final destinations that Crossrail will. No point in getting to TCR if you can’t walk very far up Oxford St but want, for example, to visit M&S Pantheon branch. Multiply that example 10,000 fold for the myriad of person / destination possibilities along Oxford St and nearby streets. Mass removal of the only fully accessible public transport mode at a major destination point on the network is a very serious issue. Would anyone seriously contemplate the permanent closure of Oxford Circus tube station or the closure of all Central Line stations along Oxford St? No they wouldn’t so why consider the bus alternative?
We shall, of course, see what the next 4 years brings.
Walthamstow Writer,
…Oxford St? No they wouldn’t so why consider the bus alternative?
Because:
(i) for most people a relatively short walk is a viable alternative which it clearly isn’t for tube/Crossrail journeys.
(ii) for a large part, the people inconvenienced (the shoppers) are the same people who potentially benefit. So, to some extent, it is a case of giving people what they want that isn’t at the expense of others.
(iii) there is an arguable case of economic benefit for pedestrianising Oxford St (attracts tourists providing foreign currency and so invisible exports) whereas there is no such economic argument for closing the Central line stations
(iv) remove a bus route and the journeys will basically disappear, close a tube station and you just get overcrowding at nearby ones and, if you are not careful, a domino effect as those stations have to be closed due to overcrowding
There are still the dual problems of what to do with the through traffic (remaining buses and taxis) and how to get Westminster Council to agree to the changes.
The “Yes Mayor” (my new concept for a political satire TV show) opening conversation between the Mayor and the Commissioner will be very interesting.
CDbrux
I suppose we will now, in time, see what a lower revenue thanks to a fare freeze actually translates into money available for investment
None, of course!
CXXX
LURVE it – when is the putative first-broadcast date?
PoP
On the off-topic subject of Oxford St – we all “know” that Trams + Pedestrianisation is “The Answer”, except for the slight problem of where do the trams go past the ends of even an extended-Oxford St (If you see what I mean) & where will the depot(s) be?
Um.
Meanwhile I suspect we can look forward to TfL’s finance imploding, probably “helped” by HMT having fun at someone else’s expense (literally in this case)
I’m afraid that the header to this article & thread says it all ….
@130 🙂
@WW – so, not Wolmar but Adonis with all that that implies for the design of CR2…
@100andthirty – 7 May 2016 at 06:46
The “Yes Mayor” (my new concept for a political satire TV show) opening conversation between the Mayor and the Commissioner will be very interesting.
I suspect ” No Mayor” may be more apt, or perhaps (with a nod to Evelyn Waugh) “Up to a point, Mr. Mayor” ?
Wolmar’s name has been mentioned as a possible “active travel” commissioner, a successor to Gilligan with an expanded brief for pedestrians and cyclists.
Even if Wolmar was active travel, I wonder if he would be able to keep himself away from playing with the trains…
One issue of note is that Khan served albeit briefly as a Transport Minister in Gordon Brown’s government. During that tenure, important schemes such as the Luton guided busway were approved – a scheme that had festered for years within the Dft for want of a relatively small amount of investment. To me, this demonstrates some political bravery which will be essential in this role.
@WW – I agree with you about Oxford Street, I was responding to another poster who was saying that removing buses would leave Oxford Street with no step-free access at all.
(Although I assume there will be some kind of bus service operated along Wigmore Street in the event of full pedestrianisation, which people will argue would be close enough.)
Walthamstow Writer
6 May 2016 at 12:48
On the NB4L paper ticket holders have to board via the front door! – a direct quote from the TfL website. “Passengers with a printed Travelcard or other printed pass or ticket must use the front door and show these to the driver.”
Where is this on the TfL website as in the latest TfL Conditions of Carriage I can only see “If you are using a bus Saver ticket, you must always board the bus using the front door only and
immediately hand the Staff Receipt to the driver” and no mnetion of paper travelcards etc?
Reynolds 953:
Wolmar’s name has been mentioned as a possible “active travel” commissioner, a successor to Gilligan with an expanded brief for pedestrians and cyclists.
I would support the idea of Christian Wolmar as an active travel commissioner for London. However, he is putting himself forward as a potential Labour parliamentary candidate for Khan’s old seat:
http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2016/05/press-release-wolmar-enters-tooting-by-election-contest/
@ PoP – remove a bus route and the journeys will basically disappear will they? where’s the evidence for that? The journeys don’t disappear, they are undertaken by some other mode (assuming such is available or viable). I’d agree Oxford St is not a conventional case but we can’t just assume everyone who boards or alights there or even travels through the street is a shopper. There are residents not far away from Oxford St, there are thousands of businesses including specialist fashion and media companies plus a wide variety of leisure activities. There is also the issue of the night bus network for which Oxford St is an important element – I have seen this directly on many occasions over many years. Crossrail and the Tube are largely irrelevant here. By all means dismiss my arguments but can we do it on the basis of a proper rounded assessment of the transport needs that may not be met if buses are wholly removed. I hope this proper assessment will be undertaken for real when the issue of Oxford St pedestrianisation rises up the transport agenda (as it inevitably will). I dare say the shop owners on Oxford St have already got a letter drafted to send to the Mayor demanding an immediate start to the pedestrianisation project.
@ Bryan – I’ve yet to see anyone find any clear evidence that Mr Khan moved any scheme forward during his time at the DfT. It was a nice “byline” for him to use but he never provided any backup for his claim and journalists who checked, even allowing for their bias, couldn’t find any clear evidence of his efforts moving any scheme along.
@ Philip 1020 – there will be enormous resistance from residents and businesses to any permanent bus services using Wigmore St. I’d expect WCC to side with the residents and not TfL in the event of any dispute.
@ Anon 1853 – Here’s the link from the TfL website about the NB4L “rules”. I’ll agree with you that the CofC almost certainly trump a page on the TfL website if there was ever a dispute. Nonetheless there have been “rules” about using the NB4L since its introduction just as there were for the bendy buses.
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/buses/new-routemaster#on-this-page-1
How will an inspector know which door you used when boarding if you have a paper travelcard. If they can’t tell then it doesn’t matter where you board as long as you have a valid ticket.
Walthamstow Writer,
All you have to do to show bus traffic disappears is create the following situation. Actually you don’t because it has already been done many times.
Close a railway. Provide a substitute bus service. Then close the substitute bus service. There will be more traffic on the road of the bus route but not nearly enough to account for the missing bus passengers let alone the original rail passengers. Meanwhile, I will concede, traffic generally in the area will probably be higher to some extent but along the specific bus route it is not nearly increased by the amount to account for the missing bus passengers.
In London you only have to consider rail replacement bus services and how quickly people learn not to use them for a similar effect. I agree the situation is not quite analogous.
Remember that when bus routes close the usual compliant is about journeys that can no longer be made – not the fact that the alternative is less convenient. So people simply do not go out to socialise, go shopping, visit doctor etc. and become more isolated.
In the specific case of Oxford Street it is probably easiest to consider what people would do if there were no buses. Options are :
not make the journey (disappears)
walk (probably not count as a journey so disappears)
cycle (just maybe via what we hope is an alternative route provided)
taxi (no, they would be banned too)
tube/Crossrail (but I would argue that if this were possible that for many this is would have probably have been their preferred route anyway).
The sort of journeys that would typically be a bus visit to Oxford Street are from Charing Cross and Paddington. Some of the Paddington passengers may choose to stayed on or switch to Crossrail and I suspect some of the passengers from Charing Cross often end up walking once the state of traffic congestion is realised. Surely these people would simply walk the last bit? They probably don’t do now because Oxford Street is so congested with people due to the traffic restricting them to the pavements that it can be quite slow and unpleasant to walk along Oxford Street.
One problem would certainly be with those bus passengers who are using Oxford Street as a through route and who couldn’t walk and couldn’t use the Underground for any reason. Their need would continue to exist and this would a considerable problem hence my comment about what to do with the remaining traffic.
The comment was made in the context of the contrast between what happens if you close tube stations and close bus routes. In this context I think it was perfectly valid.
Purley Dweller asks “How will an inspector know …?”
The inspector will not know. But some people prefer to follow the rules (at least when they are aware of them, and when it’s not too onerous) regardless of any chance of “getting caught”. Of course, there are others (and I won’t speculate about their upbringing) who prefer to disobey any rule that they can get away with. For both those sets of people, it is helpful to know what the rule actually is!
A possible reason for the existence of this rule might be to make it possible at some point for drivers to be required to press some statistical button on seeing the pass. As far as I know this does not generally happen in London, but it might on some specific vehicle or at some specific time (possibly in the remote future).
@ PoP – I’m afraid I don’t agree with a number of the points you’ve made. However I am not going to bore people to death by continuing what is really an off topic debate in the context of the article. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. 😉
@Johnny
Rascist and fear-mongering comments are not tolerated on this site. All such comments are deleted without warning. I have also deleted the follow up comments to end this forthwith. LBM
I’m not an expert on bus ticketing operation, but I thought the process is that if a passenger boards with a paper ticket (usually a travelcard) then the driver presses a button on the oyster machine. I assume for accounting purposes, to record how many passengers on a particular route are using paper tickets.
Hence the ‘board by driver’ rule for paper tickets, so the driver sees the ticket and can press the appropriate button. Boarding at another door isn’t fare evasion, but it is messing up tfl’ statistics.
@everybodyelse
Oxford Street : – TRAMS!
I didn’t consider this as a practical proposition before due to assumption that tramway construction would be too disruptive (assuming a requirement to maintain public transport service on this corridor). However, if it is proposed that Oxford Street should be pedestrianized, i.e. buses to be removed anyway, then it opens up a whole new possibility.
I am thinking of Paris T3, shortly to be operated (on southern stretch) by coupled TWIN SETS of Alstom Citadis seven section vehicles. This will produce a notional capacity of about 800 per tram twin set, operating at five minute intervals, affording 9600 “places” per hour in each direction, but sufficiently infrequent to be given priority at lights at each intersection. This would be a great improvement on Oxford Street, probably halve the journey times, and also provide the desired environmental benefits (compared to bus operation).
Of course, an Oxford Street tram would need to terminate further West (Paddington?) and East (Liverpool St? The question of through ticketing and need to avoid additional touch in (when changing vehicles) has been mentioned. This would be become even more significant if trams were used in this manner.
The “Hour validity” ticket strikes me as eminently sensible, and is commonplace on European systems. For a Smartcard system (Oyster etc) all that should be necessary is to “touch out” at last terminal used (whether on vehicle or platform etc). Providing the touch out is within one hour of the touch in, only one fare value will be charged.
The only complication is in maintaining direction of travel. Most European systems insist that break of journey is permitted within the hour, providing the passenger continues in same direction. (i.e. you can’t “double back” ).
The business case of replacing a very intense bus service should be very good. By my calculation, 12 trams ph v 60 or so buses, and at double the speed should save about 80-90 drivers , c £3.5m pa inc overheads, together with reduced other costs (fuel & maintenance). Vehicle depreciation should be less too. (trams have a much longer life than city buses (mostly) and do more work during their life.
Alstom have a standing offer to build new street tramways for about £15m per km, which for about 5km of track should result in a profit, let alone “external” benefits. (all depends on how many sewers dug up). (Alstom would provide trams too, with APS system if required). Of course, this is a simplistic business case, but it does seem that very intensive tram operations can be commercially viable, as is Paris T3.
(by my evaluation).
Oxford Street London is almost the UK’s No 1 bus corridor (by service intensity). The number one spot is held by;- Oxford Street !!! but in Manchester. Tis true, I have sent letter on this topic to Tramways and Urban Transit Mag (published- March).
I defy anyone to identify a more intense bus corridor anywhere in the UK (and probably in Europe too).
@Pedantic of Purley:
“Close a railway. Provide a substitute bus service. Then close the substitute bus service. [etc.]”
I’m not sure I agree with your comparison…
Rail closures were usually done because the line was no longer paying its own way, which usually means services were likely already poor and demand was low. Replacing a half-hourly railbus with a road bus wouldn’t have made any appreciable difference to road usage.
This logic wasn’t even Dr. Beeching’s invention; a number of railways and stations were closed long before he came along: The Greenwich Park Branch closed due to poor patronage way back in 1917, while the Crystal Palace (High Level) Branch closed in the 1950s.
Oxford Street, by comparison, is the equivalent of a rammed urban commuter service with trains every few minutes. This is not a rural backwater with poor demand, but a major arterial road and shopping centre.
Major shopping centres like Bluewater are of similar size, though they tend not to have cross-axial roads with heavy traffic passing through them. That’s going to be an issue if a decision in favour of pedestrianisation is made, but the biggest headache will be finding a way to bypass the road so through traffic can still make it past. I suspect tunnelling may be the only viable option here, though I’d like to point out that there’s no reason any tunnel must slavishly follow the line of Oxford Street itself.
There is, however, the additional question of how all those shops receive their deliveries. The major department stores are almost all along the north side of Oxford Street, but there are many more smaller shops and offices along the southern side that can’t be serviced from Wigmore Street.
I don’t agree with trams as a solution. You’re adding an entirely new mode of transport, with all the overheads of stabling and maintenance facilities, to serve a single, short stretch of road. Just building the thing would require closing a big chunk of Oxford Street for as much as a year, and that’s in addition to surrounding roads given the lack of space for depot facilities nearby. This means shutting down Marble Arch, Park Lane, and the southern end of Edgware Road just for starters. Good luck with that.
Besides, we already have the vehicles: buses. All that’s needed is for some way to guide them accurately and precisely. Perhaps using computers and some form of virtual guideway.
I think we’ve been down this path before. And very recently at that, so I’ll stop here.
The most recent two posts in this topic just avoided (by the skin of their teeth) being deleted in their entirety. Would commenters please note that if they plan to venture as far off topic as this, they should really do so with a brief comment; less than half a screenful. Moderators do not have the time to do very much delicate snipping, so your nuggets of wisdom are otherwise liable to be thrown out with the bathwater.
@Malcolm
Point taken. May I please attempt to re-steer back to topic?
Fares: (i.e. Khan’s proposed 2016 prices freeze). This is a “bête noir”, or more precisely a “canard”. The idea that price increases fund investment is a nonsense. If it is case that a product is under priced then a price rise should have no bearing on investment. In market conditions precise are restrained by competition, which simply does not usually apply for public transport operations. Instead there seems to a built in assumption that the demand for passenger transport is inelastic, and can therefore be raised continually in the manner of a monopolist.
I have been party to in-depth research that refutes this assumption. British Railways marketing managers did indeed generally work to an assumption of price inelasticity less than one, and therefore tended to hike up fares by more than the “officially declared” percentage each year. They were eventually caught out, in that research indicated general price inelasticity of GREATER THAN ONE, but with a time delay (essentially due to time delay for individual travellers to change habits). Thus, given other quantum improvements to train services (speed frequency punctuality etc), the price resistance was “masked”.
Given that London Fares are certainly “high” by European comparisons (some suggest they are the highest), One can well understand a politician being reluctant to go any further (the Westminster government has reached this point). If a real increase results in nil yield, this would be disastrous.
I strongly suspect that the fares freeze declaration was actually well received, and may well have contributed to Sadiq Khan’s success. There is an obvious conflict of interest here. Highly paid professionals might be relaxed about even higher fares but they are a minority.
Transport investments are progressed by business cases that take into account “externals”. There has to be a point whereby a very small (and decreasing )return from real fare increases is outweighed by negative externals (less travel by public transport).
Just to be clear, the public sector (including TfL) runs on cash,not accruals. There are no cash reserves*, no scope for issuing equity to finance investment. Investment *has* to be funded either by borrowing (with a consequent need to pay the interest and debt) or from the till (or from direct subsidy/grant). Less cash than expected from fares reduces the sums available not only to pay for operating the business but also the sums available to service investment debt or pay directly for investment. If you wish to maintain previous investment levels, you have to start finding replacement cash in the form of new grants or additional borrowing. There isn’t a magic money tree. [This is not to say that fares subsidies are necessarily wrong – all the studies the department undertook in the ’70s and’80s showed that fares subsidies were the best investment in terms of buying a social good, much to successive ministers’ embarrassment]
*Indeed, LT was run on such a tight cash regime that the GLC acted as a bank for their cash needs on a daily basis. BR’s cash was managed on an annual basis – every year I took all the surplus cash out of the business and returned it to the Treasury, replacing what would normally be represented in the accounts as working capital or earmarked for renewals with, effectively, a series of IOUs (not that we allowed the Board to cash them)
@Graham H: is that why there’s an apparent “splurge” of spending by junior bits of government (local authorities, agencies, etc) in March each year?
@Graham H
You are correct in that an enhanced business performance (bottom line)
resulting from real price increases improves the return on an investment. But : supposing assumptions are flawed, in that yield from real price increases decreases over time. Public sector investments can hardly be progressed without some measure of “externals” i.e. supposed benefit to society and economy in total, however difficult to quantify (road investments have been dependent on this going back to the ‘fifties if not earlier). You are quite right about BR cash in days of yore. After the improvements of the ’80s BR
was almost cash neutral on public account. Any additional investment
cash was provided by treasury loans, at normal public sector rates of interest.
“Normal” i.e. private sector investment funding is not really dependent on current cash return. Investments are funded (mostly)
by share issue (inc rights) or business loans and/or asset sales.
The payback will be by means of improved business results in form of
increased sales and/or better operating profit margins from improved production technology. If you can get the better return from just putting up prices, why bother investing?
I seem to be making a strong case that all investment in publicly owned infrastructure should be privately financed !!!
(to escape restraints such as “Ryrie Rules”) PPI AAAARGH!
AR
I’m not an economist,so may be confused on this but surely the (your) phrase:
“Any additional investment
cash was provided by treasury loans, at normal public sector rates of interest.”
Is the killer for any PPI-type arrangement,as “open market” loans are generally dearer?
Set me straight if I’m wrong…
@Slugabed
I am referring to “classic” public sector investments , i.e. by nationalised
industry, local or national government departments etc.
In a properly accounted for “steady state” depreciation provision will be equal to investment finance requirement.
It’s like this: Invest (say) £10k in a machine , depreciate over 10 years
i.e. £1k pa. Assuming business is profitable (or at least break even)
after 10 years there will be £10k in bank. So you buy another machine
(for £10k) and repeat process. If only life were this simple!
There is the dreaded INFLATION! (or was). SO you apply a current cost accounting uplift to your depreciation up to current replacement
prices, and this produces the required (say) £15k to renew asset.
Current cost accounting uplift to depreciation was never accepted.
This meant that replacement of CURRENT assets exceeded the depreciation provision. hence need for additional finance. at normal treasury interest rates etc.
Of course, If it proposed to invest in wholly new or enhanced asset, then a different ball game applies. There is (of course) limited public sector finance , therefore all public sector investment projects are in competition with each other. In the PRIVATE sector capital market all that matters is demonstrable ability to pay back with a surplus profit. In the public “market” what matters is presumed appeal to the
public , politically speaking, i.e. what would people vote for?
I was always told that the public is only approving of three things;-
Schools Hospitals and Pensions, everything else is unpopular, even defence and law and order, or waste (welfare). Therefore when applying for a public transport investment authorisation, it is measured against how may hospitals or schools it MIGHT buy.
British Railways in 1980s and 1990s was subject to the “Ryrie Rules”
(put to bed by Lord Ryrie) whereby it was forbidden to take on nifty dodges such as leasing new trains. (also., the External Financing Limits applied to Public bodies prevented take up of EEC grants).
PPI YES: It was like this : Suppose your house is collapsing. You go to
the bank and ask for a loan to fix it. The Bank finance says NO! (we have no more money left to loan out) BUT : YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BORROW MONEY FROM ANYWHERE ELSE BECAUSE THE RATE OF INTEREST WILL BE HIGHER THAN WE
OFFER, AND WE SAY, YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT!)
So : No Dosh, and you bodge things (the story of BR).
PPI was meant to bypass these restraints, but tuned out to be a gravy train for our wealth creating financial services.
Of course, if you have a government dedicated to rolling back the frontiers of the state, then public sector investments will be restrained, even when suggesting good paybacks.
To best of my knowledge, nobody has “bottomed” this impediment yet, over to you Mr Khan.
(actually, there are all sorts of private sector contributions that might
be applied, i.e. property price uplift recovery).
@Alan R
“I defy anyone to identify a more intense bus corridor anywhere in the UK ”
Last time I looked, Waterloo Bridge carried more bus routes (17, including the X68) than Oxford Street (13 over most of its length, 16 for the hundred yards or so between the Baker Street junction and Marble Arch) but I don’t know the bph figures. Some suburban High Streets have even more routes, but many of the individual routes are quite infrequent
Problem with not allowing re-use of a one hour ticket on the same route is that some routes have short workings. Should you be penalised for this?
I don’t see any need for touching out to prove a one hour ticket. As long as the last bus is boarded within an hour of the first, it should qualify, however long the last leg takes (after all, you would otherwise be penalised because the bus was stuck in traffic)
@timbeau
I was measuring scheduled bus movements per hour. You can do this fairly easily by accessing traveline. Manchester Oxford street offers
60 per hour off peak each direction. When I applied same investigation
to London Oxford Street it came to about 55. Is there a UK street with more than this? (try traveline for yourself).
@Tim (5th may – sorry for late response but I’ve been away)
“(The 319s at least had comfortable seats and the 455s now have aircon – networkers have neither!)”
The 455s do not have aircon (except, I believe, the driver’s cab of Southern’s version). There would be little point in installing aircon in something where two huge great apertures are opened in each carriage for nearly one minute in every three to let the conditioned air escape.
Not quite as daft as fitting air-conditioning to a bus with an open platform, but no-one would do that, would they…………
@AR – I wasn’t referring to the return on investment, but where the cash came from, and for the public sector, there are only those three sources – trading income, borrowing or grant. (I suppose there’s also burglary, begging and fraud, but it’s difficult to do these on the scale needed to finance, say, CR1).
You are right that in a perfect commercial world you achieve a steady state in which your cash required for investment is exactly matched by the cash set aside for renewals but that happens so rarely in reality and not at all in the public sector where blighters like me came along and removed any cash you might have squirreled away against future investments. In practice, investment tends to be lumpy and peaky and accumulating cash against a future project makes it an easy target for cash removal.
