The best public transport system in the world? Tell that to London's long-suffering commuters

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/tra...cle1222603.ece

The best public transport system in the world? Tell that to London's
long-suffering commuters
By Barrie Clement, Transport Editor
Published: 30 August 2006

Commuters struggling to get into London yesterday could be forgiven for
thinking that the capital's public transport system had made it one of
the most chaotic cities in the world.

There was a strike on one of Britain's busiest rail networks, which
runs into Waterloo - with threats of further walk-outs in September -
and engineering work on the Tube disrupted the link between central
London and Heathrow.

To add to commuters' discomfiture came the rather surprising news that
London had been voted the best city in the world for public transport.
The survey extolling the virtues of the capital's transit system
prompted amazement among commuter groups and the people they represent.

Brian Cooke, chairman of London's transport watchdog TravelWatch, said:
" I don't see how you could vote London the best until you take cost
into account. And I don't see how it could be the best when it is among
the most crowded - the two don't go together." Mr Cooke said that many
cities in the world were better. While they were smaller, Lisbon, Porto
and Melbourne had better transport systems.

Stephen Joseph, of Transport 2000, pointed out that Paris and Barcelona
offered deals including transport discounts with lower admission
charges to attractions. He said tourists' experience of the city's
transport network was different to that of commuters.

Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce,
said that, while it may be great news that London won more votes than
Paris and New York, there remained "considerable room for improvement".

London was voted best by a quarter of respondents in a survey conducted
by the TripAdvisor company. It was followed by New York (16 per cent)
and Paris (12 per cent). Los Angeles came bottom. Nearly a quarter of
the 2,000 respondents, and 62 per cent of Britons polled, voted London
transport the most expensive.

London cabbies topped the poll as being the best, while New York,
Mexico City and Paris were considered to have the world's worst taxis.
Nearly three in five claimed to have been "taken for a ride" during
their travels by taxi drivers overcharging them or taking them on a
wrong route.

TripAdvisor's director of communications, Michele Perry, said: "
London's public transport service gets a lot of bad press but it seems
that the international travelling community think it's the tops all
round, even taking into account that it is also thought to be the most
expensive."

The capital continued to get a bad press yesterday when a strike by
train drivers left thousands of commuters facing travel chaos on the
first day back after the August bank holiday break. South West Trains
cancelled most of its services across southern England and into
Waterloo station, running 300 trains instead of the normal 1,700.

Members of the train drivers' union Aslef staged the 24-hour walk-out
and are planning two further stoppages on 8 and 11 September unless a
dispute over safety is resolved.

The company normally transports 400,000 passengers a day including
350,000 in to and out of Waterloo. The London Chamber of Commerce said
the strike had caused "misery" for thousands of commuters as well as
costing the London economy millions of pounds. Keith Norman, Aslef's
general secretary, accused managers of using passengers as a "punch
bag" in the dispute.

The row started earlier this year when SWT allegedly restricted the use
of taxis by Waterloo-based train drivers, but escalated when the
company drafted in managers to drive trains to cover drivers on strike
over the issue. Stewart Palmer, managing director of SWT, said: "What
the unions call strike-breaking we call customer service."

How Britain's transport system measures up

* British cities have the lowest levels of investment in public
transport, typically a tenth of Vienna and Munich

* They compare poorly with overseas cities in actual provision of
public transport - Manchester has the lowest supply of timetabled
services per capita and also has the lowest take-up of services

* They have the lowest provision of reserved routes for public
transport, such as bus priority lanes - Munich has three times as much
as Manchester and Stockholm nearly double Glasgow's

* British cities have among the highest provision of central area
parking. Manchester has 348 spaces per 1,000 jobs in the central
business area and Glasgow 230.

* The most expensive public transport fares are found in British
cities, especially London

* British cities have among the lowest costs for car travel - Glasgow
has the smallest cost differential between using a car and using public
transport

* Glasgow has highest volume of car travel per capita, despite having
the second-lowest car ownership levels

* Stuttgart has particularly low emissions from all sources, including
transport - 1,255 tons of sulphur dioxide per year, compared with 3,067
tons in Bristol and 5,352 tons in Edinburgh; 8.7 tons of lead in
Stuttgart compared with 9.5 tons in Bristol and 10.5 tons in Edinburgh

* Manchester and Glasgow have lowest levels of travel on public
transport; (Manchester 535 km per person, Glasgow 876km, Stockholm
2,294km, Munich 2,428km)

* Glasgow has highest levels of walking trips, although it has the
lowest levels of cycling as does Manchester - a fraction of countries
with similar climates and geographies such as Copenhagen and Munich

* A monthly travel card in Barcelona costs £25 compared with £60 in
London, a single ticket is 50p compared with £1.50 on London
Underground

* Public transport in smaller cities such as York, Brighton and
Stoke-on-Trent is around twice as costly as in Graz in Austria and
Terni in Italy

* Car ownership in Bath is at a mid-ranking level among "same size"
areas overseas with York, Brighton and Hove and Stoke-on-Trent among
the lowest. Car ownership has risen by 33 per cent in York over the
past 10 years

* Brighton and Hove has the largest number of parking spaces, almost
twice those in Bath and five times as many in Umea in Sweden. The
highest parking charges are in Bath and York

* The UK a smaller supply of roads - Oulu in Finland has 7,628 metres
per 1,000 population, compared to 2,330 in Brighton.

