Interesting District/H&C service 6 July

[gantshill]

I had an unexpected direct train from East Putney to Euston Square this morning.
The train left East Putney at about 8.15am.
When we were approaching Edgware Road, the driver announced that the train would not be terminating at Edgware Road, so we should ignore the announcements telling us to leave the train. We arrived in platform 1, and after a few moments it was announced as a Hammersmith & City line train to Barking.
The train reached Euston Square at bout 8.50am

While we were at Edgware Road, I noticed a Wimbledon train in platform 2.

It made for a more convenient morning journey.

[castlebar]

Instead of dreaming up new names for lines (which will do nothing but cost shedloads of money and confuse "customers"), more inventive route diagrams could be considered.
I note that in Paris, "loop" services are becoming popular which cuts dwell time considerably. But 'out of the box' thinking isn't appreciated here.
It's easier to sit at a desk and discuss new line names that the public will not want. We need planners that actually think about what they're planning. A novelty in this environment.

[d7666]

Jul 6, 2023 20:31:03 GMT castlebar said:

We need planners that actually think about what they're planning. A novelty in this environment.

We need planners that actually think about travel on what they're planning. A novelty in this environment.

[roythebus]

We need planners who don't come from a supermarket or marketing background.

[spsmiler]

In the era of some trains skipping stations there was a District Line timetable planner who planned a service to depart from St James Park station at a time that was convenient for him to catch at the end of the the working day which skipped 'quite a few' of the stations that were sometimes passed-through non-stop ... so that he had an easier and faster journey home.

Imagine that happening today??

[d7666]

Jul 7, 2023 13:54:13 GMT spsmiler said:

an easier and faster journey home.

Imagine that happening today??

Today there is a sort of similarity with one main line working - at least by popular rumour - 1F46 17:52 Liverpool Street - Witham - a.k.a. the "Priti Patel Express" .

Digression, guilty as charged.

[jimbo]

Back to O.P., in a cycle of trains there are two from High Street that terminate at Edgware Road and two from Hammersmith through. This leaves room for two trains from the Met main through to the City. It might be convenient to continue District line trains through to the east, but this would require a Hammersmith service to shuttle to Edgware Road which would be much less efficient with reversal time each end for a short run time.

[castlebar]

Jul 7, 2023 20:03:05 GMT jimbo said:

Back to O.P., in a cycle of trains there are two from High Street that terminate at Edgware Road and two from Hammersmith through. This leaves room for two trains from the Met main through to the City. It might be convenient to continue District line trains through to the east, but this would require a Hammersmith service to shuttle to Edgware Road which would be much less efficient with reversal time each end for a short run time.

I disagree. It requires intelligent thinking "back to the drawing board".
For surface stock I'd tear it (the map) up and start again. And I'd employ 'outside the box thinking', which is lacking.
Don't worry about "confusing customers". We had all that with the tea cup idea and people got used to it,
AND,
changing line names that have been known to travellers for 100 years will be even more confusing than changing route diagrams.

[notverydeep]

Jul 8, 2023 8:52:58 GMT castlebar said:

I disagree. It requires intelligent thinking "back to the drawing board".
For surface stock I'd tear it (the map) up and start again. And I'd employ 'outside the box thinking', which is lacking.
Don't worry about "confusing customers". We had all that with the tea cup idea and people got used to it,
AND,
changing line names that have been known to travellers for 100 years will be even more confusing than changing route diagrams.

Plenty of planners start their career sure that they can recast their particular transport network with new 'outside the box' thinking (I am sure I did). After all this forum has two sub forums dedicated to posting ideas to do just that. They soon realise that the opportunity to deploy the crayons are rare and that their job is to find the best compromise within the constraints and to help the network adapt to those constraints over time. This isn't to say that new links cannot be added (and new orbital rail routes would certainly be a good thing), but it won't have escaped your notice how much resource has to be used to mitigate the impact on those who lose out when they are. The HS2 route out of London is a case in point, where the new line will be tunneled including in areas it could plausibly be on the surface with little demolition on a currently lightly used corridor.

As the 'Tea Cup' reconfiguration of the Circle line in 2009 itself illustrates where there is a very good case, reconfiguration of services can be contemplated. Many people lost out, because they now need to interchange taking extra time and inconvenience, but a larger group of people gained more from the extra (near doubled) service to Hammersmith and gained from a level of reliability that a 'loop' service, with no terminus layover opportunity lacked. However, options are constrained by capacity of the infrastructure constructed by Victorian engineers and their successors. Any train arriving at Edgware Road must either terminate or have a path through Baker Street towards Kings Cross. If one is added, a train from Hammersmith or a Metropolitan line train must be removed, causing those passengers to lose out by having to wait longer and at peak times travel in a more crowded train. This means that the benefits of the new service must outweigh the downsides to those who lose out.

It is not just a matter of the benefit being greater. Over time, the population of London chose where to live around the transport links they need to connect themselves with their place of work or other routine destinations. For this reason there are establish patterns of travel that match the current service patterns. This builds in 'inertia' that will tend to favour the existing situation as these journeys will be disrupted by change. This will mean that change has to have considerable additional benefit to meet this threshold (which was the case with the 'Tea Cup').

Having identified the necessary extra benefits of their scheme, the planner will need to demonstrate to those to whom they are accountable the benefit is sufficiently worthwhile to offset all of the disadvantages and costs. In this case the planner will be accountable to their directors, who in turn are accountable to the Mayor, who in their turn are accountable to voters. Large groups of people who will lose out from a service change will protest about it and may organise efforts to prevent it by influencing those to whom the planner is accountable. They will want to know that the proposal is good value for the use of public funds. The politician (of whatever party) overseeing the transport authority will want to be sure that the change will not upset large numbers of the voters they depend on to get elected.

I have worked as a Transport Planner for a fair number of years. To date, I am unaware of any single incidence of my colleagues doing anything other than using the public transport network to get to work or travel around Central London (driving to a Central(ish) London office with two rarely used disabled driver parking spaces would be insane). Nor have any of my colleagues had any involvement in what names should be assigned to any given route. I'm sure the organisation employs people with the right skills, knowledge and experience to consider that issue, but they are not in Transport Planning roles. I doubt there are to many who have either marketing experience or qualifications, but supermarket logistics experience might well be helpful, particularly if it were alongside other experience in public transport...