@Old Buccaneer – precisely so, and my staff were especially vigilant about September time (given the lead time to actually spend the cash before the end of the financial year ).. All sorts of twisting went on “Suppose we give the contractor a payment in advance? -No”. “Suppose we replace some opex with “early” capex before April? – No”.
@Slugabed – You would think so, wouldn’t you? The Treasury counterargument has always been that (a) if you finance the investment with cheap public money, it counts as public expenditure which cannot be afforded, and (b) by outsourcing the procurement through a PPP, you will achieve such staggering private sector efficiencies that the extra cost of their financing will be trivial by comparison. No, I didn’t believe it either…
@Graham H
The half way house investment finance method is leasing. In my days
BR was generally forbidden to lease assets. (There was one significant exception, the Class 50 diesels of 1968). However, BR was (grudgingly) allowed to lease short life assets , e.g road vehicles and certain maintenance plant. It is (and remains so) that investment finance is one of the things that the public sector can do better than the private sector!!!
This is in part due to fact that the Chancellor of Exchequer and his minions are abysmally paid and receive precious little bonus!!!
Unfortunately, there is nearly always a shortage of dosh.
In the case of private sector, high rewards are supposed to be earned by risk, but PPI projects seem to have been just about risk free.
@AR – Like PPP, leasing costs more cash over time. You can certainly reduce the cost of leasing by clever tax moves but those were frowned on (despite of course, those tax moves being sanctioned by… HMT). And although public sector borrowing is almost invariably cheaper than private sector borrowing, you always have to face the affordability test.
None of this overturns, however, the argument that if you restrict one source of cash (in the London case, fares income) you have either to cut back on the things on which you might spend that cash (sc investment) or find some other source of pelf (not available in the public sector).
Graham H 8 May 2016 at 21:08
” The Treasury counterargument has always been that (a) if you finance the investment with cheap public money, it counts as public expenditure which cannot be afforded, and (b) by outsourcing the procurement through a PPP, you will achieve such staggering private sector efficiencies that the extra cost of their financing will be trivial by comparison. No, I didn’t believe it either… ”
I do follow that argument; my wife the former CIPFA examiner was once obliged to set up a PFI for school kitchen refurbs. I said the reason that was mad was that cookers and freezers don’t last as long as the deal, and new technologies might come along in the meantime.
There’s a perfectly respectable technological argument for long contracts (long maintenance periods / guarantees). It goes like this:
Many technologies are now so robust that less maintenance is needed than ever before. Therefore, if you want the full benefit of this robust technology, make the contractor that made or built it accept a long-term responsibility to maintain it. This provides an incentive to make the capital good as low-maintenance as possible.
Once upon a time I was staggered to find exactly these arguments in two Virgin Trains pamphlets about their new trains for West Coast and Cross Country.
Re Alan R and Timbeau,
Unfortunately the best examples break traveline and TfL Journey Planner and you have to resort to service specifications, old fashioned maps and route knowledge, for example (updated from its previous LR outing as it has lost a few bph in the interim!):
The junction of Brixton Road & Acre/ Coldharbour Lanes:
17x Bus routes (9x 24hr or night bus routes hence night tube for trunk capacity to Brixton!!!)
16 bus stops to serve the junction and interchanges there
108bph in each direction (216bph across the junction)
Bus route frequency range 5-10bph with mean frequency 6.35bph
Or just Brixton Road between the Tube station and junction above with
97bph
15 bus routes (8x 24hr or night routes)
Also not included in the above another 3 routes on other bits of Brixton Road with 17bph.
@Alan Griffiths -the problem with the private sector alternative is that the costs of private finance are so very high that the sorts of efficiency gains you mention tend to be reduced to background noise A typical venture capitalist won’t close a deal with something less than 14-20% rate of return, even on seemingly risk-free projects* (cf a typical public rate of return of 5%). Note, these aren’t quite the same things as the interest rates charged
*… and there are plenty of experts around who are paid to advise on “Project Fear” risk [Done it myself, although some banks needed little help towards greater paranoia – Favourite question from a bank financing Bombardier’s TLK rolling stock fleet “What do you expect the UK regulatory regime to be in 40 years’ time?”]
@ngh
Well done, I think you have beaten me! I must admit I didn’t think to
investigate the examples you have revealed. However, this very intensive service only applies to fairly short sections of route. I was trying to identify a “corridor” i.e. reasonably lengthy continuous section.
@Graham H
The well tried and tested method of financing long term assets (especially a railway) is by equity. If 19th century railway promoters could only resort to venture capital then nothing would have been built. Equity capital manages to anticipate future benefits in a sustainable and effective way, essentially by confidence in the long term prospects even when dividends are meagre. This was how Eurotunnel was financed, although cost overrun led them to resort to debt finance which nearly sank them. Logically we should be doing the same with new major infrastructure works. Note how Eurotunnel has eventually come good. ( I know , not so simple for public led projects).
Re Alan,
Forgot to count the buses on 1 route in the above and missed another bus route so another +10bhp on the above numbers so the 108bph should be 118bph and 97bph should be 107bph.
Of those 107bph along that section of Brixton Road 59.5bph continue along the A23 up Brixton Hill towards Streatham with 53.5 making it at least all the 2+miles to Streatham Hill Station and in the other direction 62.5 bph make it all the way to Kennington Station at the other end of Brixton Road (1.9 miles). So still an intensive service over a long corridor.
Alan Robinson at 23:58
Dr Gareth Campbell at Queens University Belfast has looked in detail at 1846-50 here:
http://voxeu.org/article/railway-mania-not-so-great-expectations
He’s also looked at corporate governance and shareholder influence. May be of interest.
Various bus people: do we think there’s any over provision which can be cut to help overcome the impact of May our Khan’s Fares Freeze? (MKFF)
I think we know that there is a non trivial gap between the impact of the MKFF and the various (‘cut the consultancy bill’ ‘ shut the Dangleway’) proposed cuts. I’m waiting with bated breath to see what transpires.
@Greg T: see what a lower revenue thanks to a fare freeze actually translates into money available for investment
None, of course!
Not true, of course: most of TfL’s capital investment is funded by central government with a 5-year agreement that explicitly states it will not be affected by any fares decisions. The fares freeze, combined with the phase-out of central government revenue support and Boris’ untenable Business Plan which assumed fare increases above RPI (and therefore above National Rail increases – who knows how that would have worked), has big implications for TfL’s ongoing costs but central government’s 1.5bn-ish a year for capital spending (1bn grant, 0.5bn borrowing authority) is untouchable.
Compared with BR or LT in the 1980s TfL has more flexibility on shifting money from year to year thanks to the 5 year funding agreement. The new agreement also enables borrowing to be shifted between years for the first time. The real financial crunch could be delayed towards May 2020, when there is due to be a Mayoral and a General election on the same day…
The fare freeze means money needs to be squeezed out of the operating budget, not capital investment. That means putting pressure on labour costs, something that probably didn’t occur to the unions when they backed Khan over Jowell.
@AR – but the exam question, as set, was whether the MKFF would affect investment. Equity funding is irrelevant to TfL’s finances: they can’t raise it (nor can any other public body). The whole point is a simple one – TfL need cash for operations and investment; they have only three sources of cash – fares, borrowing, and grant, It’s a zero sum game,and the more cash they spend on ops, the less they have for investment and vice versa, as Ian J implies. MKFF , alas, simply lowers the point at which the zero sum is struck.
Does Kahn have a policy on the Dangleway?
We know, that like Zac & everyone else, he is vehemently anti-Heathrow-expansion.
How the latter will play out, with ( I predict ) all shades of London political opinion both closing ranks & refusing to roll over for Heathrow, versus a determinedly
bought by the vested interests“commercially alert” tory guvmint is going to be – interesting.Incidentally, when is the latest postponement/kicking the can down the road due to expire?
And are we due an article on the subject?
they have only three sources of cash – fares, borrowing, and grant*
* and asset sales (since the 1980s seems to be on everyone’s mind, and since Network Rail intend selling things off left, right and centre to plug their own funding gap, so the Treasury could hardly object with a straight face…)
@Graham H
Depends entirely on whether there really is a long term yield from real fare increases, I suspect we are at the end of the line. Routine investment, i.e. like for like renewal of existing assets should be in a steady state, not requiring additional finance, although there may be lumps to smooth out. New and additional assets are optional, and should be determined by their own individual business case. I strongly refute the notion that because there is going to be a major investment in one particular asset, enjoyed by a specific section of public, the whole public should pay for it in increased fares, It’s not just, and as I have shown, possibly economically destructive.
TFL doesn’t issue shares, but this does not mean that equity capital is therefore disqualified as a means of financing major investments. I would say that devising a means of marrying equity capital to public sector investment is the “holy grail”. If Sadiq Khan were able to nail this one, i.e. for Crossrail 2,3,4, Trams etc I would be most impressed.
@AR – please understand (a) that the rate of return on a specific investment has absolutely nothing at all to do with TfL’s ability to find the cash for it, and (b) TfL has no power to issue equity, so any proposal for it to finance its investment by that route is just wrong. The nearest it can get to that is through, err, PPP-like arrangements. But even a PPP still requires TfL to bring cash to the party.
Yes, steady state renewals are the beau ideal for cash management, but hardly achieveable in a world of inflation accounting,MEA,and recurring cash crisies.
The point about TfL (and indeed public transport generally) is that it is providing a system and so investing in one part of it has more general benefits for others whose turn for new investment will come in due course. The alternative is the reductio ad absurdem that each passenger gets only the investment they pay for. That’s called private transport.
Have fares increases topped out? I doubt it, there’s no evidence to suggest that, although I would agree that the volume/price elasticity isn’t a nice straight line as envisaged in the PDFH.
@IanJ – yes, property/asset sales can bring new cash into the system, but in TfL’s case, what’s left in the barrel is hardly worth more than a few new train sets!
@Ian J
Thank you for your informed and illuminating observations. We are getting to the truth of the matter. Real Fare increases are to improve the bottom line, i.e. P & L account = less revenue support. I question the validity of the terminology. By “freezing” fares in real terms, there cannot be a “cost”, just an opportunity foregone, not the same.
The simple reality is that the funding source for revenue support is not stable, i.e. guaranteed over time, therefore this suggests that real price increases can fill the gap. Sadiq Khan has rightly (in my opinion) assessed that continuing increases are questionable , both in economic and political terms. The notion of “price increases to fund investment” is a cruel deception, an attempt to popularise the unpopular. The real problem is the assumed need to cut revenue support ( why?).
@Greg T:
A summary of Khan’s Dangleway campaign pitch, and the subsequent release of figures and details of the contract with Emirates are in here:
http://www.mayorwatch.co.uk/boriss-vanity-cable-car-likely-to-stay-open-until-2021-after-tfl-accounts-show-it-makes-a-profit/
(in summary, closing it now would cost TfL money as it would have to pay Emirates to cancel the contract, and it now doesn’t make a loss, so it’s likely to be closed or sold off in five years)
@Greg T:
(And I’ve just noticed that you commented under that article several months ago…)
Don’t know how I missed it but Mike Horne did a very thorough article, Pedestrianizing Oxford Street is looking at the wrong problem, on the issues of Oxford Street and how the candidates “didn’t get it”.
@AR -and this morning, I see from the technical press that NR’s assets,which were valued at £54bn on the basis of future fares income are now to be revalued according to the Financial Reporting Advisory Board on the Depreciated Replacement Cost method. This will add £100bn to its valuation – at £154bn, that makes NR one of the most “valuable” properties on the planet… except that the cash willnever be made available and could hardly be found on the scale required to replace the depreciated assets. (Activity of GH in cash-stripping refers).
This change has some important implications for the future of NR, its status as a nationalised industry, and its relationship with TOCs, including TfL’s captive TOC du jour, particularly as, under the EU access charge methodology promulgated last December, it’s difficult to see how NR can avoid hiking the charge. [The alternative may be to run down the NR asset base – ho, er, ho – and create an even bigger heap of uncashable Treasury IOUs…]
@ Graham you’ve made my head spin.
Am I right in saying:
1 NR assets worth 54bn to a going concern (what NR can get on the basis of future fares)
2 but the answer to the question ‘if we had to buy those assets now in their current depreciated (slightly manky) state, what would that cost?’ is 154bn
so 3 we’re going to charge real ppl more money to use trains, which will be passsed from TOCs to NR, then hoovered up by the Treasury elves at the end of the year and never seen again?
4 leaving the ‘play money’ circulation between government, TOCs and NR intact.
Two supplememtaries:
A what real-world problem does the revaluation solve, if any? (Do not attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once)
B should the directors/responsible officials take the lower valuation as a matter of prudence?
@Old Buccaneer – yes,unless we did what we did with BR which was to say. “Of course your assets are worth X and their depreciation (and replacement) will cost some fraction of that, but we aren’t going to let you raise the cash to meet that number, so here’s an IOU instead. BTW we’ll keep on bullying you to make sure that , in any case, you keep the actual spend on asset replacement to the barest minimum”. I take the announcement to mean that NR’s continuing status as a nationalised industry will go unchallenged- who would wish to buy an enterprise who couldn’t replace its assets? (And NR will have to get used to my successors leaning on them extensively…)
Thank you Graham.
There are a couple of implications for London:
1 the heavy rail assets on which the city depends are uneconomic at current fares, so fares will have to increase (potentially by a *lot*); and
2 the prospects of financing Crossrail N (for all values of N above 1) seem to be a lot worse than they were last week.
@OB – yes, unless NR is is left to rot on a heap of IOUs. If not, as you say, the government having decided to replace network grant with increased access charges backed by extra TOC subsidy, TOC subsidy,including that paid toTfL Rail, will have to increase (or fares will go through the roof).My money is on the smoke and mirrors option…
If the CRT had been constructed, of course, tram stabling issues wouldn’t be an issue, so given there is no room _on_ Oxford Street for additional types of transport, and no room _under_ it as Central Line is already there, the only available space is _over_ the road, despite all the issues that would create*. NOx fumes have been an issue though, resulting in major bus cut-backs, so maybe time for trollies to reappear?
Re ‘can’t double back’ I occasionally use the tube from Oxford Circus to Angel and have a problem with stairs. By far the easiest way to do this is Victoria NB to KX, cross the platform to Victoria SB, and then cross-platform again at Euston to City-bound Northern. Should this be a banned route?
Finance has always been an issue for maintaining effective transport in London. Sadiq’s election (noting that all London mayors so far have been known solely by their forename and I see no reason the new incumbent should be treated differently) has probably made that even worse with his _election_ promise to hold fares. Whether he does / is allowed to by DfT is, of course, entirely a different matter, especially given the Government is of a different political stripe.
* Note I didn’t mention the M word even once!
@Graham H
The revaluation of NR assets is a long delayed “chickens coming home” effect of the scandalous undervaluing of BR infrastructure on transfer to Railtrack 1994/95. (when the family silver was given away cheap so as to create an illusory better performing railway allowing juicy dividends for Railtrack shareholders, which it did for a time!).
However, it is not the case that a railway (or other major infrastructure asset) needs to achieve a commercial rate of return on the entire asset valuation. Only those assets of limited life require debt service on this basis. Infinite life assets (in case of a railway, land, surveying , parliamentary etc, but especially excavations) do not need to be renewed, and therefore need only return (minimal) interest on capital employed. This is the financial “Indian rope trick”
under which railways were originally financed, and still applies.
Take Crossrail (Lizzie line). Once those tunnels are dug, they will never be dug again, although there will be maintenance and renewal of plant. (rails wear out too). If the revaluation of NR (Or TFL rail) simply reflects a historic book value (undepreciated) plus enhanced property values, then there should be no consequences for bottom line, and therefore fares. Property is a very prickly question. If it has simply gone up in commercial value, i.e. realisable cost on redevelopment on assumed cessation of railway, then this has to be discarded (which is why Railway Acts of parliament prohibited sale of operational property without a formal closure requiring parliamentary approval, taking into account public interest).
Property prices (I mean the land itself) is a major conundrum, long recognised as a potential menace to economic well being. Adam Smith actually recommended property taxes to try and prevent escalation of land values.
Some one else said that “Property is theft”.
Alison: The talk about doubling back was in the context of buses and timed tickets. On the tube, as I see things, it is allowed provided you don’t go into a zone which would make the trip cost more, and provided you don’t go over the time limit. Your ingenious route is probably therefore quite OK.
Re Graham H @ 11:46,
But it does then make the NR debt look comparatively low compared to other infrastructure / utility type companies…
Also more TOCs are actually returning cash to DfT even if only some are on a fully costed basis (e.g. inc NR grant). [And more will if they meet the revenues targets that they bid at!]
@AR – indeed it doesn’t have to earn any sort of return, but it does depreciate and -as you know better than I – proper provision has to be made for replacing the assets idc otherwise we hit the dreaded “asset impairment” rule – put more bluntly, without renewal of the assets, you are planning to go bust.
@ngh – which raises the interesting question of the extent to which DfT’s annual budget is “adjusted” to take account of its cash receipts. That cash doesn’t necessarily flow back into increased railway spend but reduces the total DfT budget with the implied crosssubsidy to other types of expenditure. [This is impossible to prove without being a fly on the wall during the annual PES round but on past experience (eg with the precept receipts I levied to pay for LRT after the renationalisation in 1984), all cash receipts just go into a general DfT pot for the purposes of the PES negotiation.
More generally, to pick up Alan’s point about capitalising and then depreciating the tunnels and earthworks, it’s a conundrum which foxed even the City accountants brought in to help with the LRT re-nationalisation. They certainly don’t want re-digging very often (but ask the Rhaetische Bahn about the Albula tunnel) but they do need refitting quite often. Traditionally, LT valued itself as the sum total of all the grants and investment that had taken place since a base date of (forget which now) and that was what was agreed for LRT. As the said accountants remarked, LT’s assets (sc tunnels) are its liabilities because they cost money to maintain whilst its liabilities – the obligation to provide a service – are assets because they earn money in the form of subsidy. Nick Ridley didn’t like this answer but didn’t know any better on how to deal with it – he just plucked a figure of £500m for capitalising the Underground and £100m for the buses out of the air. Even in 1984 that seemed a serious understatement.
2nd post to avoid text-slabbing.
@AR – yes, there’s the big RAB v the little RAB conundrum. Have a big RAB/valuation of the assets and you can certainly draw extra grant against it to avoid asset impairment – but only if the government is up for bankrolling the cash difference between what you get in and what you need to replace the assets properly. Winsor T pulled that one off when the Treasury weren’t looking; it will not be allowed to happen again. But have a little RAB/small asset base, undervalued perhaps on a “true” basis”, and you look much more commercial, maybe even covering your “alleged” depreciation, but in practice you are doing no such thing, nor will you give your paymaster any reason to bridge your cash needs, you’re merely running down the business.
We shall see what happens now that NR has been recapitalised again. My bet is that 250 000 grt tankers of fudge are even now steaming towards the accounts. Cui bono? [Sorry, that was the last mayor].
@Graham H
We are getting a bit bogged down. Of course , if a business is unable to renew its DEPRECIATING assets then it ceases to be a going concern and eventually goes bust when a huge unaffordable renewal requirement presents itself (The Liverpool Overhead in 1956 is a classic). But : The NON Renewable assets are neither depreciated or renewed. The traditional method is to amortise over a very long period, and without any current cost accounting adjustment. By these means, capital debt shrinks over time, Inflation does help.
Just done some research. In 1995, BR Infrastructure Net Book value was assessed at £4.3b (this becoming a target figure for share issue).
This included all property, operational and non-operational. With approx. 10,000 miles of railway, this equated to a mere £430k per mile. Utter nonsense, could anybody really assert that a mile of railway plus all related property, much of it urban could only be worth as much as one London suburban semi detached house!
It was given away, it seems from your report that Nick Ridley was similarly minded over LT. There has been an outcry recently over the low valuation (and receipts) for UK portion of Eurostar. It goes on.
I know from experience at the time that a typical notional replacement cost value for an “average” mile of railway was about £6m (track and signals, not structures and terminals). If you assume that these asset were at mid-life (as they ought to be) then indicated net book value should have been £3m per mile (six times the sale valuation). We wuz robbed.
@AR – yes, we were all robbed (but had we not been robbed, then the industry would have been sold as a going concern and its subsidy bill would have had to be even higher). The basic problem is that the industry isn’t self-financing at any price that anyone is willing to pay and the sooner that is recognised and we stop pretending, the better.
@Graham H
I disagree .At the ongoing BR costs of infrastructure maintenance, renewal and operation, Railtrack should have been able to pay an adequate (modest) dividend, including realistic depreciation.
Two things happened. Railtrack hardly spent any money on renewals creating a massive cash surplus. (Leading to inevitable “crunch”). Excessive profits were declared, with substantial dividends and share value trebled (good for some).
I would contend that the true asset value of the railway (omitting excess property estimation) is actually quite affordable, and capable of yielding real profit on a fully allocated basis, for a notional “core” network (we could argue till cows come home as to what this consist of, but it’s there somewhere). However, it would be necessary to reduce unit costs (total P & L) down to BR level circa 1990, and that’s the difficult bit. Supposing (Just Supposing) that the trunk road network was privatised and expected to obtain a return on asset values employed, How much toll per km to drive around M25?
(The land value alone, i.e. possible redevelopment value for housing etc) must be over £200b , annual depreciation £7b pa?
Note: The £200b is only equivalent to about 400,000 dwelling building plots, only about 200 per mile of UK trunk roads.
I reckon UK airports would make a greater return on capital if redeveloped for housing/commercial.
Just goes to show that the supposedly desired requirement to earn return on transport asset values is a chimera.
@Graham H
You hit the nail on the head: the rail sector cannot met all costs – operational, maintenance, renewal and enhancements – out of current income, certainly not at what are considered to be politically acceptable fare levels.
I suppose the question is should it? It could be argued that the rail network(s) should only met its day-to-day operational costs, which LU does and I believe NR even does once all the various transfers, charges and whatnot are stripped back. However infrastructure upgrades benefit a wider-pool beyond passengers. Businesses and residents obviously benefit from a value uplift, notably developers, the construction industry and homeowers, although all gain from a network that can take a greater volume of passengers and transferring them at quicker speeds to more destinations.
