MYSTERY BUYER DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
BBT’S MYSTERY BUYER SAYS TRAIN TRAVEL’S CLAIMS OF COMPETING WITH AIR ON BUSINESS TRIPS JUST DON’T ADD UP…
TRAIN OPERATORS CONSTANTLY COMPARE their performance to airlines, but air- lines measure emissions per flight and aircraft type. Yet I’ve never seen that from any rail company – though they variously claim to be anything from 25 per cent to 200 per cent more efficient than air travel. I’ve tried to clarify this with people in the rail sector, but had no reply – my suspicion is that they don’t know: they just take random numbers and hope no one is going to investigate. In their green arguments, rail operators
never take into account infrastructure. A lot of track was put down in Victorian times and it takes considerable maintenance and energy to run a station, but they never factor the cost of that into their argument; and there are many more railway stations than airports. Another claim is that rail travel is growing
‘very fast’ – one aggregator quotes 32 per cent growth. But it seems to be growing fast in the business sector. Whereas previously companies once had to go to the station and buy a ticket, or use
Thetrainline.com or other websites, they can now book using online booking tools or via the GDSs [global distri- bution systems]. As a result, rail operators can now distinguish between the business and leisure segments of the market. They’re claim- ing ridiculously high increases in business travel because it’s gone from nowhere (can’t recognise it) to measurable (can recognise it). I travel up to London, from Basingstoke
to Waterloo, for meetings, and there is often a 12-coach train that’s barely 10-20 per cent occupied at non-peak times. Rail companies seem to be unable to alter timetables, in response to demand or to reconfigure trains. Airlines, on the other hand, respond to demand all the time. During the Air France strike, British Airways switched their French flights from A319s to A320s or 321s to provide more seats – because they knew the demand would be there. Rail companies seem unable to do that. I’m comparing rail operators with the airline industry because that’s what they are always doing – but airlines are much more adaptable than rail companies.
40 BBT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014
can fly from London City to Edinburgh in about two-and-a-quarter hours, with normal check-in time and so on. By train it is getting on for five hours. And you could definitely do a day return to a meeting travelling by air, but it would be impossible to do the same by train; plus you would have to add on the cost of a hotel, an evening meal and more. All of which adds to the ‘green’ cost as well. And the cost of rail travel is huge compared
Rail never factors the cost of infrastructure into its argument
Rail companies always say they offer a
door-to-door service, and that you don’t have to queue to get on board – but if you’re on a connecting service from Brighton to Edin- burgh via King’s Cross, there is a lot of waiting around. Plus, we don’t all start in London, and if you are travelling from Brighton or Portsmouth to Edinburgh by train, you have to go through the capital. The quickest time from London to Edinburgh is four-and-a-half hours, and it takes at least one-and-a-half hours from Brighton to King’s Cross so, giving yourself a minimum extra half-hour in case of delays (and that’s really risking it) that would take at least six-and-a-half hours. A rail company recently claimed that it took only an hour longer by rail than by air from London to Edinburgh, a route they love to quote. There is no way that is true, even factoring in Heathrow or Gatwick. I wrote to said company pointing this out and didn’t get a response. I worked out you
to air. My investigations show it is generally less expensive per trip to fly within Britain rather than taking the train. I did a compari- son recently and it was £150 cheaper to fly from London City to Edinburgh than to go by rail from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. If we had been able to fly from Luton or Stansted, it would have been cheaper still.
ONLINE COMMENTS
BBC Scotland compared travel time, including check-ins and transfers, for a journey between the Scottish Parliament and Westminster by plane and train: they found that flying was no quicker than the train...
These arguments are based on data which has been cherry picked to fit the hypothesis. Government data for rail shows quite clearly that the number of journeys per annum has doubled in the past ten years – and continues to grow.
Re: Victorian infrastructure – I don’t see plane emissions taking into account the building of runways, terminals and all the other support services. Clearly a case of trying to compare apples with oranges.
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
Illustration: Ben Southan
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