Source - Commission for Integrated Transport
Traveller's tales

Tom Lockwood

24, Graphic Designer, From Hackney, London

"The London Underground is ridiculously expensive. Money from the
congestion charge should have gone to lowering the price of Tube
tickets."

Alex Dawson

51, Manager, From Monmouth, Wales

"I travel by train a lot and I never cease to be amazed at how horrible
the transport system is. I find it dirty, expensive and overcrowded -
it's terrible."

Steve Pagett

57, Civil Engineer, From Croxley, Hertfordshire

"I'd say the service is pretty good. I commute on the Underground and
you just have to accept any problems as they arise."

Helen Barker

22, Student, From Nottingham

"I wouldn't say that London's transport system is as good as France or
Italy. There they are more prepared for the hot weather."

Commuters struggling to get into London yesterday could be forgiven for
thinking that the capital's public transport system had made it one of
the most chaotic cities in the world.

There was a strike on one of Britain's busiest rail networks, which
runs into Waterloo - with threats of further walk-outs in September -
and engineering work on the Tube disrupted the link between central
London and Heathrow.

To add to commuters' discomfiture came the rather surprising news that
London had been voted the best city in the world for public transport.
The survey extolling the virtues of the capital's transit system
prompted amazement among commuter groups and the people they represent.

Brian Cooke, chairman of London's transport watchdog TravelWatch, said:
" I don't see how you could vote London the best until you take cost
into account. And I don't see how it could be the best when it is among
the most crowded - the two don't go together." Mr Cooke said that many
cities in the world were better. While they were smaller, Lisbon, Porto
and Melbourne had better transport systems.

Stephen Joseph, of Transport 2000, pointed out that Paris and Barcelona
offered deals including transport discounts with lower admission
charges to attractions. He said tourists' experience of the city's
transport network was different to that of commuters.

Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce,
said that, while it may be great news that London won more votes than
Paris and New York, there remained "considerable room for improvement".

London was voted best by a quarter of respondents in a survey conducted
by the TripAdvisor company. It was followed by New York (16 per cent)
and Paris (12 per cent). Los Angeles came bottom. Nearly a quarter of
the 2,000 respondents, and 62 per cent of Britons polled, voted London
transport the most expensive.

London cabbies topped the poll as being the best, while New York,
Mexico City and Paris were considered to have the world's worst taxis.
Nearly three in five claimed to have been "taken for a ride" during
their travels by taxi drivers overcharging them or taking them on a
wrong route.

TripAdvisor's director of communications, Michele Perry, said: "
London's public transport service gets a lot of bad press but it seems
that the international travelling community think it's the tops all
round, even taking into account that it is also thought to be the most
expensive."

The capital continued to get a bad press yesterday when a strike by
train drivers left thousands of commuters facing travel chaos on the
first day back after the August bank holiday break. South West Trains
cancelled most of its services across southern England and into
Waterloo station, running 300 trains instead of the normal 1,700.

Members of the train drivers' union Aslef staged the 24-hour walk-out
and are planning two further stoppages on 8 and 11 September unless a
dispute over safety is resolved.

The company normally transports 400,000 passengers a day including
350,000 in to and out of Waterloo. The London Chamber of Commerce said
the strike had caused "misery" for thousands of commuters as well as
costing the London economy millions of pounds. Keith Norman, Aslef's
general secretary, accused managers of using passengers as a "punch
bag" in the dispute.

The row started earlier this year when SWT allegedly restricted the use
of taxis by Waterloo-based train drivers, but escalated when the
company drafted in managers to drive trains to cover drivers on strike
over the issue. Stewart Palmer, managing director of SWT, said: "What
the unions call strike-breaking we call customer service."

How Britain's transport system measures up

* British cities have the lowest levels of investment in public
transport, typically a tenth of Vienna and Munich

* They compare poorly with overseas cities in actual provision of
public transport - Manchester has the lowest supply of timetabled
services per capita and also has the lowest take-up of services

* They have the lowest provision of reserved routes for public
transport, such as bus priority lanes - Munich has three times as much
as Manchester and Stockholm nearly double Glasgow's

* British cities have among the highest provision of central area
parking. Manchester has 348 spaces per 1,000 jobs in the central
business area and Glasgow 230.

