He who tires of London, tires of Life itself....

AlekSmart

Looks like some significant changes ahead for our oft admired London Public Transport system.....

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/25/spending-review-transport-deepest-budget-cut

Any suggestions/opinions on the potential outcomes to this ?

Losty Dublin

According that piece TfL will lose it's £700 million subsidy. This represents a cut of 37% from it's operational budget of £2.6 billion.

In other words this is the extent of the level of a subsidy it takes London to run it's commuter transport system. 37%. And lets bear in mind that London's buses and some of their trains are franchised out in the main so the subsidy isn't directly injected into operators coffers.

By way of contrast, CIE group received €211.8 million for operating it's PSO services and for payments for the DSP travel pass, based on the 2014 report. Added to commercial income of €817.7 million and that's round about 20% of a level of subsidy and from this it runs trains, city buses and long haul coaches.

37%. 20%. And London's current subsidy is almost the entire income of CIE, PSO included. A lorra lorra money as Cilla Black would say.

Victor

Losty Dublin wrote: »

And London's current subsidy is almost the entire income of CIE, PSO included.

London has twice the population of Ireland and doing things in big cities can be expensive.

devnull

To be fair the London Subsidy of course is going to be much bigger than Dublin.

You have something called the London Underground, it's 400km long and has 270 stations and 11 lines and is 150 years old and dwarfs any public transport infrastructure in Ireland.

Other things that TFL Pays for
- Docklands Light Railway
- London Overground
- TFL Rail
- 8,000 buses
- Croydon Tramlink
- Riverboat Services
- Dial a Ride
- Coach Stations

The level of subsidy of course is higher because of the sheer cost of running the 150 year old underground and providing a proper 24 hour bus service, neither of which CIE has to do.

Losty Dublin

devnull wrote: »

To be fair the London Subsidy of course is going to be much bigger than Dublin.

You have something called the London Underground, it's 400km long and has 270 stations and 11 lines and is 150 years old and dwarfs any public transport infrastructure in Ireland.

Other things that TFL Pays for
- Docklands Light Railway
- London Overground
- TFL Rail
- 8,000 buses
- Croydon Tramlink
- Riverboat Services
- Dial a Ride
- Coach Stations

The level of subsidy of course is higher because of the sheer cost of running the 150 year old underground and providing a proper 24 hour bus service, neither of which CIE has to do.

37%. 20%.

MrMorooka

Might be more informative to compare to a city like Amsterdam or Oslo or Krakow or something. I don't think it's useful to compare to a city like London, which is in a class of megacities numbered in the 10s. Dublin is more comparable to smaller European cities so that's what we should be looking at.

Marcusm

Losty Dublin wrote: »

According that piece TfL will lose it's £700 million subsidy. This represents a cut of 37% from it's operational budget of £2.6 billion.

In other words this is the extent of the level of a subsidy it takes London to run it's commuter transport system. 37%. And lets bear in mind that London's buses and some of their trains are franchised out in the main so the subsidy isn't directly injected into operators coffers.

By way of contrast, CIE group received €211.8 million for operating it's PSO services and for payments for the DSP travel pass, based on the 2014 report. Added to commercial income of €817.7 million and that's round about 20% of a level of subsidy and from this it runs trains, city buses and long haul coaches.

37%. 20%. And London's current subsidy is almost the entire income of CIE, PSO included. A lorra lorra money as Cilla Black would say.

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding in the article. TfL spends over £11bn per annum. The £700m operational budget is, as I understand it, the effective cost of TfL managing the transport system which is delivered by the various franchise providers etc. The Conservative govt focus is on reducing the costs of various layers and, I guess, trying to squeeze the cost of TfL policy making, planning, management and franchising back into the budget for operating the system itself rather than being a stand alone item. Likewise, cutting the overall DfT operational budget means reducing Whitehall civil savants rather than reducing subsidies to public transport of road building programmes.

Whether it's properly targeted or a blunt tool remains to be seen. However, note that the overall taxpayer subsidy to TfL is £2.5bn per annum, a much greater per head subsidy than that of CIE.

afatbollix

It might be twice the cost of the Irish subsidy but in London you have a public transport system where its reliable and you don't need a car to live. The local bus will go to the local supermarket and link up with the trains or the tube instead of 4 trains a day and then trying to catch the one a day bus to Achil.

etchyed

Losty Dublin wrote: »

According that piece TfL will lose it's £700 million subsidy. This represents a cut of 37% from it's operational budget of £2.6 billion.

In other words this is the extent of the level of a subsidy it takes London to run it's commuter transport system. 37%. And lets bear in mind that London's buses and some of their trains are franchised out in the main so the subsidy isn't directly injected into operators coffers.