Of course this isn’t a new argument at all, but I expect with Hendy at the helm of NR and the tighter control by HMT on rail’s finances we’ll start to see more ideas come through, especially since it seems moves to go back to getting more private capital involved through sell-off infrastructure, getting concessions in, etc isn’t going to happen (or least not to the extent it was being reported at before Shaw’s review came to light)
Graham H
The basic problem is that the industry isn’t self-financing at any price that anyone is willing to pay and the sooner that is recognised and we stop pretending, the better.
Unless you are presented with the alternative of living in 1980’s USA with no public transport at all & see what that costs?
Or, take the German & other -N-European countries’ model & regard the “railways ( & INTEGRATED) tram & bus networks) as a valuable asset, because transport is essential to modern society & industry …
Or try shutting down the tubes as well as the railways in London for 2 days & look at the “extra” costs involved.
But no guvmint is actually prepared to look at the problem squarely, are they?
AR
Just goes to show that the supposedly desired requirement to earn return on transport asset values is a chimera.
Now, then, your task, “should you be willing to accept it” is to get any guvmint minister to accept this in public.
@AR – we must just agree to disagree – an industry for which 1/3 of its income has to be provided from the public purse, for which there is no major scope for price rises or cost cutting, and which has just been recapitalised at 3 times its previous level is, in my book, a financial basket case. No one has shewn me any evidence to the contrary (although many have opinions).
@Anonymous – indeed,with the benefit of hindsight, Beeching was asked the wrong question -he should have been asked not “What is the profitable core of the railway system?” – no one has ever seen this mythical beast since about 1842 – but rather “What is worth buying with subsidy?” The trouble is that the answer to that question is unpalatable to a variety of political groups – one answer might be, as many believe,that the system supports a considerable amount of GVA indirectly (although those people who argue that it doesn’t sometimes seem to be exactly the same individuals who argue for HS2 because it does/will). The fear on their part is that once even the pretence of commercial discipline is removed from the industry,the floodgates will open to demands for ever more subsidy.
As I may have remarked before,when I took the Railways desk in DTp, the then Perm Sec, Peter Lazarus, called me in to stress that the deal was that we gave the railways £1bn (those were the days) – as much as could be afforded – we in Whitehall would by and large protect that sum, and in return the Board was free to manage its affairs but had to take the flak for system performance. No difficult questions to be asked and a light sprinkling of designer commercialism to satisfy the critics. That deal fell apart partly because of the financial pressures arising from growth in the late ’80s and partly because some rightwingers became noisier as time progressed.
@GregT -of course, but no politician is willing to take that chance (fortunately – although Nick Ridley came fairly close to it in private). And so the railway struggles on,without a clear purpose and inadequately funded
@Greg Tingey
I think you are getting the picture. It has been difficult in recent years to identify any truly viable transport investment, mainly due to the ever escalating price of property. I would even go so far as to say that property (land capable of being developed) has now reached such a terrifying value in the estimation of the “market” that it is simply unviable to use it for anything other than speculative buildings.
Applies to everything, railways, roads, airports, bus stations, depots
etc. It would all make more money if built on. BUT, here is the conundrum;- without effective transport property is worthless!
So: the Government needs to identify necessary transport assets as essential to economic and social well being, and just fund them , deliver them, and charge a “reasonable” price for their use, one that maximises public use thereof. Unfortunately, as Graham H has so well described, governments tend to want to obtain short term gains, hence deceitful “fare increases to fund investment”.
The USA situation is a bit different, The overriding principle of the 1945 – 1980ish period was that land is cheap and abundant. Fuel (gas) is cheap and scarcely taxed, so let sprawl rip, just keep building those freeeways, and public transport if any, is a little sop to the poorest.
In about 1954 President Eisenhower actually stated that it was the patriotic duty of every American to own a car. (when launching the Inter State Highway programme).
It was also partly about abolishing inner city suburbs reserved for African Americans. (many got obliterated by 12 lane urban freeways).
In the 1960s and 1970s the UK was infected by this concept (hence Leeds, Motorway City of the 1970s) but thankfully , wiser counsel has been listened too since. but we remain in an unresolved state, generally appreciating the need to restrain private cars and promote density, but not willing to go about it wholeheartedly.
The (inevitable) result is high fares.
Graham H ‘financial basket case’. That seems like a solid basis for the next question:
How many other such cases exist; and what is the division of their incidence between public and private sectors?
Two other observations: I think the political weight of the transport lobby is swinging away from the producer interest to the consumer interest. And I think the consequences of that are interesting & important for the future development of transport policy in London.
@Graham H
It was not the Railway Industry that was a basket case, BUT Regional (Provincial) and NSE were “wilfully supported”. Inter City Freight and Parcels were all viable, and as discussed a business which in total is cash neutral (able to fund its day to day working expenses from current income is hardly a basket case, on normal private sector business accounting.
As you stated, Beeching should have been asked how much railway (and serving where?) can we get for x subsidy 2x, 3x etc, but he wasn’t. It all fouled up (Exit Beeching in very discrete huff) because the government did think that the railways were worth external support but were frightened to say so. (and unwilling to commit to any definition of subsidy value for money).
Subsidies (Support) are a case of “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”, or ;- “the labourer is worth his hire”.
If the subsidy is refused, then the facility proposed for support is demonstrably not worth the price. If Government DOES pay the price, Then the “value for money” case is proven.
As with yourself, (say) walk into pub ask for pint , price turns out to be a bit stiff. You pay it, proves that the value to the consumer is indeed worth the price paid (assuming pint is in good condition).
Therefore, if a transport facility (or portion of) exists under public support this is because the public (government) has specified it, and agreed to pay the support at a determined price. No Basket case here.
A Basket case is where a business is run as a free enterprise under market discipline , but fails. What I mean is, HM Government always had the option to just terminate support for BR, but they didn’t , proving that the labourer was (and remains) worth his hire.
I remember Alec McTavish giving a presentation (re Settle-Carlisle),
pointing out that Ministers must decide, BR just presents “the facts”.
Same principles still apply, but it’s more complicated and obscure.
@AR – no, the comparison you make is incorrect; BR was never properly capitalised (if it had been, as you yourself point out, the taxpayer might not have been ripped off on its sale) and the question of the commercial viability of parts of the network was a mere “designer fix”. This regardless of any issue about a rate of return on capital; BRB had no capital. By the time of privatisation, BR was so far from being collectively a commercial undertaking that it had had billions of debt written off- far more being written off than it had ever received in grant. It could never have serviced its debt (sc investment) commercially even with the OPS and NSE services (and parts of InterCity, too, be it said) receiving an operating subsidy. The commercial railway is a myth.
@Old Buccaneer – there are probably quite a number of such “bogus” uncapitalised-and uncapitalisable – commercial organisations which,in practice exist solely on subsidy/grant/transfer payments from a parent department whilst giving all the accounting appearance of commerciality – one thinks of some of the defence industry spin-offs such as DSTL -but I can’t think of any on such a grand scale as the railways.
@Graham H
The great capital write off (1967 Act) and subsequent obfuscation was a coming to terms with the reality that most of the huge 1955 modernisation was a total waste of money, commercially speaking in that it was overwhelmingly applied to a doomed freight business.
The bits that would have benefited passenger (main line electrification and other infrastructure enhancements were abandoned circa 1962. (except for WCML). Having got rid of the dead wood, I calculated long ago that the main line core was viable, albeit undercapitalised to a degree as you correctly state. As Proper attribution of Infrastructure and overheads was not attained until the dying days of BR (when everything was thrown into confusion)
to the uninitiated (outsiders) the viable core railway remained a mythical beast. (a sort of transport Loch Ness monster). I glimpsed it!
(and was not alone in so doing, I keep on discussing this at monthly meetings of BR HQ finance dept at the Lion & Wheel near Euston).
The £4.3billion of Railtrack was an utter disgrace, This give rise to totally inadequate depreciation on Railrack account, i.e. about £250m
pa over 25 year. My calculation indicate that it should have been about 5 times that figure, but we have gone from the ridiculous to the sublime by overvaluation. (£4b – £60b in 20 years, impossible).
I am of course still living in the past a bit, I concede, but :- substitute
BR level unit costs (for about everything) as the McNulty report indicated, about 30% less than present in real terms, and BINGO! Nearly all the franchises become totally viable, only Scotrail Wales and Northern require serious support. There is your commercially viable Railway. It’s a bit like those 3 D figures of blobs and squiggles, you have to concentrate and squint to see the picture.
Even at 2016 costs and revenues, I contend that a re-sectorisation, i.e.
redefinition of franchises into Inter City plus best bits of London and SE would give you a viable core. (Freight is delivering profits to NR too).
Anything can be viable if it has free capital (well,nearly anything).
@Graham H
But capital employed by today’s railway is not free. Trains are leased, recovering capital cost, and NR accounts contain depreciation. We can and do dispute whether it’s a true and fair assessment of course.
The convention with current urban transport projects seems to be that capital is “free” (not recovered from users, i.e. passengers) but justified by external benefits. Nevertheless, it still has to wash its face on externals, this is how projects are evaluated, and can cause a rumpus, as with HS2 (sorry: forbidden topic). A long term infrastructure investment comprising mostly non renewal assets with infinite book life is the closest you will get to “free capital”.
In any case, businesses stand or fall on CASH. Depreciation etc is really just for myopic bean counters.
@AR – you’re making my point,thank you. BR had free* cash from the state and no capital to service; today’s “commercial” railway has a very substantial financing cost to carry – a third of all costs.
*Free means for the purpose of the argument, not having to be paid for. That’s what BR’s successive debt write-offs meant. (Well,the taxpayer continued to pay the interest and capital repayments, but BR didn’t)
@Graham H
No! I submitted accounts at all levels, i.e. by BRB total. Sector, and for PTEs , and they all had interest payments included, this being the sum that was charged in effect by DTp for current capital requirements in excess of cash flow. I think you mean that the overall support (for the unviable peripheral bits) came to more than the capital repayments paid back to HMT by BR . ‘Tis true, but there was a payment mechanism for this and the cost figured in the total bottom line of each sector (in accordance with its capital requirement). New Rolling Stock, Terminals , Admin Buildings and plant and equipment etc were all capitalised by BR, plus NEW and additional infrastructure, and costs formed part of PSO and PTE grant claims. I know ‘cos I did ’em. And I worked with the guy who did these calculations, and helped him out sometimes (and I still see him most months at the celebrated Lion & Wheel).
@AR – of course, but the interest payments were less because the capital had been written off many times. Sorry, but I think this exchange is going nowhere and will be painfully dull to our spectators.
@Graham H
I agree, perhaps they might be more entertained by in depth discussions re Thames Clipper and Hamburg comparison?
Final painful dull exchange:-
Only INFRASTRUCTURE assets had been written off (in effect, i.e.
not capitalised, by 1990ish any remaining non-infra capital assets from pre 1967 was getting long in the tooth, and all subsequent capital accounts (non infra) were properly compiled depreciated and with interest charged, even when the finance source was BR internal cash flow (so HMT made a “profit” on this).
Yes, there does seem to be an element of circularity in these financial discussions. A bit of a shame because they are also interesting. But I think they should cease, at least for a while.
@Malcolm
Will comply. However: I quote you “they are also interesting” !!!!
HoHo and I though that accounting was the ultimate boring topic.
Can we count this as some sort of triumph, and how long is a while?
The length of a while, like the attention span of an LR reader, or the difference between bookkeeping, accountancy and economics, is unknown.
@Malcolm
I COULD submit a 1,000 or so pages dissertation of the differences between bookkeeping, accountancy and economics, but won’t.
Possible definition of a while:- The time span difference that elapses between the PID estimation of a tube train arrival and its actual appearance on the platform.
So with Sadiq Khan moving fast, having already announced that the 1-hour bus fare will start in September, what are the odds that he will announce Andrew Adonis as deputy Mayor for transport within the next 24-hours?
@quinlet
Something strange here. Sadiq Khan says £1.50 hopper starts September2016, BUT (According to Evening Standard) TFL say that upgrading of system will be done during 2017, with implementation of
the “one hour hopper” by end 2018. Eh?
Are we really expected to believe that such a minor adjustment will take so long to bring about? In my experience, the unlimited transfer availability within a time period is pretty well universal European practice, even on East European systems.
@Alan Robinson – the press release spells it out.
From September 2016 it will be possible to get an additional trip on the Hopper fare, that is, the £1.50 fare will cover 2 trips within an hour.
However unlimited trips will need an upgrade of ticketing planned next year “enabling TfL to deliver unlimited journeys within an hour by the end of 2018, but with an aim of doing so sooner.”
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/one-hour-hopper-fare
@ AR 1234 – It’s easy enough to explain. The Hopper ticket launching in September allows *one* change within 1 hour. This uses the logic that already exists for bus to tram and tram to bus and tram to tram interchange on routes in Croydon and New Addington. Both Oyster and the Contactless Payment system can support this logic. The reference to 2018 is for a revised product that allow *unlimited* bus changes within 1 hour. Oyster cannot support that today but Oyster is being migrated from a system where value and cap values are held on the card and mirrored in a back room system to one where the card is a token and merely triggers transactions. The charges are then calculated later in a back room system which will also hold PAYG balances.
The back room system exists to handle bank and credit contactless payments. When you touch one of those cards on a reader nothing is written to the bank card. It just creates data that goes to the back room system and then charges and caps are calculated overnight. There is then a charge against the bank or credit a/c linked to the card. In future Oyster card holders will have their PAYG balances held “in the back room” rather than on the card itself. TfL have a big job on their hands as I expect they will need to progressively migrate the card holder base from existing Oyster cards to new ones by 2018. The new form of Oyster has to be ready for by 2018 and the extension of Oyster ticketing to new destinations served by Crossrail.
This back room system is far more flexible which means you have a disparity between what is offered on Oyster and for CPC users. The last Mayor got a lot of criticism for offering 7 day PAYG capping for CPC users but not on Oyster. Clearly TfL have offered a “quick win” solution that avoids a CPC vs Oyster disparity for the Hopper ticket in the short run. No doubt political opponents on the Assembly will be haranguing the Mayor as to why the “unlimited” product can’t be launched in a nanosecond but such is politics. 😉
@AR. I don’t think that there is a smart card system in continental Europe that is the same as TfL’ s Oyster. All of those systems that I have travelled on rely on ticket inspections to enforce the rules. I am not aware of any that are cashless either, having been able to buy time-valid single tickets from machines or from bus drivers.
@ Malcolm,
Perhaps we could score out of 10 the ping pong exchanges between AR and GH for technical merit and artistic interpretation.
@Reynolds Walthamstow & Fandroid.
Thanks for that, It seems that the Evening Standard was being a bit economical with the truth. Fandroid may well be right. TFL buses and Croydon trams might well be only totally cashless system in Europe. Smart cards are certainly now very common in Europe, so presumably are able to encompass the one hour validity, along with paper tickets.
@Fandroid
Forgot to mention;- just been to Poznan. I bought a 24 hour paper pass from a kiosk, but I noticed large scale use of a smartcard.
This is a PEKA pass. Not only does it have time availability, it also reads the individual stops, and calculates a very specific fare based on distance (this is the old fare stage system with knobs on). Under this system (as far as I can tell) changing vehicles is irrelevant. Say you board a tram. travel say three stops (that’s three stop fares ) then change onto another at a junction, travel another three stops, the system clocks up another three stops worth of fares, and is presumably able to work out logically where the change is made.
There is a daily cap in force. There is a matrix of fares by number of stops published, with huge number of differing fare tariffs, according to entitlement (students, pensioners, disabled etc). All very very cheap, my paper 24hr pass was about £2.00. Individual PEKA fares are about £0.06 per stop. (with time cap).
@Paying Guest
Surely the million euro question is whether Luxembourg scores more than nul points in the EuroSmartCard competition?
@Anonymice
Luxembourg scores quite well in the EuroSmartCard competition.
There is the mKaart, valid for whole of Luxembourg public transport system. Comes in whole load of varieties, which can then be charged up, bit like OV Chippenkaart in Netherlands. And : Luxembourg city tramway is under construction.
WW at 1254: will the “new Oyster” be ITSO compliant? & where can I find out more? Roger Ford covers it from time to time, I know.
There seems to be some confusion in contributors’ minds between the existence of smartcards and the availability of timed transfers. Many European systems (noteably those in Switzerland and parts of Germany – Freiburg was a case where I used the facility as long ago as 1968) have had 1 hour (or 90 minute or whatever) tickets even in the days of paper. You simply cancelled the ticket on first boarding with the time and then hopped on and off as often as you wished; the system relied on ticket inspection. Equally, the existence of a smartcard doesn’t automatically imply the option of a timed transfer ticket, which depends on what the back office systems are set up to do.
Graham: The relationship between timed ticket-rules and plastic card-tickets is as follows: A plastic card, with associated software (whether the software is on the card, at the reader, or in a back-office somewhere) can only have its operation changed by changing (and of course testing) the software. Which takes time.
Whereas if we had cardboard things that get punched (or indeed a conductor turning a handle on his stomach, or scratch cards) then the rules can be changed simply by someone saying that the rules have changed. Which can be quite rapid (modulo some training for inspectors, but as they are mark 1 humans that is little problem).
(Magnetic stripe tickets that open gates fall on the software side of this divide, of course, but I doubt if these are/were used anywhere on buses).
I am prompted to further reflect that of course Setright and Gibson machines (let alone racks of tickets) have no built-in clock, so we should not go too far back in the past when imagining instant upgrades.
Malcolm. if “a conductor turns a handle on his stomach….”, where does the ticket come out?
@Malcolm
I have at times wondered whether we (i.e. TFL) are trying to be too clever sometimes. The European method of establishing time validity (never used in such a format in the UK to my knowledge) is by validation of a paper ticket (on vehicle in case of trams and buses) with the date and time stamped, therefore accepted as valid(by human inspection) within stipulated time period. This still applies throughout Europe (so I have found). Only the other week I made various journeys on the Heidelberg/Mannheim network using ordinary singles (@ E 1.30 pretty good, i.e. £1.00 per trip).
Of course, updating software is likely to be problematical and therefore not “instant”. However, I drew attention to Poznan as demonstration of how certain European systems have achieved a sophistication way above that proposed for TFL. German systems were issuing pre-paid tickets for time validation way back, as far back as early 1920s I have read. North American systems used paper transfers [Updated. LBM] at no extra charge (ask LBM re Toronto).
The UK remained backward in persevering with conductor on board issue stage fares for cash only. (and became one of the reasons that trams were abandoned, we didn’t have the necessary pre-paid fare systems to permit very high capacity vehicles).
@Malcolm – you have your answer… the point I was making was a much simpler one: there is no necessary linkage – as some seemed to think – between smartcard and timed ticket. I don’t think anyone would argue that moving from |Gibson tickets to timed tickets was something that could be done; in the European paper timed tickets, the procedure – quite alien of course to the British – was to insert a strip of tickets into an Entwerter, which would then take a bite out of the strip, leaving you with a stamp of the time it did so. Simples.
@ OB 1645 – Oyster and ITSO are completely different technical standards. The latter is supported / promoted by Government who have been reluctant to see too much expansion of Oyster. However DfT funded work to make all of TfL’s smartcard readers and systems able to read ITSO standard cards which have compatible TfL products on them. At present this only means Travelcard seasons and one day tickets loaded on to ITSO smartcards. Southern Railway have led the way in deploying ITSO based smart ticketing and they do issue Key Smartcards with Travelcard seasons on them that are read on TfL’s system. There were / are issues about glitches with some Key smartcards and as they’re relatively rare some LU and bus staff have not recognised them as being valid! I understand Key Smartcards have been extended to Thameslink and parts of Great Northern north of the Thames. C2C have introduced their own smart products – again ITSO based and acceptable on the TfL network where a compatible product is loaded to the card. Note that ITSO cannot support PAYG that operates in the same way as TfL’s version operates.
Other TOCs have franchise commitments to introduce ITSO based Smart tickets on their networks but progress has been glacial. Greater Anglia, SWT and South Eastern are apparently working on their own schemes.
The fundamental issue, though, is that Oyster has mass appeal and huge takeup which means its the technology that MPs outside London want to see reaching their constituents. Despite DfT going “la la la not listening ITSO ITSO ITSO” the pressure has not abated hence why we have seen Oyster stretched to Gatwick, Dartford, Swanley, Shenfield and Hertford East over the last 18 months or so. Of course TfL have now got increasing take up of contactless payment cards which will turn into the next agony for the DfT when MPs start going “we want Oyster and CPCs available on our rail services”. 😛
@Walthamstow
How will concessionary tickets be treated for time validity ?
I have a national senior concession card (valid after 09.30) which I use quite often in central London. As I understand it, each JOURNEY collects a “flat fare” (to the bus operator), about £0.65 I think.
If I make (say) two bus journeys within one hour, the bus operator(s) collect £1.30. BUT : If the concessionary tickets are to be accepted on
the same basis as an Oyster/contactless, does this mean that the bus operators revenue will be halved. (fiendish). Note there is no tap out with a concessionary card, just one swipe as you board a bus.
(Actually, my Herefordshire card doesn’t work in London, when it invariably fails, the bus driver just shrugs). It works everywhere else in England.
WW
Greater Anglia, SWT and South Eastern are apparently working on their own schemes. Which will, PLEASE be mutually-compatible, or is that too much to hope for?
DfT going “la, la, ITSO” as you say.
Why?
“NIH”? Or a real reason or set of reasons?
@ Alan R – you need to go and do some revision. On bus validation of paper tickets has been used in the UK. GMPTE used to have Clippercard system of Carnet discounted tickets. Tyne and Wear had full multi modal seasons and single journey through ticketing. If you started on a bus then the ticket was stamped when after you’d paid for it. T&W had a honeycomb zonal structure like German Verkehrsverbund systems have. If you started on the Metro you just retained your ticket and showed it on boarding (assuming it was for enough zones!). The old zone structure has been rationalised but amazingly Transfare tickets still exist despite commercial bus operators. I can’t be sure but I think West Yorkshire PTE also had a form of “validate on the bus” ticket prior to deregulation. We were not as backward in this country as people like to think and many schemes have survived the nightmare of deregulation and smart card technology does actually offer the prospect of multi modal schemes in areas that have never had them.
