Snippets to the Times

The following in reverse date order are a sample of letters sent to The Times by Transport-watch. Most of those were not published.

Response to Professor Johnson and Graham Gouch below:

Professor Johnson castigates the notion that railways should be converted to roads on the grounds of capacity, fuel consumption, breakdowns and other (13th Nov).

Well, London’s surface rail network carries 10,000 crushed passengers per inbound track in the peak hour. Those passengers could all find seats in 150 75-seat coaches, sufficient to occupy only one seventh of the capacity of one lane of a motor road, the same width as required by a train. Outside the peak the network is a pace of dreams.

As to fuel, national rail returns the equivalent of 94 passenger miles per gallon. In comparison a half full express coach on an uncongested railway alignment may return 250 passenger miles per gallon.

Graham Gooch (also 13th Nov) is worried about speed. However, half of all rail journeys are less than 20 miles long and 90% are less than 80 miles long. For all of those the express coach would match the train, offering up to 12 times the service frequency.

Breakdowns? anyone ever tried pushing a train out of the way?

Sir, Paul Withrington’s view (letter, Nov 11) that paving railway tracks would solve our country’s transport capacity problems is seriously flawed. A very simple calculation would reveal that within the limited width corridor thus provided, capacity of a rapid and capacity optimised rail service cannot be approached by even the most tightly packed of coach services unless they are coupled together.

With the additional considerations of energy losses implicit in rubber-tyred vehicles, lack of resilience to breakdown in the confined pathway within which rail operates and implicit issues of end-point distribution of motor vehicles and capacity for parking, such a proposal is ill-conceived. Rail is no more a total solution to transport in the 21st century than is road or the personal flying machines promised 50 years ago. Each mode has its benefits and its detractions.

An analysis of road, rail, aviation, marine and virtual travel could lead to a transport strategy that optimises journeys, minimises carbon, maximises personal mobility and generates time to write letters to The Times. If only vested interests could be avoided.

Professor David M. Johnson
City University, London EC1

Sir, The fastest train journey from Preston to London takes exactly two hours. I would not like to travel on a coach that covered the 220 miles in two hours on a road the width of two railway lines with the prospect of passing another coach travelling in the opposite direction at the same speed.

DOUBLE DECKING THE M1

Double Decking the M1 would create the longest viaduct in the world and cost a fortune.  Running trains on the top deck (letter, Nov 7th) would double the cost due to their weight.  The cheaper option is to remove the rails from the 10,000 miles or right of way used by Network Rail and to replace with a road surface.  That would cost a fraction of the rail modernisation.  Even in central London and in the peak hour the replacement express coaches would occupy, at most, one fifth of the capacity then available. All London’s erstwhile rail commuters would have seats at a fraction the cost of the train and countless lorries and other vehicles would be able to divert from the city streets that they currently clog.

NAUGHTY CYCLISTS.

Those who criticise cyclists for jumping the red lights can never have tried surviving when on a bike.  At junctions, the safe move is to pull well ahead of the stop line and to go as soon as cross traffic allows. That way one clears the junction and attains a reasonable speed while providing the following motorists with a clear view of where one is.  The alternative of waiting at a stop line adjacent to, or fractionally ahead of, a lorry is to court death.  The pity of it is that those charged with specifying the road makings do not understand that.

RAILWAY CAPACITY

Anthony Wills (letter 0f 31st)is quite right.  Capacity rather than speed is the priority. After all half of all rail journeys are less than 20 miles long and 90% are less than 80 miles long. As for capacity, London’s crushed surface rail commuters may like to know that in the peak hour they are sufficient to occupy only one seventh of the network’s capacity if it were paved and if all them were seated in (75-seat) express coaches.  Outside the peak the network is a place of dreams.  The roads, meanwhile, are clogged with traffic.

As for the green agenda – replacement express coaches and lorries operating on railway alignments would use less fuel and emit less carbon than the steel tyred option, let alone the saving in fuel that would arise from other vehicles using these superbly engineered rights of way.

Converting the entire system would cost between £10 and £20 billion.  Thereafter all London’s crushed surface rail commuters would have seats at a quarter the cost of the train.  In comparison the taxpayer will have paid £100 billion to subsidise rail in the 20 years to 2015, before we talk about high-speed rail or of Andrew Dow’s immensely expensive proposals (letter of 2nd September).

ELECTIFICATION

In the words of Francis Caincroft writing in 1974 “when trains are still the theme of nursery rhymes and children's stories, it is small wonder that the railways have a romantic fascination for most adults. Only years of nursery conditioning can explain the calm with which the public has accepted a bill of £3,000 millions (£35bn at 2009 prices) to subsidise British Rail over the last decade”.