By way of contrast, CIE group received €211.8 million for operating it's PSO services and for payments for the DSP travel pass, based on the 2014 report. Added to commercial income of €817.7 million and that's round about 20% of a level of subsidy and from this it runs trains, city buses and long haul coaches.

37%. 20%. And London's current subsidy is almost the entire income of CIE, PSO included. A lorra lorra money as Cilla Black would say.

£700m / £2.6bn = 27%. Not 37%.

devnull wrote: »

To be fair the London Subsidy of course is going to be much bigger than Dublin.

You have something called the London Underground, it's 400km long and has 270 stations and 11 lines and is 150 years old and dwarfs any public transport infrastructure in Ireland.

London Underground generally breaks even operationally.

Losty Dublin wrote: »

37%. 20%.

Repeating this (incorrect) comparative benchmark does not constitute an argument.

A national network of buses, coaches and rail services in a small country like Ireland is not comparable with the transport network of a major European capital city like London.

There is no reason whatsoever why the operational characteristics, cost base, passenger yields or patronage of these two networks would even vaguely resemble each other. Expecting to get a meaningful result by comparing two headline numbers is idiotic.

bk

Did people actually read the article?!!

They are investing massively in building new public transport infrastructure, £61 Billion over the next 6 years on projects like HS2, Electrification, etc. with £11 billion going to London alone for new and upgraded infrastructure (i.e. Crossrail, etc.)!!

If only our politicians were so forward thinking. I'd happily see CIE's operating subsidy slashed if it means Metro North and Dart Underground were both built in the next 6 years!

end of the road

bk wrote: »

Did people actually read the article?!!

They are investing massively in building new public transport infrastructure, £61 Billion over the next 6 years on projects like HS2, Electrification, etc. with £11 billion going to London alone for new and upgraded infrastructure (i.e. Crossrail, etc.)!!

If only our politicians were so forward thinking. I'd happily see CIE's operating subsidy slashed if it means Metro North and Dart Underground were both built in the next 6 years!

why would you be happy to see subsidy for other services which would feed into dart underground and metro north slashed to build dart underground and metro north meaning service cuts for others meaning people will have difficulty accessing the 2 vital projects we both want built? makes no sense to me. chances are with tfl the subsidy lost can be replaced by other forms of income, CIE'S slashed subsidy can't. no i'm afraid we need to both fund public transport properly and build dart underground. not slash one for the other, robbing peter to pay paul. we must pay both peter and paul, otherwise it doesn't really work

devnull

end of the road wrote: »

why would you be happy to see subsidy for other services which would feed into dart underground and metro north slashed to build dart underground and metro north meaning service cuts for others meaning people will have difficulty accessing the 2 vital projects we both want built? makes no sense to me. chances are with tfl the subsidy lost can be replaced by other forms of income, CIE'S slashed subsidy can't. no i'm afraid we need to both fund public transport properly and build dart underground. not slash one for the other, robbing peter to pay paul. we must pay both peter and paul, otherwise it doesn't really work

CIE Subsidy was increased in the last budget. Half of the cuts that have took place over the last 6 years were reversed in the last budget.

The fact is that giving CIE such huge subsidies as TFL would not be the right move, much more is needed to be spent on capital investment and infrastructure.

London already has an excellent transport infrastructure and an excellent range of services that require higher subsidy, the level of infrastructure here is much lower.

If Subsidy is increased here by more than a small amount it should be on the basis of improved services to go with it such as 24 hour running etc. I would not be in favour of big cuts to subsidy but increases must be in exchange for improvements and a large portion of any spare funds should be spent on investment in infrastructure and service development.

end of the road

devnull wrote: »

CIE Subsidy was increased in the last budget. Half of the cuts that have took place over the last 6 years were reversed in the last budget.

i know that, i was responding to bk's post from a hypothetical point of view

devnull wrote: »

The fact is that giving CIE such huge subsidies as TFL would not be the right move, much more is needed to be spent on capital investment and infrastructure.

i'm not suggesting otherwise

devnull wrote: »

London already has an excellent transport infrastructure and an excellent range of services that require higher subsidy, the level of infrastructure here is much lower.

of course. i wouldn't dispute that

devnull wrote: »

If Subsidy is increased here by more than a small amount it should be on the basis of improved services to go with it such as 24 hour running etc. I would not be in favour of big cuts to subsidy but increases must be in exchange for improvements and a large portion of any spare funds should be spent on investment in infrastructure and service development.

again, i agree. but nobody will fund, implement, and make sure these things happen.

draiochtanois

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end of the road

draiochtanois wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

you effectively had it all ready with the DTA. the government then decided to turn them into the NTA.