For a nice flashback to what Tyne and Wear County Council envisaged and pretty much turned into reality have a look at this great brochure from 1977. I still have my own paper copy!
http://www.urbantransportgroup.org/system/files/general-docs/Nexus%20-%20Meet%20your%20Metro.pdf
WW at 1922: thanks.
ITSO themselves assert that PAYG is within the spec, in a hand-wavy way.
It seems to me that:
1 If ‘new Oyster’ ceases to be a store of value, PAYG goes out of the window
2 If CPC becomes dominant, ditto.
AIUI, an unregistered Oyster is the last way to travel anonymously in London, using PAYG. Which a few vocal people regard as important for a variety of ‘personal freedom’ ‘anti surveillance’ type reasons.
@ Alan R 1941 – your ENCTS [1] pass is valid all day on London’s bus network. No need to pay at peak times.
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/adult-discounts-and-concessions/freedom-pass
I don’t think a change to public fares levels or discounts makes any difference to Concessionary Pass / Freedom Pass reimbursement. That is a matter for negotiation between London Councils and TfL. There are papers on the London Councils website that explain the methodology and financial settlements and borough by borough payments. The overall settlement includes an element for non London pass acceptance. Although all the TfL bus readers have been modified to read ITSO format cards I’ve never worked out or heard why ENCTS cards from non London authorities are not read electronically on TfL buses.
[1] English National Concessionary Travel Scheme.
@ OB – I was very careful to say “TfL style PAYG” as I know ITSO does support a different form of PAYG. Southern have such a scheme called “Key Go”.
Be careful to separate the technology from the product. I do not see PAYG vanishing as a product concept. It is clearly very popular with a range of users and allows people flexibility to manage their financial commitment. Not everyone has access to a bank account and not all banks issue contactless payment cards. Some users vehemently object to the technology or to allowing TfL access to the bank accounts. I am sure some in TfL might well want to dump Oyster if they could but it can’t because of the political commitments made by the previous Mayor. I simply don’t see the new Mayor wishing to scrap it either to force everyone onto contactless. It’d be political suicide.
@Walthamstow
Thank you for that. This means that in London at least I do not have to suffer the indignity of being a TWIRLY? (Peak validity was news to me).
It strikes that;- if no change is made to revenue attribution on concessionary tickets, then (when full ability to change as much as you wish in one hour is implemented) it could be that a concessionary multi change one hour journey might (technically) yield more revenue to the operator than an Oyster/Contactless.
The plot thickens: If (as I have experienced) the ENCTS passes are not “read” on Tfl Buses, how do they compile a revenue and stats statement for audit?
Has the block annual allocation to operator you report no means of relating to actual journeys made? (and compiling stats).
I am sure that my ENCTS pass (which I have held six years) DID used to be read on London Buses (i.e. reader went to green when swiped) until a year or so ago, what changed?
WW yes quite right.
But this is where we stumble on compatibility.
1 old provincials (sorry, Alan R) with an ITSO concession seems to work on (ex) Underground but not buses. Should work in theory, sometimes doesn’t in practice. Not good enough in my view.
2 if the “keyGo” cash balance is on the *card* the London ticket gate will open. So far so cool.
3 but if the PAYG cash balance is held in the back office it’s unlikely that the ticket gate will open in the time allowed (brutally short, for the non technical) if the gate has to talk to a back office in say Brighton for keyGo. Then either
a. treat keyGo as a token like CPC and take money on an overnight batch, but without the bank credit arrangements;
b. continue to refuse to offer keyGo compatibility as now.
As others have observed, good luck explain that to resolutely non-technical politically motivated tribune of the people.
On out of area acceptance, I can only report the anecdote that my (adult) daughter was able to use a concessionary Oxford City (?county) Council ITSO card on a bus in the Lake District, to our surprise and the confident indifference of the driver. Not probative in any way.
@Alan Robinson
The total usage of Freedom Pass/ENCTS on buses is calculated mainly from survey data and not from records kept on the driver’s machine. The total cost is then apportioned between boroughs in proportion to the use made of their Freedom Pass on the buses by each borough’s users. Thus the total cost also includes the ENCTS travel and the cost of this is pro-rated between boroughs on the same ratio as the cost of Freedom Pass.
The principle behind the calculation of the cost is, in principle, on the basis that TfL is neither better nor worse off as a result of the scheme. Thus the largest element of the cost is revenue foregone from users who would have paid to travel if they did not have a Freedom Pass. A significant part of the negotiation, therefore, surrounds the fares elasticity, or how many people would not have travelled if they had had to pay. The annual negotiate also includes factors for which type of ticket Pass holders would have used if they had had to pay.
For underground journeys gate data is used and gate data is partly used on national rail, but this is made more complex as for many journeys there is only a gate at one end of the journey.
The impact of the one hour hopper raises an interesting question which I guess will form part of the next negotiations but may well be picked up through survey data.
I would use contactless on Tube journeys except that I have my Senior Railcard loaded on to my Oystercard and get discounted fares offpeak. The discount is apparently not available with contactless. I don’t think I have ever used my ENCTS pass to touch in on buses. I wave it vigorously at the driver and about 50% of them then press a button to log it. Using PAYG is so effortless, I now find it really tedious to find cash to buy a bus ticket on early morning journeys out here in Hants. It’s extraordinary how grudging adaptation to smart cards has been out here. Many bus passengers buy a weekly season style smartcard. It is very noticeable that Monday morning schedules get shot to bits when all the smartcard holders are paying the drivers to renew their cards!
Alan R says “how do they compile a revenue and stats statement for audit?”
Presumably, they can use the same approach as is used for paper travelcards (which still exist, even though the price differential with a travelcard on Oyster is getting silly – they are truly necessary for gricing purposes). Auditors managed to audit long before the silicon chip came blundering into our lives.
Which button, if any, the bus driver is expected to press when nodding through card-holders with either no plastic, or plastic which is having a bad day, is an internal matter between the parties (driver, bus company, tfl, auditors etc), but there will be some answer.
Alan R: what’s changed in the last 6 years? AIUI two things;
1 changes to the back end to accept contactless bank cards (CPC in the jargon)
2 “ITSO on Prestige” by which the reader recognises a TfL “product” (eg one day travelcard) on the card.
I guess that the ability to accept the ITSO Herefordshire ENCTS pass got lost somewhere. Sounds like a project management problem rather than a hardware or a software problem. Others doubtless know more (at the risk of sounding like Hugh Bonneville)
Malcolm re audit practices: AIUI the focus is now on “materiality” and “systems reasonably designed to ensure” rather than our old friends truth and fairness.
(steps away from keyboard, muttering into beard)
@ Greg – I have yet to come across an ITSO scheme, other than TSGN’s, which works across multiple TOCs. Even TSGN is a bit of a fake as it’s really just two TOCs merged together with Southern’s system expanded northwards. The only shining light is that there is joint smart ticketing with Go Ahead bus companies (Metrobus / Brighton and Hove).
I’ve no clear idea why there is such separation. One suggestion related to the failure of the South East Flexible Ticketing Project (SEFT) was that each TOC wanted to run its own ITSO computer system and own all the data related to it. The data is viewed as “commercially confidential” which is a bit of a nonsense really given the TOC “owner” is a temporary entity whereas a decent slice of any TOC’s customer base is repeat business which will run across various owners. This reluctance to “share” data or link systems creates balkanised smartcard schemes.
I’ve long been of the view that all rail ITSO schemes should have been forced through Rail Settlement Plan on an industry wide basis with industry rules. They have the experience of handling ticketing system data. I’m also of the view that a parallel National Bus smartcard “clearing house” should also have been created because that’s not the “fashionable” thing for government to be involved in. Meanwhile each big bus group does its own thing and the PTEs / ITAs struggle on trying to create smartcard schemes in their own areas. Ironically getting smart ticketing to work on National Rail services in PTE areas is often the hardest thing to achieve.
Changing the subject slightly: I resent paying an extra 20p to park using an app when the public transport alternative actively promotes automation. I agree with Fandroid on the dis-utility of coins.
1 Am I alone?
2 what is the justification, in business or policy terms?
@alan R
“This means that in London at least I do not have to suffer the indignity of being a TWIRLY? ”
On the buses, at least. On rail it’s more complicated, as there is a (generally) north/south divide, in some cases even having different rules for different trains on the same stretch of line!
http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/node/26627
timbeau: I think that Alan R is not a London resident, and therefore not entitled to a Freedom Pass, so a map of where and when he could travel if he was is of academic interest to him, though fascinating nonetheless.
I think the usability on London buses at all times of non-London over-60s (or whatever the age is this week) bus passes is a different can of rather simpler worms.
When one considers how long Hoppa type tickets have been around at it was around a decade ago that a Lib Dem member on GLA suggested London introduce a Hoppa type ticket its notable that Borus had 8 years to introduce such a ticket but reports say he thought it was to complex.
Then along comes new Sadiq Khan ( I believe his the son of a seamstress !) and at his first meeting with TFL gets agreement to introduce at least a basic 1 change ticket which is all most passengers need getting say from home on a local bus to an interchange where they can change to the longer main route journey reducing cost in half .
It seems cost to TFL has been stated as £30 million which could easily be recovered by letting a private bus company buy the buses for a couple of routes instead of TFL buying Borisbuses!
One does wonder if this option could cause problems for bus drivers re passengers arguing that if bus had arrived earlier they would meet 1 hour limit … With questions over services that have very low frequencies .
With a change of Mayor and party represented one wonders if this will also bring forward new ways of doing things ?
Mayor Sadiqs acceptance of 1 change only suggests he saw this as part of the first 100 days rule in politics ….
One issue related to this is how the replacement of graduated/ Zonal fares with a single flat fare for buses means that passengers get different amounts for their money with say route 25 users able to go from Oxford Circus to Ilford while on a local route you pay the same yet can only go a couple of miles ( Wonder what is worst value route for £1.50 ) ?
Melvyn: I don’t see how the occupation of Sadiq’s mother is pertinent to anything. Admittedly he made a point of his father’s job, but we would really prefer to concentrate on his actions, rather than such irrelevances.
You mention “local bus to interchange” – sadly this will not work for the return journey.
Flat fares for differing length journeys on buses have been part of the London scene for a long time now. If anyone was going to complain about unfairness, they have had plenty of time to do so.
@ Melvyn – BBC London said TfL have been working for months on developing the scheme. This is no great shock given what Peter Hendy said in his interview for this blog. I imagine Mike Brown went equipped with a list of initiatives and actions to his meeting with the new Mayor yesterday. It’s called “survival” or “professionalism” – choose your own preference. 😉
Boris often threw the “too complex” remark as a reason for not doing things when the reality was he saw no reason to do it nor wanted to spend the money. I dare say we will run up against something similar with Mr Khan in due course. All politicians have things they don’t want to do especially when pressured by their opponents.
I also expect that as the scheme details become clearer and people have time to think that all sorts of “problems” will arise. Whenever you have a time limit to achieve some form of discount or lower charge you will always get people who fall the wrong side of it for whatever reason. This will become especially acute on night routes where people may have long journeys and difficult connections into other low frequency services in the suburbs (more so as more weekend night routes start). It will also prove difficult in some outer parts of London where frequencies are low or very low. A few mins delay can mean a wait of 70-80 mins for the next bus. There are also issues where one leg of a journey takes over an hour. You’ll get a discount one way (where you start with a short connecting trip) but possibly not in the other where you have a long first trip. For example Ashford Hospital to White City – short journey on a 116 then a long trek on a 237 will give you a discount. Very unlikely you’ll get one on the return given how long the 237 can take to reach Hounslow. Worse it will vary by time of day and day of the week with peak time travellers least likely to achieve a discount if any sort of distance is to be covered. A gent on the BBC News “vox pop” had identified this issue straight away – obviously uses the buses a lot at busy times! We shall see how it all pans out in a few months time. It will be interesting to see if there is any identifiable boost to patronage on the network and how TfL is able to identify it alongside all the other factors that influence usage.
Surely it’s about 2 things – political: being seen to be a quick, popular and low income-friendly move, and strategic: increasing bus ridership, albeit at £30m cost. There will now be some trips when – if I’m not in a mad hurry – I’ll chose the bus over the Tube simply because it will be cheaper instead of being more expensive. It always seemed perverse to me that the bus should be more expensive than rail for any trip below the daily cap, and this will largely deal with that.
In response to two posts above: the lowest value £1.50 trip must be when the driver is hanging back in clear traffic to keep to the timetable and you get the sinking feeling it would be quicker to get out walk. Another thing the Germans do is the ‘Kurzstrecke’ ticket – half price for short 2 or 3-stop hops (also relies on honesty with the Entwerter coupled with random inspections). With the relatively close spacing of stops in London, however, it may well be quicker to walk it. I wouldn’t wish such a further complication upon our fare system, nor the touching out that such a thing would entail.
@timbeau, Alan R
What perchance is a TWIRLY?
[I read it as when your bus card won’t work because it’s not yet 09:30, so you’re told that you’re twirly. In my head it wasn’t spelt like that, but it has often happened to me. Malcolm]
I wonder if it is sensible to assume that any new journey started within one hour of the start of the first will be “free”. If any restrictions (policed or not) like “not returning” were going to be imposed, would this have been already mentioned officially?
Malcolm: no, because purdah (permanent officials to remain silent during election of elected officials).
“not returning” is beyond practical enforcement, so a bad rule on my view.
White City to Ashford (Middx) and return: same as now, because of the 4.50 bus only cap.
Just a note for the denizens of Essex & Cambridgeshire, AGA launched their smart card a couple of weeks ago: https://www.abelliogreateranglia.co.uk/smart
@Malcolm and LBM
The TWIRLY is (mainly) a senior inhabitant of the grim frozen north.
(Go towards Watford, but don’t stop for about 150 miles).
Northern accents tend to be the most effective in condensing Too Early into the TWIRLY mutation.
As told to me (by Northern Bus Managers) It is the senior passengers who congregate at stops about 09.25. As the next bus arrives (say 09.29) there is a mass cry to the driver) of: are we TWIRLY.
(and seniors are thus known “in the trade” as THE TWIRLIES)
The 09.30 start seems to be fairly universal in the provinces, which is why I was so surprised to be told that I can use my ECNTP in London before that time. I travel very extensively throughout England, and report that every operator (even the tiniest family outfit) is now able to read an ECNTP. (i.e. it successfully goes green when swiped, so presumably logs up my journey). The only variation is whether a nil value paper ticket is issued. Most do. My local bus, Astons Coaches, which is a subsidiary of Veolia, which is a subsidiary of SNCF (I kid you not) Doesn’t. When I tell the smock wearing cider fumes reeking Herefordshire peasants that their buses are (ultimately) run by French State Railways, they give me a strange look.
@Malcolm/AlanR
Apologies for assuming interavailability extended to all services covered by the Freedom Pass. As I have not quite reached Twirly age myself yet, these delights are still in store. (and I half expect the goalposts to move before I do get there!)
Question – do any/all tram systems accept them?
As for the question of a two-bus journey costing twice as much in one direction as the other, resulting in a 25% saving instead of 50% on the round trip, it is still a saving, and on quite a long journey. On many such journeys, judicious choice of interchanges is possible to ensure the first leg is always the shorter one in each direction (although not in the example given – but why should London ratepayers be subsidising Spelthorne residents anyway?)
@timbeau – tram systems rarely,if at all, accept non-residents pensioners’ passes, andif they do, it’s because of a specific local extension of availability. The national scheme doesn’t extend to trams – another example of DfT anti-tram discrimination on no logical basis whatsoever.
@AR – the TWIRLY start rule is largely ignored by our local bus drivers in marginal cases, perhaps not least because the bus service at 09.27 is usually late and the drivers have no wish to engage in a difficult argument with pensioners boarding an ontime journey at 09.27 as to where the bus “would normally” be at a specific time. [Question to self – our local bus stop time is a “derived” time from a formal timing point several minutes away – so drivers may not actually know – or care].
@Paying Guest at 13.13 – it’s very frustrating. For once I sympathise with Jim Hacker in the exchange with Sir Humphrey about the fully staffed hospital that had no patients -“But Humphrey, it – doesn’t- have- any – patients” Or, if you prefer, von Eisenstein’s exchange with his lawyer Blind, when told he is going to gaol.
timbeau you can check on line. It’s aligned with state pension age AFAICT, as I qualify on my 66th birthday for the Freedom Pass (?national scheme) run by London Councils collectively. *At the time of writing* TfL also offer a 60+ Oystercard. Which starts at 60 and it *seems* will work anywhere an Oystercard does. I have seen no proposal to limit the 60+ Oystercard; if anything the extension of Oyster acceptance might mean the goal posts are moving in favour.
@GH
I feel your pain – I really do! It was just that the whole exchange brought back so vividly my memories of the introduction of ‘commercial accounting’ to MoD in the mid 90s when I discovered that by gifting all ‘my’ jigs and special tools to a NATO agency I could gain a fortune anually on my equipment budget.
@old buccaneer
The problem TfL will face with the 60+ card is that it gets progressively more expensive as the age of entitlement for a Freedom Pass rises to 67. The 60 to 67 age group are also much higher users of their pass as they are, on average, far more active and many are still employed. So what was a cheap election special for Boris in 2012 is becoming a real drag on costs for TfL
quinlet / OB
“Due to the rise in the state pension age, you are no longer automatically entitled to a Freedom Pass on your 60th birthday. The age of eligibility will rise incrementally between 2010 and 2020. The earliest age for men and women to get concessionary travel passes will therefore rise gradually, from 60 on 6 April 2010 to 65 on 5 April 2020.”
Presumably is now at 62.5 ?
The Freedom Pass is not a national scheme. It is run by London Councils, and includes train services. The only national scheme in England for older people’s travel (and people with disabilities) is the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme: buses only. They have (I think) the same age limits. To complicate things slightly, London residents entitled to a Freedom pass are not given an ENCTS card, instead their Freedom pass acts as an ENCTS card (i.e. buses only, mostly after 09:30 on work days) when they venture outside London.
@Paying guest – and really off topic (but on thread!), you would have liked (not) an early Heseltine initiative when Secretary of State for the Environment. He had decided that the greatest evil was the money spent on photocopying and the best discipline was photocopying budgets; each division was issued with tokens of various denominations to take to the centralised photocopying unit. As in PoW camps, these things became a quasicurrency – I once overheard two messengers saying “Oh,I found a 10 on the floor the other day” and a colleague in Housing concluded – your point – that since he rarely used his ration, he could sell on his tokens and run the Division at a profit.
I’m not sure why we’re looking at Ashford Hospital -White City but I suspect bus to Hatton Cross and a tube (or two with OSI between Hammersmith stations) would be a very similar price to two buses off-peak and a little quicker.
Greg it’s worse than that. I’m 58 and don’t get Freedom till I’m 66.
If you were born on 25/04/1954 you’re eligible from 06/11/19 according to the online checker. 25/04/53 => 06/07/2016. Oh for a table!
I’m interested to see if the ‘hopper’ policy drives any significant behavioural changes.
Currently, those using the bus network with PAYG/contactless have a financial incentive not to transfer to another service that would provide a quicker overall journey to their final destination. In some instances this will now change. Will passengers still prefer to continue on their existing route? Obviously we value convenience as well as speed (a seat, not waiting outside, etc), so not everyone who has the option to take a faster trip will do so, especially if the gains are only small.
Quinlet: drag on income; I don’t think it costs them much more.
I’d like to be there when TfL proposes to ease the age upwards. It doesn’t feel like practical politics to me. I can’t see a Mayor proposing it.
@ Quinlet – 11 May 2016 at 09:04
@old buccaneer
The problem TfL will face with the 60+ card is that it gets progressively more expensive as the age of entitlement for a Freedom Pass rises to 67. The 60 to 67 age group are also much higher users of their pass as they are, on average, far more active and many are still employed. So what was a cheap election special for Boris in 2012 is becoming a real drag on costs for TfL
On the other hand, many active Freedom Pass holders will make far less use of their cars, particularly in the busier day-time, thus reducing the traffic on roads.
Not sure how one would offset reduced congestion/emissions against costs to TfL?
@Anonymous** – the other interesting question (hinted at here before) is whether the change will drive a reconstruction of the bus network, with more hub and spoke designs in place of the classic LT/LGOC “round the corner” layout.
Anonymous**
Probability of a theoretically quicker trip being realised also comes into it.
RE Old Buccaneer,
“drag on income; I don’t think it costs them much more.”
But if they have to provide more buses for the 60+ to travel into work in the am peak (instead of taking the tube / train like they do going home in the evening?).
Which clog up the roads slightly more thus resulting in a greater number of buses being required…
Hence marginal cost could be quite high.
Also the Freedom pass scheme is far better for those north of the Thames so might a mayor from sarf of the river see things differently?
See this map for the stark difference in the 0930 issue between North and South London:
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/freedom-passmap.pdf
(Case study: Dad didn’t renew his Gold card after his 60th Birthday and commuted in on buses and home on (same) train till he retired. Mum just started and finished work later to use train both ways. And one of my neighbours is doing exactly the same as Dad did (and complains about how crowded the buses are at 0715 with others doing the same as him!)
John UK: quite so. I regard the 60+Oystercard as a form of ‘loyalty’discount after buying 30-40 annual seasons.
I also think that 60-67 year olds will probably spend more than half of what they save on fares, in a hand-wavy economists sort of way. Which means economic activity and, moreorless inevitably, tax revenue.
Freedom Pass carries the ITSO logo.
[More eligibility dates:
05/04/53 => eligible now
05/04/54 =>06/09/2019
11/04/53 => 06/07/2016
11/04/54 => 06/11/2019]
Also car driving involves a retest at 70 I believe.
Re Graham H,
“the other interesting question (hinted at here before) is whether the change will drive a reconstruction of the bus network, with more hub and spoke designs in place of the classic LT/LGOC “round the corner” layout.”
Probably given we’ll see that on the night bus network post night tube any way and it was seen in Dublin after the introduction of trams which took over a significant quantity of city centre to local hub capacity in the tram areas with the buses being reorganised to spread out from local hubs to provide tram-heading or alternatively better orbital routes.
OB: Your belief is unfounded. There is no age-related retest requirement in the UK for driving any sort of vehicle at any age.