Lord Adonis exaggerated the importance of rail by a factor of 3 by saying 6.3% of journeys are by rail when the true number is 2%. Anthony Rodriguez and Sir Richard Branson imagine that fiddling with the management structure can cure a system that has required subsidy every year for over half a century.  Indeed in the 20 years to 2015 it will cost the taxpayer £100 billion or £4,000 for every household in the land – that at time when half of us use a train less than once a year and when the well off travel 5 times as far by rail as do the poor.

Despite railway propaganda, rail kills more people per passenger-mile than does the motorway and trunk road system, uses track so inefficiently that even in central London and in the peak hour the network is, in highway terms, scarcely used, and uses more fuel than would equivalent express coaches and lorries.
Is it not time for a sense of reality to break out?

RESTORE THE BRANCH LINES? - RIGHT OF REPLY?

John Deards 19th June says the cost for most lines would be nowhere near my estimate.  Forgive me, it is not my estimate.  Instead it is ATOC’s (probably four times too low if past performance, such as on the West Coast line, is anything to go by).  John Deards then claims these disused routes would carry trains with a minimum of 4 carriages at least two or three times an hour.  If so then the lines would be many times busier that most rural railways - almost as busy as some main lines are off peak.  What nonsense and in any case how trivial.

COST BENEFIT AND CROSS RAIL

Ben Webster 17th reports Professors Glaister’s finding that highway scheme provide better value for money than does rail.  It is far worse than that.  The benefit to cost ratios for road are typically 60% higher than for rail while the latter erroneously include “incremental fares” as a benefits.  For Crossrail those fares amounted £6 billion.  However, by simply changing the economic boundary of the scheme the £6 billion could be written down as anything between zero and £13 billion, illustrating the absurdity of the analysis.  See http://www.transport-watch.co.uk/nata-refresh-consultation.htm

Dear Mr Wighton

Your column of 8th July suggests that the motorway and trunk road network has a value of circa £100 billion.  We estimated the annual net tax-take from that system to be £13 billion.  That was derived by allocating the £50 billion total (including all VAT on new cars etc) in proportion to vehicle-km driven and subtracting the amount spent on the network.  Hence the value of the network to the nation may be substantially above £100 billion.

You then suggest that money raised on sale of the system could be used to “invest in vital projects such as Crossrail and high-speed rail”.   We protest.  The word “invest” implies there will be a financial return.  Instead of that the fares from those systems may never even cover the operating costs.  Hence any such government expenditure should be described for what it is, namely, subsidy.  In that context the following link may be of interest.

http://www.transport-watch.co.uk/transport-pdfs/transport-fact-sheet-4.pdf

TOWNS BACK ON TRACK

Kasia Maciejowska (10th July) anticipates that the high-speed rail link from Ashford to St Pancras will revitalise Ebbsfleet Valley. Apparently that link will cut the time for the 55 mile from 90 to 40 minutes.  I comment, given that right of way express coaches would do the same at a fraction the cost and with a service many times as frequent.  Additionally the right of way could then to be used by many thousands of other vehicles, currently stuck on unsuitable historic A-roads or clogging city streets, let alone interconnecting with the road system as a whole.

ELECRTIFICATION

To appreciate the waste of space that the railways are imagine that the motorways and trunk roads have been surfaced with railway lines.  The place would be at a near standstill.  By proxy, the nation’s 10,000 miles of superbly engineered railway right of way is indeed at a near standstill.  Even in central London and in the peak hour the system is, in highway terms, scarcely used.  There the widths are vast.  Elsewhere there is nearly always width and headroom enough for the carriageway of a single carriageway trunk road.  Paved, this immense Victorian legacy would attract countless lorries and other vehicle from the unsuitable rural roads and city streets that they currently clog whilst offering rail passengers seats in express coaches at a fraction the cost of rail, using half the fuel and matching journey times for all but the longest.

The £1.1 billion that is to be spent electrifying the Great Western is circa three times that required to convert that system to a motor road network.

Rather than this electrification being visionary or commendable (Letters 25th July) it will be a financial disaster, ensuring those rights of way remain disused, in all but name, for another 100 years.

ELECTIFICATION

In the words of Francis Caincroft writing in 1974 “when trains are still the theme of nursery rhymes and children's stories, it is small wonder that the railways have a romantic fascination for most adults. Only years of nursery conditioning can explain the calm with which the public has accepted a bill of £3,000 millions (£35bn at 2009 prices) to subsidise British Rail over the last decade”.

Lord Adonis exaggerated the importance of rail by a factor of 3 by saying 6.3% of journeys are by rail when the true number is 2%. Anthony Rodriguez and Sir Richard Branson imagine that fiddling with the management structure can cure a system that has required subsidy every year for over half a century.  Indeed in the 20 years to 2015 it will cost the taxpayer £100 billion or £4,000 for every household in the land – that at time when half of us use a train less than once a year and when the well off travel 5 times as far by rail as do the poor.

