Rail must build back confidence
RAIL users have been largely satisfied with the industry’s response to cleanliness and safety requirements during the pandemic, according to Transport Focus research.
However, those not travelling still view the railway as not safe and not clean, MPs on the House of Commons Transport Select Committee were told on December 2.
Transport Focus Senior Stakeholder Manager Linda McCord was addressing the first of seven evidence sessions as part of the TSC’s inquiry into reforming public transport after the pandemic.
She told MPs that some 2,000 people per week have been surveyed by the watchdog, adding: “In the short term, there is a need to build back confidence for those who used to use public transport but have decided that it is not for them yet.”
Stephen Joseph, visiting professor at the University of Hertfordshire Smart Mobility Unit and former Campaign for Better Transport Chief Executive, told the TSC he believed the early messaging advising against travel had been the right thing to do, but that it had carried on for too long.
McCord added: “Unfortunately, we had a message right at the beginning of all of this for people to avoid public transport. The industry is working extremely hard to give reassurance. Govia Thameslink Railway has started campaigns around reassurance that trains are safe, and that you can come to the station and you will be taken care of.”
Transport Focus has also revisited a piece of work it produces regularly on passengers’ priorities for improvement.
McCord told MPs: “Of course, the basics of punctuality, reliability and value for money came through.
“However, what came through very strongly, particularly on rail, was not surprisingly the whole area of cleanliness. Importantly, what we have seen is that there will be little tolerance for poor standards of cleanliness in the future.”
She said that there was now a great opportunity in the industry for a multi-modal, integrated network review that meets the needs of transport users, and that this should be carried out locally.
Joseph expressed concern at the recovery. He said: “The issue at the moment is that we are facing a car-led recovery. That is not good for public transport, but it is also not good for wider reasons. It is not good for the need to decarbonise. Public transport needs to play a big part in decarbonisation. We cannot have a car-led recovery, because it will threaten that.
“France has made it a condition of its bail-out of its airlines - Air France - that they should not compete with high-speed rail, for carbon reasons.”
He also highlighted the lack of control of local rail networks afforded to local and regional authorities during the Pandemic.
“I would argue that any future rail strategy needs a large measure of devolution of local and regional rail services.
“Obviously, that requires powers and funding to go along with it. But the evidence is that in general, where services have been devolved, they have delivered much better for local people than when run from London through the Department for Transport. London Overground, Merseyrail and ScotRail are good examples. Transport for Wales is now showing its potential.”
Joseph joined the calls for ticket reforms, telling the TSC: “We must have flexible ticketing - simple, smart, multi-modal and multioperated ticketing - particularly in the city regions, because one of the clearer results of the pandemic is more flexible working.
“I do not buy ‘the offices and cities are dead’ argument some commentators have come up with, but it is quite clear that more people will be working more flexibly. That requires much smarter and more flexible ticketing. This time, when the Government is sort of running the railways, is an opportunity to get that.
“How can we get people out of cars and back on to public transport? Make it attractive in terms of services and price.”