Re OB
“Also car driving involves a retest at 70 I believe.”
No just a questionnaire with 20+medical questions if answered “No” to all then no problem and you new one is in the post.
Malcolm: No but there are age-related medical requirements – eg for my PCV/LGV licenses I had to take a medical at 65 and thereafter annually from age 70. Up to age 65 it was every 5 years.
I wonder if an increased number of “hoppers” will mean more pressure on drivers to wait and see if passengers from another bus want to make a transfer?
Or is each driver expected to keep to the timetable, irrespective of looking in the mirror and seeing passengers sprinting from a bus that has pulled in behind…
When the ticket is introduced, I anticipate predictable complaints from the public about “oh, the bus I wanted wouldn’t wait, so I had to wait for the next one and that took me over the hour…”
@John UK & OB
I view the 60+ Oyster as compensation for being charged half fare from when I was big enough to occupy my own seat and full fare from age 14 (except to and from school). Such young Londoners now travel free.
@ngh
Wot. The Bus Reshaping Plan again?
Reynolds 953. It is not as if Hoppers will introduce the notion of changing buses. This already occurs quite a lot, hitherto only by passengers who (1) don’t mind paying twice, or (2) have already reached a cap, or (3) have free travel, or (4) have to change buses because of where they are going. So the issue of drivers waiting or not for sprinting passengers is already a widespread one.
So, as I understand it, the 60+ card has no validity outside London, but within London works just like a ENCTS card, ( like Old Buccaneer, I won’t be eligible for the latter until I’m 66).
As the nearest Tube station is four miles away, I can see the 0933 being my commute of choice after I turn 60!
timbeau says ” but within London works just like a ENCTS card”.
Not really. In spite of there being no B in ENCTS, a “standard” ENCTS card only gives bus travel (in our out of London). The 60+ Oyster card within London gives travel on all modes. The whole thing is a bit of a muddle.
@Timbeau & Graham H
The ENCTP is accepted on the Sheffield tramway (I use it quite a lot and it’s an archaic conductor serviced system, with cash fares of yore).
I have to present it to a real live human being, who verifies is OK.
It USED to be accepted on Blackpool trams, and a huge row ensued when it was withdrawn. Blackpool is a rare Borough Council run system (son of Corporation transport dept). Of course, there was no legal requirement for Blackpool to accept ENCTP on trams so they just stopped doing so, after calculating that Seniors would mostly meekly pay up a normal fare, and thus yield Blackpool BC more dosh!
Didn’t work, Blackpool and other operators run a competing bus service parallel to the tramway, and these became utterly overwhelmed. There are a lot of senior visitors to Blackpool-Fleetwod zone, and there are retirees too. The hoo-ha continues, and the ENCTP might be restored. The problem is that Blackpool BC boundary is at Cleveleys, and for the last few miles to Fleetwood, the residents were excluded from the separate scheme for Blackpool residents.
Personally, I am impressed by the simple and practical approach in Germany. NO FREE ANYTHING! Seniors (Over 60) get a standard discount, typically circa 20% on all fares, and that’s it. Usually applies to all over 60s too, including UK tourists (Whoopee!).
If only we did this in the UK it might be the salvation of many bus services now being chopped due to desperate financial pressure.
In case any senior LR readers are going to Germany, look for ticket machines and press the Union Jack symbol. You should then get full instructions re senior fare. There is usually a senior button to press for discount. Verification is by passport shown if requested (for UK citizens) locals , of course will be carrying dreaded IDENTITY CARDS (Which in our case, we have not got). German senior tickets can apply throughout a regional network, all modes. sometimes with a Teutonic Twirly restraint, sometimes not. (includes day or 24 hr tickets) and SMARTCARDS. Those contemplating visiting Hamburg, take note.
@All
To Forestall question;-
A GERMAN TWIRLY IS;- A ZUFRUH !!!
Now you know.
( I wonder if German public transport operators think of their senior customers as Der/Die ZUFRUHEN ? )
In a perhaps doomed attempt to provide something approaching consistency, I am warning that further references to the consequences of being over 60, 66 or any other age of so-called seniority, outside the London area will probably be chopped. Even if they are made by economists or people with life-long travel concessions, or indeed holders of official “National Treasure” cards.
@ngh/nameless – Bus reshaping redivivus? Possibly, although the original was based on a rather more Cartesian approach to route planning – this time round, it might be very patchy (eg in, say, Harrow, the separation of trunk routes – mainly the 183 – from the local links – the H routes – is reasonably clear, but in parts of east London less so).
Not sure whether Dublin is quite as “clean” an example as you might hope. A bit off topic, when I last did some work for them, what seemed to have happened was that an overlay of new routes radiating from the “tramheads” had been added but nothing had actually been withdrawn as a consequence, leaving a plethora of suffixed routes (Bassom eat your heart out) and a lot of empty buses – especially those parked up for 6 hours interpeak. My local spies told me that Dublin Bus were too heavily in hock to the unions to change anything*. How can we make the route structure/operations more efficient was the cry. How we smiled into our Guinness.
*Even the route map was a clone of the 1950’s London map…
The question of the ever increasing number of 60+ cards in use is one that TfL will have to look at seriously. It may be regarded as a worthwhile investment to encourage public transport use, but the impact on morning peak buses in some areas of London cannot be ignored as a downside. The transition is really quite slow, but it does means costs are heading in the wrong direction just when funds are getting a lot tighter.
It won’t be worth a huge amount in total, but I for one would understand it if my ENTC card were not valid on weekday London buses before 09.30. After all, there’s no votes to be lost in withdrawing that concession!
@Fandroid
You have identified a problem consequent upon the raising of retirement ages (for pensions). There will be increasing numbers of over 60’s still working, many thus transferring to free buses in peak.
And will certainly apply to London. This doesn’t look sustainable
Fandroid at 1235: I don’t think costs are increasing. I accept that the amount of income foregone may increase.
@AR. I was just following up the original identification of a potential problem by John.U.K 0930.
And I was only talking about London. It’s possible that some LAs elsewhere allow pre 09.30 use of the ENTC for their own locals, but mine doesn’t, and I am not aware of any other than London that allows it for non-locals.
@OB. You are absolutely correct. It would be just another downward contribution to future income.
Alan R and timbeau: the rail map is here:
https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/60-plus-photocard-new.pdf
The full description is here:
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/adult-discounts-and-concessions/60-london-oyster
I still see difficulties in withdrawing it, particularly given the heat being generated around the pension age changes more generally. See, eg
“WASPI” (Greg: it seems safe if you Google it in quotation marks).
Certainly worth raising in the next mayoral campaign, currently scheduled to coincide with a general election in 2020. I will be in the age bracket at that point and expect still to have a vote in the mayoral/assembly election.
@Malocolm
Thankyou for picking me up on that: Correction to my statement
“60+ card has no validity outside London, but within London works just like a Freedom Pass”
@Fandroid
“I for one would understand it if my ENTC card were not valid on weekday London buses before 09.30.”
But can the TfL card readers distinguish between a Freedom Pass and a non-London ENTC?
60+ Oyster card is valid on TfL services beyond the Greater London Boundary.
It’s also quite handy for proving you age-eligibility for other concessionary fares, as I found out with my Greater Manchester Wayfarer ticket on Sunday 7 May.
Coincidently, Citymetric has just published an article on the 60+ scheme. The writer advocates scrapping it.
http://www.citymetric.com/transport/here-s-why-london-s-new-mayor-should-scrap-100m-free-travel-bung-older-workers-2075
@Reynolds 953
Just had look at Citymetric article. I too concluded that the 60+ facility is not one of Boris’ better ideas. A simple way of preventing fare loss would be to transform all holders into Twirlies. ( I suppose late shift workers might still benefit, but that’s too bad). As Citymetric says , it’s just too much of a giveaway as it is possible to incur £4k plus pa commuter travel cost within London area. I am coming to the view that the (originally) well meaning intention to help out seniors with free travel is turning into a monster. I can see the point of the German (and most of Europe) approach, a discount on available ticket range. This will keep things under control and not cost too much. (Seniors with disabilities could still travel free though, but again, I see from examination of European fare scales in cities I have visited that the disabled still have to pay, but with more generous discount, Of course, part of the problem is that London fares are high by European comparisons. For less than the cost of the quoted maximum annual commuting cost in the Citymetric analysis, a Swiss citizen of any age can obtain an annual pass for entire NATIONAL public transport system, i.e. the whole shooting match, trains, trams buses, lake steamers and even (some) cable cars and funiculars. (and take family with them at weekends!)
Because London fares are high, free senior travel becomes a very substantial giveaway. (vulnerable to crisis cost cutting!) and will escalate due to our ageing society.
But : I wouldn’t fancy being the London Mayor who chops it!!
@ Timbeau 1444 – yes the readers can tell the difference. Firstly the 60+ Pass / Freedom Pass issued in London is an Oyster Card so it will recognise the card type. An ENCTS card from outside London is ITSO so a different type and will have its validity differently encoded. I understand London Freedom Passes with ENTCS validity beyond London are dual chipped – Oyster for London, ITSO for the rest of England.
I suspect TfL will be well aware of the 60 to 65/66/67 commuter usage and cost. If tweaked gradually it won’t effect too many people so shouldn’t be too hard for a mayor to make changes especially if the age is raised gradually so the entitlement isn’t taken away from anyone but they never get in in the first place. TfL would only see most of the benefit in the next term though.
@ Reynolds 953 – that Citymetric article is interesting. I tried in vain earlier to find any sort of cost associated with the 60+ pass scheme. I couldn’t even find the Mayoral Direction for it or even a reference to such a decision despite raking through City Hall papers. One thing I did find was that in 2012 they estimated an initial 100,000 people would be eligible but that demand would then increase at the rate of 10,000 per month. That looks a tad high but the Citymetric article would seem to confirm costs are rising at an alarming rate. The problem is that when multiple sources of revenue or grant are under pressure or disappearing completely then “concession” schemes must fall into the scope for review. The other major scheme that causes TfL a number of problems (mostly overcrowding and needing more and more peak buses) is free travel for all children under 16. I understand the underlying logic of the scheme as originally proposed but the resource and overcrowding impact can be silly. An out of control education policy that creates schools all over the place with no co-ordination causes another service planning / capacity problem and a rising population and birth rate compound the issues.
Much as it will be against Mr Khan’s political instincts I think a full review of all concession schemes must be ordered as part of restructuring TfL’s budget to cope with his fares freeze / Osbo’s revenue grant removal.
@ Alan R – please note that the Mayor of London is NOT responsible for the Freedom Pass scheme. Any decision on that is for the London Boroughs. I expect the “pains” will come on that scheme before 2020 because of cuts to local authority funding and the planned withdrawal of all central government funding for LAs (replaced by devolving business rates). The Mayor would take decisions on the 60+Pass. I’m a fair way off from being eligible for one but an annual cost of £100m pa in a few years time is ludicrous and doubly so when its recipients are working.
@Walthamstow
I think there is increasing concern re cost of senior travel.
Another method of alleviating cost without actually withdrawing it is to offer them for sale ( £100 pa ?) the price could diminish by age, until perhaps , London’s centenarians can finally enjoy free travel.
I would be prepared to pay for my ENCTP, especially if that provided a revenue source to local Authorities to help ensure continuation of supported bus services. (Alternatively, convert the ENCTP into a reduced fare ID, and/or smartcard). Can’t really argue against it, I’ve enjoyed over 300 bus journeys in last 12 months, estimated cost to public purse of £200. I would happily pay £1.00 a journey, maybe more in London).
Re London Freedom Passes and English Bus Passes at the bottom of each is the following:-
“Concessionary Travel funded by H.M. Government with your local authority”
Neither of these bodies has ANY money of their own so who pays them?
We do as tax payers!!! Having paid thousands of pounds in both local and national taxes for over 40 years I would like to get some little return for my investment now that I am over 60 and I am sure others will agree.
@Hugh S
You are touching on one of the most utterly contentious concepts of public finance, ; – the IMPLIED notion that any benefit conferred on any individual citizen (i.e. provision of health care, pensions, education and travel) is an expression of “charity” in that : it should only be given to the “deserving poor”. People who are quite well off (like me) are not deserving. I received a reply from a local councillor to effect that wealthy seniors should pay a normal fare as a matter of conscience, being underserving.
In practice, certain benefits seem to be regarded as worthy of general entitlement, health and children’s education, but NOT further education. State pensions don’t count, you have to pay contributions
to qualify, so your pension really is an entitlement. Welfare is means tested. (and NI is not tax, just a compulsory pension scheme).
In effect your lifetime tax contributions are not an investment. You have not created any asset on your personal balance sheet, (or corresponding liability on the public balance sheet either).
You just pay, anything you get back is a gift that may be withheld. Only death and taxes are a certainty in this life, not bus passes.
(and if you have a nifty accountant, might only be death).
[Let’s hold the line on discussion of these points, lest we drift off topic altogether. LBM]
Hugh S
Well said, about time we heard more of that around here!
@Alan Robinson 05:28
Veolia has sold all of its UK bus operations. Astons was purchased by the former Veolia MD and is therefore a bog-standard British private sector operator. I don’t have the exact date to hand, but Companies House records suggest it was during 2011/12.
@ngh
Concessionary use in most parts of the UK is falling. I can’t quickly find a London-wide population pyramid (only borough-by-borough stats on the London Data Store site) but the conclusion elsewhere is that the numbers turning 60+ are falling. ONS data suggests the birth rate declined from 1947 to 1955, and then rose again to a peak in 1964.
Just to clarify some of the comments above:
Freedom Pass is that statutory concessionary fares scheme to which anybody over the age of entitlement (the state retirement age for women) or who meets the statutory definition of disability has an absolute right to. This right includes free travel on buses throughout England (after 9.30 on weekdays and all day on holidays and at weekends).
Historically, Freedom Pass benefits were extended, initially to provide half fare travel on the Underground and progressively to include free travel on the Underground and then free travel on National Rail services within London (generally after 9.30 on weekdays). This is, in principle, discretionary but there is a statutory requirement (dating back to 1985) that the same concession must be offered on all TfL rail services, now including (but not intended at the time) Overground services. Amongst other things this may mean that once the Elizabeth line is open, free travel must be extended to Reading and Shenfield if it is to be retained on the Underground. The transfer of other TOC services to TfL will also extend availability.
Freedom Pass is organised by London Councils and paid for the by the London boroughs. Much of this comes, not from the council tax payer, but out of parking ticket income through parking accounts (and I can’t help but feeling that this is a very progressive funding mechanism).
For political reasons, Boris, when Mayor, extended the availability for Freedom passes into the morning weekday peak (excluding most of the non-Overground National Rail services, which were too expensive) in 2009. TfL pays for this.
Freedom Passes follow the design on ENCTS cards and acts as ENCTS cards outside London apart from a small number of passes issued on a discretionary basis to disabled people outside the statutory definition (mainly with mental disabilities) which only have the Freedom Pass benefits in London.
Once the age of eligibility started to rise from 60 there was a bit of a fuss leading up to the 2012 Mayoral elections and Boris promised a new benefit for those aged over 60. This was the 60+ card which plugs the gap between 60 and the age of eligibility for Freedom Passes. This gap is steadily growing and provides a growing funding problem for TfL.
While the 60+ card is entirely discretionary and even the rail element of Freedom Passes is discretionary, the political difficulties of reducing these benefits are immense. Even the attempt that London Councils made in the last decade to limit the rail benefits to services within Greater London received overwhelming public opposition. Any other changes need changes to primary legislation and I don’t think any politicians are prepared to put their heads above the barricades on this one.
quinlet: That is a handy summary of the schemes, and a useful comment on the political side of things.
Just a detail really. In your history you relate how certain train travel rights were added to what was initially a bus-only card. At some point (not sure exactly when) the card acquired the name “Freedom Pass”. This renaming applies to London only, the phrase “Freedom Pass” is not used outside London – it is colloquially called a “Bus Pass”, but the word “bus” does not appear on the card, presumably because there is a theoretical possibility of particular councils extending it (either for their own residents, or more generally) to other means of transport. (The only instances of this actually happening of which I am aware is various tram additions, as mentioned earlier).
The point of mentioning this really is to help clarify the extent to which London has extended the scheme beyond what applies elsewhere in England.
Although to buy the equivalent validity of a Freedom Pass (or 60+ card) would cost more than £4,000* that doesn’t mean that it costs TfL that amount per eligible person, as most people would not need all that validity. Even if you measure the journeys actually made, that doesn’t prove they all represent lost revenue, as much of the travel is optional (think of the “Ladies Who Bus”!) (Just as not all fare dodgers represent lost revenue – some would not travel if they had to pay). So how is the actual cost estimated?
*Annual Travelcard for Zones 1-9 plus Shenfield is £4012 – the Freedom Pass also gives validity to Watford Junction, but there is no Travelcard covering both Shenfield and Watford Junction
Note that only a person regularly commuting from (or through) Zone 1 to Shenfield would require all this validity – Shenfield is in Essex and its residents are thus not eligible for Freedom or Over 60 passes.
@Man of Kent
Thank you for bringing me up to date re Veolia.
The extraordinary thing is: the bus I catch still has the inscription on the side “Astons , a subsidiary company of Veolia transport” !!
Time for a repaint.
@ Malcolm – I think it is more accurate to say that the Freedom Pass / London concessionary scheme was more generous in scope long before the English national scheme was put in place. Some PTE areas have more generous schemes that cover their local rail services or which offer a discount (Tyne and Wear Metro).
@ Timbeau – http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/node/23442 has papers for the 2015/16 Concessionary settlement. Plenty of info on the process, the numbers and the shares the boroughs pay for which service element.
Thanks WW, that is clearer now. So there was no renaming, the (London) Freedom Pass was actually the pioneer. That makes sense.
All: calm down. AIUI it was Ken who introduced free travel for 11-18 (if in full time education). Since that demographic mostly has two parents living (unlike the 60-66 demographic), who may or may not vote, introducing 60+ was a perfectly proper use of powers by an elected Mayor. Who may or may not have benefited from the propensity to vote if the 56+ folk.
Now that “the people have spoken – the b*st*rds”(copyright all politicians) it is for the current Mayor to set policy.
We wait to see how he will “square the circle” between the investment needs of TfL (particularly but not only under ground), the loss of revenue grant and the “promises” he made.
@ Malcolm – the extension of the old GLC travel pass to rail services was, I believe, a Ken Livingstone initiative in the 1980s. Unfortunately there is not much history about the pass going back that far on the internet. I did find a little snippet from 2007 when Ken had a dispute with London Councils over the funding needed and the reserve scheme. Clearly the linked webpage is the Mayor’s viewpoint and other opinions were no doubt expressed!
@WW: “doubly so if the recipient’s are working” and paying income tax? and NI? and not claiming benefits? What is your point, exactly?
60-66 year olds may well not be earning at the rate they used to, 20 years before. Unless we have a “national transport service” primarily funded from general taxation, the burden on fare payers will *always* be a political decision at the margin.
I’m a great believer in ” throw the b*gg*rs out” and change for change’s sake. So good luck, Mayor Khan, in navigating the hazards of TfL fares policy.
OB: I don’t think that anyone was suggesting that the introduction of any of the various travel concessions was anything other than “a perfectly proper use of powers by an elected Mayor”. What was being suggested, though, was that, now that they are in place, surrounded by various other circumstances, they may be something of a millstone round the necks of subsequent policy makers. As you say, we will have to wait and see how things develop.
Malcolm @ 0029: I think you will find that the zonal system introduced under “Fares Fair” (Ken Mk 1, after the LB Bromley challenge) has tied the hands of policymakers *ever since*. “PPEPEM” to coin an acronym based on your quotation from my original post.
(Note to potential pedants: I am fully aware that Ken was Leader of the GLC at the time, so the final “M” in the acronym might not fit. The song remains the same.)
I venture to suggest that Mr Boris’ 60+ card could be equally long lived.
Some of us live in hope rather than expectation. Your mileage may vary (YMMV)…
@quinlet/Malcolm – it may be worth noting how we got where we are and why buses became the sole mode for concessionary travel.
Back in the mid-70s, and over the dead bodies of DTp officials, DSS officials persuaded their Ministers to transfer the concessionary fare scheme and its then funding provision from DSS to DTp, where it was merged with the TSG pool. DTpMinisters loved ,with their short term focus, the sudden addition of funds; DTp officials, who could see that we had just been sold a funding cuckoo, hated the idea. DSS officials laughed all the way to the next PES round.
The inevitable quickly happened as local authorities introduced their own schemes – somemulti-modal, some even involved taxis, some issued tokens (which quickly became tradeable for food and even cheap holidays in the sun – Harry Crayola would have been pleassed). And most squeezed the availability.
Eventually, the clamour from those who had only a handful of tokens or a scheme that worked only on Wednesday afternoons became such that Ministers decided to introduce a uniform provision. This could then be topped up according to local political choice. The national minimum standard applied to bus services only (there was only Blackpool tramway at the time and – as ever- it was simply ignored as being inconvenient); nor did it apply to rail because (a) that was nationally funded,(b) it would have had serious capacity issues, and (c) BR “helped” Ministers by introducing a number of concession specifically for older people. Voila – a complete package that could be sold.
It’s the ability of local authorities to flex the scheme upwards in their areas which will,of course, lead to history repeating itself – and we all know the dictum about that…
timbeau & others
And, of course the “cost” of a geriatric’s Pass in London is emphatically NOT that of an Z1-6 Annual, simply because the persons:
a) don’t all live in Z6
b) are not using their passes every “working” day & at weekends.
c) a surprising number of people, apparently, don’t use them at all, or very rarely (!)
and finally (d) Even someone like my self, who uses his pass at least once a week & often twice or more, is not “costing” the system what a regular commuter would.
This is the same fake argument as Zac’s of “saving” vast sums of money by
cheatingdepriving the dependants of TfL/LU employees bystealingremoving their staff passes.@Malcolm 2228
The term Freedom Pass was first adopted in 1998 partly to reflect the fact that it no longer just covered buses and partyl becasue it was a better and snappier name than ‘concessionary fares pass’.
