Cairns, S

English

UCL Discovery

GIVEN Government aimsto achieve a moreintegrated and sustainabletransport system, you’dthink that encouragingtravel by train wouldautomatically be on theagenda. However, published in July 2004,The Future of Rail White Paper1 was notablefor the absence of any rail growth targets.This shows a lamentable lack of vision. Inparticular, encouraging train travel at timesand in places where the network is currentlyunder-utilised seems like a critical issue for bothincreasing the viability of the railways andcontributing to broader transport policy goals.Achieving this is likely to require taking morenational responsibility for information provision,marketing, ticketing, and making the linksbetween the rail network and other modes.The case for encouraging people toswitch from car – or plane – to train is strong.Environmentally, trains beat them both inmost reasonable comparisons, and futuremeasures to improve rail’s environmentalperformance (like the introduction of lower-sulphur diesel) should give trains a considerableadvantage. On busy routes, trains canaccommodate significantly more people thanconventional buses or coaches, and thededicated network usually gives them theedge in terms of reliability and speed.Although there are legitimate argumentswhich say that we should be encouragingincreasingly localised patterns of activity (andrail is often not the most appropriate modefor short journeys), medium- and long-distance trips are a significant part of ourcurrent travel. Given this, failing to plan forrail growth (while explicitly planning for carand air traffic growth) seems absurd.One reason why rail growth may be offthe agenda is that, as highlighted in therecent ‘rail congestion charge’ debate, thepriorities of those involved in rail are oftensignificantly different from those involved inoverall national transport policy. Partly, this isbecause of the specific nature of rail.In particular, rail travel is concentrated inLondon and the South East (LSE). In 2003/04,49 per cent of all passenger-kilometrestravelled were undertaken on routes run byLSE operators. Partly this is because there weremore trains (41 per cent of all timetabledtrain-kilometres). However, there is not anexact match. For example, in contrast, theregional operators accounted for only 18 percent of passenger-kilometres, but 37 per centof all scheduled train-kilometres (theremainder – 33 per cent of travel and 22 percent of train-kilometres – were on long-distance services).2It is also notable that much train travel isfor commuting, and is concentrated in thepeak period. According to the London AreaTravel Survey, 72 per cent of all weekday railtrips are made during the peak period(defined, in that survey, as 6:30-10am and 4-8pm).3 This compares with aggregatedNational Travel Survey data (1992-2000),which suggests that less than 50 per cent ofall weekday trips are made during this time.4Moreover, despite the disruption ofHatfield, in the last five years (1998/89-2003/04), the number of passenger-kilometrestravelled on the network in London and theSouth East has grown by about 18 per cent,while the number of timetabled train-kilometres has grown by only 6 per cent.2 Asa result – as any commuter into Londonknows – many of the services are increasinglycrowded. Consequently, for those runningthe railways, alleviating peak-time congestionon LSE services seems like the top priority.Logically, one way of addressing theproblems is to increase capacity. However,there seems to be a broad agreement that,while there is some scope for squeezing moreout of the LSE network as it is (for example, byadding carriages and lengthening platforms),this scope is relatively limited. Consequently,many LSE train operators don’t actually wantmore passengers (since this will exacerbatecrowding problems and complaints, andpotentially lead to franchise penalties), unlesstheGovernment is prepared to put significantcash into capacity expansion. Meanwhile, theGovernment has made it abundantly clearthat it wants to curb spending on therailways – implying that it will be extremelyreluctant to put money in for expansion. It isprobably this stalemate which has led to thelack of positive plans for rail growth.However, if this is the case, there is afundamentally flawed underlying supposition– namely, that promoting national rail growthhas to involve encouraging growth on thebusiest parts of the network. Clearly,addressing capacity on these routes may bean important priority (not least as a way ofreducing peak-time car use), and it may betrue that this is where growth would be easiestto achieve. However, there are powerfularguments for promoting growth at othertimes and in other places – and for having anexplicit national strategy to achieve this.First, as advocated by organisations likethe Rail Passengers Council, encouraging off-peak growth in rail travel could be made anexplicit priority. Having 72 per cent of themarket concentrated into only a third of theday cannot be the most efficient solution forthe railways. Encouraging people to travel at abroader range of times would help to alleviatecrowding and make it easier to scheduleservices. Moreover, if significant numbers ofnew users could be encouraged to travel off-peak, this could presumably help to generatethe funds for more peak-time expansion.There is also some evidence from studieson personalised journey planning5 andhighway capacity reduction6 that off-peaktrips are the most susceptible to modal shift.