Despite railway propaganda, rail kills more people per passenger-mile than does the motorway and trunk road system, uses track so inefficiently that even in central London and in the peak hour the network is, in highway terms, scarcely used, and uses more fuel than would equivalent express coaches and lorries.

New line – breaking the bank

The 14 lines proposed for reopening by ATOC comprise some 150 miles of track at a supposed cost of 500 million or £3.3 million per track mile.  That is similar to the cost per lane mile of building a motorway from scratch.  The proposed lines would carry one “train”, probably all of two carriages long, an hour.  In contrast one lane of a trunk road carries an average of circa 500 vehicles per hour. What more graphic illustration of the waste that this proposal would be do we need? Still that is small beer compared with high speed rail proposals. They would be used mainly by the better off and at great cost to the taxpayer – as is the existing railway.

RAIL FARES

Alexi Mostrous (27th May) reports improved rail punctuality but fares double those in France.  If we halved all rail fares then subsidy would rise to £7.75 billion annually.  If we were to emulate the French in terms of subsidy then 1% of GDP or £14 billion annually would be required. Equivalent to £570 for every household in the land.  Why would anyone want to do that?  After all half of us use a train less than once a year and the better off travel 5 times as far by rail as do the poor.   Perhaps the reason is that MPs enjoy free first class travel.

SPEED CAMERAS – THE DAMAGE THAT THEY HAVE DONE

Deaths per passenger-km were falling by 7.1% per year during the 14 years to 1995.  Instead of the attack on speed accelerating that trend, the trend slowed to 2.8%.  The effect is that, by 2007, there were 9,600 more deaths than would have arise had the earlier trend continued. The correlation between those additional deaths and the speeding fines, totalling 13.6 million is almost perfect.  Of course no one would claim that the fines caused the deaths but their number is a proxy for the vigour with which the attack on speed has been pursued.
Despite that, Ministers continue to support present policies with pointless statements such as 30% of road accidents are due to speed. The truth is that the authorities have rejected the highly successful approach used prior to the speed cameras in favour of an automatic and punitive system that has proved a disaster.

Speed limit nightmares:

Network Rails million pound bonuses

Decades of railway propaganda have embedded in the public mind the belief that rail is uniquely green, offers by far the highest capacity and is uniquely safe.  Elevated to a kind of religion, rail can only fail because of the failings of man.

The reality is so different from the truth as to beggar belief.  For example, system-wide and including trespassers but not suicides rail kills 50% more people per passenger-mile than does the strategic road network.  Further, a single express bus lane in New York carries more seated passengers in the peak hour than arrive in crushed conditions at Victoria Main line where there are four inbound tracks.

That propaganda has led the Government to allocate £100 billion over the 20 years to 2015 to a system that carries only 2% of the nation’s motorised journeys and which is used 5 times as much by the better off than by the poor.

Stewart Joy, Chief Economist to British Railways in the 1960’s wrote in his book “The Train that Ran Away” that there were those who “were prepared to cynically accept the rewards of high office in the BTC and the railways in return for the unpalatable task of tricking the government on a mammoth scale.  Those men”, Joy wrote, “were either fools or knaves”. There were no libel actions, but Joy had been forced out – too honest to work with railway men.

Since one billion pounds is only one percent of the 100 billion misappropriated to rail why not increase the bonuses to a billion!  Surely that would attract ability, if not integrity, to that benighted industry.

Paul Withrington

ALL ABOARD THE ELECTIC BUS

The report by Ben Webster, All aboard the electric Bus, 10th April, illustrates a frightening lack of knowledge among those developing Transport Policy.  The plain fact is that an electric bus will use nearly 70% more energy than a diesel powered vehicle of the same performance whilst emitting the same or more carbon.  Perhaps the Mayor of London has overlooked the strange fact that electricity is generated in power stations.
Paul F Withrington
DIRECTOR TRANSPORT-WATCH

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Note to Editor

Our Facts Sheet 5C attached demonstrates the truth of the above, which is in any case well known.  Here is the demonstration proving the statement to do with fuel consumption:
30% of the energy burnt in power stations reaches the end user after allowing for transmission losses and energy industry use.  Perhaps as little as 20% of the power reaching the plug will be lost in the batteries and motor of our electric vehicle.  Hence the energy reaching the drive train of an electric car amounts to only 24% of the energy burnt in the power stations (0.3 x 0.8 = 0.24).
 
