With our railways being over crowded, how can the government get us to use more public transport?

Question

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/2193491/Commuters-get-less-space-than-farm-animals.html

A recent study has found that at peak times, people are crammed into trains in conditions that would be illegal if they were cattle. With this in mind, what can the government do to make public transport better?

Answer 1

Just a general remark - for me to use the bus more it would have to stop being £2 to go one stop on it !! 50p, or even £1 would be more reasonable.

Answer 2

There are two options:

1) Expand the number of rails.

2) Increase the speed of trains.

America was the first country to have high speed rails. It knew 50 years ago that  high speed rails is the only way to deal with population growth.

Answer 3

There would be no major problem in adding carriages.   The problem is that private enterprise is more into maximising profits.    The railway network should be renationalised.

Answer 4

If you bother to read the news in the last week you will see that the UK government are planning to spend billions on building new lines.

Answer 5

alan has it spot on! The only thing that the government can do to get people to use public transport is.........oh thats right, they can't do anything as it was all deregulated and sold of for short term profit resulting in a long term loss for the country!

If the country bought back the railways and services and brought back British Rail then maybe they would put some extra coaches on the trains. Lets face it, if you were running a train from point A to B and could make more profit by carrying 20 fewer people but using fewer coaches on the train then you would wouldn't you? You're not going to make LESS profit for the sake of 20 people and everyone's comfort and safety!!!

Anyone would think that the train and bus companies in this country are there to serve the public and provide them with the best quality service possible!!!!

Answer 6

In truth our railways here in UK have always been over crowded - we are in fact a railway mad nation.

I'm not sure what the UK.gov can do to improve things.  Most mainlines are at full capacity most of the time so there's little chance of cramming more trains on.  

The London Tube and the Paris Metro are over subscribed at peak times - nothing we can do about that but crowd in and put up with it.

EuroStar is about the best train service we've got at the moment.  Reason - every passenger is assigned a carriage number and a seat number - it's on their ticket.  No one is allowed to travel without a seat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoYIwXkma...

Untill you go on the EuroStar you just cannot believe how quick and easy it all is.

My first trip out was last Sunday - we raced to the coast and through the tunnel and were roaring across the par de Calais in about 1 hour from St.Pancs - arrivee Paris 2.10 mins - brilliant.

Why don't we simply apply the same rules to InterCity as are aplied to EuroStar - every ticket is assigned a seat, no over selling no cramming etc.???

Answer 7

A very simple solution to the overcrowding on trains would be to have more carriages on trains during peak times and less carriages at off-peak times.

A more important question to ask is how can a train be classed as being 'on time' even when its 10 minutes late!

Answer 8

Start by getting in some professionals for a change to engineer the thing and have a good look at nations who are less developed, with more people, longer distances to travel yet manage to do a better job i,e: China, Japan, India and wonder why with the high education standard we have in the UK they cant seem to squeeze one of these highly trained people into working for the benefit of our own nation.

Answer 9

The only possible options for more or better public transport are 1) more trains/trams or 2) more buses. All the major cities would benefit from their own Underground railway systems but it's probably too late or would be too expensive to implement from scratch in most places.I am slightly pessimistic about the extent to which public transport can be expanded.Not because I dislike the idea as such.It's just that most public transport seems to involve more buses which I think misses the point.

Answer 10

Why do we have a rush hour? Why do we have to travel to work at all when much of it could be done at home? At peak times the railways are crowded. They were in the eighties as well: that's nothing new. Most of the time they are not crowded. All we have to do is get rid of the nine-to-five culture. And it would help if people got off their arses and walked two or three miles instead of taking a bus, tube or train.

Answer 11

The government could actually approve the building of high speed rail between the most demanding cities.

Then it could re-nationalize the railways; sort it out; then semi-privatize them.

Answer 12

Tarmac over the train tracks and turn them into roads for coaches and buses running on biofuels to use.

trains are out of date 19th century technology.