Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

On my birthday three years ago, I was making my regular visit to London when the front page of the Western Mail caught my eye in Cardiff. I can't remember the exact headline , but it seemed that a committee of the Welsh Assembly had recommended an Oyster-style card covering the whole of Wales. The first thing that came into my head was 'What a good idea!' As a frequent visitor to London, I'd found out just how efficiently the Oyster card allows you to travel around the city. I'd also found out how much money it can save you over a period of time. (Or even a single day, when you compare it to the Travelcard.) I bought the paper and read the full story on the coach. The second thing that came into my head was 'What a stupid idea!' You see, the contrast between London and Wales couldn't be more apparent. Greater London is pretty much one continuous, flattish, dense urban sprawl covering over 1,500 square kilometres. It's criss-crossed by dozens of...

Next week I'm planning a day trip to Bristol, and I need to be a short distance outside the city centre by 12.30 p.m. Considering that Bristol Temple Meads lies on a direct route from Cardiff Central, that should be a piece of piss. Shouldn't it? You might think that – I couldn't possibly comment. To make sure I'm where I need to be in good time (and even that isn't guaranteed, of course), I'll have to arrive at Temple Meads at 1119. That gives me ample time to catch the bus to Bedminster and find the right place. (Any later and it'll be cutting things too fine.) So that puts me on the 1030 departure from Cardiff Central. And here's the problem. To get to Cardiff Central in time for 1030, I'd have to catch the 0922 train from Aberdare – eight minutes before the off-peak fares kick in. (According to raileasy.trainsplit.com I'd have to catch the 0852. I don't know whether they allow a margin of error for changing platforms.) Either wa...

Most of the time, at least, the good people at Transport for London really understand how public transport needs to work. (I've got some examples of when it doesn't work, which I'll show you again.) They've announced a new innovation this week, called the Hopper fare. I don't know how it would work in practice, but here's the blurb from the TfL website: Make a journey using pay as you go (contactless or Oyster) on a bus or tram, and you can now make unlimited bus and tram journeys for free within one hour of first touching in. Touch in using the same card on all the bus and tram journeys you make and the free fares will be applied automatically. Hopper fares apply to all pay as you go journeys. You can now travel on Tube, DLR, London Overground, TfL Rail, Emirates Air Line, River Bus or National Rail services between Hopper journeys, and Hopper fares will still apply. Hopper fares will not apply if your Oyster card has a negative pay as you go balance af...

There's an interesting article in the current CityMetric blog (part of the New Statesman) , about the so-called 'Northern Powerhouse' so beloved of the current Westminster government. It compares the average speed of trains between major cities in different parts of the country. Have a look at this: London Milton Keynes 1.66 miles/min London Reading 1.44 miles/min London Cambridge 1.16 miles/min Manchester Leeds 0.82 miles/min The Staggers quite reasonably makes an argument for an urgent upgrade of the trans-Pennine route. After all, it points out, between them the two city centres account for some half a million jobs. HS3, the proposed high speed link across the Pennines, would have immediate benefits in terms of job creation, and significant long-term economic returns on investment. Meanwhile, here in the land where the railways began, we're one of only three countries in the whole of continental Europe without a single kilometre of electrified railway. (The other tw...

My regular readers will already be familiar with the rigmarole necessary to book National Express coach tickets online. You have to jump through several hoops simply to travel between the capital of England and the capital of Wales – a process which takes far more time and demands far more patience than the average passenger has to spare. But, gentle reader, that's just the start of it. Booking a coach ticket online is an absolute piece of piss compared to buying an advance ticket via the Arriva Trains Wales website. I'm travelling to Bristol tomorrow, so I decided to see what the fares were. I was surprised to learn that an off-peak day return from Aberdare was £14.90. That puts Bristol – some forty minutes from Cardiff – in more or less the same price band as a day return to London by coach. Anyway … I tried to log in to my account, but (needless to say) I'd forgotten my password. I first registered with Arriva Trains Wales about five years ago, just for their news update...

Yesterday, the UK Parliament began debating the construction of HS2, the proposed high-speed rail link which will initially connect London and Birmingham, and thence proceed to the north of England. Its progress through Westminster is set to be a convoluted journey – not unlike that of the trains themselves. So far, nobody has been able to come up with accurate costings for the project, and arguments about the route have raged since the proposals first saw the light of day. It's symptomatic of the way in which transport policy in this country has always been cobbled together. The line is currently set to slice through the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the north-west of London. Householders in the area (and some Tory MPs, with an eye to their majorities) have objected to this alternative, and would prefer to see it buried out of sight. It would add to the cost, of course, but an extra few hundred million pounds on a multi- billion pound construction schem...

Back in the old days when dinosaurs and Conservative Governments walked the earth, it used to be easy to find information about public transport. You looked in the phone book, found the number of the bus company serving the area you were intending to travel in, and spoke to someone who lived in that area and knew the routes in the way that a local person would be expected to. If you were really lucky, and lived in a fairly large town, there would be a bus station with an information office. Timetables and booklets were freely available, listing all the services in a particular area. Then the services were 'degulated' (which was privatization by any other name) back in October 1986 – and it all went to shit. I first experienced difficulties with the new system while trying to get to Llandough Hospital in May. I tried the Traveline Cymru website, expecting a straightforward 'from' and 'to' expert system which would take me instantly to the relevant timetable. Inst...