In contrast a modern diesel transmits 45% of the energy burnt onboard to the drive train.  That should be reduced to 40% to allow for the energy lost in refineries and transporting the fuel to filling stations. 
The ratio of 40 to 24 is 1.67.  I.e. the electric vehicle uses 67% more energy than its diesel competitor.

HIGH SPEED RAIL

The Campaign for better transport (letter of 8th) is a railway lobby group, originally funded by the rail unions, pretending to a green agenda. However, ordinary rail uses more fuel per passenger-mile than does a diesel-powered car containing two people. Further, the proportion of emissions that can be attributed to air or rail is vanishingly small. Hence any transfer of passengers from one mode to the other would have an even more vanishingly small effect**. Nevertheless those promoting high-speed rail talk as though the carbon saving upon the transfer of passengers from air to rail may save the planet.
Paul F Withrington (Director)

BUSWAYS

The Guided busway from St Ives to Cambridge reported by Ben Webster on 26th January is to be welcomed because it has rescued a valuable right of way from oblivion and because other less derelict railway rights of way may be similarly rescued.  However the use that can be made of busways is pitifully small.  In this case the route will carry only seven and one half buses per hour in each direction.  In contrast, had the route been engineered as an ordinary road, not only would it have cost less, but thousands of lorries and other vehicles could have diverted from the unsuitable roads that they currently clog.  The only additional requirement would be to manage the road so as to avoid congestion.  That could be achieved by using the technology developed in the United States where a roadside beacon charging system is in place on the so called Lexus Lanes, see Ben Webster’s of 7th October 2006.

Government statistics

Professor Speigelhalter (5th January) wants “risk literacy” on the curriculum.  Your leader, points out that it is not just the children that need lessons.  An example is in the Transport Committee’s inquiry into the Future of Rail.  The report says “the figures comparing road and rail fatalities are telling.......  the SRA points out that ‘on average more road users die in accidents each day than rail passengers in a year’”.  We comment, if an accountant used numbers in that way he would soon be in prison.  Firstly the statistic ignores usage thereby exaggerating in favour of rail by a multiplier of 17.  Secondly, system-wide, including trespassers but not suicides 50% more people per passenger-mile die on the national rail network than on the comparable motorway and trunk road system.
It is because of that and other similarly overwhelming misrepresentation that the Government has committed subsidy of £100 billion to rail over 20 years, equivalent to £4,000 for every household in the land at a time when half of us use a train less than once a year and when the better off use rail 5 times as much as the poor.
If the same arises in other vectors then small wonder that the nation’s policies are a disaster.
Paul F Withrington Director

HIGH SPEED RAIL

Your leader of 27th supports Government expenditure on capital projects.  The problem is picking projects that actually benefit the nation.  In that context you canvass for high-speed rail.  The £30 billion (or more) required for the London to Edinburgh line amounts to £1,200 in taxes for every household in the land.  However, (a) The project is never likely to cover its operating costs let alone repay capital (b) rail is used 5 times as much by the better off as by the poor – why on earth should we subsidise the rich (c) half of us use a train less than once a year.
Far better to use that vast sum investing in an industry that may yield a financial return.  To do otherwise is to risk bankrupting the nation, supposing we are not already bust because of poor use of taxpayers money down the years.

SPEED IS NOT TO BLAME

Prior to 2000 (before any substantial effect from the current generation of speed cameras and road safety polices could take effect) deaths per year were falling at nearly double the rate that has arisen since that year. Indeed had previous trends continued there would have been 500 fewer deaths in 2007 than actually occurred. Despite that the authorities continue to claim that the cameras have saved lives. That claim is made on the basis that the cameras have reduced accidents at the camera sites themselves.

The authorities are also responsible for embedding in the public mind that speeding (narrowly defined as breaking the speed limit) is a significant cause (e.g. 30%) of road accidents when the DfT and TRL data shows that speeding is recorded in an insignificant proportion of accidents.

Not only do the facts of the case undermine the credibility of the authorities but those policies have led to the prosecution of millions, the overwhelming majority of which will have been driving sensible for the conditions. Consequently there is large scale resentment and many people have concluded that the official line has little or no basis.

Against that background it is scarcely surprising that 85% of those surveyed by The Times are hostile to average speed cameras. Those cameras may well be effective on dual carriageways, but the prospect of their general use, and the imposition of unrealistically low speed limits, is to be resisted. Far better to concentrate on education designed to develop mature and deferential driving behaviour.

After all, treat people like idiots and they will behave like idiots but treat them as responsible and they will behave with responsibility.

Paul Withrington (Director)

Published 17th November 2008SPEED AND ITS EFFECT ON SOCIETY

Mr Duckworth says I made “several errors” in my analysis of speed. firstly, I “use crash statistics alone as a measure of the effect of speeding on society”. I protest – my letter had nothing to do with that. Instead I pointed out that since 2000 the rate at which deaths had been declining has halved, despite the cameras and all that they are supported by. Secondly Mr Duckworth talks of “speed”, which must of course be a factor in 100% of accidents. In contrast I was at pains to point out that “speeding” (defined as breaking the speed limit) accounts for a trivial proportion of the recorded causes.

