Campaign body, Transport 2000, is to travel on ten of England and Wales” most overcrowded services in a bid to highlight just how pressured the national network is.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of overcrowding occurs at peak times, but Transport 2000 insists that passengers are simply not able to transfer to less busy periods. The worst example, according to the body, is that of 88% overcrowding on the 07:59 train from Durham to Newcastle, but Cambridge to London Liverpool Street (85%) and Cardiff to Maesteg (78%), are almost as busy.
”It”s very easy to blame rail operators for overcrowding problems, but actually a lot of it is down to the government”s rail policy,” said Transport 2000 public transport campaigner, Julia Thomas. ”They have issued ”no growth” franchises for the past ten years as well as promoting a policy of fares hikes to get people to travel off-peak, but passengers really don”t have that much flexibility.
”In addition, the very short time periods covered by franchise agreements do not encourage any infrastructure investment by the rail operators.”
Transport 2000 says that it will look at overcrowding in England and Wales for a fortnight starting on 27 March and present its research to Secretary of State for Transport, Douglas Alexander, before the government”s expected rail strategy is published this summer.
"We've improved capacity in recent franchise contracts, and invested billions in major upgrades of the network,” said a Department for Transport statement, adding: ”The government has acted and will continue to act to provide additional capacity.”
"A fortnight ago we announced that we plan to add 1,000 extra carriages on the network - an increase of 10%. The first of the new trains will be put into use as soon as possible on the busiest parts of the network.
"And that is not the end of the story, as Transport 2000 are aware. Our rail strategy, to be published this summer, will give more details of how and where extra capacity will be created."
Transport 2000”s top ten overcrowded services:
Percentages are the overcapacity
Durham-Newcastle ” 07:59 ” 88%
Cambridge-London Liverpool Street ” 07:18 ” 85%
Ecclestone Park- Liverpool Lime Street ” 07:53 ” 85%
Cardiff-Maesteg ” 17:21 ” 78%
Humphrey Park-Manchester Oxford Road ” 08:14 ” 75%
Morpeth-Newcastle ” 08:00 ” 58%
Barnsley-Leeds ” 07:31 ” 57%
Sheffield-Leeds ” 07:14 ” 53%
Sutton-Luton ” 16:33 ” 50%
Northampton-Birmingham New Street ” 07:26 - 45%