• Plans to reopen Brentford to Southall railway (IanVisits)
• Why fewer people are riding the Underground (TheDeveloper)
• The tale of two Underground posters (20thCPosters)
• Mexico City’s trolleybus revival for clean air (UrbanTransport)
• Electric ferry’s maiden voyage in Denmark (MaritimeExec)
• India’s rickshaw pullers are moving to electric vehicles (Quartz)
• The duct tape typographer of the Tokyo Subway (SmithJournal)
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- On Our Line Podcast #8: Talking Uber, Lyft and Mobility disruption
- You Hacked – Cyber-security and the railways
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I see in the Mexican trolleybus article that “With the new city administration elected and in power since December 2019”. Are LR now working with the help of a time machine? I think we should be told!
🙂
The v. interesting article by Nicole B highlights one remarkable decline – less walking (!)
As for road congestion, there must ( surely? ) be some way of diminishing the ridiculous numbers of delivery vans, cluttering up both the roads & the air we breathe?
And, a repeat of an old song, Khan’s “Fares Freeze” is shown to be a really bad move – again.
The battery-powered ferry is an interesting indicator of real technical & engineering changes in the past very few years, isn’t it?
The Nicole Badstuber article is very important in helping to interpret changes in mode and station usage volumes over the recent years.
It will possibly apply to National Rail usage in the London area as well as to buses, London Underground, DLR, Overground, and Tramlink.
Clearly, in annual volume measured as trips per person per day, the transition point is between 2013-14, and 2014-15 by when the secular demand has started to reduce, with shopping declining sooner.
There is a previous slump in 2008-9 to 2010-11 which can be associated with the banking crisis and recession.
The strongest secular changes are in leisure, and shopping and personal business.
Most recent changes might be influenced in London by Brexit risks and loss of European working populations who one might expect to be strong users of public transport, and a related recessionary effect on general public propensity to spend (similar to the previous banking crisis).
How much of the recent change is short term and how much long term, is of course unclear at present. It cannot help TfL’s weakened budgeting situation, which also has the Mayor’s fares freeze, and poor oversight and management of the Crossrail 1 project to blame.
Forward financial projections might be wise to include a large range of possible outcomes, not all positive. We must be due for a new TfL Business Plan shortly.
It would be interesting to see the comparative figures for (a) trip length, and (b) total journey time. I would expect divergences from the total number of trips,leading naturally to further questions.
The decline in leisure trips is also interesting, maybe reflecting different – and increasingly web-based – ways that people spend their leisure. Certainly, talking to a random selection of headmasters and those who run voluntary sports clubs (maybe not a representative sample), there is a feeling that younger people are spending more time online and less out in the field. In some respects that would mirror the changes in cinema going and tv watching (both in secular decline)
@Graham H
Good questions. Can Nicole answer those? Number of trips per week, measured by different trip lengths and journey times, might also be revealing.
The mention in the article that “The number of commutes per worker per week fell from 7.1 to 5.7 between 1988/92 and 2013/14” needs more interpretation, presumably each commute means an averaged return journey, otherwise we are talking of an average of under 3 return journeys per person per week!
JR
A large number of people are now “Teleworking” ( i.e. Working from Home ) remotely, using their dedicated firm’s linking software, for one day a week. This will directly affect the numbers and distance commuted. I certainly expect this trend to continue, slowly.
@ Jonathan Roberts
I hope you are not right that the number of commutes per week represents a return journey, otherwise in 1988/92 the average worker would be making more than one return commute trip a day and nearly 1.5 return trips to and from work every working day! I think 3 return journeys to and from work per week is no longer wholly implausible with hot dusking, flexible hours and working from home, but these do beg the questions as to whether the figures are right at all.
Quinlet
“Hot dusking” sounds very interesting, but, please … this is a “family magazine” (!)
@Quinlet – I know it’s wicked to criticise mistypes, but I cannot resist an industrial grade laugh at “hot dusking” – we werewolves know a thing or two… Sorry. I agree with your point. of course: the figures are badly in need of further interpretation.
@JR – the underlying question is an existential one for operators – and for fare structures. One of the biggest cost drivers is the amount of place /hours occupied by the punters. If there are fewer punters occupying the trains for less time, then one can adjust the volume of service accordingly; per contra, with fewer punters occupying the trains for longer, then one ends up having to provide the same or more volume of service. In the latter case, there is a choice – higher fares take per punter or more subsidy (or more crammed trains). In BR days, we quite liked the idea of the same quantity of punters travelling further; that could be captured in higher fares. Clearly, the issue with a zonal system is trickier to manage, if indeed possible to manage at all.