In any event, the collapse of the beneficial trend that has smitten us since the introduction of today’s policies makes it difficult to portray the current punitive approach as a success.

Paul Withrington (Director)

21st August 2008EUROSTAR PLATFORMS - RAIL RAGE

Nigel Harris (21st Aug), in response to George Franks’ irritation (14th Aug) provides, the reason for the Eurostar platforms at Waterloo remaining out of use, namely the incredible inflexibility of the steel wheel/steel rail combination. 

In that context, London’s crushed surface rail commuters may like to know that in the peak hour they are sufficient to occupy only one seventh of the network’s capacity if it were pave and if all those passengers were seated in (75-seat) express coaches.  Hence, even in the peak hour that great network is, in highway terms, substantially disused.  Outside the peak it is a place of dreams.  The roads, meanwhile, are clogged with traffic.

Paul F Withrington (for Transport Watch).

Note for editor.

In the morning peak hour circa 250,000 passengers enter central London by surface rail.  There are at least 25 pairs of tracks.  Hence the average flow per track is 10,000.  The 10,000 could all sit in 133 75-seat coaches leaving over 10% of seats empty.  The width required by a train is the same as the width as the motorway lane needed by an express coach.  Such a lane has the capacity to carry 1,000 coaches per hour, 7.5 times the average flow of 133 here calculated (Chelsea viaduct carries in excess of 2,000 vehicles per hour)….

At Waterloo there are 4 inbound tracks.  There are circa 50,000 inbound passengers in the am peak hour.  If all of them were seated in 75-seat coaches 670 would suffice.  They would not even fill one of those inbound tracks if the network were paved.

Doubt that and go look at the contra flow bus lane serving the Lincoln Tunnel, New York.  It carries 700 45-seat coaches in the peak hour providing over 30,000 seats in one lane 11 feet wide.

To see the waste in London go to http://www.transwatch.co.uk/londons-rail-network.htm

5TH July 2008ROAD CASH STEETS AHEAD OF RAIL

Helen Nugent points out (5th July) that since the year 2002 road expenditure has increased by 60% but that subsidy to rail has increased by only 10%.

Government grant and loans to rail may average £5 billion per year for the 20 years to 2015.  That is equivalent an annual taxes of £200 for every household in the land at a time when rail accounts for only 7% of passenger miles and 2% of trips.  Indeed rail is used less than once a year by half the population and 5 times as much by the better off as by the poor.

By way of comparison, the motorway and Trunk road network carries 5 times as many passenger miles as does the rail network whilst expenditure amounted to only £3.1 billion in 2006/7 compared with taxes levied of £16 billion.

That data suggests that something very odd has happened in the minds of those who believe rail should have more cash than the roads.

NOTES

The source for the £3.1 billion is table 1.1 of transport Statistics Great Britain.

The total taxes including VAT on cars and all motor services etc is circa £50 billion annually.  32% of vehicles miles are on the motorway and trunk road network.  Hence the tax take attributable to that is £16 billion.

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30th June 2008HIGH SPEED RAIL

Railway enthusiasts are cheering at the prospect of 5 new high speed lines and regret that the Treasury is said to be lukewarm on the idea.  Thank goodness it is.  After all the cost would exceed £100 billion, none of which would ever be recovered from the fare box.  That is equivalent to £4,000 in taxes from every household in the land.  The resultant toy would do nothing to reduce road congestion (half of all car journeys are less than 4.3 miles long, 90% are less than 20 miles long).  Furthermore the facility would be used by the rich at least 5 times as much as by the poor, or at least that is the case with normal rail.

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28th June 2008CHEERS FOR DRIVING DOWN ROAD DEATHS?

Your leader writer on 27th cheered the “driving down” of road deaths.  Has he not noticed that since the introduction of the present punitive regime the rate of decline in road deaths has greatly reduced.  E.g. Over the 12 year period to 2000 that decline averaged 3.5%.  The comparable annual decline to the 9 year period to 2007 is 2.1%.
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29th May 2008ALTERNATIVES FOR A RISE IN FUEL PRICES
In the Times on 17th October 1972, Dan Pettit, when Chairman National Freight corporation wrote, “the way the environmentalists in particular talk about the railways reminds me of the tale about the king’s clothes. It is an exercise in mass self-delusion”. Today the idea that transferring freight to rail can be a solution to fuel price rises (Letters 29th, Milne and Mr Duncan) is equally misplaced. 

