SNP need to match UK measures and improve peak-time rail travel

Scottish Conservatives have called on the SNP to match commitments made south of the border to tackle overcrowding on trains. Over the last year the UK Government has agreed to introduce extra peak-time capacity into major cities, and will provide an extra 11,000 morning train seats by next summer. This in addition to them adding more seats to the West Coast Main Line by lengthening 31 trains and introducing four new trains.

By contrast the SNP in their 'Rail 2014' document suggested limiting the number of people allowed to stand on trains and that they should make travelling at peak times far more expensive.

Scottish Conservative Transport Spokesman, Alex Johnstone MSP said:

"Traveling at peak-times on our railways is already very busy and very expensive, yet the SNP's solution to this problem is to reduce train capacity and make it more expensive to travel. We need to do all we can to make rail travel more accessible and the SNP have so far totally failed to come up with any useful suggestions.

"The UK Government on the other hand has announced a huge investment in train services and carried out measures that will make a real difference to those travelling at peak-time. South of the border they are being given more trains with larger capacities meaning that thousands of extra seats are being provided.

"It is time that the SNP introduced similar measures in Scotland. Our passengers deserve the best service available and the SNP is completely failing to provide it. Their solution to overcrowding is to make rail travel even more unappealing, instead of attempting to improve it."

The Transport Scotland document, 'Rail 2014' stated the following:

5.5 - There are a number of solutions to resolving the issues of crowding including revising timetables, lengthening trains and carrying out infrastructure works. All can be expensive.

5.6 - We are therefore considering whether we should include a measure for how many people can be carried on a train, as opposed to just relying on how many minutes a passenger may have to stand. The carrying capacity could for example be set at 105% on certain types of service. We envisage that this would only affect the peak services, and other methods, such as fares adjustments can help to alleviate crowding on these few services.

6.27 - Currently the fares mechanism is designed to encourage passengers to travel in the off-peak period, where they can. However the differential between peak and off-peak fares is generally too small to have any significant impact on changing behaviour. We are considering increasing the differential in order to free capacity in the peak period to accommodate future growth. Modelling indicates a differential of at least 20% between peak and off-peak fares would be required to have any significant effect on passenger behaviours.

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