The product of the railways is the timetable
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springbett.substack.com
Pretty soon after the railways were opened to non-state operators, quality of long-distance train routes improved, both by new trains by private operators and increased competition forcing ČD to improve. On regional railways, where the state pays for train operations, costs have gone down thanks to competition. It seems to me like this model can work well, you just need an infrastructure operator that's receptive to its "customers" (which SŽ often isn't), or a political structure that can force them to listen.
German here. Yes, costs have gone down thanks to competition, but at what cost?
IMHO, the cost of "competition" on regionals has been massive. A lot of infrastructure has had to be rebuilt (e.g. maintenance shops), a huge expense and waste of space (think about how long a regional train is - easily 150 meters [1], which means the shop has to be at least that long). Some operators chose to run with old, run-down rolling stock or go for the absolutely cheapest options. Others, and that has happened at least twice in the last few years, calculate their offers to be barely profitable and then a crisis (Covid, Russian invasion and energy cost explosion) hits, forcing the companies into bankruptcy. Cleanliness of trains, regular expulsion of toilets takes a hit as that's a very easy way to save a few hundred euros. In the case of demand surges (e.g. soccer games, Oktoberfest, Karneval), there's no way to ad-hoc add rolling stock and drivers because there are no spares and modern rolling stock isn't compatible with anything other than its specific model and configuration.
And some regional tender processes have gotten even worse, where the state prescribes or outright buys the rolling stock... and suddenly the only way the providers can compete is staffing cost.
Thanks but no thanks, I'd rather like the old system back!
> And some regional tender processes have gotten even worse, where the state prescribes or outright buys the rolling stock... and suddenly the only way the providers can compete is staffing cost.
Sounds pretty bad.
Maybe the problem that you described is German-specific. Over my lifetime, as I visited Germany, I noticed a steady drift towards lower quality in almost all public services, not just trains. As if the German voters just somehow stopped to demand or value quality of governance. IDK why, but it can be seen everywhere. And there is already a visible contrast in public cleanliness and order when you travel, say, from Zurich to Munich. Germany looks like a has-been.
That wasn't the case in the 90s. Back then, the difference between BRD and Schweiz was negligible.
My pet theory is that Merkel's 16 years of sleepy rule was too much. Most politicians need to fear replacement in order to do something. If the nation votes for the same person over and over again, there will be no real political competition.
But IDK how that works on the Länder level.
Isn't this done in an attempt to resolve some of the issues you mentioned?
If you don't want the absolute cheapest old run-down toilet-less rolling stock, the tender has to be quite specific about the minimum requirements the rolling stock is expected to meet. This in turn means an operator switch leaves the new operator having to quickly obtain a bunch of highly-specific rolling stock with the old operator having to get rid of a bunch of now-worthless highly-specific rolling stock.
The logical result is that the old operator sells the rolling stock to the new operator. Or, you have the rolling stock owned by a holding company, who leases it to whoever happens to be operating the tender. Same with the maintenance shops.
So why not cut out the middle man and have the rolling stock and maintenance shop be government-owned? The end result is the same, but it's cheaper for everyone involved.
Looking at graphs with clear improvements on many metrics straight after privatisation, you might think the change would be universally acclaimed. High fives all around. Instead, it's one of the UK's most hated things the government has ever done.
I especially like the almost miraculous recovery in rail's share of passenger transport. Or just the very first graph on the page, that shows the total number of passengers.
This is a classic of metrics driven management, isn't it. Customer satisfaction isn't in the metrics so people stand around saying "well they should be happy!"
Mainly about the cost, but the overcrowding on certain lines and the unreliability are also major factors. Commuters end up using the train because they're more or less forced to - you're not going to drive into rush hour London, and there's nowhere to park; and that's also a matter of policy to get people on the trains for sustainability reasons.
The "playing at shops" market setup exacerbates the problems. Original comment says "costs have gone down due to competition", but since the UK's operators are little regional monopolies they don't actually compete. The operators own neither track nor rolling stock; most of the money flows to the "train landlords", the ROSCOs.
Privatising the track, through "Railtrack" was the big disaster. They cut maintenance, but when you enshittify railways eventually people get killed, and nationalization was inevitable after Hatfield.
> Commuters end up using the train because they're more or less forced to [...]
Rail transport had been losing passenger share. Did the private companies somehow figure out how to 'more or less force' people to take the train? Why couldn't the government rail do that before?
They didn't want to. Privatisation was the era of Thatcher and Major, the discovery of North Sea oil reserves, and of the same general desire to culturally align with US (including car culture) that to the uban design found in Milton Keynes 30 years earlier.