Firstly only 12% of (road plus rail) freight is by rail.  Secondly, we find that if the national rail function were discharged by express coaches and lorries on uncongested rights of way the energy consumption would be reduced by 25% and carbon emissions likewise. Furthermore (a) the prospect improving the fuel consumption of road vehicles is real while for trains it is illusory (b) road vehicles may very well use renewables every bit as effectively as may trains.

Lastly, reference Mr Duncan’s plea for evening passenger services to run alongside freight trains, freight trains honk all night because there is no track capacity during the day, despite the network carrying the equivalent of an entirely trivial 300 buses plus lorries per day per track.  Even in Central London and in the peak hour the network is, in highway terms, scarcely used.

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The Government should tackle road congestion
The first paragraph of the following  was published in The Times on 11th May 2008.

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The most unnecessary jams are at junctions.  At those critical points the dash for road safety has led to channelisation schemes etc. that have greatly reduced capacity.  Those “improvements” are supported by endless speed humps and the camera campaign.  Despite that, the previous steady decline in road deaths has collapsed. That is because these policies have sabotaged the development of mature driver behaviour – the slogan “Treat people like idiots and they will behave like idiots” springs to mind. 

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Simultaneously there was, and is, the daft idea that people could be persuaded out of their cars onto buses and trains.  That overlooks the obvious, namely, the car has enabled a dispersed land use that is generally impossible to serve by bus let alone the train.

Even worse, over 20 years we will spend £100 billion of taxpayers’ money on the railways. That system is used by half the population less than once a year and by rich folk rather than the poor.  To the astonishment of many, even in central London and in the peak hour, the network is, in highway terms, scarcely used.

The plain fact is that the only way of providing the roads that the nation needs at reasonable cost is to pave this vast Victorian rail system.  All London’s crushed surface rail commuters would then have seats in express coaches at one quarter the cost of the train and countless other vehicles would divert from the unsuitable city streets that they now clog.

Unfortunately sentimentality is likely to prevent that.  Instead we will have even more jam tomorrow whilst millions of drivers will be prosecuted for exceeding unrealistic speed limits.

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1st May 2008Motoring taxes now need a radical rethink
This letter, published under the above heading, followed a major series of articles in the Times that reported the Government’s intention to tax vehicle according to their size.  That policy is under much criticism from all sides.  Our letter was the lead on May 1st.

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If the Government is keen to reduce congestion and emissions it should abolish road tax and VAT on motor vehicles and transfer the same to fuel (report April 30th). 
That would mimic congestion charging to an extent, encourage the purchase of fuel efficient vehicles and discourage use.  In contrast taxing large cars will bear on those who legitimately need a large vehicle.  Probably this misguided policy is drive by the politics of envy rather than anything else.  (the campaign against “Chelsea Tractors” for instance).  In any event the effect on emissions will be microscopic.

Hydrogen and electric powered nonsense

Ben Webster’s article of 16th pretends that hydrogen powered vehicles would be pollution free.  Professor Reuben, 23rd, points out that the energy required to manufacture hydrogen exceeds that delivered. What else do we need to hear before consigning hydrogen power to the sillies basket.  Well, once the hydrogen is delivered to an internal combustion engine, at best 40% of the energy released will be converted to useful power.

Christine Buckley 23rd reports that there are to be “green” electric powered taxis in London. Do these people not realize that electrical energy can never, or almost never, be pollution free?  Indeed an increase in electricity demand may prolong the life of coal fired power stations, whose carbon emissions are double the present average for the UK generating industry – far worse than diesel engines.

13th April 2008Letters Editor The Times 1 Pennington Street London E98 1TA -

Rail expansion

A rational man can only read Ben Webster’s account of the proposed expansion of the rail network with despair (Times of 11th April).  The plain fact is, rail is beggaring the nation.  Subsidy for the 20 years to 2015 is likely to top £100 billion.  That amounts to £4,000 for every household in the land at a time when half the population uses a train less than once a year.  Furthermore those from households in the top quintile of income travel five times as far by rail as do those from households in either of the bottom two quintiles.  Why on earth should we subsidise rich folk?

Now we have Jim Steer and others canvassing for tens of billions of pounds to be spent on three 200 mph rail links.  Together those may cost a further £(50-100) billion.  Cost benefit analyses for two, said to cost £31 billion, pretend that the proposals would produce £63 billion of benefits.  However that analysis erroneously counts fares as benefits (when they are actually transfer payments) and includes the “regenerative” effect on Northern cities.  The latter may benefit far more if given the cash directly and even more if tax were generally reduced so that the market, instead of schoolboy thinking, may drive the economy. If such proposals are not viable in purely financial terms then they should not be built.  Any other approach will leave the taxpayer paying for fairy gold for ever and ever.

