Roland Perry wrote:
Quite the reverse. The people whose lifestyle appears to dictate that
they are unwilling to be held ransom by the vagaries of public
transport, are much more likely to make singleton journeys. They don't
ant to be held ransom to car-sharing either.

Well, victims of the system or just misguided idiots, I guess that's a
matter of opinion.

What I do know is that they render the London environment worse by their
selfishness through making PT (the bus network specifically) less
reliable and performant, worsening air pollution, and general anti
social aspects of car use etc etc

Because many of them have travelled from far enough away that a train is
the alternative. And having been stranded, and missed an important
meeting, once too often, revert to the car.

Sorry Roland, but I really cannot believe how an individual would
possibly think driving into central London would be quicker than getting
a train in. I guess a few are novices and might not have tried the
train. But if that were the case there must be a hell of a lot of
novices around (given your figures).

Because it's door to door, and runs when they want it to - not on some
mythical once-every-15-minutes that tuns out to involve half an hour
waits in the rain once too often.

Door to door? There's parking space outside every door in London now?
Central London?

Are we even talking about London? The picture you paint is not one I
recognise. Although I do agree about the ridiculous labelling of 15-min
frequency trains as such things as "metro" services. Need to double at
least before they're that.

Is that on the trunk routes that most of the commuters are using?

Anywhere that's congested.

What's "long"? There are very large numbers who drive more than 50 miles.

I think you answered above - I'd consider long to be a journey where
rail becomes the best bet.

Roland Perry ) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

4x4s of the Disco's size do tend to be diseasel, yes - because the
petrol versions are so damn thirsty (18mpg official for the Disco vs
27 for the TD and 36 for the diesel S-class Jag)

So Parkers is wrong when it says the diesel disco is 25-34 (the
previous model being 30-40). This is the smoke of which we spake.

The figures I gave are from Parkers website.

[Although from what I'm hearing, the new Disco seems to have somewhat
crossed the line from "family man's Land Rover" to "poor man's Range
Rover", to its detriment.]

I think you may have your system clock set wrongly - that started about
five years ago.

However, I think you'll find that a good proportion of most "normal"
cars are diseasels now, too. 32.5% of all cars sold in the UK during
2004, and 40% of Mondeos.

That's good news then (apart from asthma suffers, apparently).

Indeed.

In message , at
14:24:45 on Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Dan Gravell
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
Quite the reverse. The people whose lifestyle appears to dictate that
they are unwilling to be held ransom by the vagaries of public
transport, are much more likely to make singleton journeys. They don't
ant to be held ransom to car-sharing either.

Well, victims of the system or just misguided idiots, I guess that's a
matter of opinion.

No, just busy businessmen who have found from painful experience that
their means of transport is the best on offer.

Sorry Roland, but I really cannot believe how an individual would
possibly think driving into central London would be quicker than
getting a train in. I guess a few are novices and might not have tried
the train. But if that were the case there must be a hell of a lot of
novices around (given your figures).

It's true. When you look at reliable door-to-door times, the car wins.

Not everyone's lifestyle is the same. As an extreme example, what would
you think if the PM was half an hour late for his questions in the House
of Commons because of problems on the Northern Line? And is paying him
about £100 an hour to sit on a tube train better than having him in a
car and reading his briefing papers in peace?

Somewhere between the PM and "do you want fries with that" is a
crossover line. It seems to be 90:10. I suggest you'd have a very
difficult time making it 95:5, and would be better employed making sure
it didn't degrade to 85:15.

Because it's door to door, and runs when they want it to - not on
some mythical once-every-15-minutes that tuns out to involve half an
hour waits in the rain once too often.

Door to door? There's parking space outside every door in London now?
Central London?

Close enough for most of the purposes we are discussing. And an awful
lot of the cars in *central* London have drivers.

Are we even talking about London? The picture you paint is not one I
recognise.

The people in the cars will typically live in the stockbroker belts.

What's "long"? There are very large numbers who drive more than 50 miles.

I think you answered above - I'd consider long to be a journey where
rail becomes the best bet.

So highly dependent on how close to a viable station the person lives.
Just the difficulty of parking near many of them rules them out as "P&R
for London".
--
Roland Perry

In message , at
14:25:30 on Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Adrian remarked:

The figures I gave are from Parkers website.

I'm using the printed one, which I find a great deal easier.

[Although from what I'm hearing, the new Disco seems to have somewhat
crossed the line from "family man's Land Rover" to "poor man's Range
Rover", to its detriment.]

I think you may have your system clock set wrongly - that started about
five years ago.

Is that the model my Parkers says is "1998 on" ?

--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

[Although from what I'm hearing, the new Disco seems to have somewhat
crossed the line from "family man's Land Rover" to "poor man's Range
Rover", to its detriment.]

I think you may have your system clock set wrongly - that started about
five years ago.

Is that the model my Parkers says is "1998 on" ?

Disco 2. Yes. Same basic shell as the previous one, but tarted over.

Roland Perry wrote:
It's true. When you look at reliable door-to-door times, the car wins.

Source? Or is this a Jeremy Clarkson style "a car can beat a jet
fighter, if I have a five month headstart and the jet has no wings" claim?

