Off Peak time travel pilot ending

[Invisimamma]

Disappointed to hear the Scottish Government are not continuing with the off peak train travel pilot.

It seems my commute goes from £11 to £18. I mostly work from home , but I will certainly be avoiding travelling the office as much as possible now. I won't be doing as much leisure travel either, it's just too expensive.

A peak return ticket Edinburgh-Glasgow will be around £32, for a 48 minute journey! It seems really short sighted and people will choose to travel by car instead.
I know passenger numbers didn't increase hugely with the pilot and it was expensive but surely it's a long term thing.

That's really disappointing (though not as disappointed as I feel that "time travel" was a typo!)

I think this would be more viable as a long-term proposition in a country with a far more extensive train network, but as things are, there are a lot of journeys that simply don't have the train as an option, so the scope for uptake and any resultant reduction in private car journeys was always limited to begin with.

I look at the number of towns in Mid/East/West Lothian that don't have a rail option for commuting into central Edinburgh. Any English city of a similar size has rail lines coming out of it left, right, and centre, so even if the trains are packed and unreliable, it is still an option. Up here, it's a case of an hour long journey on a bus, traffic permitting, just to go 10-15 miles. If there is any sort of congestion or accident on an arterial route, you can double that travel time. An equivalent train journey would be 10-15 minutes at most, so I think it would be an attractive option.

I think if train was an option for more people, more people would invariably use it, but the Scots network is pitiful compared to that elsewhere.

Very short sighted of the Scottish government yet again. This is also on the back of the drastic increase on the Strathclyde zone ticket.

Pre pandemic I commuted by train 5 days per week. Then as I was working mostly from home I used the car and now that Im in the office more I recently went back to using the train more . However I suspect that part of the reason more people ( myself included) didnt use the train more is the lack of reliability of the service. I can get a train at 7.30 am or 8am but then the next one isnt till 9am and the other day that one was cancelled. There is supposed to be one at 8.30 but thats been removed from the "amended timetable"

Gutted that they’re doing this when we’ve spent the summer on a crappy emergency timetable (and lots of overcrowded trains in my part of the world because they don’t put enough carriages on at peak time). It will push folk back onto the road who really would prefer to commute by train.

I'll certainly be travelling less, or driving if I can. My office is in the city centre with no parking so driving isn't convenient and takes more than twice as long. I want to the right thing and travel greener too.

I'm fortunate to live in a train line that is pretty reliable - temporary timetable aside.

Pre-pandemic full-time commuting by train would have been about £180 a month, now that would be more like £300. I just don't have that money anymore as everything has increased in price so much too and wages haven't kept up.

My Dd commutes Edinburgh to Fife. She was saying that she was the only person on the Leven train and the conductor did say "wow not had a passenger on this train all summer!" when she saw him on Monday. She says the Dundee train 5 minutes earlier is never busy either.

The transport secretary was on the radio this morning. She was asked twice if the reason this pilot wasn't successful at increasing passenger numbers is because ScotRail didn't promote it as they were worried about overcrowding.
In true politician style she didn't really answer!

I heard some of this on the radio and couldn't believe the interviewer didn't say anything about the frequency or reliability of the service! It wasn't reported particularly well, but it sounded like there was an 8% increase compared to the 10% they were hoping for. So not a terrible result considering the many other issues with train travel in the area.

Im gutted this is ending

I only realised it was happening a few weeks ago when I was confused about the cost of my ticket.

One of the big reasons passenger numbers are down is the reliability of it. I used to get the train to work but it kept getting cancelled or stuck behind the sleeper so it was quicker, cheaper and more reliable to drive and car share instead!

The last three trains journeys I have taken were free - because I was hours late so got a refund. My DS took the train instead of the bus at the end of uni term before the summer and only got half way before being switched to a bus (and getting a refund for delays). My other DS wanted to take a train to Glasgow to join an event but had to take the bus because there were no trains that got to Glasgow before midday on a Sunday. My DH went by bus to Edinburgh for work as no trains to get him there before 9am - between two of Scotland’s major cities! And that is without counting the strikes! As noted, there is also not a great network so it is quite a drive to get to a station anyway.

Is it any wonder people are not travelling by train?