One of my very few acts of civil disobedience occurred when I once refused to pay the full fare for a train journey. OK, I’m no Rosa Parks, I’ll admit that, but hear me out.
I was late for my train. When I arrived at the station, the train was already at the platform, and there was a long queue at the ticket office. They sell tickets on board, I thought, so there’s no problem: I’ll dash onto the train and buy one from the conductor.
But of course, this is Britain, where the customer is always wrong and computers are culturally programmed to say no. Since the station ticket office was still open, I was liable for the full, maximum cost of the ticket if I bought it on the train – in this case, £95 as opposed to £20. And yes, they really do use words like ‘liable’, because by now, I was no longer a passenger; I was a criminal. I did not make a sensible time-saving decision; I was sneaky and tried to steal from them. And in that vein, I was hauled off the train at the next station and handed over to the Rail Transport Police.
A casual observer might not see what the problem is – they have their rules and I broke them. But I think that this episode is demonstrative of some of the wider faults with public transport in Britain.
Think back to last autumn, when rail fares were ‘simplified’, supposedly in an attempt to remove the ‘confusing array’ of ticket types that had existed since the mid-nineties. The result has been that the only way to buy an affordable ticket is to book in advance – a move that will, I believe, do much to deter people from habitually catching trains like the government supposedly wants.
Discounted tickets through advance booking is an approach that works well for air travel, but flying is a luxury and we are not actively trying to push people towards their nearest airport. Rail travel, on the other hand, is regularly cited as one of the surest ways of improving our environmental credentials and governments at all levels are supposedly committed to encouraging us to abandon the car in its favour.
The effect is to create a culture where trains are the preferred method of transport for the occasional long-weekend away, but not for everyday use. Not for the spur of the moment day trips. Not for journeys where you can’t be sure of timings, or for open-ended trips or for times when you might just want a little flexibility.
In any case, even finding the cheapest tickets often requires a good grasp of British geography, a comfortable knowledge of the Network Rail map and a familiarity with every major railway junction on the route. For instance, to get a ticket at a reasonable price, it should not be a requirement to know that buying a return ticket from Cardiff to Swindon, together with a return ticket from Swindon to Oxford is cheaper than a straight return ticket from Cardiff to Oxford – even though the route taken and trains ridden would be identical.
I’ve been thinking about this while going about my daily business, and now I see faults everywhere. Here’s a few things that have annoyed me in the last few weeks:
1. Cardiff Bus does not give change on its buses. The driver will give you a voucher as change which can be redeemed for cash by making a trek to their HQ. This is not very helpful. How about letting us use this as payment for the next journey? The response from drivers is usually one of three: aggressive rejection of the notion; complete and utter confusion; or at best, they’ll wave you to your seat without registering your payment. None of which is ideal.
2. Train tickets can be used to travel on the ‘bendy bus’ between Cardiff central station and Cardiff Bay – but of course, you’re ticket is swallowed up by the barrier machine before you’ve even left the station, rendering the whole scheme completely useless except to those in the know, and again making the passenger feel like an inconvenience for holding up the queue while they attract the attention of staff to open the gate for them.
3. Buses in Newport intentionally by-pass the railway station, leaving you with an unnecessary 10 minute walk from bus to train. Public transport is supposed to be ‘integrated’ – that’s the political buzz word du jour. This, most certainly, is not.
4. The last train in or out of Cardiff on a Saturday night is 11.25pm. That needs no further explanation.
This list is not exhaustive. I’m not even going to mention punctuality, the state of rolling stock, facilities at stations, etc. I’ll leave that to you.
Anyway, all of this has pointed me to the conclusion that our public transport system is presided over by a group of individuals who have no knowledge of public transport – I mean no real knowledge, the kind acquired through waiting in the rain, poring over timetables, constantly adjusting your plans, negotiating with brusque guards and officials. But it’s OK, I have a two step plan to fix this.
1. Every single member of staff employed by a rail or bus company should be contractually obliged to travel to work by public transport. Door to door. Bus, train, tram. Whatever is available.
I genuinely believe that being forced to endure (I mean endure, not experience) public transport day in, day out will not only give executives the insight that the rest of the travelling public has but will also give them the frustration and drive to fix it. Very soon, they will realise that what works well for the company does not necessarily provide a good service for the customer.
2. The UK government should force all public transport providers and associated organisations out of greater London. They can base themselves anywhere else in the country, but not in the capital.
We all know that Londoners like to moan about public transport. When I’m in London, I get annoyed if I have to wait more than about three minutes for the tube. But London has a public transport system that the rest of the country can only dream of. I think I read somewhere that as many people use the trains in London as do across the rest of Britain put together. That poorly referenced statistic goes some way to show how extensive London’s public transport is, and goes some way to proving that if you give people a decent public transport system, they will use it.
But it is the same reason that makes it easy for Londoners to forget quite how bad the rest of the country’s public transport is. It wouldn’t surprise me if the people running the train operating companies genuinely believed all was well – why wouldn’t they? It’s no real hassle getting from a sleepy Surrey village to central London by public transport. What are we all moaning about?
I know punctuality and reliability are perhaps more important issues, but I genuinely believe that public transport needs to be designed from the point of view of people who use it. If future changes continue as they have in the last few years, we’ll continue to move further away from the transport system that we need.
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The single biggest problem is the cost of the fares – I wouldn’t mind if the trains were late, overcrowded and dirty if the cost was reasonable, but there are very few areas in the country where it is not cheaper to drive. It costs two pounds to get to the other side of Cardiff, single, and that is comparatively cheap. it costs somewhere near eighty pound sto visit relatives in County Durham.
Likewise, it is a scandal that it is cheaper to buy tickets in advance. I can understand a small administrative fee, if it actually costs more to process or affects planning, but the discrepancies are absurd. Public tranport is a public service and until they are willing to charge you substantial amounts for just turning up at a GPs, then they shouldn’t do it people travelling on trains.
I honestly beleive that there should be a league table of train providers, and the one that comes bottom every year loses its licence. And if services don’t improve, then I am all for public ownership.
You’re right on so many counts here.
I once waited 6 hours for a train in Rhayader, before I realised there wasn’t even a station.
Wow, my very first comment!
Supposedly costs are high because train operating companies need to make a profit. In most industries, this is perfectly acceptable – but not the most appropriate model for a public service. In fact, even during the nationalisation period, the railways were expected to produce a surplus.
We need to accept that something being a public service means that it costs money. Expecting it to pay for itself is, as Bill Bryson said in one of his books, as ludicrous as expecting traffic lights or roads to be profitable.
Its not just the barriers that take your tickets, I once had my train ticket ripped out of my hand buy on of the arriva staff at Cardiff ticket barriers and was then very rude over the fact that I needed to keep it.
If you are looking to compare train staff at stations , try Cardiff and Bristol Parkway. When I got stuck at Bristol Parkway the staff there were actively helped me to get to my destination, whereas staff at Cardiif seem to struggle to understand the word “help”.