@timbeau 2243
the cost of the scheme is calculated, for buses, on the basis of survey data showing use, which is converted to a cost, first, by applying an elasticity formula which deducts the travel estimated to be generated because the user does not pay and then a basket of fares types is applied for the journeys not considered to be generated to replicate how users might pay (PAYG, Travelcard, etc) if they had to pay for their own travel. A small additiona is made for ‘additional costs’ where TfL estimate that they have provided additioonal services to cope with additional demand. For rail it’s basically the same but gate data is used as well.
@WW 0018
Yes, the GLA piece is a bit one sided. The argument was about the ‘reserve scheme’. Like the rest of the country the London boroughs (through London Councils) is legally obliged to offer a concessionary travel scheme by agreement with bus operators. Uniquely in London, TfL has the power to implement a reserve scheme if agreement with London Councils is not forthcoming. This stems back to the abolition of the GLC in 1986 where, at the time, there were no statutory free travel schemes anywhere in the country and the Thatcher Government was anxious to buy off as much opposition to GLC abolition as possible.
The very strange thing about the ‘reserve scheme’ is that it is initiated by TfL but paid for by the boroughs at a cost determined by TfL. I can’t think of any other example of such a blank cheque provision in statute.
@ Graham H
Twas ever thus that London is different. The basis of concessionary travel in London goes back to 1919 and provision of free travel on some London buses to blind ex-WWI servicemen. But more general concessions were a little bit later and a Labour GLC introduced half fare travel on buses for elderly people not long after its creation. Retention of this concession became a political fight for a bit before every party realised that getting rid of it would be an electoral disaster. But the longevity is some explanation as to why the legislative basis for the Freedom Pass is completely different from that governing concessionary travel in the rest of the country.
@Greg Tingey -the ironic thing is that (with the exception of the origins of the London scheme, as per quinlet’s note), the theory behind concessionary fares was that they were “costless” insofar as the bus companies would be running all these off-peak buses half empty anyway (wouldn’t they?), and so they might as well be filled by pensioners who wouldn’t otherwise travel. Even in the ’70s,enough was known (except by DTp economists) about the economics of bus operation to know that there was little if any cross-subsidy from peak to off-peak – contrarywise,in fact. [As a further delicious irony, the very same DTp economist who believed that there was such a peak/ o/p cross-subsidy went off to work for the NBC on their Market Analysis Project, which started from precisely the opposite assumption.]
The message I take from the exchanges between Graham H and Alan R on this thread is how extraordinarily good at wealth creation the Treasury is. They bought the entire national rail network for £500m from Railtrack’s creditors in 2001, and now it is apparently worth £154 billion. That’s a capital gain of £2550 for every person in Britain 🙂
@WW: An out of control education policy that creates schools all over the place with no co-ordination causes another service planning / capacity problem
An interesting little nasty Boris signed up for in the latest TfL funding agreement is that he agreed that TfL would provide services to all new free schools and not seek any extra money to do so. In his latter days he did seem to like writing blank cheques for the next Mayor to pay for.
The problem with providing free transport on the basis of age is that unlike, say, health where you can provide a free service on the basis of clinical need, how do you define how much transport people need? If old people and children get free transport for leisure purposes, why shouldn’t poor people get free transport to work?
Re Ian J,
Ditto for nGDP creation also see previous LR discussions on Imputed Rent and household maintenance (on why the traditional GDP growth – passenger growth link is now some what broken) . I fully expect the GDP benefits of “imputed driving” for driverless cars to be their next creation!
Graham H 09:25
An interesting comment on peak/off-peak costs.
I did hear that Chris Green at Network SouthEast challenged the assumption that one didn’t want more peak traffic. I imagine this was on the basis of only having to provide more trains and possibly train drivers (and associated stuff – but no major new infrastructure).
The argument was that a train packed full of commuters more or less paid for itself doing just one journey in each peak and any worthwhile off-peak use was a bonus. Certainly the Network SouthEast era is the only time I have seen billboard adverts encouraging people to commute by train instead of by car.
With your background, I would be interested in your comments.
Wathamstow Writer, Ian J
Peter Hendy is on record as saying that he begged Ken Livingstone not to introduce free travel for schoolchildren. His main concern was that once done it would be almost impossible to undo – which he suspects was one of the attactions to Ken.
He has also commented on hospitals being built without regard to public transport and cases where the NHS saving is countered by the additional transport cost of providing a dedicated bus service to an isolated site. There is also probably the additional congestion caused by staff driving to work whereas formerly they may have got the bus.
It looks like SK has made his second major transport decision as mayor but not affecting TfL or the finances in a negative way this time:
Removing Boris’s blocking of city airport expansion (They need to buy some land from the GLA to do this.)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e27a38ee-16c8-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e.html#axzz48RGmnHuU
or
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/sadiq-khans-help-for-london-city-airport-expansion-breaks-green-pledge-a3245396.html
Wonder if this is part of an “anything but Heathrow” strategy?
ngh 12 May 2016 at 12:18
The next generation of aircraft are lighter, producing less pollution and less noise at take off. Consequently, they have longer wings. City is hardly the only airport that needs to remodel to accommodate such aircraft.
@PoP – as part of the development of a strategic plan for NSE, we undertook a pretty thorough cost attribution exercise which concluded that the peak covered its attributable costs in most subsectors. Effectively,this rested on extending Prime user principles to the peak v o/p debate. Note, however, the word “attributable”. Without wishing to provoke AR into paroxysms of contrarian enthusiasm, so far as the businesses in BR were concerned, they didn’t have to carry the burden of debt that the Board did collectively, so the peak was “viable” only according to the contemporary rules of the game – we didn’t expect the railway to be privatised and the rules to change.
A second qualification is that – as you probably know better than I – railway costs are subject to sudden step changes – it is the next train or next few punters, even, which suddenly triggers a wholenew raft of infrastructure. At the time Chris was commenting, growth seemed manageable within the planned expenditure and without damaging the basic peak assumption.
Re Alan G,
I though they were remodelling so they could use larger planes that carry more passengers (typically +30% /plane) and bring in more £, the rest is secondary to get the approval!
ngh 12 May 2016 at 14:17
Don’t know all those details.
But the length of the runway is pretty much fixed
Re Alan,
The problem is the larger aircraft on the ground:
– Only 4 large stands. (11 small)
– Large planes have to taxi down the runway at the Western end as the taxi way isn’t wide enough.
– All planes have to taxi down the runway to the eastern end
Solutions:
– 7 new large stands on a deck above the water on King George V dock
– taxi way to the eastern end of runway on a deck above the dock
– Extend terminal building east over the dock to cope with more passengers
@ OB 0021 – my point is that we have a transport system that is under pressure. It hardly needs incentive and concession schemes that dilute the revenue base which is itself under attack. It is quite clear in the Citymetric article that the 60+ Pass costs run the risk of spiralling out of control. We also know other schemes are pretty costly both in terms of revenue foregone and in terms of extra resource costs (school time transport in particular as this simply exacerbates the AM peak resource level). All I was suggesting is that tough times are coming and it would be very prudent for the Mayor and TfL to undertake a proper review of these schemes and to then assess if they will remain affordable in the context of those tough financial times. It is only what any prudent business would do. The political context obviously comes into play but then so do choices about what the purpose of the transport network is, how it is funded and what you do with the money. I completely understand your “complaint” – I could provide my own list of “unfairness” and I am sure plenty of people would not be sympathetic to my issues.
My main concern in all of this is the extent to which providing for free travel is or could conflict with the need to ensure people get to work and back efficiently. Taking resources away from providing peak time capacity to instead run a school bus to a free school for which no one pays a fare is not sensible if it means commuters are left stranded for 20-30 mins unable to get on a bus. There are plenty of such cases and TfL has struggled for the last 8 years to optimise its budget to try to add buses in the peaks where they were needed (e.g. the nightmare of trying to get a 343 bus in North Peckham – eventually fixed but only after ludicrous political pressure and featuring on a national TV series about TfL!). I would not be *so* concerned if we hadn’t had government revenue support ripped away from TfL over the last 4 years of Boris’s so called tenure at City Hall. It’s another example of his “legacy” (ahem).
WW: yes, the transport system is under pressure, both on funding and increased demand. However, the new mayor’s manifesto states on page 28:
“I will: … Guarantee the Freedom Pass and the over-60s Oyster card, along with all other existing concessionary fares schemes.”
http://www.sadiq.london/a_manifesto_for_all_londoners
The Citymetric piece doesn’t seem to state how many 60+ cards there are and how many are held by people in different income groups. It acknowledges that the 60+card is 1pc of TfL’s budget at present. It states in terms that “more analysis is needed” despite giving a clear policy steer and recommending ‘turning the debate before the next election’.
I am not complaining and I am sorry if it came across that way.
Given the praise Mayor Khan is getting, rightly in my view, for acting quickly on one manifesto commitment (one hour tickets) it would be surprising if he was not attacked for resiling from another. More generally, if resiling from manifesto commitments is costless, politically, it undermines them.
Loss of revenue support: you may remember the outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury leaving a handover note: ‘there is no money left’ in 2010.
Free schools: nothing to add, except that school buses probably ease Mum and Dad’s journey to work, because they don’t have to go all the way to school before setting off. School buses (& free scholars’ fares) also reduce car use and congestion at that crucial time in the morning peak, don’t they?
The thing about “free” schools is that, as I understand it, they are perceived as likely to draw pupils from a wider area than normal (unfree?) schools. So their introduction will require a greater number of pupils than normal to travel on the (free) transport, travelling a greater distance on average, and thus causing the provider of the “free” transport more expense (and more resource-use) than the same pupils would if travelling to a local school.
This will have two different sets of impacts. One is the physical one, more buses causing more congestion (and those buses and that bit of road being unavailable for other use), but as OB says, this may be at least partly offset (or conceivably even over-offset) by the decrease in car journeys to school.
But the financial impact, on TfL and other providers, has no offset whatever, it is just a further kick in the financial teeth.
@ OB – All I said was that it would make sense for all of the concessions to be reviewed and a view taken on their future cost. That commits no one to do anything with the conclusions but at least the Mayor and others would be well informed. I am well aware of the political context and promises. Of course it is not in the Mayor’s gift to protect the Freedom Pass as he is not responsible for it nor does he fund it.
As for free schools and school buses then yes to some extent the school buses help. However there is still a very noticeable “school run” effect locally in terms of cars on the road. In principle I support free child travel but I cannot ignore the way in which many services are overloaded. A fair proportion of school children could easily walk to and from school given many only hop 2-4 stops down the road. Those travelling miles are a different case altogether but this brings us to wider questions about education policy / parental choice which are outside the scope of this blog. I deliberately avoid travelling at times when I know the buses will be stuffed full of kids – it’s actually impossible to board my local route at my local stop for about 40-50 mins in the afternoon. I have no other buses to choose from but the saving grace is that I rarely *have* to be anywhere at a given time. Heaven help me if I did ever *need* to get on a bus at those times and think about the poor souls who *do* have to travel and face this sort of inability to get on a bus.
TfL and the London Assembly T’port Cttee have both highlighted the problems with knowing how education provision is changing, when and what the catchment areas are. Without input from free school providers and local authorities (who may be losing pupils in existing LA schools) it’s difficult to plan school services properly. TfL are trying to improve matters but they are not in a position of control – they are reliant on the actions and awareness of those running schools who may well have other priorities (until the kids can’t get to school and then all hell breaks loose).
I come back to the point that extra buses in the AM peak are particularly expensive as that is the most concentrated peak roll out and kids travel at the same time as people wanting to get to work. The PM is not so bad and school buses can often be interworked with other main routes because the peak is far more spread out. The cost per mile of school routes is extremely high when set against normal bus services. The two newest school routes (618/9 in NW London) have per mile costs of £18.90 and £22.24 respectively. By comparison route 78, with brand new hybrid buses, is £7.67 per mile. Now I know there are obvious differences between the routes and their scope of operation that affect the cost per mile but even so.
@Graham H
I promise not to go into paroxisms of any description re debt. (Armistice declared pro tem). I am writing to express my support for your assertions re the peak. It had long been a “party line” (and still is
in some quarters) that peak hour rail commuting is unviable in principle and that therefore the commuters who use it are receiving public subsidy, and furthermore, because they are relatively well paid : THEY ARE THE UNDERSERVING RICH!!!
(Higher yet, and higher shall thy fares be set).
The traditional view of railway companies (and carried over in BR) was that the peak is a problem (up with which we have to put).
The inevitable result was a tendency to underprovide resources and general poor quality of service delivery, leading to gross overcrowding and very dissatisfied customers.
Railways being (traditionally) a production led industry, managers could only relate profit (or at least break even) to intensive utilisation of resources, i.e. trains running continually for 15 hours a day plus achieving daily mileages of over 600.
Therefore peak hour commuter trains = unprofitable by definition.
But, nobody had really wanted to investigate the figures. Throughout
the 1970s and 1980s , fares had increased steadily in real terms, and ,
most importantly, commuters were making longer journeys. Thirdly,
and perhaps most important of all , Market based pricing , freed from the rigidity of the old standard mileage tables, and been introduced, allowing even higher fare increases on services that would stand it!
The effect was that a rubicon was crossed some time in late1980s, the
profitable peak hour train, i.e. attributed revenue of a train load exceeding attributed costs (NOT marginal) of train depreciation and financing , maintenance, servicing, fuel, and even crewing on basis of two crews per operating day.
I produced figures to prove this point for Provincial Managers, which caused utter astonishment, but it was so. However, for Provincial this did require no additional infrastructure costs, which was often so at the time as provincial tracks and terminals were not fully utilised.
For Network SE, with even longer rains and higher fares I can well see how the profitable peak hour train was reached, including sole user infrastructure costs.
We again the see a glimpse of the mythical profitable core railway, it
includes peak hour commuter services! (and still does).
WW: para 1: quite so! para 2: I’m also enjoying new found travel flexibility and agree that getting workers to work is fundamental.
I fear there’s a wider problem of “entitlement culture” and ‘over consumption’ of services provided ‘free at the point of use’; and that is probably out of scope for London Reconnections.
Last para on relative costs: wow!! That definitely needs gripping. But primarily operational matter rather than policy or strategy, surely?
@WW
I agree, with a new mayor and the earlier announcement of the withdrawal of TfL’s general/operating subsidiary, 2016 is a very sensible time to conduct a review of finances. The mayor doesn’t have to implement all recommendations of course.
Personally, I think Khan and his team are aware promises will have to be broken. If you try to be all things to all people you inevitably break pledges to some. His claim that he can protect present levels of investment and concession offered alongside providing a fare freeze solely through ‘efficiency’ gains cannot be met, unless Khan plans to raise large sums from CT and the CC. I don’t think he wants to do that, although I suspect we will see both sources brining in more cash for TfL. Additionally, no governing politician will want to make tough choices near election time, so really something needs to happen soon-ish. A few more ‘easy wins’ like the ‘hopper’ fare and then I expect to see the mayor start using up the large amount of political capital he’d have built up over the summer months.
@AR – one of the consequences of the peaks covering their attibutable costs which wasn’t properly worked through (we didnt have time in NSE before we were abolished) was the impact on pricing and nature of the offpeak offering. Conceivably, it should have been run solely on thebasis of maximising revenue, the social service aspects being relatively minor. But equally, the marginal cost of the marginal o/p train was quite low, even with the “benefit” of Railtrack’s fully capitalised, fully commercial access charges – for example, we calculated in 1993 that the marginal LTS train would cost just £55 to run up from Southend, the marginal Gatwick as little as £15. Such figures pointed to a great increase in o/p frequency (at least to the point where extra crew and sets were triggered) with positive revenue benefits but the PDFH gives a very low – and unbelievable – value to the elasticity of volume to frequency and today’s TOCs aren’t tempted.
@Graham H
The question of what is a marginal cost re rail has never been settled.
I took a more prudent view in including costs which were derived averages but applied to the incremental resource, i.e. extra vehicle(s)
or train. Even so, the profitable marginal commuter train was revealed to be something like : a four car (150 series with 75 seats per vehicle) on a 30 mile run fully loaded, 100%. with standing passengers it gets better and better. Train strengthening looked even better (no extra crew). At the time this was a stunning revelation that was “too hot to handle”, as it broke with previous conventions.
In todays money, it goes like this;-
Full train (say 10 car) : 800 seats @£5,000 pa per seat = Annual revenue of £4million. (this equates to a 40 mile run with mix of fares, say one quarter at full anytime day tickets etc).
I can’t identify more than about £2m in full attributed costs, leaving about £2m to pay for infrastructure. So: (say 20 peak hour trains on a forty mile route gives you £40m: = margin/contribution £20m, £1m a mile for infrastructure, which looks highly affordable (NR currently spend about £600k per mile), especially if the peak only infrastructure is relatively simple. BUT as you say the same trains can then be used very profitably off peak.
Conclusion : London commuter services ought to be a licence to print money. (and just about viable for Provincial cities too). And the regulation of fares can assume it’s “normal” role, holding them down.
All down to fifty years of ever higher real fares.
@AR – for our 1993 calculations, we took only the extra crew, energy, and variable track and vehicle wear and tear costs. I took no view on loadings, but at the 1993 base costs, it wouldn’t have needed many fares to cover the marginal Gatwick. There were the inevitable in-office jokes about hiring trains for your own personal use, Sherlock Holmes style.
All this raises the interesting question of why the peaks are used as the cash cow rather than the off-peaks,but old traditions die hard. It also underpinned some thoughts given by the then NSE Marketing Director at the time of privatisation to setting up a cherry-picking commuter operation on the SW and SC routes using the 442s as an all-first class high touch open-access operation – something quickly squashed, of course, by Ministers. [A pity, we’d even got as far as identifying the routes and approximate timings].
@Graham H
As you say: old traditions die hard. Being something of an iconoclastic “enfant terrible” of British Railways Board HQ, I took great delight in trying to bust them up. The essential thing is banishing the notion of THEORETICAL unviability. Nobody should doubt that the real thing is quite difficult, but to prove that it can exist conceptually is a major breakthrough.
I “sold” the idea using the analogy of a restaurant. If it really was the case that profitability was impossible without full all day asset utilisation then there would be no restaurants. The restaurants charge enough to recover all their fixed costs on x number of lunches between 12.00 – 14.30 and y numbers of dinners 19.00- 22.00. However, the restaurant should be able to really clean up by selling breakfasts, morning coffees and afternoon tea (some do).
The Railway just has to charge enough, as Beeching observed re London commuter services. My view is: It’s been done, enough is enough.
As you correctly identify, it is the off peak that is capable of adding disproportionately to profit, and is thus the cash cow. I only partly succeeded in selling this concept back in the 1980s.
Incidentally, your NSE class 442 Ist class only project was not original. The Midland had essentially same thing with club trains to Bradford, (So did the LCDR and SER in late 19th cent).
Another day, another Sadiq Khan policy announcement. Clearly he wants to hit the ground running.
This time it is regarding the Ultra Low Emission Zone.
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/bold-plans-to-clean-up-londons-toxic-air
It seems to be broadly in line with his manifesto but with more specifics, such as consulting to expand the zone to the North and South Circular.
I’ll let those a lot more knowledgeable than I comment on any implications for the bus fleet…
The ULEZ extension out to the A205 and A406 will affect a huge number of cars and vans. I would guess numbered in hundreds of thousands or millions. The proposed area includes significant parts of many outer boroughs.
The emission limits are Euro 4 for petrol (ie currently over 10 years old) and Euro 6 for diesel (vehicles now no more than a few months old).
The ULEZ in the existing CC zone will start in September 2020. Has anyone yet seen any indication of the proposed extended area start date?
@AR – and,of course, the Furness and the Met! [Lord Dawlish writes “How I miss being able to toy with the kippers whilst watching the moiling crowds lining West Hampstead Station”…](Admittedly only special saloons rather than whole commuter trains of first class,but it’s the thought that counts).
Being marketing led, inevitably the presentation of the 442s took precedence… “Silver Bullets” with at seat breakfast service, free newspapers (we didn’t know about wi-fi at that time), free reservations etc. Selected routes were Haslemere-Guildford-London, Brighton-London (inevitably) and more speculatively, Tunbridge Wells-London, based on first class ticket sales. O/P the same trains could then be used tolink to major tourist destinations (thinking hadn’t progressed so far on that – perhaps Salisbury, Brighton and Canterbury- mainly governed by the need to get the sets back for the evening peak.
@Graham H
Lots of devils in detail, but the concept is right in one respect, I am sure.
If there is to be a superior class it has to be segregated and guarded.
When traveling on the South Eastern between 1983 and 1991, I found the 1st class to be an utter joke (and not a funny one). The four compartments per set (CEP and VEP) were constantly invaded by undesirables, and I don’t mean “of a lower social standing”. I have had numerous experiences of gangs of teen or early twenty somethings dressed in anarchist/punk mode bursting into a 1st class compartment to conduct a skirmish in the class war, i.e. by yelling obscenities. When travelling with my wife I had nothing much to fear, I just unleashed the good lady on them and they fled for their lives, but it was scary when I was travelling alone., so much so that I actually avoided travelling 1st class on off peak trains. I reported all this to NSE Public relations, not much response.
The 1st class compartments were often left in a deliberately disgusting condition by the abusers, and after the smoking ban, became unofficial smoking compartments, evidenced by the fag ends everywhere, ash trays having been removed.
I would be very much in favour of just abolishing 1st class on London commuter trains. Inter City is a different matter. It is the continuous catering that provides the secure and high quality environment.
Other use for 1st class sets:- My studies indicated that weekend use alone would provide a good top-up. As you state, additional use in Mid week off peak likely to be asking for trouble. (Weekend Race meetings alone should provide enough demand).
@Graham H
Was electrification to Salisbury on the cards then?
@AR not to mention the Brighton Belle and of course “Mayflower” and “Galatea”
@Reynolds 953 – we must clearly await the detail of the ULEZ consultation to understand what might happen with the buses. If we take existing TfL policy then their current stance is
a) double deckers should be euro6 standard although they’ve granted themselves an exception to allow euro5 spec NB4Ls to run
b) single deckers should be zero emission.
We see the first stage of (b) later this year when routes 507 and 521 convert to full electric chinese produced single deckers fitted with Alexander Dennis bodywork. Route C10 has got new single deckers on it but only has a 4 year contract term suggesting a later route conversion to electric buses or a route restructuring. It’s also expected that one or two other single deck routes will have electric bus conversions – 46, 100, 153 and 214 spring to mind but TfL apparently want to restructure route 46.
