South West Trains: Feeling The Squeeze - A guest blog by @lyricalbankster

An average commute for many

A guest blog by @lyricalbankster

In a couple of weeks’ time the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) is due to publish its latest stats on over-crowding on the UK's railways. Figures published a year ago may have suggested South West Trains was doing OK, but a quick glance behind the numbers tells a very different story: one of cramped and deteriorating conditions much worse than those endured by customers of other operators.

As a curtain raiser to the publication of the new figures, which are based on the performance during a three-month period last autumn, let's examine the previous report for an idea of what to look out for this time round.

That report was entitled 'Peak Crowding and Passenger Demand' and the first thing to note is that in the league table of over-crowding, SWT appears to be performing reasonably well compared with other commuter operators, although it does have the highest proportion of over-crowded trains arriving at a London terminus.

For the morning rush hour the 2010 figures show SWT carrying 3.4% over-capacity. By comparison First Great Western was an eye-watering 18.5% over-capacity, while Southern and National Express East Anglia were a snug 5.1% and 4.9% over respectively.

In the evening, over-crowding is generally much less as commuters stagger their journeys home - but SWT actually rises up the ranking in the league of shame for the PM peak, overtaking both Southern and NEEA .

So how does ORR measure over-capacity? The figures are based on the booked formation of the service.

An allowance is made for standing passengers and it is here that SWT is short-changing its customers in the most shameful way.

The ORR report is clear: "For most train operators the standing allowance is based on 0.45 sq metres per person. However for South West Train a figure of 0.25 sq metres is used."
Yup, SWT believes a fully grown adult should squeeze into a space half that deemed appropriate for most other rail commuters.

Remember too that both consumer magazine Which? and the Daily Telegraph have noted that even the 0.45 sq metre allowance is well below European Union rules for transporting livestock.
But the miserly space allocation may explain SWT's apparent reasonable showing in the over-crowding table of shame - it crams twice as many people into the same space before it is considered over-crowded.

So how many people are squeezed into these appalling conditions? Luckily ORR has the numbers: they make uncomfortable reading and even more uncomfortable commuting.

In the morning rush hour, well over a quarter of standard class passengers arriving at Waterloo on SWT have been standing - that's the highest percentage of any terminus station in London and equates to more than 27,000 people on a typical day. Just shy of a quarter of morning SWT commuter trains are deemed over-crowded. In the evening peak over a fifth of passengers are standing.
SWT supporters will argue that this is because Waterloo is London's busiest commuter station. Well not exactly. London Bridge and Liverpool Street put on more services and carry more passengers.
To be absolutely transparent, more standing passengers arrive on a typical day at London Bridge, but remember as they're travelling on non-SWT services they've got twice as much space as their Waterloo counterparts, and still the percentage of over-crowded trains arriving at London Bridge is less than a fifth.

So why is SWT entitled to shoehorn its passengers into half as much room as other train operators?
According to two written answers by government ministers in 2008, it's because South West Trains uses Class 455 units which have been "specifically configured with low density seating and appropriate grab rails for standing passengers to ensure that passengers can stand in relative comfort for short-distance journeys".

What those answers did not say was that Southern also uses the Class 455 units and it still allows the standard 0.45 sq metres of space for standing passengers. London Overland and certain Southeastern 'Metro-style' services have also been granted a dispensation - a far-from-comfortable 0.35 sq metre allowance, but that’s still the equivalent of two pairs of size-12 #fridayshoes larger than SWT allows.

In fact South West Trains is being disingenuous at best if it is using the 0.25 sq metre allowance across its entire network. The minister's written answer in 2008 specifically says the reduced allowance should be for services using the Class 455 units - by no means all SWT services - that "stop within 20 minutes of leaving Waterloo". For plenty of SWT services - including Waterloo to Woking, identified by the Daily Telegraph as the second busiest commuter route in the country - the first stop is more than 20 minutes after leaving Waterloo, even on the rare occasions that there are no delays.

The ORR today appears to imply that no passenger should have to stand on services that don't stop within 20 minutes of Waterloo.

Crucially that's not the same as saying passengers shouldn't have to stand for more than 20 minutes. But it does add weight to the argument that on services with a first stop of Woking, Basingstoke or Winchester passengers unable to find a seat in standard accommodation should be allowed to sit in first class areas.

It is worth pointing out that in her "Delivering a Sustainable Railway" report presented to parliament in 2007, the then Sectary of State for Transport Ruth Kelly did address the issue of seating and appropriate standing times. She insisted all passengers on so-called "inter-urban" services were entitled to a seat.

She added: "For commuter services, these planning standards [set out in the report] provide that passengers should have 0.45 square metres of space, equivalent to just under five square feet, and that passengers should not normally have to stand for more than 20 minutes."

That was five years ago. We should have a clearer idea in just a couple of weeks if we are any closer to that ambition, or whether, as many passengers fear, the trend of last year has continued and we're further away than ever.