291–300 of 383 posts
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Yes, they do, campaigning on a program of better services and then not delivering anything is very much against career politicians' interests.
The timeframe for changes is so long that this has zero chances of affecting any politician's career
If you want to see a good train service look at Japan. Went there for a holiday and used the train service all over. They are a classic example of what a train service "should" be like. Fast, efficient, cost-effective. The only time trains was a little difficult was in the super-peak hours on the underground in the very dense parts of the cities. I think the world should learn from Japan in many aspects.
Here's a great explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFpG3yf3Rxk
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Guess it depends on what you consider to be shit. Public transport in Belgium is incredibly widespread and affordable, and while trains are somewhat often delayed (but people love to kvetch and exaggerate all the time, https://punctuality.belgiantrain.be/nl/dashboard ) due to years of neglect of the infrastructure, at least you don't have to pay an arm and a leg as you would for e.g. a short trip between London and B…
Their way of calculating punctuality is pretty misleading. It takes into account the predicted arrival at the final destination, without taking into account where passengers actually go. Delays along the route are hidden that way, even though most passengers don't go from origin to terminus, i.e. hardly anyone travels from Liège to Ostend, but the start & end of that 2hour+ journey are what's used to compute delays.…
Anyway, just joking around, public transport in Belgium could be better, that's for sure.
Hurrah! Even as a free market conservative I've long been in favour of this: bidding for the multi-year contract to operate a line is a poor proxy for (impossible) proper competition where rail users could vote with their feet and wallets. There's effectively only one operator anyway, for a given journey, it should be the state, awarding the multi-year contract to the elected government is strictly better than to a p…
As someone coming from a country (Italy) with nationalised railway I always found the trains in the UK to be pretty great. Sure, you have a few delays but it's eons better than what I had in my country. I never understood why people were complaining about trains in the UK. Italy added a private offering some time ago, which I personally never tried, but my friends back home always praise them for working - unlike Tre…
I've had to commute by rail since 2014, I now have to head out half an hour earlier than at the start, purely to account for consistent 5-10 minute delays.
Atleast once a month the train is packed beyond standing room.
Several times I've had to say fuck it and use the slower, further away tram to have any hope of reaching the office.
And if your train is cancelled (dozen plus times a year) station staff are fucking useless and annoyed you interrupted their chinwag to ask how to get home.
Hurrah! Even as a free market conservative I've long been in favour of this: bidding for the multi-year contract to operate a line is a poor proxy for (impossible) proper competition where rail users could vote with their feet and wallets. There's effectively only one operator anyway, for a given journey, it should be the state, awarding the multi-year contract to the elected government is strictly better than to a p…
I'm sorry to say, but these plans still see routes being operated by private companies awarded multiyear contracts...
"Flexible season tickets" is also a really welcome one, especially if people go to WFH/office hybrid set-up.
Love to be proved wrong. But public transport's goal never was to turn a profit. It's a public good, and should be measured by its "public good"ness. Extracting profit feels like something that disproportionately targets the poor/working class and leads to either an exploited workforce and worse service... without a reduction in overall costs. Now this trend of a "Nationalised Brand" over a "privatised service" just…
Japan is completely privatised, extremely efficient, huge network, fastest trains in the world, and is profitable. One of the many ways they did it was by converting stations into mini-malls and charging rent. Also, a strong partnership with the state helped.
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Then travel more man. Trenitalia is pretty competent for whats out there. They even have boats to move entire train carriages with the passengers inside to islands? That's pretty cool! Here in Spain we have RENFE, and they are pretty good overall, but pricey. I know that many lines run at deficit so they have to compensate with the ones that don't, but they recently launched AVLO as a low-cost service in response for…
As an Italian living in Spain for a long while, I can say that 10 years ago the difference was abysmal in favor of Renfe and now the gap it's smaller (due to Renfe not keeping up) but I still think the average Spain's train station and service is better than Italy's. I can still see (refurbished for the 3rd time) trains from ~25years ago operating in Italy nowadays.
If that's the problem, then do not try to use polish railways. You can still find non-modernized EN57 from 60s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKP_class_EN57
Long distance trains can be no better tho...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/973...
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Look how much hay Mussolini made from running the trains on time (which wasn't even the case, they just padded the schedule).
LOL Switzerland (i.e. extremely punctual society) actually does this with their rail system. There is a time buffer in the rail schedule for each of the stops. If a train is running late, and is /expected/ to be late, according to the estimated time of arrival, the train adjusts its speed, going faster, to arrive at the originally planned scheduled time. Failures on the rail system are of course rare.
On the polish site which tracks punctuality of trains, you can often see train delayed for some time, which decreases delay by every stop, eventually ending with smaller delay or on time.
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Because the trains were not showing up. If a train showed up, there was likelihood of a delay. It was also common that rush hour trains were short - so even if the train arrived, you were unlikely to be able to get in. It was a lottery with odds against you. I was constantly late because of that and employer could only be patient for so long. I am disabled (not visibly) and using Thameslink as an alternative was exha…
So Southern wasn't turning up and Thameslink was poor? When was it?