I do a lot of travelling in Japan and I am constantly surprised by the way the system is organised out there. Tokyo is supposed to be the most expensive city in the world, yet travel is considerably cheaper than in the UK. A journey that would cost about 25 pounds here, would cost about 5 out there. (For example, Narita Airport to Ueno - a journey of about 40km. Cheapest fare is Y980.)
Inside the city itself, travel is, on average, around Y170 (85p). Trains run on time, and are imaculately clean.
Yet here in the UK we put up with shoddy rail service. Officious and basically useless staff. And as you've already pointed out, exhorbitant and confusing prices. It's all about money first, service later.
Yes, it's definitely Rip-Off Britain. And no matter how much Joe Public complains nothing gets done about it.
A year or so ago, most train companies decided to re-do their schedule. I live in Wimbledon, and it's a simple run up to Waterloo. After that shake up, my journey time was increased by 4 minutes. Why? Well it gave the company extra "leeway" to say that their trains were arriving on time. About 4 months after teh shakeup they announced that their train puncuality had increased from 92% to 97%. Much song and dance was made of this. When it fact nothing had changed except the scale for which it was measured. In fact if you actually used a stop watch, trains were actually taking longer to complete the same journey. Back to the same speeds which they had back in the 1950's.
Sorry to get on the soapbox, but this really annoys me. It doesn't take much to give a good service. But people keep putting money first.
A bit like Domino development. Service should always come first.
I do a lot of travelling in Japan and I am constantly surprised by the way the system is organised out there. Tokyo is supposed to be the most expensive city in the world, yet travel is considerably cheaper than in the UK. A journey that would cost about 25 pounds here, would cost about 5 out there. (For example, Narita Airport to Ueno - a journey of about 40km. Cheapest fare is Y980.)
Inside the city itself, travel is, on average, around Y170 (85p). Trains run on time, and are imaculately clean.
Yet here in the UK we put up with shoddy rail service. Officious and basically useless staff. And as you've already pointed out, exhorbitant and confusing prices. It's all about money first, service later.
Yes, it's definitely Rip-Off Britain. And no matter how much Joe Public complains nothing gets done about it.
A year or so ago, most train companies decided to re-do their schedule. I live in Wimbledon, and it's a simple run up to Waterloo. After that shake up, my journey time was increased by 4 minutes. Why? Well it gave the company extra "leeway" to say that their trains were arriving on time. About 4 months after teh shakeup they announced that their train puncuality had increased from 92% to 97%. Much song and dance was made of this. When it fact nothing had changed except the scale for which it was measured. In fact if you actually used a stop watch, trains were actually taking longer to complete the same journey. Back to the same speeds which they had back in the 1950's.
Sorry to get on the soapbox, but this really annoys me. It doesn't take much to give a good service. But people keep putting money first.
A bit like Domino development. Service should always come first.