The Transport Select Committee says there's now chronic overcrowding on public transport in the major cities and it's likely to get worse.

The influential cross-party transport committee called for "immediate and urgent plans" to improve the situation.

Their suggested solutions include lengthening trains, changing service frequencies and even simply communicating better with the public.

What causes overcrowding? How can the problem be solved? What can be done to improve the UK's public transport system?

Transcript

Denise Mahoney:
Hello and welcome to the Six Forum with me Denise Mahoney. Tonight overcrowding on the UK's trains and buses - just how much more can commuters take? MPs today accused train operators of putting commuters through daily trauma and condemned the intolerable conditions they're forced to suffer. The committee said that failing to take seriously the potential health effects of overcrowding until objective evidence was presented was tantamount to waiting for a tragedy to occur.

Strong words - but how can overcrowding be tackled? The MPs say rail companies must buy more new trains and bus operators should be allowed to enforce bus lanes more rigorously. Well joining me to discuss the state of public transport and what can be done to improve it is John Cartledge, Deputy Director of the London Transport Users Committee. Good evening and thank you joining us.

I'll start straightaway with a question from David, Colchester: Does this mean that travelling by rail and bus is dangerous?

John Cartledge:
Absolutely not. In normal circumstances public transport is far safer than the alternatives. If you're on a train or a bus you are at much less risk than you are going by car, cycling, or motorcycling. Public transport has a very good safety record in this country. But that doesn't mean to say it's perfect, it doesn't mean to say it can't be improved, it doesn't mean to say that if something goes disastrously wrong - as does happen very, very rarely - then the more people there are there are involved on a train or bus, the more they'll be at risk. It's also the case, as the MPs said, that we don't really know what the long-term health effects of travelling in very stressful conditions are. So there's a lot more we can find out.

Denise Mahoney:
So there's two things really: there's the actual conditions in which you're travelling which can be dangerous, but also there's the effect on your mental health if you're doing that daily drudgery and you're being squashed because often when you stand on a train there's nothing to hold onto - that in itself can be very, very stressful.

John Cartledge:
It can be and we all know that stress in the long-term can be damaging to people's health. What hasn't been researched - and we would like it to be researched - is just what the cumulative economic effect of this is if everybody has spent the first hour of their working day recovering from the journey that they've just made, what is the loss to the economy and society at large.

Denise Mahoney:
Or if people choose to throw the towel in and give up indeed. Let's move on, there's a question here from Patricia, London: Our buses are never on time, our trains are overcrowded. What will it take for them to wake up? One day, there is going to be a dreadful underground crash and suddenly they'll be an inquest and safety review. Why on earth are we waiting?

I think you've already addressed that. But do you think an accident like that is likely to happen imminently because of overcrowding?

John Cartledge:
Overcrowding doesn't cause accidents. Trains are built in such a way that regardless of the number of people who squeeze themselves aboard, the brakes are still are still going to work, the suspension isn't going to collapse. Overcrowding in itself is not of cause of accidents but there's always the concern that in the event of an accident, the more people there are on a train the more they'll be at risk. So what we've got to do is to concentrate very hard on those factors like signalling mistakes or derailments which can contribute to accidents and try to minimise the possibility that that happens.

Denise Mahoney:
Phil, London asks: Is there any excuse for running 4 carriage trains on busy routes during peak time, when they run 8 carriage trains at other times?

John Cartledge:
Normally no but at the busiest times all the rolling stock that's available is out there running on the railways. If any unit is defective for any reason and can't be run, that results in short trains which results in overcrowding as a consequence. So we want to do everything possible to encourage the train companies to ensure that the rolling stock is reliable so that that problem doesn't arise.

Denise Mahoney:
How successful have your efforts been?

John Cartledge:
Well at the moment the good news story is that the train companies themselves are actually improving their game - the main problem is with the infrastructure which is Network Rail, it's much more likely to be a problem with the track or a problem with the power supply or a problem with the signalling which is their responsibility, than it is to be a problem with the train. That's not true of all parts of the network but is generally the case.

Denise Mahoney:
M Patmore, Bury St Edmunds asks: Why do I regularly see empty 1st class carriages while the rest of the train is carrying passengers in conditions which could have coined the phrase "like sardines in a can"?

It's something I've experienced myself and you simply can't go and sit in first-class without a first-class ticket can you?

John Cartledge:
No you can't and if you do you'll liable to be penalised. But every time this issue is raised, we get equal numbers of complaints from standard class passengers who feel that first-class is a waste of space and first-class passengers who complain about the invasion of their space by standard class passengers when they haven't paid the premium fare that entitles them to be in first-class.

But first-class is less efficient in its use of space because there are fewer seats available in order to give more leg room etc. But on very crowded trains I think they need to look very hard at whether it can be justified. Interestingly, the Chiltern Line - one of the more successful train companies in the London area - has abolished first-class because it found it couldn't justify it as its services were so good that people weren't prepared to pay the extra. There must be a lesson there for other bits of the railway too.