On the other hand, from about the 90s onwards there was a huge increase in London employment relative to the rest of the country, and also a huge (5x or more over that time) house price increase in London. This pushed a lot of people into the commuter belt. and As you basically cannot drive into London from there, those miles can only be provided by rail.
It would be interesting to know how much of the effect is in the South east, and how much is showing labour migration into a rail-centric region after industrial sectors outside the South-east were dynamited in the 80s.
And privatisation does usually have a cycle: influx of cheap capital in a boom phase, followed by a slow ratching squeeze as you struggle to exceed that great initial growth every year thereafter.
London always had the better railway lines anyway, privatisation or not. In particular, radial London commuter lines mostly escaped the Beeching cuts. Post-industrial financialisation in London was the crown jewel of the 90s economic strategy. So it feels (feels/reals alert) unlikely that it was specifically the railways being private that led to the boom, but injecting private investment right then could well have been some grease on the wheels.
Of course every private cash injection comes with the long term squeeze as the initial YoY becomes hard to sustain over decades.
Well, they were first privately built, anyway. At least most of them.
Privatization didn't increase capacity, did it? It certainly didn't build any new lines.
I'm not sure it injected any capital either, subsidy was maintained throughout? Arguably paying dividends while receiving public subsidy has been taking capital out of the system.
> Privatization didn't increase capacity, did it? It certainly didn't build any new lines.
I don't think they privatised the rails themselves, only the trains.
Upthread comment: >[privatisation is] one of the UK's most hated things the government has ever done
In New Zealand, a lot of the political fallout from privatisation came from older people who love trains and talk a lot of crap about how good they are. They are uneconomic in New Zealand, regardless of how efficient people think they should be.
Voters don't like reality (few have any working knowledge of business), and most politics seems to be about finding alternative acceptable ways to present reality to voters.
And why is that?
I think it's probably also correct to say that New Zealand could sustain a larger passenger rail network if made the right investments. For example, Auckland <-> Hamilton <-> Tauranga could profitably support at least a few trains per day in each direction... _if_ it was electrified, with passing loops where needed, and with well-sited stations, and with the ability for trains to run into Britomart or at least Newmarket (both being stations close to central Auckland). However, there's a chicken and egg problem: unless you make investments like that, the service you can offer will be pretty crap and no one will want to ride your slow trains.
Sure, but what does any of that have to do with TOCs? They're badly run, transient shells, which are given money by the government.
It should be illegal for any company to take public subsidy and pay dividends at the same time.
> I don't think they privatised the rails themselves, only the trains.
See the sad history of Railtrack Plc.
They did some fantastic work on high speed trains etc but it was all scrapped
I could tell at the time that they were itching to tell a narrative like yours coz they sent me a survey asking me about every aspect of the service except price and value for money, the one thing I and everybody else who routinely used the service was most furious about.
As a narrative shaping device it does seem to have not been completely wasted though.
https://sma-partner.com/storage/app/media/Dokumente/Netzgraf...
I think the concept of the map is neat (the arrival/departure times let you plan transfers!), but it is way too busy to be practical. It has at the same time too many details to give you a high-level overview, and not enough details for trip planning.
For a general idea a map like [0] would be better: it shows the stations and track layouts, so it gives you a general feeling of where to go. Want to go from Utrecht to Zutphen? You'll have to go either over Arnhem or Amersfoort. Want to go from Amsterdam to Groningen, but there are issues in Zwolle? Yeah, you're screwed.
For planning purposes a map like [1] is better: it shows you the actual services being run, with a vague indication of their frequency. It tells you that an issue in Alphen isn't a big issue for your journey from Utrecht to Leiden, as there are six trains an hour going Utrecht-Schiphol-Leiden. Want to go from Utrecht to Amsterdam? Don't bother planning, there are trains every 5 minutes. Want to go from Den Haag to Groningen? A direct connection is possible - but only once an hour, so don't be late or you risk having to transfer in Zwolle!
But honestly? They are more for nerds than practical use. Transit planner apps are far easier to use, will be more accurate, and provide exactly the information which is relevant to your journey.
[0]: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0e/f9/2b/0ef92b7c4f2cf4d1b0c1...
[1]: https://nieuws.ns.nl/download/c10b58e3-54fc-4577-bf95-931b03...
Building infrastructure for the sake of infrastructure is a good example of being completely out of touch. The problem was there weren't enough trains at the right time to the right places. The bridge builders clearly weren't thinking about that.
In my work this often happens because of the XY problem. People ask for X, but in fact they need Y and X is just their proposed solution. This would be like people asking for a new train from Cambridge to London, but in fact they are really going to Oxford and were only using London to connect.