* The most expensive public transport fares are found in British
cities, especially London

* British cities have among the lowest costs for car travel - Glasgow
has the smallest cost differential between using a car and using public
transport

* Glasgow has highest volume of car travel per capita, despite having
the second-lowest car ownership levels

* Stuttgart has particularly low emissions from all sources, including
transport - 1,255 tons of sulphur dioxide per year, compared with 3,067
tons in Bristol and 5,352 tons in Edinburgh; 8.7 tons of lead in
Stuttgart compared with 9.5 tons in Bristol and 10.5 tons in Edinburgh

* Manchester and Glasgow have lowest levels of travel on public
transport; (Manchester 535 km per person, Glasgow 876km, Stockholm
2,294km, Munich 2,428km)

* Glasgow has highest levels of walking trips, although it has the
lowest levels of cycling as does Manchester - a fraction of countries
with similar climates and geographies such as Copenhagen and Munich

* A monthly travel card in Barcelona costs £25 compared with £60 in
London, a single ticket is 50p compared with £1.50 on London
Underground

* Public transport in smaller cities such as York, Brighton and
Stoke-on-Trent is around twice as costly as in Graz in Austria and
Terni in Italy

* Car ownership in Bath is at a mid-ranking level among "same size"
areas overseas with York, Brighton and Hove and Stoke-on-Trent among
the lowest. Car ownership has risen by 33 per cent in York over the
past 10 years

* Brighton and Hove has the largest number of parking spaces, almost
twice those in Bath and five times as many in Umea in Sweden. The
highest parking charges are in Bath and York

* The UK a smaller supply of roads - Oulu in Finland has 7,628 metres
per 1,000 population, compared to 2,330 in Brighton.

Source - Commission for Integrated Transport
Traveller's tales

Tom Lockwood

24, Graphic Designer, From Hackney, London

"The London Underground is ridiculously expensive. Money from the
congestion charge should have gone to lowering the price of Tube
tickets."

Alex Dawson

51, Manager, From Monmouth, Wales

"I travel by train a lot and I never cease to be amazed at how horrible
the transport system is. I find it dirty, expensive and overcrowded -
it's terrible."

Steve Pagett

57, Civil Engineer, From Croxley, Hertfordshire

"I'd say the service is pretty good. I commute on the Underground and
you just have to accept any problems as they arise."

Helen Barker

22, Student, From Nottingham

"I wouldn't say that London's transport system is as good as France or
Italy. There they are more prepared for the hot weather."

Jens Arne Maennig wrote:
Amai Lawaai wrote:

The best public transport system in the world?

Singapore's MRT.

Jens

never tried it, but Belgium has good public transport.

London has never had the best public transport system in the world.
Paris arguably has the best public transit of any large city in the
world.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Amai Lawaai writes:

never tried it, but Belgium has good public transport.

Is Belgium a city?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Jens Arne Maennig wrote:
Amai Lawaai wrote:

The best public transport system in the world?

Singapore's MRT.

The (very new) metro is quite nice, but the bus service is about on a
par with the UK.

I vote Hamburg as the best overall system I have ever experienced.
Comprehensive train and bus services so punctual and reliable that you
could literally set your watch by them, good quality passenger
information and decent value ticketing. I have yet to see a better
complete, integrated package (that's the most important bit) anywhere
else in the world.

Neil

Jens Arne Maennig wrote:
Amai Lawaai wrote:

Belgium has good public transport.

Not to mention Liechtenstein.

Jens

does anyone live there ? or is it just a bank ??

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Amai Lawaai writes:

never tried it, but Belgium has good public transport.

Is Belgium a ****y?


Is Belgium a ****ty what ?

Martin wrote:

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:12:37 +0200, Jens Arne Maennig
wrote:

Martin wrote:

and Bavaria becomes a tropical island in the sun?

At currently 12.2°C, it doesn't look like that.

Be glad that Zuid Holland has a record amount of rain falling on it
and not on you.

Same up in Denmark. July was the warmest month ever on record, August
has been the most rainy for over 40 years.
--
Kristian

Amai Lawaai wrote:

Jens Arne Maennig wrote:
Amai Lawaai wrote:

Belgium has good public transport.

Not to mention Liechtenstein.

Jens

does anyone live there ? or is it just a bank ??


Ian F. said he just saw {{{{Jacqueline}}}} there, apparently in the
back of a Hummer...

--
Best
Greg

Gregory Morrow wrote:
Amai Lawaai wrote:

Jens Arne Maennig wrote:
Amai Lawaai wrote:

Belgium has good public transport.

Not to mention Liechtenstein.

Jens

does anyone live there ? or is it just a bank ??


Ian F. said he just saw {{{{Jacqueline}}}} there, apparently in the
back of a Hummer...

--
Best
Greg

being bored to death by mixi......