future of UK railways

I am just home from Switzerland. I often use trains there and they almost always run on time - I was 15 minutes late once when there was over a metre of snow but otherwise have always arrived within a minute of schedule. And they are cheap, especially for locals who buy a 'half tax' card that gives them 50% off for a year, for about £70. The inappropriately named Gatwick Express, which is painfully slow and ludicrously expensive was a quick reminder that I was back in Britain.

The problem:

In Ipswich, I always book two trains earlier than the one I really ought to need, because I expect trains to be late. Usually they are, except by standards that accept anything less than 10 minutes late as 'on time'. Often they are 30 minutes or more late, sometimes even 45 minutes. I need to arrive at events on time, so I have to book assuming a 45 minute delay. I also assume that the Circle line will either not be running, or that I will have to wait 20 minutes for a train (on friday I waited 24 minutes at Victoria for one to arrive). So for many London trips, even though the train used to take just 57 minutes, since it now takes 1 hour 20 minutes plus delays, I have to allow 2hours 5 mins to get to London and another 55 minutes to get to a Circle line destination.

Three hours to get 80 miles into central london from Ipswich on a train where there are far too few seats! And it costs £36 for a single to London and another £4 for the underground (unless you have bought discount cards such as railcards or Oyster), and then the taxpayer adds another £15 subsidy to allow operators to make a profit. Given the efficiency of state subsidies, every pound reaching a point of expenditure requires two in tax paid, so actually the state subsidy costs £30 for each taxpayer. Almost £1 per mile, roughly the same as a taxi fare.

Rail enthusiasts (and I can't understand how anyone can be enthusiastic about something so truly awful) claim that this is due to lack of investment, but how can that be true if the fares and subsidies are so high? The obvious answer is bad management, or more precisely, appalling management. This bad management is distributed across a number of bodies. Since privatisation, rail frachises have to liaise with rail operators, and all have to liaise with various government bodies. With numerous companies using the same pieces of track, and most poorly maintaining their rolling stock and thereby causing frequent breakdowns, it is impossible to stick to a timetable. Buck-passing is all too easy, but collectively, it is a recipe for ineffectiveness and inefficiency. The customer forks out, but the service is just not there.

The Solutions:

First, to greatly increase the number of seats, First Class could be abolished. Few private individuals can afford First Class fares anyway, and almost all of the private sector insists that staff travel standard class. The majority of first class travellers now are civil servants, retaining employment privileges now unavailable to the rest of society. It makes no sense for servants to travel in higher style than their masters. The very few other people who travel first class should simply have to accept that they cannot travel in luxury if doing so requires that other people have to travel in misery, forced to stand for long periods to make space available for first class passengers.

Secondly, trains could be longer. Making them double decked would also be nice, but would cost too much because of the lack of foresight when building rail bridges and electric cabling. Only main stations need to extended, provided it is possible to walk between carriages while on the move. It would even be possible to have trains stop twice at each station, so that people can get on and off each section, allowing very long trains indeed.

Thirdly, there should be many more trains. I cannot understand why there are so few Circle Line trains in London, when the demand is so high. Several District line trains go past in between them. On main lines, occupancy is far worse, with most pieces of track on regional railways only actually being used by a train every 10 minutes, giving an occupancy rate of 0.4%. If an asset is only used for 0.4% of the time, then it will obviously be extremely expensive by comparison to one that is used most of the time, as most assets in industry are. A plane has to be in the sky most of the time, and many airport runways are being used for takeoff or landing most of the time too.

To get more trains on the track for more of the time, signalling systems need to be brought up to date. Each train can easily find its location using GPS, and soon Galileo. It can easily talk to other trains using radio, whether mobile phone, satellite phone, or directly. With a suitable protocol and scheduling algorithms, linked to agreed timetables, there would be no need at all for any other signalling system, such as the extremely expensive variant in use on british railway today. If compliance with the protocols is policed effectively, with appropriately large penalties for non-compliance, then an extremely efficient system can be built. Train operators would buy and stick to timetabled slots and other operators would have to stick to theirs.

Fourthly, tickets should be abolished and replaced by electronic ticketing. Oyster cards work well for payment on the London Underground, while mobile phones, debit and credit cards provide excellent alternative means of payment. There should be no need in 2009 to have paper tickets that can be easily lost, and which need to be checked by guards or machines, often both.

Fifthly, customers should be automatically and fully compensated directly for poor standards, whether lateness (payments scaled according to the magnitude of delay, with a full refund after 10 minutes). At the moment, customers have to fill in lengthy forms to get back small compensation payments. With electronic payment, refunds due to delays or overcrowding could and should be automatically applied to every passenger without any need to apply.

Sixthly, trains should be able to push each other along when there is a breakdown. Too many delays are caused by traisn blocking tracks when they are faulty. They should simply be shunted out of the way by the next train with any costs incurred accepted as a consequence of managerial failure.

Finally most importantly of all, we need better competition. Rail should be opened to any users that are able to meet the necessary operational requirements. At the moment we have a poor half way house as far as privatisation goes. We have lost the advantages of a national railway company, but missed the performance advantages associated with effective competition by giving operating companies local monopolies. If we implement electronic ticketing, together with rigorous signalling, traffic protocols and rigid schedules, then rail occupancy could be greatly increased, with many more trains of various sizes using the same rail. Trains would only be permitted when certified mechanically railworthy, minimising delays, with heavy penalties for any delays caused by breakdowns or failure to meet speed requirements.

Opening rail up to any comers would start a rapid switch towards electronically drived 'pods', linked together into virtual trains, that mostly look like conventional trains to the signalling systems, but which are just loose couples of pods that can split up at any node, with different pods heading off in different directions. Railways would begin to operate more like roads, where cars form naturally into long groups at points of congestion and then spread where load lightens.

With electronic drive, there would be no need to have (expensive and highly trained) drivers. With no tickets, no guards are needed. With no infrastructural signalling systems, there would be very low signalling costs. With much higher occupancy, the cost of looking after the rail itself would be divided among many more vehicles and passengers. With more and shorter vehicles, which would also be much lighter and cheaper, wear and tear on the railways would reduce, environmental impact would reduce, costs would fall sharply, delays would shorten, and profits would become more abundant to any company able to effectively manage a fleet of rail vehicles. That pretty much excludes almost every company and government agency associated with today's UK rail travel, all of whom have conculsively demonstrated extreme unsuitability to be considered part of a truly 21st century rail system.

This is the age of the train, but today we can't get access to it because history is standing in the way. Get todays rail operators out of the way and let a much better future arrive.