I keep reading how teleworking is changing travel patterns. On LR it’s usually in response to an article showing that work trips per person has held over the last few years, so this seems unlikely. It’s also worth noting that there’s been no changes in technology or the availability of technology in the UK that would have much of effect in well over a decade.
A while back I found some statistics on the increase in home working. One of the biggest increases was in construction. A surprising fact. That’s not home-based, that’s working from home. I assume the principle reason is tax advantages from spreading income over family members. Working from home is not necessarily, or even likely to be, teleworking.
@ Tom Hawtin
I think there has been a bit of a culture change in how remote working is seen in big companies. Perhaps as a result of it becoming more routine and entrenched. My own employer is using it as a cost-cutting measure, as less desks will be needed in an expensive office – they have even suggested people working from home every day might be acceptable for non-client-facing staff.
@ Herned
HMG are going along the same route with hot-desking becoming standard. Even the DfT at Minster House have downsized using this method.
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-annual-report-and-statement-of-accounts-2018-19.pdf
Tube numbers and revenue actually went UP again in 2018/19 to record levels. Bus numbers are down though
@herned
I don’t think people have considered the full implications of regular home working.
Presumably, where the employer is asking people to do so, it should make a financial contribution to domestic running costs – if not the employee can make a reasonable claim for tax relief on domestic expenses incurred for the purpose of their employment.
There is also the question of health and safety risk assessments and insurances. Presumably, if an employee working at home trips over the carpet and is injured, there could be a claim against the employer.
The use of home as a workplace can contravene covenants in the title deeds or insurance policy conditions.
And of course, smoking would become illegal.
HMRC might question the application of reduced rate VAT on electricity and gas bills which no longer constitute supplies for wholly domestic purposes.
Employers already have responsibilities when employees use their own vehicles for work journeys (eg the regular inspection of employee driving licence, insurance cover road tax and insurance) – hence the concept of a “shadow fleet”. Perhaps they will now have to consider their “shadow estate” as well.
@Herned
Home working is even more of a potential problem if the employee lives in rented accommodation.
@Herned
As for GDPR implications………
This lunchtime I saw yet another broken down new Optare battery bus on the 134 being towed away. This problem also seems to be afflicting other makes on the 43.
TfL ought to be seriously considering trolleybus reinstatement.
My home insurance policies specifically permit ‘home office’ style working, so long as this is restricted to the usual residents of the house. So I think the insurance industry is not too worried about this.
But I agree many folk (especial in the early years of their career) who are renting don’t appreciate (or don’t care, and don’t understand the potentiality adverse consequences) that their tenancy agreement will likely explicitly ban any form of working from home.
Or as usual for people with little to no bargaining power: they may well appreciate the implications, but have no power to avoid them…
This, in today’s “Guardian”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/shortcuts/2019/sep/24/working-from-home-shirking-bosses-pointless-presenteeism
This is a classic case of input monitoring versus output monitoring. Input monitoring (the hours you are present at your desk or in the office) is relatively easy to undertake, even where flexitime is operated. But, as the Guardian’s quip points out, you can shirk at the office, too. Output monitoring is considerably more time consuming and difficult but really gets to what you actually want to see happening. As a manager I had no problem with home working provided outputs were rigorously and frequently monitored – and managers’ determination of such targets were also monitored.
@ Island Dweller
I had never thought about the rental agreement implications, so I have just checked mine.. it bans running a business from the property or registering any company there. YMMV of course
@ Nameless
No idea, but as my employer is one of the big four accountancy firms I would like to think those issues have crossed someone’s mind at some point! I have never looked into the tax or other implications of it, I have always taken the view that a day without a journey on Cross Country Trains is a positive thing, so I am happy to work from home
@herned
Put a note into the suggestion box (or equivalent) that the firm could do quite well out of flogging advice on these aspects of homeworking to the punters (sorry – clients).
Say it was your idea.
Also say that you have got all your family to sign confidentiality statements in case they see or overhear something they shouldn’t.
(And for the record, a now retired colleague got a tax commissioners’ hearing to throw out the Revenue’s case because he overheard the tax inspector and staff discussing his client on the tube while on the way there.)
YMMV? Does it stand for Year 2005. Please elucidate.
@ Nameless
Unfortunately they already do offer such advice
YMMV – your mileage may vary – internet shorthand meaning ‘your experience might be different to mine’
The commute numbers do make sense to me. Allowing for part time workers, you would never see 10 commutes per week. The fall from 7.1 to 5.7 suggests that 70% of workers are taking one less day’s commute per week. Given the huge rise in flexible (compressed hours, working at home, and reduced hours) working that is reported, that doesn’t seem that surprising…
@Anonymike – I agree with the point about compression of hours, I know quite a number of younger people who have gladly swapped longer days for the extra day off.