Denise Mahoney:
John Jones, Preston: One of the biggest problems regarding overcrowding is the antisocial attitudes of passengers - who obstruct aisles and put their bags on vacant seats. I won't travel by train until public transport becomes pleasant, reliable and courteous again. What is being done to combat the antisocial side of travellers?

You have to admit when there are an awful lot of people and there are no seats, people's tempers are short aren't they?

John Cartledge:
Yes and you get this phenomenon of "rail rage". If everyone is comfortable and relaxed then life is much more civilised. But if the journey is disrupted, if people are tense, if things are getting fraught - well then that affects people's tempers and the kinds of anti-social behaviour that's mentioned there are things that we are all aware of and we all deplore. But it's a question of public education isn't it - it's not something that the rail companies can command people to do. It's a question of neighbourliness and civility and good behaviour on the part of the travelling public at large.

Denise Mahoney:
James Millar, Coggeshall: At my local station, we often witness half-empty trains passing through when the platform is very crowded. Why are these trains not allowed to make unscheduled stops to pick up the commuters who are waiting there?

John Cartledge:
A very interesting question. I think there are two parts to it - one is that if those trains are delayed because they're making extra unscheduled stops, they won't get their slot in the timetable and for the rest of the day they'll be running late and they'll be delaying other trains in the process and the whole timetable will unravel. But also just because the train is empty at the point where you see it, it doesn't mean to say that it hasn't got other stops that it's making further down the line.

Denise Mahoney:
Russ, Wales: Why is it so bad? It's because we allow it to get so bad. Not enough people are willing to complain and make a scene when things go wrong.

John Cartledge:
I think people are much less tolerant of under-performance in public services because in other areas of their lives things are improving and they make comparisons. If you expect your telephone service to be reliable or your electricity or gas supply to be more reliable then people use that as a yardstick against which they judge the railways. But enormous investment is required and this is a matter of political will. Make the point to us by all means but make it to your politicians too.

Denise Mahoney:
Philip, UK: Not having any true competition has allowed companies to become complacent. Would it be possible to penalise them by giving passengers the opportunity to reclaim their rail fares when trains are overcrowded, late or unclean?

John Cartledge:
There are compensation schemes in operation already when trains are late beyond a certain point - we don't think they're good enough but they're there. It's very, very difficult to identify everybody who's been on an overcrowded train or a train that they judge to be unclean.

What we want to see is an incentive scheme whereby the train companies are penalised if the trains aren't in an appropriate condition. There are arrangements like that in some of the provincial cities around Britain - we'd like to see that extended to the London area as well. The new contract that the Strategic Rail Authority is going to be issuing shortly will be much more prescriptive in that respect. So I think there is signs that the official thinking is moving very much in that direction.

Denise Mahoney:
Sharon Cunningham, London: To what extent do you think employers can play a role in easing congestion by introducing initiatives such as flexi-time, or encouraging staff to work from home?

I want to add to that, why has everybody got to work in the big cities? Why can't we have tax incentives from central government to encourage us to work in places of high unemployment?

John Cartledge:
All sorts of interesting issues there. The evidence about flexi-time is that what happens is that individuals may vary their journey within a given peak period but for everybody who travels a bit earlier on a particular day, somebody else travels a bit later on that day so that total numbers aren't affected although there is a certain amount of churning in the times when particular travellers go. It would better to have staggered hours if we could so that different employers start work at different times and that has all kinds of consequences on the home front because people's domestic arrangements are all tied in to the journey to work and journey home and the time that that takes place. So the consequences are quite far-reaching and many people think it's the business of the transport service to meet their needs rather than for them to change their lifestyles to accommodate pressure on the transport system.

Denise Mahoney:
TB, Birmingham: Public transport just doesn't work effectively with such large commuter volumes. Perhaps real results will be found in road building?

That, for example in big cities like Manchester, Birmingham and London, that simply isn't an option is it? You can't get into central London as it is.

John Cartledge:
No. Unless you want to radically change the physical form of London - reconstruct it like Los Angeles where one third of the city is taken up with road and another third is taken up with car parks and only the last third is used for anything else. You've got to make the best use of the infrastructure you've got. Most people are totally opposed to the impact on their neighbourhoods of demolition and disruption that's involved in massive road building. So what we've got to find is a way of making the best use of what we've got and public transport is far more efficient in its use of space and far more efficient in its use of energy. What we've got to make for public transport is to make it more agreeable and more civilised so that people are keener to use it rather than choose the option of private cars.

Denise Mahoney:
We've only got time for one more question to sum because we've had a number of e-mails on this point. Doesn't it come down to the fact that you get the public transport system that you deserve? If you're not prepared to pay for it, you won't have a system that works for everybody in the country.

John Cartledge:
Absolutely. Half the cost of the railways at the moment are met by the taxpayer but when opinion polls are done, we always find that schools and hospitals and law and order take greater precedence. If transport was higher up the political agenda then it would have a higher level of funding and that's what's needed to get to grips with the fundamental causes of some of the problems we've been discussing.

Denise Mahoney:
Thank you very much John Cartledge. That's all we have time for right now. But do join us at the same time next week. Goodbye.