In this context it is salutary to look at the modal split of the longer distance journeys.  National Travel survey data for the years 2004-2006 shows that in the range 250-350 miles 72% of trips are by car, 8% by bus and 14% by rail leaving 5% to air.  For journeys longer than 350 miles 42% or trips were by car and 39% by air, leaving a trivial 10% to the train and 4% to the express coach.  If at immense cost to the taxpayer some of the air travellers transferred to rail the effect on global emissions would be almost impossible to measure.

Bah – go look at the fares.

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1st April 2008PARKING

Illegal parking is perhaps the only offence where the perpetrator is not liable.  Instead it is the vehicle owner.  Surely that is contrary to human rights let alone the ordinary expectation of justice.

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1st April 2008CHANCE OF DYING BY ROAD AND RAIL.

Ben Webster (in the Times) on 26th reported that there is a 1 in 200 chance of being killed in a road crash compared with a 1 in 65,000 chance of being killed by a train.  That juxtaposition of numbers is entirely misleading.  Firstly, the rail number ignores trespassers, staff, postal workers and people on railway business.  When those people are taken into account (suicides excepted) at least 150 people die on the railways annually. With 60 million people that equates to a one in 5,300 chance of being killed on the railways over a 75 year lifetime, 12 times less than the reported number. Secondly, rail carries one seventeenth of the passenger load carried by the roads.  Hence, for comparative purposes, the 5,300 should be divided by 17.  That yields 313.  The corresponding value for road is 250 (not 200). 

Indeed, the all-in deaths per passenger-mile by rail (suicides excepted) is 50% above that on the motorway and trunk road system.  If pedestrians, cyclists and people on motorbikes are excluded from the latter on the grounds that they are seldom met with on railway alignments, the number widens to a factor of two in favour of road.

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1st April 2008COST OF DELAYS and USAGE

It has recently been reported that delays on the railways cost one billion pounds per year.  That amounts to 3.7 pence per passenger mile.  In it is said that congestion on the road system costs £(15-20) billion annually.  That corresponds to between 3.2 and 4.3 pence per passenger-km.

The rail network is, in highway terms, almost completely empty. Even in central London and in the peak hour there are sufficient passengers to fill only one seventh of the network’s capacity if it were paved and express coaches replaced the trains. How many volumes does that speak of?

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21st Feb 2008NOTHING WRONG WITH TRAMS published 

In 1949 the trams were seen as an embarrassment to the capital’s post-war planners. In that year Lord Latham, chairman of the London Transport Executive, delivered a speech outlining the plans for the tramways conversion programme in which he stated “the loss on the trams is about £1,000,000 per year” equivalent to £25 million at today’s prices.

There is of course nothing wrong with a tram apart from the fact that it takes three times as long to stop as a bus, costs four times as much, offers little or no routing flexibility and has a fraction of the capacity (provided the bus enjoys a right of way free of congestion).

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17th Jan 2008HUGE RISE IN CONGESTION

The rise in traffic over the decade no doubt contributes to congestion but often the greater factor is the deliberate reduction in capacity at critical points across the network, namely the road junctions.  There fashionable channelisation schemes ensure that the major turning movements are congested leaving empty lanes for the minor ones.  Instead of that, lanes should have been added to the approaches to junctions, wherever possible, and the motorist left with the responsibility of making best use of the road space available.  If that were implemented now many of the queues would vanish.

Meanwhile the Government had the ludicrous idea that congestion may be solved by increasing bus and train use.  With only 6% of passenger miles by train and 10% by bus it is a matter of simple arithmetic that large changes to those percentages could lead to only a trivial change in car use.  Furthermore, trains and most buses serve town centres where parking is not available and where congestion makes the use of the car unattractive.  Hence, if it is those train and bus journeys that have increased the impact on journeys by car to other places and indeed to town centres will have been close to zero.  Instead subsidy may have encouraged people to travel who may otherwise not have done so.

6th Jan 2008LEVEL PLAYING FIELDS

Mr Crick (5th Jan) calls for a level playing field between road and rail.  Well, if rail’s annual maintenance cost is divided by the passenger-km or tonne-km or the sum of both the unit costs obtained are more than three times those for maintaining the strategic road network.  If the costs of “renewals”, representing capital expenditure for rail, and capital for roads are added the unit costs of rail are some six times those for the strategic road network. 

Furthermore, road users as a whole contribute £50 billion annually to the exchequer of which some £9 billion is spent on roads. If the tax take, net of expenditure, is apportioned according to vehicle miles then the Strategic Road network contributes £13 billion annually. Network Rail receives annual subsidy of £5 billion (including loans guaranteed by the Government). In return it carries only 6% of the nation’s passenger-miles and 12% of freight. 