There are also assumptions that even the most pedantic people don't mention all the time. If people ask for more comfortable seats on trains, they implicitly also mean at the right time. They don't mean a comfortable seat at 2:00 in the morning that takes 3x as long to get there.
I've often thought some kind of daily meditation to remind yourself of what the problems are is useful. There are the "bedrock" problems (like the train timetable) that never change, and there is the specific problem you are trying to solve right now (like connecting Cambridge to Oxford). I think it's worth thinking about it every day lest you lose sight and build the bridge nobody needed.
However, once things go off schedule it can have pretty acute consequences for drivers and operational staff. The timetables are built around having drivers at specific places at specific times who will have required breaks at certain times and a maximum allowable working time. The rolling stock itself needs to be where it's needed as well, it's easy for it to get bunched up behind a track circuit failure etc.
Indeed, here in Singapore during peak hours the trains come even more often. And that's not counting all the trains in a station, just the ones from one metro line that come and go on one platform in one direction.
Every once in a while, they are upgrading the signalling systems, so that they can squeeze even more trains in.
Prior to it, yes, there was international phone lines, but those were still expensive enough you might ignore them.
Before then, I'd say around start of the 90's in Europe, you did not represent yourself being in sync with someone, anyone abroad (but perhaps that started to become conceivable for people who could afford frequent international calls or travel).
And that conditioned how you perceived your own time, the time of others, the events here and over there, and the effort you took into communicating long distance, through letters.
The room I slept in was full of junk, but what caught my eye were envelopes with stamps from the 1950s/1960s. The "From" name was the woman's late husband, and they were all from two African countries that were then part of the British Empire.
I had heard her talk about when her husband was working in Africa, but until I saw the big pile of letters I hadn't considered that this was the only way the young couple could keep in contact when someone's work required long periods of international travel.
E.g. quick search revealed this pamphlet from 1988 Spain, showing that ~30% of households did not at time yet have a telephone: https://www.telefonica.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/202...
Parking in cities is also stressful with finding tbe entry on the correct one where you booked. And you miss the entry? Yep that is a one way street. Go round the block? No right turn? Satnav says 15 minutes to get back there again.
The point isn't that the timetable is the only reason to use a train, it's that without a good timetable it really doesn't matter what other advantages it offers and planners need to keep this in mind at all times.
I like those anonomolies. Like a place that seems far from the city (maybe even completely outside and in a other city!) but due to some quirk there is a way to get some weird train or bus there very quickly.
You could almost have a nightlife with this, but somehow there's still a 1,5h gap during commuting hours.
For practical use one train every 30 minutes is what I would consider the bare minimum, and one train every 15 minutes is when I would be willing to rely on it for day-to-day use. I'm fine with low-frequency trains when I am going on holiday and will be spending the entire day traveling anyways, but it's just not good enough as daily transport.
The article is saying the product is the timetable. It is cool these days to say freakanomic sounding things like this. "The user is the product" etc.
But from my point of view I want to get A to B, plus other requirements (do I want to drink, how safe, how long, cost, if I miss it can I still go, luggage, pets, do I need to move the contents of my house etc.)
I like trains, when they're reliable.
- Netzgrafik-Editor: https://github.com/OpenRailAssociation/netzgrafik-editor-fro...
- OSRD: https://osrd.fr/en/
(Disclaimer: I'm working on OSRD.)
I recently chose to take the train vs driving and the factors behind that decision were:
* Time, yes. Train was approximately the same but an actually a bit slower.
* Cost. Train was slightly cheaper when looking at the true cost of driving. Also significantly cheaper than flying.
* Experience. This is entirely overlooked in the timetable centric approach. Train is simply the most pleasant way to travel long distances (maybe ferry is competitive there). I was able to move around and get work done and enjoy the view. If the train company had swapped my train for a bus I would NOT have been a satisfied customer.
* City center to city center (vs airport to airport). Had the train company said “we swapped the arrival location to the airport but technically we still got you to the city” I would NOT have been a happy customer.
The “trains as timetables” hypothesis would imply that the train could meet my needs via something other than rail travel and would definitely lose me as a customer.
On the other hand, improvements such as better wifi service (it was terrible and not sure why cell service is also poor on a train) or a route that was more scenic but did not impact my arrival time significantly would positively affect my likelihood of choosing train.
So the better lesson is know your customer needs and know their specific jobs to be done and center your hypothesis around this.
But the math is a lot different for regular day-to-day trips, and for that I do think the timetable is the primary product. My goal is to get from A to B, and do so 1) reliably, 2) quickly, and 3) affordably. I don't really care if this means taking the car, the bus, the underground, the train, my bicycle, or a ferry - I'll use whatever option is most convenient.