If the same policies were to be applied as far out as the A205 / A406 then the effects on the bus fleet could be profound especially if the 2020 deadline remains in place. There are far more single deck routes plus a lot more double deckers (look at all the routes that terminate at Elephant and Castle from the south as just one example). They’d all be in scope. Plenty of recent tender awards have not demanded new euro6 buses because it makes economic sense to try to get at least 2 full 7 year terms of use out of buses. Financial pressures also play a part in seeing re-use of existing buses. There are also issues such as do small all electric buses exist so they could be deployed on zone 2 routes like the 322 and P5 that would be within the expanded ULEZ? There is also the electric charging infrastructure cost.
While I understand the pressing need to address air quality issues the price tag for TfL / bus operators could be considerable and would represent another interesting pressure on the budget. TfL are clearly introducing more hybrid buses and these are now appearing further out from the centre. We also have no clear idea yet how reliable all electric buses are (no comments about trolleybuses please!).
The other areas of uncertainty are the impact on cars, vans, lorries etc. We know Boris shied away from some aspects of the wider low emission zones because of the “white van man” concerns. He eventually had to reverse his decision because of the threat of prosecution by the EU.
It also worth noting, in terms of issues for the bus network, the intention to consult on the pedestrianisation of Oxford St. As I’ve said before that could have seismic consequences for the bus network. Interesting times ahead.
If the electric infrastructure can’t be created in time, we may see some single deck routes in inner London being converted to double deck in order to get round the restriction. (There are, of course, some routes which cannot be converted, such as the 108)
For some reason my last post seems to have been anonymised. [Rectified. Just because I can, and the idea of changing “Anonymous” to a synonym rather appealed! Malcolm]
@WW
I can’t see many tens of thousands of owners of relatively new diesel vans being too happy when informed that their Euro 5 vehicles can no longer be used within the A205/A406 ring without payment of a hefty daily charge.
This will become a very expensive problem if the ULEZ is brought in much sooner than 2020.
@timbeau – the sparks to Salisbury never went away in NSE days but the case was always difficult to make because of the very uneven numbers either side of that city and the problem of cross-Salisbury traffic. Indeed the case for going just to Salisbury was very strong but once you added in the onward stretch to Exeter it became very weak, and splitting the operation into Salisbury-Waterloo and Exeter-Salisbury services was heavily frowned upon, not least because no-one wanted the diesel orphan (AR any bids?). Once privatisation was on the cards, the competition junkies thought highly of having two competing services to Exeter… and we were all sadly deceived.
It was Acis and Galatea that I had in mind when I mentioned the Met.
I believe that the Ultra Low Emission Zone aligned with the current Congestion Charging Zone will use the same Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras as the Congestion Charging Zone.
However expanding the ULEZ to the A205/A406 using ANPR technology strikes me as a very complex and expensive undertaking. The circumference to be covered is, what, 3 to 4 times that of the Congestion Charging Zone? And who knows how many entry roads. Given that I think each ANPR installation would need roadside equipment and power and comms I can see TfL wanting to close very minor entry roads to save on cost which would bring its own problems.
I wonder if ULEZ expansion will be dependent on something more advanced than ANPR, perhaps a “dongle” in the vehicle itself with GPS and wireless comms… in effect, an Oystercard for motor vehicles.
@Graham H
Are you referring to the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Acis and Galatea by George Frideric Handel?
Reynods 953: There is already in place an LEZ (without the U) with an even longer boundary. I don’t know how that is enforced, but even the signage (some on tiny roads) must have cost a pretty penny.
@ Malcolm – good point, I had forgotten about the LEZ. However doing some quick reading, it seems to be enforced by cameras at selected locations at the boundary and within the zone, presumably on major roads. In other words, some “ticket barriers”, some spot checks but not ticket barriers everywhere.
@Graham H
AR any bids? Ha Ha! The “orphan” 159s inflicted on NSE for the Waterloo-Exeter weren’t orphans at all. They were abducted cruelly and maliciously from their true home. They were a further build of Provincial 158s confiscated for the great crime of disobedience (Provincial had disobeyed by deliberately increasing sales when under orders to hold passenger volumes stable). The rest of Provincial new builds were also cancelled. Happy Days!
@LBM – Yes. (The other Met Pullman was named Mayflower)
@LBM – I should have added that I was busy naming something else Galatea at the time of writing, so Acis seemed a natural association.
@Graham H
Glad we cleared that up! 🙂
Now I shall Google the Mayflower opera by Met(issimo?) Pullman.
Just returning to ENCTS passes quickly, prior to the national scheme East Sussex had the Countywide scheme where the OAP could buy a card entitling them to half price bus fares after 0930. The price of the card was set by the District council. I was always amused by the look of shock on the phase of new residents who had moved from London to Eastbourne at the cost of the card, which was about 60 pounds in the mid 90s (if I remember correctly), compared to their Freedom Pass.
Lord Dawlish
the inevitable in-office jokes about hiring trains for your own personal use… Called “Chartering a Special”
When did that (a) cease to be viable, (b) was “struck off” the legislation – or does it still exist in some forgotten corner?
NOTE: NOT as applied to modern “charter trains” which are arranged many months in advance, of course.
AR
And the L&YR’s Blackpool Club Train, too …
R 953 & nameless ( & everybody )
And if your car was built before 2000?
Or even as far back as 1996 – so that in 2020 it will be 24 years old?
Will there be an exemption for older vehicles, as usual, because there are so few of them?
I can’t see many tens of thousands of owners of relatively new diesel vans being too happy…
Never mind the million or two private car owners inside that area, & the people outside the A406/206 who don’t go into central London, but do penetrate zone 3, say.
The replacement cost of all those vehicles would run into at least a sizeable chunk of a “£billion” if not considerably more – I don’t actually think it is feasible, on an economic basis, from the get-go.
Any opinions?
The circumference to be covered is, what, 3 to 4 times that of the Congestion Charging Zone?
2* π * r – “r” for the CC + approx 2.5 km = 15-16km boundary,& an enclosed area of 20 km2 approx
For the “circulars” that becomes …10-12 km, 100km approx & 700 km square area. Oops, oh dear.
The existing LEZ – which approximates to the A406/206 anyway – I actually live inside it, but, again because I have a car built before (whatever the cut-off date is) I’m exempt – on the usual diminishing returns basis. If this precedent is followed, it might just be politically acceptable, but has the replacement cost, to be met out of resident’s private pockets been thought through? I suspect not.
“X thousand deaths caused by (particulate) atmospheric pollution”
REALLY?
What are these statistics based on? I would like to see the actual death certificates “lined up” so to speak, to back these claims up with some degree of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald & unconvincing narrative.
I have a very cynical view of this & suspect, very strongly, that these figures are as “true” as the current recommended alcohol limits – i.e. not at all.
Can we have some “Real Evidence™” please?
Greg says “The existing LEZ – which approximates to the A406/206 anyway ”
Not that it affects the rest of what you say, but this aside is just plain wrong. It approximates to the M25, with some little inspikes, apparently to let older trucks get to certain industrial estates.
@Graham H and Greg Tingey
Individual charter trains : As per Moriarty in the “Final Problem” (Victoria to Dover Marine). Moriarty charters a special to chase the boat train, which somewhat bizarrely stops at Canterbury East LCDR where Holmes and Watson detrain, hiding behind pile of luggage as Moriarty’s special hurtles through. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle then destroys any authenticity to stating that Holmes and Watson catch an
(implied) THROUGH train to Newhaven Harbour!!! (from Canterbury East!)
I did hear of possibly last attempt at same (through BR grapevine) circa 1994. An Arab potentate turned up at Manchester Piccadilly and expected to be able to charter the next service to Euston for himself and entourage , even ORDERED the peasants to be turfed off a train currently platformed, and brandished a huge thick wad of cash to accomplish same. No deal, he was fobbed off with one first class carriage for exclusive use. so I was told.
To Moderator: Yes I do accept that Sherlock Holmes is a bit off topic, [OK, but watch it. Malcolm] but I sought suitable light entertainment for Saturday morning.
Perhaps the new updated Sherlock series might have Moriarty chartering a Eurostar?
Perhaps we could do a feature on the “Bruce Partington Plans”, that’s about both London and Railways.
Greg says ” I would like to see the actual death certificates “lined up” so to speak”
Well you won’t. If you study some very elementary epidemiology, you will learn that, with appropriate measurements, it is often possible to say (at a particular confidence level, typically 95%, but sometimes higher), that a particular harmful substance is associated with a quantified increase in death rate. But impossible to say which deaths.
Of course the science could be wrong, and anyone is allowed, on their personal account, to disbelieve any given finding. As do, presumably, all regular smokers and heavy drinkers. But it would be very wrong for public officials to refrain from acting on scientific evidence in such a way.
@Greg Tingey – I’m sure it’s still possible, although the many bureaucratic hoops needed to be traversed would make it a really long drawn out process. None of this paying the LBSC to put on a personal train at no notice for the purposes of pursuing criminals.
@Malcolm
This is a somewhat off topic deviation you have advanced;
Culpability. I have just read of a death from extreme allergy to peanuts.
Nobody is suggesting that we should have a huge peanut tax, ban sales to minors, only licensed outlets etc, let alone government instructions not to eat peanuts. In this case (where only a very small percentage of peanut eaters suffer harm) it is held that the consumer is suffering from a deficiency. At some point (where the percentages of consumers suffering harm become significant) a subtle change takes place whereby the substance itself becomes demonised. (and therefore needs to be restricted, even banned, in the public interest).
To get back to topic re transport : I think what is happening is that medical knowledge is gradually reaching this tipping point, whereby diesel emissions are now recognised as a threat. (rather than it being just unfortunate that a FEW succumb). Unlike peanut eating, we all have to breath air, so as you say, it has to be up to government to decide what is in the public interest, this is a case where the market doesn’t offer any solution.
AR: it is difficult to be precise as to what is a deviation too far, but the recent peanut case is certainly over the boundary, but as you say that is a different issue altogether.
I think diesel emissions have long been known to be “a threat”, but public and political acceptance of just how severe a threat they are has advanced over recent years. (Whether that is because of new studies or just more notice being taken of older ones I do not know, but I suspect it does not matter much except to historians).
Anyway, the threat is now accepted. As you say, “the market” offers no solution, but as far as I know no-one ever said that it did. It looks as if Sadiq is acting rapidly on this, which I think is to his credit.
Whilst the numbers using a 60-63-(66) pass will increase over the next few years alongside the demographic bumps they will reach a limit before 2020 when the numbers ‘dropping off’ at the top will match the new arrivals. As such it isn’t an open-ended liability.
quinlet: “apart from a small number of passes issued on a discretionary basis to disabled people outside the statutory definition which only have the Freedom Pass benefits in London.” Not true. Disabled passes (issued whether mandatory or via medical review) are national, and in London are valid at all times on trains, not just after 9:30am.
Now if we could limit the free kids on buses somewhat that would be very helpful. Maybe just to school ‘commute’ hours? If their free travel is alleged to reduce mum or dad driving them to school then it isn’t working from the jams I see outside the schools around where I live. (And why aren’t the kids *walking*, anyway!)
That Sadiq has already broken a ‘promise’ regarding expansion of LCY gives me a little hope that a four-year fares freeze might not happen in its entirety.
btw. Seems to me that TWIRLIES are what used to be known as WOMBLES.
@Malcolm
I too am pleased that Sadiq is taking this seriously. The relevance of the peanuts observation is that a perceived threat to public interest is only treated as such and actioned on when it becomes apparent that the threat is real and widespread (affects a large number of individuals), which as you say is now the case. I am sure that in the 19th and early 20th cent it was known that SOME people suffered from coal smoke pollution , but not in sufficient numbers to warrant change.
Actually, the market does offer a “sort of solution”. Invest in a pure air breathing device and mask !!!
Malcolm
NO – we were BOTH WRONG – And the hyperlink shows the official map of the area enclosed, which is significantly larger than the one I envisaged, which … “of course” mean something like 3 – 6 million cars affected.
Errr … this is “not a goer” in terms of cash out of people’s pockets.
AR
The current ( & IMHO brilliant) re-imagining of S Holmes in 21stC London has already had the Bruce-Partington storyline … with filming down among the Clapham Jn/Stewarts’ Lane area
Diesel pollution
Except that, in the dreadful smogs of ’52 & ’55, the latter of which I remember all too well, there was a direct link to deaths, open & proven, if only from the weekly “butcher’s bills” in London. I have no doubt that too much (diesel) particulate emissions are bad for you, but I would like some much more accurate ( NOT “precise”) figures, with some seriously heavyweight statistical back-up.
As in that the current “dangerous” levels for drinks emphatically do not have, which is why I smell a rat, maybe.
Greg says: ” but I would like some much more accurate … figures, with some seriously heavyweight statistical back-up.”
I expect this is available. But I suggest that since the current scientific consensus is that diesel emissions are causing excess deaths, the onus is on those who do not believe this to do the work to disprove it.
Scientific and medical consensuses are occasionally overturned – the cause of gastric ulcers was one famous case – but the overturning was not achieved be people muttering into their beer “I don’t believe that it’s not bacteria”. It was achieved by proper scientific investigation.
@Malcolm
It’s all getting rather difficult and disturbing. I have read recent studies that suggest that the individual’s predisposition to succumb to a pollution induced illness might be genetic. This gives rise to an awkward question of philosophy. If a majority of those exposed to the pollution suffer no ill effects, then is it reasonable to restrain desired behaviour due to the unfortunate effect on a minority?
I have been a smoker since age of 12, and as you might imagine have conducted in depth research into serious medical websites to try and assess my own risk. As far as I can make out approx. 25% of smokers suffer a serious illness caused by smoking. There is even evidence to suggest that a fortunate minority are impervious to excess alcohol!
In the case of smoking, it seems to have been acceptd by the medical profession that 25% of smokers incurring serious problems is too high, thus justifying a curb (and high taxes).
I haven’t seen figures (has anyone else?) but in the case of diesel pollution it could well be that 100% of us are in danger when exposed to high levels, thus banning diesel in cities is a “no brainer”.
@Greg
Thanks for info re updated version of Bruce Partington plans. I am baffled as to how the plot could possibly be updated to 21st cent, as it utterly depends upon manual (slam) door stock, and manual ticket issue and collection (in 1890 version, no smartcards).
@Greg Tingey
“NO – we were BOTH WRONG – And the hyperlink shows the official map of the area enclosed, which is significantly larger than the one I envisaged”
I recognise that map (well, I would wouldn’t I) – its the Greater London Authority map. Greater London Authority – MapIt
@Alan Robinson:
[Excess off topic and redundant facts snipped. LBM]
While I don’t disagree with the underlying notion that “Pollution = Bad”, I’m not convinced that a blanket ban on so many relatively recent vehicles, as is proposed by Mayor Khan, will be workable. It’s not as if there are many viable alternatives. Electric vehicles really aren’t going to be mainstream for at least another 15-20 years or so, as it’ll take around that long just to design, get permission for, and build all the power generation facilities we’ll need. That leaves us with yet more fossil-fuelled vehicles, albeit newer ones. Thing is, just manufacturing those new vehicles is going to cause a lot of pollution.
I suspect we may find the solution in the Green Party’s preference for densification. Tall buildings tend to create “wind tunnel” effects. If you have a lot of particulate pollution, careful design and planning could allow such winds to be used to sweep those particulates away from the city’s streets.
@Greg Tingey – if you’d like to read evidence of the number of deaths caused by pollution in London, then this report from King’s College should do.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lsm/research/divisions/aes/research/ERG/research-projects/HIAinLondonKingsReport14072015final.pdf
There has also been research into the high prevalence of asthma in children in London as a result of inflammation of the respiratory system caused by pollution. Pollution doesn’t just shorten lives but reduces the quality of life for many, with the young being particularly vulnerable.
http://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/LAQNSeminar/pdf/June2012/Ian_Mudway_EXHALE_measuring_the_impacts_of_air_pollution_on_East_London_school_children_edited.pdf
Before we all go off the deep end about the ULEZ impacts it might be good to wait for the consultation material and see what it is actually proposed and what the timescales might be. I accept I made some predictions about the possible bus fleet impacts but that could all change depending on a whole load of things. I expect TfL are frantically trying to construct a sensible proposition to put forward in the consultation – it must be one of the hardest policy issues to deal with given the multiplicity of stakeholders, people affected, impacts resulting from the policy and the arguments over the supporting science around air quality.
@ Alison W – Whilst the numbers using a 60-63-(66) pass will increase over the next few years alongside the demographic bumps they will reach a limit before 2020 when the numbers ‘dropping off’ at the top will match the new arrivals. As such it isn’t an open-ended liability.
I must be missing something because I don’t see how you can have a situation where new pass holders equal those surrendering their 60+pass and moving to a Freedom Pass. Surely it is down to past birth rates, mortality, immigration and the extent to which older people remain living in London? I understand that once the Freedom Pass entitlement age stabilises there is a reduced scope for ongoing growth in 60+ Pass applications. There’ll always be some element of variation in the size of the pass holder population surely?
Re qualification for 60+ or full Freedom Pass (Which can be used outside London ). Well I am 63 now live in Essex and have a bus pass which I obtained earlier this year but it seems I could have got when I was 62. Oddly my Sister who lives in London has a 60+ card but changes to the rules mean that she won’t get a freedom pass until 2019 when she is 65. Oddly her husband now has his Freedom Pass and yet his only 6 months younger than me!
It seems the system especially for women is now in a mess.
Finally in Essex Elderly passes are valid from 9 am
It seems Borisbuses don’t meet the criteria for emissions and given how many faults they have be they design or technical Sadiq has said they will be abolished!
Well given the buses recentlly introduced on route 78 which have a far better design with proper sized Windows that open and only normal single staircase and 2 doors with greater capacity then Borisbuses with their wasted capacity and non opening windows and of course they don’t meet latest emission standards have no long term future.
Of course short term they could be relocated to outer London to replace older lower emission buses and even double deck some single deck routes allowing withdrawal of older single deck buses.
I reckon Ruislip and Uxbridge could be first on the list to get the worst designed most uncomfortable buses London has known since buses had knife board seating and where open deck !
One final thought are full electric Bendy buses available as they could be deployed on busy inter-station routes like the 73 and 205 as well as 507 /521 releasing buses being introduced this year for other single deck routes in Zone 1.
@Melvyn
“Sadiq has said they will be abolished”
No – he said he wouldn’t buy any more. It would be far too costly to scrap the entire fleet.
@Malcolm/Greg
“Malcolm
NO – we were BOTH WRONG”
The current LEZ, which only applies to commercial vehicles, is approximately the GLA area, with a few variations for practical reasons (to avoid 3-point turns at the boundaries)
The new mayor’s proposal is to extend the proposed ULEZ from the CC zone out “only” to the North/South Circular Roads, not the whole of the GLA area.
@AlanR
“Bruce Partington plans. I am baffled as to how the plot could possibly be updated to 21st cent, as it utterly depends upon manual (slam) door stock, and manual ticket issue and collection ”
In what way? The original and the TV version (a sub-plot in the third episode “The Great Game”) both have the victim deposited on the roof of a train from a convenient lineside building, and falling off at a set of points. The vital clue is that he has no ticket and, in the latter version, no touch-in recorded on his Oyster. No slam doors, and no tickets, involved or required as red herrings.
@timbeau
In the original, the criminals place the body on the train to make it look like a suicide (and thus throw Holmes off the scent). It being quite plausible that the unfortunate young man accused of stealing the papers could be driven to this). That Holmes is able to correctly conclude that this is murder is due to the fact that it is established that no trains have been reported as arriving at next station with open door.
The modern version, as you say is able to replicate much of the plot, but not this aspect. In fact, the modern one has no mystery at all. Passengers do not fall out of underground trains, that there is no touch in on Oyster card proves that it was murder.
Think about it, why should anyone go to the trouble of depositing a body on to a train roof unless it was intended to fake a suicide, a perfectly plausible objective, but not possible with modern trains (and not for a long time). It could have worked with Southern Slam Door stock up to about 2003.
Considering the use of the “60+ Oyster card” for commuting, the article, perhaps the best approach to the “injustice” highlighted in
“Here’s why London’s new mayor should scrap the £100m free travel bung for older workers”
would be to put some value limit on the entitlement to free travel in peak commuting time. This would probably not catch people taking the occasional bus to the shops but would tend to make people (such as some of my colleagues who are working full time but commuting for free) contribute towards their travel costs.
It is not something I feel strongly about, but they (and I if I’m still working at that age in a few years time) could easily afford to pay their fares.
timbeau says “No – he [Sadiq] said he wouldn’t buy any more [NB4Ls]. It would be far too costly to scrap the entire fleet. ”
Not that such considerations stopped Boris from withdrawing all Bendies. Though, to be fair to Boris (what am I saying?), that was a manifesto pledge, and TfL did seem to be in a stronger financial position then than it seems to be in now.
@ Melvyn – time to cut the hyperbole. As Timbeau rightly says the new Mayor has said nothing about abolishing the NB4Ls. He hasn’t even cancelled the order for 195 extra buses whacked through in the dying days on the Boris regime before purdah started. I assume that’s to avoid the criticism of damaging employment in Northern Ireland? We’re stuck with the things for years to come because the capital write off would be enormous not that that bothered Bozza one iota with the removal of bendy buses.
Oh and no cascade of the NB4Ls to outer London please! What have we done to deserve that punishment? It’s bad enough that they run on my nearest night bus route. I’ve already stopped going to the West End because I refuse to use NB4Ls and they’re now on almost every route making it impossible to get around if you don’t want to use them and don’t want to trek up and down all the time on the tube. At least the Mayor has forced TfL to speed up the fitment of opening windows to NB4Ls to a rate of 50 buses a week. That might improve matters for the poor souls who have no choice but to use NB4Ls.
WW says “I assume that’s to avoid the criticism of damaging employment in Northern Ireland?”
Or even, perhaps, to avoid damaging employment in Northern Ireland. Cynicism about politicians’ motives is widespread, we’ve all done it. But it might be good to suppose that they might sometimes do the right thing for its own sake. (I’m not saying that this /is/ the right thing, just that it could be).