Without that subsidy rail would vanish overnight.  The 10,000 miles long network would then find a use as a system of reserved motor roads, all London’s surface rail commuters would have seats in express coaches sufficient to occupy only one seventh of the network’s capacity, costs would be cut by a factor of four, fuel consumption and carbon emissions would be reduced, and death rates halved.  Many thousands of lorries and other vehicles would divert from the unsuitable city streets and rural roads that they now burden, bringing untold environmental benefits, and endless derelict railway land would at last be developed.

3RD January 2008WHY WE AREN’T FURIOUS ABOUT OUR RAILWAYS

“When trains are still the theme of nursery rhymes and children’s stories, it is small wonder that the railways have a romantic fascination for most adults.  Only years of nursery conditioning can explain the calm with which the public has accepted a bill of £3,000 millions (£34 bn at 2007 prices) to subsidise British Rail over the last decade”.   So wrote Francis Caincroft when Economics Correspondent to The Guardian in April 1974. 

Then as now for at a time when half of us use a train less than once a year, when only 6% of passenger miles go by rail, when half of all rail journeys are less than 20 miles long (90% are less than 80 miles), when even in the peak hour all London’s crushed surface rail commuters would find seats in express coaches occupying only one seventh of the network’s capacity if it were paved, when such a change would reduce fuel consumptions and emissions while halving the annual deaths, all at one quarter the cost of the train, when countless lorries and other vehicles could then divert from the unsuitable city streets and rural roads that they currently burden, when in those circumstances the nation congratulates itself upon committing £5 billion per year every year for 20 years (£100 billion for the 20 years) to this 19th century system - a system that may be brought to a complete standstill by a heap of earth or a child’s prank -  then it is clear that the nation has indeed lost its head more or less permanently, at least in this vector.

Instead of directing anger at “the railways” it is those who have advised successive Governments that deserve condemnation for it they who, in the words of Stuart Joy, chief economist to British Railways in the 1960’s, are prepared “cynically to accept the rewards of high office in return for the unpalatable task of Tricking the Government on a mammoth scale.  Those men”, Joy wrote, “were either fools or knaves”.

To compound this madness there are calls to “fine Network Rail”, instead of those responsible, so that, no doubt, taxpayers may pay again……….

8th December 2007Speed cameras

I was shocked to find Robin Cummins for the RAC, writing on 7th, that speeding causes three times as many accidents as drink-driving.  That appears to bear no relationship to the facts at least as published in the DfT paper Contributory factors to road accidents.  There, and in Table 2 speeding, meaning breaking the speed limit, was recorded as a “contributory factor” in 12% of fatal accidents, 7% of serious accidents, 4% of slight accidents and in 5% of all injury accidents.  The corresponding numbers for alcohol are 9%, 8%, 5% and 5%.

Both sets of members ignore the fact that in most accidents there is more than one cause.  When that is taken into account “speeding” amounts to 6% of contributory factors in fatal accidents, 4% in serious accidents, 2.3% in slight accidents and 2.8% in all injury accidents.

The basis for the often cited but erroneous statistic that speeding causes 30% of accidents is twofold;  firstly there is the incorrect addition to “speeding” of a collection of other contributory factors broadly contained by the phrase “going to fast for the conditions” and secondly the failure to appreciate that in most accidents there will be more than one contributory factor.  In reality “speeding” as a contributory factor is below the 3% level for all injury accidents or ten times lower than commonly believed.

2nd November 2007RAIL OVERCROWDING

Francis Caincroft, when Economics Correspondent  to the Guardian, wrote, on 29th April in 1974,  “when trains are still the theme of nursery rhymes and children’s stories, it is small wonder that the railways have a romantic fascination for most adults.  Only years of nursery conditioning can explain the calm with which the public has accepted a bill of £3,000 millions (£35bn at June 2007 prices) to subsidise British Rail over the last decade”.

Of course matters are now much improved.  After all, since 1995 the tax payer has spent £69 billion, at June 2007 prices on the system and another £30 billion is proposed by 2014, providing a magnificent total of £99 billion.  That is equivalent to £4,000 for every household in the land at a time when half of us use a train less than once a year and when those from households in the top quintile of income travel four and a half times as far by rail as do those from either of the bottom two quintiles.

One obvious answer to overcrowding is to balance supply and demand by price.

Meanwhile, London’s crushed rail commuters may like to know that they would all find seats at one quarter the cost in a fleet of 75-seat coaches and that those coaches would occupy one seventh of the capacity available, if the rights of way were paved. Outside the peak the network is a place of dreams – surrounded by city streets clogged with unsuitable traffic. The cost conversion, on a grand scale, is perhaps £15 billion shorn of VAT and optimism bias.