Not everyone's lifestyle is the same. As an extreme example, what would
you think if the PM was half an hour late for his questions in the House
of Commons because of problems on the Northern Line? And is paying him
about £100 an hour to sit on a tube train better than having him in a
car and reading his briefing papers in peace?

Somewhere between the PM and "do you want fries with that" is a
crossover line. It seems to be 90:10. I suggest you'd have a very
difficult time making it 95:5, and would be better employed making sure
it didn't degrade to 85:15.

But what about when the actions of the ten effect the PT QoS and QoL for
the ninety? Because of the scalability (that word again) the system
would work better if we got it to 95:5. The PM is hardly representative
or comparable to "business men". I don't know what you mean by "business
man" but I'm guessing there's too many of them to cater for aI'm afraid,
and frankly they're not important enough to concede to (unlike the PM).

Door to door? There's parking space outside every door in London now?
Central London?


Close enough for most of the purposes we are discussing. And an awful
lot of the cars in *central* London have drivers.

I really do not believe this. How many people work in the City? How many
people park there? I'd be surprised if the figure is as much as 10%.

In message , at
15:39:51 on Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Dan Gravell
remarked:
The PM is hardly representative or comparable to "business men". I
don't know what you mean by "business man" but I'm guessing there's too
many of them to cater for aI'm afraid, and frankly they're not
important enough to concede to (unlike the PM).

So where do you draw the line?

At people with "Minister" in their job title.
"Junior Minister"
Managing Director of a PLC
Director of any registered Company
People called "Sales Manager" of a company with more than 1000 employees

....

Door to door? There's parking space outside every door in London
now? Central London?
Close enough for most of the purposes we are discussing. And an
awful lot of the cars in *central* London have drivers.

I really do not believe this. How many people work in the City? How
many people park there? I'd be surprised if the figure is as much as
10%.

A lot of them are driven to work, or drive to work. Otherwise this
conversation would not exist.
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 13:44:21 +0000, Dave Arquati
wrote:

One also has to bear in mind *road space* rather than the space
physically occupied by the car. As a typical 4x4 is quite a bit taller
than a "normal" car, it reduces visibility for the car behind it, so the
car behind must keep more distance in order to retain visibility.

I'm not so sure that's an issue unless you tend to look at the road
ahead "through" other cars. Then again, I've always preferred tall
cars because of the extra space they tend to give (I'm 6'4" and fairly
heavily built so I need it!) so I'm more used to looking over than
through.

I would say that in central London, in non-equipment cases, a Travelcard
is superior to a car for flexibility, price and convenience.

Absolutely.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:44:21 on Tue, 15 Feb
2005, Dave Arquati remarked:

Neil Williams wrote:

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:28:38 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

eg: LR Disco 14'10" x 5'11"
Ford Mondeo 15' 5" x 5'11"
Merc E series 15' 9" x 6' 5" A foot longer and 6" wider!!!

The latter being very much the "City executive's car of choice")

Quite, and things like Suzuki Jimnys and, indeed, that tiny Fiat (I
think) 4x4 car are not anything like as big, nor for that matter is my
88" Land Rover, which is about the length of your typical small hatch
(hardly a Chelsea tractor, mind, more a normal tractor!)

One also has to bear in mind *road space* rather than the space
physically occupied by the car. As a typical 4x4 is quite a bit taller
than a "normal" car, it reduces visibility for the car behind it, so
the car behind must keep more distance in order to retain visibility.

And you've seen this happening in practice?

From personal experience outside London. I can't see why it would be
any different in London, and I know that one major claim used against
4x4s is that they make life more difficult for other motorists.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

In article ,
Dan Gravell wrote:
Sorry Roland, but I really cannot believe how an individual would
possibly think driving into central London would be quicker than getting
a train in.

I've driven from Leytonstone to Paddington on a number of occasions.
Certainly more convienent when meeting She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
and her luggage. It was probably quicker than the Tube (the PT
alterantive), but it's hard to be sure. Certainly not much slower.

I guess a few are novices and might not have tried the
train. But if that were the case there must be a hell of a lot of
novices around (given your figures).

We did that too; frankly the biggest turn-off is carting the bags
rather than the time.

Are we even talking about London? The picture you paint is not one I
recognise. Although I do agree about the ridiculous labelling of 15-min
frequency trains as such things as "metro" services. Need to double at
least before they're that.

Lets say that for something to be a metro service, it needs to be
frequent enough that a timetable is pointless. Comparing the number
of people arriving at the station per minute over the course of the
day would be an interesting way to find out if the passengers bother
with learning the timetable.

My guess is that there will be little variation at Camden Road -
about as many passengers will arrive at the platform looking to
catch a train the minute before the train is due as the minute after
- indicating that 15 mintute wait between trains is "metro", while
at Upper Holloway, there will be a vast difference - indicating
that 30 minute waits are not "metro".

But I'm guessing; hard figures would be interesting.

What's "long"? There are very large numbers who drive more than 50 miles.

I think you answered above - I'd consider long to be a journey where
rail becomes the best bet.

That can be remarkably short, sometimes.

--
Mike Bristow - really a very good driver