(To be clear, while specific initiatives forcommuting and school travel have achievedsome of the most impressive behaviouralchange, in situations where transport initiativesare more general – for example, involvingthe provision of better information aboutalternatives, or a change in road conditions –a greater shift in off-peak travel behaviour isusually observed.) This means that promotingoff-peak rail travel could be a particularlyeffective way of reducing car use.WHY TARGETED RAILGROWTH SHOULD BEA NATIONAL AIMGetting Somewhere Sally Cairns222 Town & Country Planning  July/August 2005July/August 2005  Town & Country Planning 223A key issue is how a growth in off-peaktravel would be promoted – since there arealready significant differences in peak and off-peak fares, precisely to try to achieve this.Arguably, national marketing and a simpler,more comprehensible fares structure couldboth play a key role.In the current rail framework, marketingactivity has largely been made theresponsibility of individual train companies.While this has allowed for some interestingand innovative approaches, overall it makes itharder for the railway to competitivelymarket itself against other modes. There arecurrently about 25 individual franchises, andsome companies are directly competing witheach other. This means that the consumer isexposed to a myriad of different messages,all with a slightly different slant, and all tryingto promote awareness of their own brand.This is in direct contradiction to conventionalmarketing wisdom, which advocates thatsimple, consistent messages are the mosteffective. It also makes it difficult to promotean overarching idea – for example, that trainsare cheaper off-peak.Personally, I doubt whether anyone reallycares who runs the trains (as long as they’rewell run), particularly as they often don’t havea choice of operator for the journey they’replanning. Instead, selling the advantages of‘train’ travel (as compared with car travel)might be a much more powerful way toinfluence travel behaviour. After all, some carusers will never have used a train, or havethought seriously about why they mightwant to.Another key area to address could be faresstrategy. While there are significantdifferences between peak and off-peak prices,the range of tickets on offer is oftenbewilderingly complex. Fares strategygenerally seems to be have been driven byan unhealthy obsession with free marketeconomics, and the unwritten belief that themore tickets there are, the more choices theconsumer has – and that, by definition, that’sgood. While this has meant that there aresome great deals to be had, there are alsonumerous downsides.It has become almost impossible to estimatehow much a journey is going to cost withoutchecking, and many people report that theyfeel confused, often expressing a sense ofbeing ‘ripped off’ when they encounter ahigh price or querying whether a differentoperator would have given them a differentticket. Consequently, for occasional users,fares may seem arbitrary rather than gearedto encouraging travel at particular times.This confusion also arises because it iscommon to get different information fromdifferent people. For a weekend return fromLondon to Macclesfield, I was recently quoted£96 by National Rail Enquiries (even afterasking the operator to check with hissupervisor) and £44 by Transport Direct. Myfriend was quoted £54.20 by NRE. Thetickets we actually purchased from Virgintrains cost £24. This kind of muddle cannotpossibly be good for trains. More specifically,problems with information provision arepotentially obscuring fundamental peak/off-peak differences in prices, and the significant‘hassle factor’ added to journey planningpotentially puts people off even consideringthe train as an option.Instead, one proposition would be tointroduce a new and massively simplified off-peak fares policy. For example, this couldrequire all train operators to offer ticketsbetween, say, 10am and 4pm, at a set priceper mile. All other ticket types for theseservices could be discontinued to ensuresimplicity, and major national marketingactivity could be undertaken on this basis. Ifthe London Area Travel Surveyfigures3 areindicative, less than a third of revenue(approximately £1.3billion) would be at stake.It would be a bold move, partly underminingthe ethos of privatisation – but even if theGovernment agreed to underwrite any losses,it would still be a considerably cheaperoption than, say, building Crossrail, and thepotential increase in train use (and income)could be substantial.Furthermore, taking a more strategicapproach to the railway should arguablyinvolve putting more emphasis on promotingservices outside London and the South East.Precisely because train use, and growth, havebeen greatest in this area, links with Londonhave received the greatest attention. Forexample, the introduction of a