Loco

One of the major challenges facing Loco2 is persuading people that travelling by train should not be judged purely by the often hellish experiences endured on the UK rail network.

In December 2006 I returned back from travelling around Europe (and a bit of Russia) by train. After a brilliant trip, it was depressing enough having to move back in with my parents and start temping in an inane job in order to get back on my feet financially, but what made it worse is that within three weeks of starting to commute by train (a fifteen minute journey into Oxford) I had been delayed more than during four months of extensive train travel on the continent. It wasn’t even clear who to complain to: First Great Western? Network Rail? ATOC? The Government? Capitalism?

The ridiculous complexity of British train travel is pretty staggering, so when I started to read how other European countries run their networks I felt a glimmer of hope.

In Germany, the rail network is run by one semi-public company – Deutsche Bahn – and the simplicity of this arrangement leads to much more efficient operation than we see in the UK. Instead of different private companies running different parts of the network, DB are able to treat all customers the same and give straightforward offers to frequent travellers such as the BahnCard. There are three types available, and each of them applies to the whole national network, as well as giving discounts on travel outside Germany.

What is interesting about the approach Deutsche Bahn are taking is not just that it makes working out the financials of your day-to-day travel a lot more straightforward, but that they are starting to push the boundaries when it comes to utilising technology to promote a more logical approach to integrating different modes of transport.

Here’s an account from Philippe, who uses the Bahn 100 card:

“The core product of course is local and long distance railway service (including high speed train service up to 300 km/h) at a flat rate of approx. 800 US Dollars per month (1st Class) and half of that (400 US Dollars) for Coach Class service, meaning one can use all train services in Germany all the time for one flat rate per month. The product also includes free local public transportation in about 100 major German cities”.

This means that in addition to the train system I can use the local buses, subways, metros and street cars for as much as I want. In addition there is a Car-Sharing and a Bike-Sharing product integrated in the service. I can get to a city by train and jump straight into a car at that train station (sometimes the car is parked right next to the train platform I arrive) with the swipe of my customer card on an hourly basis (actually it is even charged in 15 minute increments). I don’t have to fuel the car and I just return it where I got it. Much easier/more economic and more convenient than renting a car for a day at my destination. I only do this if no public transportation gets me to my final destination.

The same concept is available in major cities with bikes only here the bike can be dropped off anywhere in the city. I have not tried this option yet. The service also includes business lounge access at all major railway stations. When I have to haul heavy things for personal use I also use the Car-Sharing option in my home town. I guess this is a tiny bit of a personal car still left in me.

As well as this, Deutsche Bahn offer a journey-planning tool for installation on your mobile. Here’s Philippe again:

“Until recently I did all my travel planning in advance and it was a bit cumbersome at times to print out the schedules the evening before and if I changed plans I had to obtain new schedules. But this changed. I now use a Navigation System which is installed on my mobile telephone.

It basically works like a car navigation system but all routing is done by taking all possible means of public transportation into consideration. Small pedestrian walks are being included with a map and the route is constantly being updated based on current developments in the route. It really works like a car navigation system only that I can sit back relax, read a book or work on my laptop during the sections of my journey that I am on a train. The gain in time that I would otherwise waste on the road driving a car is tremendous”.

Now before you accuse me of having some sort of underhand deal with Deutsche Bahn (if anyone from Deutsche Bahn is reading I am fully receptive to any such offer), the German rail system is far from perfect. First of all, there is a debate raging in Germany about whether or not Deutsche Bahn should be fully privatised, and it’s hard to make a judgement on how capable a private company would be at continuing to push for the right kinds of technical advances whilst keeping prices low and reliability high for the customer. If the UK is the best example Europe has of a fully privatised rail network then it’s not looking good.

Then there’s the local vs national issue of rail planning. At risk of sounding like even more of a geek than I already do, it’s worth comparing the German and Swiss rail networks. In Switzerland the equivalent network card to the Bahn 100 sells twice as much because of the fact that the Swiss have focused on linking smaller towns and villages instead of simply pushing for high-speed connections between large cities. This approach discourages increasing urbanisation, and emphasises a distributed perspective on travel (fewer busy transport hubs and concentrations of population). Also, the word on the street is that the Swiss literally have 100% of their trains running on time.

So how far away from all this are we in the UK?

Bloody miles. The Train Line has just announced that it will be introducing a ’smartcard’ for travel by 2009, based on ITSO technology. This will basically be like an Oyster card but for national train travel, and you should be able to top it up wit
h similar ease. This sounds like a step in the right direction, but again I’m unsure of how easy it will be to cut through all the crap created by having loads of different companies with millions of different fares.

Much as I hate to say it, the Tories came up with one suggestion in their Quality of Life report that is incredibly sensible:

“We therefore propose that the Rail Regulator should be given a remit to demand the simplification of rail ticket structure, and to insist upon the interoperability of rail tickets as well as integrated timetabling”.

Given that it was Maggie the mad Thatcher and John Major who privatised the railways in the first place, I hope that the Tories can sort it out again.

Anyway, I’m starting to sound like a grumpy old man, so let’s get back to the original point: if you want to have a good train-based experience, go to mainland Europe. That is all.

Many thanks to Philippe for all of the research about German and Swiss railways. If you’d like to read a full account of his experience using the Bahn 100 card, read his comments on this great blog.

Post thumbnail:Mohan S

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