Greg,
As Malcolm said, you can never identify which deaths would have been avoided but the science behind it is pretty well rock solid.
If you read about the life of Sir Richard Doll you will understand the battle he had to convince people to act to deter smoking based on companies with a vested interest and others just being obstinate stating that the causal link hadn’t been established (even though the epidemiological evidence was absolutely damning) therefore nothing should be done. I suspect we will see something very similar to this (and DDT in the USA) with diesel particulates.
The point about the massive increase in area involved in going to the North and South Circular is taken but then we are not talking about congestion as such but pollution and peoples lives. ULEZ was almost a token gesture and largely chosen because the sites that were measuring EU limits being exceeded were in the centre of the city. Is there really any good reason why places like Lewisham and Stratford should be treated as places of lesser importance in this respect?
Come to think, I suspect that “smoking” (active or passive) is never entered as a cause on a death certificate. Because all the diseases which smoking makes more likely can also strike non-smokers (though less frequently). Similarly in the great smogs of the 50s, those who succumbed were mostly those already weakened by something else, so a list of victims is similarly unproducible. There may be a difference in degree as well, but if smog did kill thousands and diesel only hundreds, so what? No, I think it is the visibility (so to speak) of smog which makes it somehow seem a more worthwhile target. (Though there may have been voices objecting to the clean air act even so).
@PoP
I entirely support your “thesis”. Where this a danger to the health of the public, (i.e. from a polluting activity) there has been vested interests that resist measures to restrain or curtail the menace. But, to be fair, it is not just a question of obstruction of vested interests. There is also a strong correlation (on ascending) scale between vehicle speeds and severity of accidents and likelihood of fatalities. This has not led to demands to significantly reduce speed limits (apart from a few “twenty is plenty” zones). Presumably, the “public” thinks that the convenience of getting around in motor vehicles at current permitted speeds is “worth” the approx. 3.000 fatalities and 25,000 serious injuries. Curious that. The diesel scare indicates that a public perception tipping point has been reached, and I look forward to London taking the lead, but this may take some time. As you say, Lewisham and Stratford should not be treated differently. In fact absolutely any thoroughfare in the UK where high levels of diesel pollution is evident and where pedestrians and residents are subject to it should be considered as worthy of an exclusion zone. (?)
There is a further aspect. Studies I have read indicate that some of those most at risk from diesel (and road vehicle pollution generally) are the drivers and passengers of vehicles. This alone is a strong argument for using electric traction (applies to DMU trains too), and this can apply to any journey undertaken, not just in city centres.
@Malcolm – there were indeed objectors to smoke control zones, noteably from mining communities who benefitted from concessionary coal.
I agree with the general thrust of AR’s point about speed. But if the figures quoted may be a touch over the top. In 2013, 1,713 people were killed in reported road traffic accidents in Great Britain. To save /all/ those lives would presumably require reducing the maximum speed to zero, and doing something to ensure that people didn’t die from the consequences (such as no food in towns). But it would be possible to estimate the number of lives that would be saved from some plausible lowering of speed limits (e.g. 90 km/hr on motorways and 30 km/hr in towns) and ask the public whether they would be prepared to live with that.
First though, I’d like to see better enforcement of existing limits.
Oh, and several complete London Boroughs is a bit more than “a few twenty is plenty zones”.
@Malcolm
You have identified the problematical logic of statistical recording of injurious effects on the public of pollutants etc.
My father died at age 74 from a burst duodenal ulcer, leading to a cardiac arrest. The Doctor who provided the death certificate announced to me (with some relish) another death due to smoking I’m afraid. I queried this. He replied , if any smoker dies of a cardio vascular condition or cancer it is recorded as a “smoking related death”. on grounds that smoking can exacerbate these conditions.
However, when the pollution affects a significant number of people
(albeit, maybe not a majority) then the demands arise to curb it.
There is a fascinating display in the Manchester Museum of Science,
dealing with post war planning policy by Manchester council. There conclusion was the Manchester air was generally a health hazard, and the worst air quality was in the centre. Therefore, policy would be to effectively de-populate the inner city, within about 3 miles of centre. This explains a lot. London must have been drawn towards similar intentions, but found that a central de-population strategy on air quality grounds was much too difficult, hence greenbelt.
@Graham
My wife recalls her parents being distraught by the clean air act of 1950s. They were living near Paddington station, in a tiny coal heated apartment. Smokeless coal was a lot dearer and its adoption seriously reduced their standard of living.
@AR – yes,smokeless fuel was much more expensive (about 50-100% more in terms of calorific value on a like for like basis,I seem to recall) and was probably what prompted the fairly rapid switch to gas and oil central heating in the late ’50s/early ’60s (the convenience and cleanliness would also have had something to do with it!).
Not sure that the dispersal programme for London was prompted by pollution. The key word in the new towns programme was “congestion” by which the planners meant overcrowded housing and overloaded infrastructure. This dispersal was a process that had been going for at least a century without much /any planning input in its early decades before pollution was controlled (for example, the steady and rapid decline of the City from a mid-C19 population peak). Certainly, the garden city movement added “fresh air” as a selling point, but that came well after the old LCC had started its slum clearance programmes back in the late C19. Indeed, the LCC didn’t initially move people very far – witness that large estate behind the Tate.
@Malcolm – I understand that there are a number of reasonably effective predictive models for relating speed to accident deaths both for national and site-specific use. These are wheeled out whenever the usual dialogue between RoSPA and the J Bonnington-Jagworth school of Ministers flares up. The most telling arguments seem to relate to the pretty steep increases in the chance of dieing when speeds increase by quite small amounts – even 10mph reduction at lower speed ranges makes a significant difference – presumably the relationship between speed and death rates is one of those usual S curves (at much higher speeds, you’ll be killed anyway).
On the recorded cause of death issue, I have recently had to sort out the consequences of several elderly relatives’ deaths in several different Registrars’ areas. In each case, the certifying doctor explained that the real cause of death was old age – the body was simply worn out – but they weren’t allowed to say so; so some plausible but not necessarily fatal cause was quoted.
@Graham H
I was only referring specifically to Manchester, where you read the precise criteria for central depopulation 1945-48 in the museum.
I was only speculating whether or not something may have carried over to the thinking of London’s equivalent planners.
It has a great bearing on transport policies. If planners thought that high density inner city housing was no longer tenable on pollution ground, then it followed that we wouldn’t need high volume public transport systems. London clearly didn’t develop this thinking , but Manchester did. Post war Drawings of the “new” Manchester show huge roundabouts , tower blocks ,multi lane highways , with a few buses. Huge numbers of people were expelled to new council estates in outer suburbs of Manchester, with no thought given to improved transport. Quite the opposite, suburban railways that might have helped facilitate this outward movement were downgraded or even closed.
We can now see, in retrospect that London’s transport infrastructure virtually stood still in the 1940s and 1950s, in fact only disinvestment
in form of abandonment of trams and trolleybuses. (OK some benefit from GE electrification, then South Eastern Electrification at end of period).
And: Death causation. You are right, I have tackled doctors on this, They don’t want to admit to reality that humans have a limited life span. They therefore prefer to think that causes of death are extraneous , and it is up to doctors to identify them (and hang on to the notion that the medical profession can bring about general immortality, if patients (and we are all patients) only obey!
Death causation. This really is far from transport. But just to add that death doesn’t really have a single cause. Arguably /anything/ doesn’t really have a single cause. The rules about what doctors are allowed to put on death certificates are necessary so that useful conclusions can be drawn, both from an individual certificate, and also from the aggregated statistics. Some or all doctors may have difficulty accepting that lifespan is limited, but we cannot assume this just from death certificates (in the completion of which they are not free agents).
@Malcolm
Oh dear, danger of whizzing off into off topic outer space.
Just very briefly. I wasn’t referring to death certificates, Doctors provide internal returns to BMA of circumstances relating to deaths on certificates that they have issued. It is here that the assumed “causations, or more properly correlations” are made.
back to transport; I think we can assume that estimations of injury severity re speed are realistic. As you say NIL accidents would require nil speeds! but , where is the trade-off? (bit slower than present?) Having a RAILWAY background, I have always held the prevailing notion that speed is dangerous, and the dangers increase exponentially with speed. Perhaps this is because railways (i.e. corporate body owning the railway ) is ultimately liable, but with highways , liability (mostly) devolves onto individual road users?
If you exceed the speed limit and cause an accident, the local council doesn’t get prosecuted (unless possibly inadequacy in signage). If a train driver exceeds speed limit the railway is liable and pays damages. If we privatised highways and made the highway liable for conduct of all drivers, then we might expect speed limits to be lowered! (OK this is just by way of illustration, I do appreciate that there is legal minefield to be negotiated to bring this about).
(Just the usual request from one of those pedantic people who doesn’t like “increases exponentially” when what is meant is “increases more than linearly” or “increases dramatically”. “Exponentially” has (or always used to have) a specific technical meaning. I do wonder if this battle is already lost, however).
The balance of a bank account which I have accidentally left open with £9 is undergoing theoretically exponential increase, since that is what compound interest does. (Spoiled for the next century or so by rounding, of course). Its increase is far from dramatic, however.
@Malcolm
Don’t think we are really at cross purposes. According to Oxford dictionary just means an increasing rate in proportion to volume.
Although your £9 should increase over time, the addition to each yearly balance is not exponential in that it just goes up by constant rate of interest (assuming there isn’t a total lack of interest!).
An exponential increase would be 1% interest on first year 2% on second, 3% on third etc. Point taken, the term can be mischievously used to suggest a very marked accelerating increase, (i.e. as an instrument of exaggeration), when the real rate is linear.
@ WW ” What have we done to deserve the punishment of Borismasters …?” Well outer London is the main support base that voted for Boris and thus it’s only fair that his supporters get to benefit from buses built on their support !
I fully agree with you about how bad these buses are with their goldfish bowl Windows none of which open, badly designed rear staircase which is too steep and lack of capacity something that makes them totally unsuitable for busy routes like the 38 and 73 at Victoria Station .
Khan has said that Borismaster buses don’t meet the criteria for the ULEZ planned for Central London and therefore it’s a choice of throwing them away or selling them ? Or moving them to outer London where pollution from buses is not the same as in inner London.
Buses could be switched around with agreement of bus companies where say Borisbuses on 149 would go to 349 and 349 buses would go to 149 and if 349 needed new buses the private bus company would fund them in normal way. This would be repeated around London and allow older buses built to lower emission standards to be withdrawn .
As for jobs in Northern Ireland it’s worth asking what non Borismaster double deck buses are produced there and if they could be built to London standards re two door entry, single staircase and normal Windows etc ?
The real waste by Boris was he removed all Artic buses and had replaced them with new buses so there was no real need for his Borisbuses which were sold on premis of open platforms and conductors yet TFL soon could not afford double manned buses and cash fares were abolished !
@Melvyn/WW -the trouble about focussing on the fate of the Borismaster (only 10% of the fleet) is that it distracts from the more important policy vacuum about the future of the bus network more generally.
Alan: One does indeed need to be very careful about the e-word. Let’s leave it there.
Boris could get rid of the artics because TfL didn’t own them, so specifying something other than an artic when the contract came up for renewal was the incumbent operator’s problem. (Hence the mass takeover of all services in Malta by the things, until they were found to be even less suitable for Maltese roads than London’s). TfL owns the Borismasters.
Unlike compound interest, which is indeed exponential – albeit with a very small exponent, accident damage increases quadratically with speed, (and so does the risk – as stopping distances also increase quadratically) but most accidents involving excessive speed (or alcohol, for that matter) are caused by people exceeding the limits. Making the rules more restrictive will not affect the behaviour of those who are prepared to ignore them in the first place.
Graham H at 1858: re ‘policy vacuum’: may I draw some threads across the gap?
1 railheading: buses have a role in tipping customers onto more efficient modes, especially but not only in outer London areas;
2 localism: buses can substitute for cars for trips to the shops and the pub (other social nodes are available);
3 inclusion: buses assist the poorer more than the richer, broadly speaking;
4 efficiency: one person operated (OPO) and cashless help drive down operating costs;
5 particulates: clearly need a strategy to continue to drive down emissions.
Lots more to be said but this thread may not be the optimal place.
@OB – yes, all fine and dandy although it’s far from clear how some of your list could be turned into specific actions (or aren’t happening already). Perhaps what I had in mind was some recognition of the financial and structural issues that LBL faces – money especially, deteriorating speeds, and so on. Without addressing these, many (all?) of the points you mention cannot be delivered.
e I pi = -1
or so my Cambridge Maths graduate wife tells me
timbeau says “Making the rules more restrictive will not affect the behaviour of those who are prepared to ignore them in the first place.”
This is broadly (*) true. But it will affect the consequences. Occupants of another vehicle which is hit by (or swerves to avoid) a speeding one are more likely to survive if their vehicle is going at 60 (say) rather than 70 because of a lower limit.
(*) A small fraction of infringers stay systematically within 7 mph (say) of the limit, telling themself that 7 mph does not matter, or will not incur a large fine. But yes, most just go selfishly at a speed of their choice.
AR: Doubtless that formula was correct when it left your fingers. However, the vagaries of windows character sets mean that it may not appear correct – two of my machines give different results, neither correct.
For the avoidance of doubt, it should read ” e to the power of i pi is equal to minus one”.
However, any given reader either (1) already knew that, or (2) cannot understand it. (The two possibilties are not exclusive!).
@ Melvyn – I’m sorry but you’re talking nonsense. I don’t see “spite” as being a valid reason for designing the bus network or determining what vehicles run where. Also where I live people don’t vote in Conservatives so sweeping generalisations simply don’t work. I would also point out the obvious that no one was voting for Boris 10 days ago.
I also don’t believe that the Mayor said anything about the relevance of the NB4L in the context of the ULEZ. He made some critical comments on BBC London news but NOTHING about removing them or withdrawing them. Under existing rules the NB4Ls comply with the ULEZ. I don’t believe Mr Khan is going to be so daft as to deliberately trigger ever higher expenditure on vehicles when his policies are already pretty costly and the budget is going south. The press release on air quality makes no direct reference to the NB4L. Furthermore aspirations to buy new standard buses kick in from 2018 and other commitments to achieve euro6 standards are “subject to funding” and stretch out to 2023. In other words this is a mild acceleration of some aspects of the current ULEZ plans. The larger geographic area is something new.
Wrightbus have been delivering buses for use in London for many, many years. They are in the process of delivering brand new Volvo hybrid buses to Tower Transit and London United. They are also delivering vast numbers of buses to First Group across the country. While there is plenty to criticise about the NB4L you seem not to realise the cascade of buses, often bought to replace the artics, is helping to get the oldest most polluting buses out of the fleet. Arriva London have cascaded large numbers of double deckers bought for the 159, 149 and 38 to suburban routes thus bringing better environmental performance to outer London. Ditto with Go Ahead. Whether that’s the *best* way to do it is arguable but it is important to keep our eyes on the facts even if we are heaping opprobrium on the NB4L.
Finally I endorse Graham H’s point that there are far more important / urgent issues that threaten the viability of the bus network than the NB4L.
@PoP: ULEZ was almost a token gesture and largely chosen because the sites that were measuring EU limits being exceeded were in the centre of the city
Presumably also because making it coincidental with the Congestion Charge zone made enforcement and collection of the ULEZ fee simple, using the existing number plate cameras, billing mechanisms etc.
@Malcolm: if smog did kill thousands and diesel only hundreds, so what
And indeed the numbers of excess deaths from diesel in London are in the thousands (about 9,500 in 2010 according to the King’s College study TfL commissioned). That’s much higher than deaths due to road accidents, terrorism, crime, or any other newsworthy cause.
@AR: London’s transport infrastructure virtually stood still in the 1940s and 1950s, in fact only disinvestment
in form of abandonment of trams and trolleybuses
Replaced by lots of shiny new diesel buses, hence the air quality problems of today.
(Mind you, electricity in 1940s and 1950s London was generated by burning coal and oil in some very densely populated areas, so wasn’t entirely clean energy…)
@Graham H 2159 15 May: completely agree. Much more to do to resolve “policy vacuum”; just that this thread may not be the place to do it. WW and PoP, as ever, bring great insight.
Bus policy is ‘gnarly’.
Route 59 will continue to terminate and stand at Brixton Garage. Routes 133 & N133 will use 20 Euro V hybrids currently allocated to route 76 which will be upgraded to Euro VI before the introduction of the ULEZ.
The above announcement was made on the LOTS site on 29th May which suggests Euro VI will be the standard to meet the ULEZ ?
By chance on Friday I rode with a friend most of the length of route 14 from Putney and having got used to the quiet running of modern hybrid buses be they Boris or not the noise of old style buses seemed to be louder and made worse by the number of red lights west London seems to have , I checked when I got home and found relief for 14 users is due later this year with new hybrids .
Surely the best way forward has to be the re-introduction of trams and expansion of light rail but given the failure to build Cross River and West London schemes expansion of Croydon Tramlink seems the best place to start with both Sutton and Crystal Palace extensions for a start with plans as to how to extend Tramlink from Croydon towards Central London to say Brixton a better scheme than the isolated Cross River Scheme .
Manchester has shown how expanding a network gradually works and once you get a basic system building new links becomes easier.
As for Borisbuses then given how I believe ex London buses have centre entrances removed when transferred to other parts of the country then would it be possible to remove rear entrance and 2nd staircase from Borisbuses giving space for extra seating at least on lower deck ?
As for the order for more Borisbuses announced days before Mayoral Election my mind goes back to last year when controversial plans to withdraw route 13 were dropped with the excuse that the consultation breached Purdah rules and that was a General Election which had nothing to do with the election of a new London Mayor . So surely there is more justification to stop order made ahead of London Mayorao election .
@ Melvyn – euro6 has long been the standard required for the ULEZ. No news there.
The Volvo B7TLs on the 14 have a reputation for being noisy / roaring when the engine fan has to work hard.
Much as I would like to see more trams in London the scale of road disruption would make the last 18 months in Central London look like a picnic. I don’t think that’s a saleable proposition to businesses. The taxi trade would go even more on the warpath than they already are. Manchester’s scheme is far less complex, in terms of Central area disruption, than anything in London would be. I don’t think it sets any real precedent for London.
The NB4Ls are not scheduled to be cascaded out of London for use elsewhere. They are meant to see out their economic life out in London and then head for the scrap heap. I don’t believe they could be modified as you suggest given where ventilation ducts and the engine / batteries are located.
A consultation over bus routes is not the same as procurement. The Mayor has said he won’t cancel the order so that’s that. Expect to see a new consultation on Finchley Road bus routes fairly soon. As I understand it TfL are coming back for a second bite because they say there are too many buses on that corridor and need to save money by rationalising services. It will be interesting to see if a new Mayor takes the same view as the last one with no elections pending!
@ WW Thanks for your reply and it seems confirmation that even if Sadiq wanted to offer the. NB4L for sale it seems their adaptability for use outside at least major cities is not as good as conventional buses.
With today’s announcement of start of night tube on Central and Victoria Lines the main casualty of the failed Finchley Road consultation last year was the plan to replace the N13 with a 24 hour service on the 82 a change which would provide a much better option given it would link to Victoria Station for both night tube and even night trains on Gatwick Services while still retaining same service north of Oxford Street.
Perhaps extension of a route from the south that currently terminates on Oxford Street could replace the 13 with a new cross London service and overcome the duplication of routes 13, 82 and 113 which occurs on sections of Finchley Road?
Hopefully today’s announcement will now allow weekend night services on some routes serving Central and Victoria Linex to be introduced.
@ Melvyn – having taken Night Bus photos in the summer for the last 5-6 years I can tell you for certain that the Victoria area is pretty much dead at night. Very few people knocking around. The centre of action is in the heart of the West End plus places like Shoreditch. Sending the N13 to Victoria as a N82 is a waste of time (IMO). Keeping it running via Oxford and Piccadilly Circuses makes far more sense as that’s where the people are! I’ve walked much of Central London overnight so know where is busy at weekends. There has been a long shift away from Victoria on the night bus network – largely because meal breaks used to be scheduled there when the LT bus garage was still extant.
The Mayor has announced the postponement of cuts to radial Night Bus routes when the Night Tube starts. He was said evidence must be collated of changes to travel patterns before Night bus routes are reduced or changed. I expect the proposed extra weekend only suburban night bus links will be phased in as the Night Tube expands. With a phased approach to the Night Tube’s introduction then it will take much longer for travel pattern changes to emerge and stabilise both on the tube and on the night bus network.
I’ve looked at some “rough and ready” numbers for patronage and capacity on the Finchley Road / Abbey Road routes. The “problem” routes are the 13 and 139 in terms of excess capacity while the 82 and 113 have much less spare room – presumably because more people are travelling on the outer sections and heading into town? We shall see in due course how TfL have rejigged their ideas for Finchley Road.
Just to back up what Walthamstow Writer says, Victoria station and the surrounding area is surprisingly quiet after about 1 a.m. with only an hourly Brighton train (generally cut short to Haywards Heath due to engineering works).
I would strongly caution against anyone making any suggestions for night time services unless familiar with Central London at night and the outer London night hotspots. Also be aware it is a very fluid situation with places like Croydon which used to be unbelievably busy in the early hours but are now pretty much dead as the night club scene diminishes and those that are left relocate.
Sorry, what announcement about “Night Tube” starting, even in segments?
I’ve just checked the TfL web-site & can’t see anything relevant.
Can someone post a suitable link, please?
[Greg. LR is not a news service. Nor is it fair to ask others commentators to do web searches for you. Rest assured that once the starting date is official, it will appear on the TfL website. LBM]
I have deleted ten comments that have wandered into the territory of discussion the tube map and what should and should not be on it. The comments started off slowly but seem to be getting more frequent.
I have lost count of the number of times we have gone through this.
It may be a bit harsh but I have deleted them all to prevent yet another airing of this subject. Further comments on the tube map will also be deleted.
PoP
LR is not a news service.
Really? Are you quite sure about that?
[Greg: “LR is not a news service.” is a short form of “London Reconnections is not a general news service for posting any transport-related news which has caught the poster’s attention”. However, news about specific topics initially discussed in an article is still welcome, as it always has been. Malcolm]