If I'm only in/on there for 30 minutes, I could not care less for a scenic view. It matters far more whether there is a frequent service I can rely on, which doesn't involve half a dozen needless busy-work with transfers and endless waiting and anxiety for each connecting service. The more it acts like a taxi, the happier I am.
The fact that this isn't obvious, and that instead the means by which that product is delivered is considered more important than the actual arrival of passengers, is very telling.
This is a common issue in the technology world - too often, the actual end result is overlooked, for the sake of the means by which that product is produced. Your special organisational tricks mean nothing if the customer is left at the station, standing in the rain, hundreds of kilometres from home.
The timetable doesn't get anyone home. The trains do. The timetable just describes the intent - it is a requirement which describes a service, not a product. The train is required to show up at that time, and by publishing it the train company is establishing agreement with its customers in an open and fair manner.
A product is something which is produced, and the word 'product' describes, after the fact, that which was produced. A service is an act which is performed in support of producing something. Timetables are a service which are subservient to the fact of actually producing the desired result. I do not go to the train station to look at the services being promised delivery; I go to engage in the act of using that service, to gain my desired product: my ass at home, making a cuppa.
Disclaimer: if you've taken a train in any one of 38 different countries around the world, chances are your safety has been being predicted by SIL4-level online tests I've written for that purpose ..
A lot of industries would disagree with you. There are plenty of products where the physical form and direct purpose of the product itself is quite disjoint from the product they are actually selling.
For example, Hermès doesn't sell bags to carry stuff in - they sell status symbols. Restaurants don't sell food for sustenance - they sell a dining experience. Car companies only tangentially sell modes of transportation - they are treated more like fashion items in practice. Items like wedding rings have zero purpose - what they are selling is a physical manifestation of an emotion.
If everything we ever interacted with was 100% utilitarian, we'd be living in a very dull world.
Marketing guy Rory Sutherland talks about the product of the train journey a lot. I think there's a lot of wisdom in the idea of spending finite budget trying to make the travel experience more enjoyable rather than trying to make the journey quicker. (excuse the shortform slop) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bywe3NUOB1I
>Granted, "Commuter travel" vs "Leisure travel" are probably two quite different products.
The distinction is irrelevant, since both groups are travelling and, presumably wish to effect the end result of that travel: to arrive.
Sure, travelling in style and class and comfort - for sure, these are secondary sub-products/-services. But I don't get on the train for its food or for the disco car - I do, eventually, actually want to arrive in Hamburg.
Similarly leisure trips can be vastly less sensitive to moderate delays, thus some sleeper trains stop at night so people can get a better rest even if it defeats the purpose.
A highly optimized overnight train to Disneyland should look different than an optimized overnight train to Chicago.
Chicago is likely a stop along a longer journey and a significant number of passengers would happily skip it allowing for more freedom in timing.
Either way, if you got on a trip to Disney and ended up in Chicago, would you say that the rail company delivered the product as promised?
Leisure isn’t about the destination.
It doesn't even get to its main point, which is that it's about connections between trains, until halfway through. And then it goes into privatization vs nationalization.
A good article should tell you what it's about in its first few paragraphs. But the beginning of this article is some weird high-concept claim that isn't what the rest of it is about, and completely deserves GP's criticism.
That's also a common criticism by people who prefer there cars: With a railway you need to put in work and decision how you want to travel to a degree that you don't need to in a car.
You're absolutely right that a fancy timetable with all its trains getting cancelled is worthless, but so is a train service which doesn't provide useful routes, which is delayed by hours, and which only runs once a week. When I am looking into commute options, they are selling me the timetable: if they don't provide meaningful transit options, they aren't getting my ass home anyways.
The product they are selling is the promise of a convenient transit option - which is presented in the form of a timetable, and delivered in the form of a train. And yes, if they can't reliably deliver on that transit option by not getting me from A to B as promised, I will be asking my money back.
The timetable is the specs. The product is what your customers experience.
The specs (loose or... very specific) is definitely a major product step. But in that it is a mean to deliver the service/experience in the end. Without the implementation details (that do not live in the spec), you get often unsatisfied people everywhere.
People will still show up for trains that fail to meet their schedules. They just have to have a high enough frequency that you aren't sitting there for hours, or for there to simply be no other option.
Open source transit plans are under-developped. Almost everything still needs to be invented.
Arguably more important is standard time.
Before the railways towns ran on local-noon time, so the railways and their timetables required time to be synchronized across regions.
The benefits and downsides are something that we still experience two centuries later, all thanks to the railways.
I swear this is an industry. "I'm so insightful, don't forget to like and subscribe"