new high-speed line between London and the Northhas been debated extensively, with scopingstudies costing over £1million.However, the dangers of a self-fulfillingprophesy are obvious. The more transportinvestment is concentrated on moving peoplein and out of London, the more likely it is thatthis is what they will do. Instead, as part ofpromoting a more even pattern of nationaldevelopment, surely rail strategy should befocused on alternative proposals – for example,exploring the viability of an east-west spinelink to underpin the ‘Northern Way’regeneration work, or introducing measuresto encourage the scale of London railcommuting in other large urban centres, byimproving and promoting the feeder servicesfrom their immediate catchments.As part of promoting both off-peak traveland rail travel in other parts of the country, itwould also be helpful to have more publicinvolvement in how trains are linked withother modes. Currently, ‘addressing stationaccess’ often becomes a local wrangle abouthow much station parking should be allowed.However, there is huge scope for more pro-active policies to ensure that people can getto stations. There have already been someexperiments aimed at making walking andcycling to stations more attractive, orpromoting car sharing, or providing feederbuses, or offering demand-responsive minibusservices. However, the scale of existinginitiatives is limited, and there is considerablepotential for more widespread good practice.The parking issue is difficult – in someareas, and for some people, car access will bethe only option, but providing vast car parkswill potentially undercut local bus services andother, more sustainable initiatives. However,Sally Cairns Marcus EnochLiverpool Street station, used for approximately 50millionpassenger journeys a year, shows the efficiency of rail fortransporting large numbers of peopleBank holiday crowds – encouraging greater use of trains at less popular times couldhelp to increase the viability of the railways and have a significant effect on nationaltraffic levelstagain there is scope for more strategic localinvolvement – to ensure that new parking isshared across a number of local stations toreduce rail heading (where people drive to amore distant station); to encourage pricingpolicies that maximise the benefits of stationparking; or to ensure that station parking isallocated on the basis of need (for example,using resident permits as a way of allocatingspaces or deciding entitlement to differentparking rates).Currently, proposals on station access areusually generated by the train company, withthe local authority mainly acting in a reactivecapacity. Yet a train connection is a significantlocal resource, and it is in everyone’s intereststhat it is well used and appropriatelyintegrated. Again, national encouragementfor more public involvement in station accessand development could help to promotebetter use of rail.Overall, then, it is to be hoped that theDepartment for Transport’s new Rail Groupwill take a more positive and strategicapproach to the railways than the latestWhite Paper suggests. It is undoubtedly truethat railways are not cheap – and that theircosts need to be carefully managed. But it isprecisely because they represent such asignificant investment that their use shouldbe optimised. Failing to plan for growth willdo little to improve the balance sheets.Instead, a more proactive approach,encouraging targeted growth at off-peaktimes and on less well used parts of thenetwork, could help to generate revenue,reduce car use, and promote more evennational economic development. Achievingthis may well require greater nationalinvolvement in issues relating to information,marketing, ticketing, and station access thanis currently proposed. But, if there was anypoint in abolishing the Strategic RailAuthority, surely it was to enable theGovernment to take some bolder decisionsabout how the railways are run. nDr Sally Cairns is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centrefor Transport Studies at University College London. Theviews expressed in this article are entirely her own, andare unconnected with her recent secondment to theStrategic Rail Authority. She wishes to express gratefulthanks for help with this article to Dr Graham Parkhurst,of the University of the West of England.Notes1 The Future of Rail: White Paper . Department forTransport. The Stationery Office, London, 20042 National Rail Trends 2004-5 Quarter 1.Strategic Rail Authority, London, 20043 London Area Travel Survey National RailResults – An Introductory Report. Strategic RailAuthority, London, 20054 Focus on Personal Travel. Department ofTransport, Local Government and the Regions.The Stationery Office, London, 20015 S. Cairns, L. Sloman, C. Newson, A. Anable,A. Kirkbride, and P.B. Goodwin: Smarter Choices– Changing the Way We Travel. Department forTransport, London, 20046 S. Cairns, C. Hass-Klau, and P. Goodwin:  TrafficImpact of Highway Capacity Reductions: Assessmentof the Evidence. Landor Publishing, London, 1998224 Town & Country Planning  July/August 2005t

Why targeted rail growth should be a national aim

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