But a good proportion of the overcrowding is a result of the progressive reductions in seating (and standing) capacity on many routes.

Great application of free market economics - reduce capacity, create overcrowding problem, then charge premium fares to alleviate manufactured problem.

Bing

A good example of this is the Virgin trains from Liverpool to London (and on their other routes as well). The sets are nearly 50% first class, which cannot possibly be justified by normal demand. The result is that the standard class gets full and Virgin offer onboard upgrades to first class for £15 or more. Kerching! - money for nothing.

At the same time the roads are choked. There is something wrong with the economics and/or regulation somewhere.

Martyn

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It might be true that there are fewer seats in modern open-plan units than earlier "dog-box" style sets but the total carrying capacity taking standing room into account is actually greater.

Part of the problem on commuter routes is indeed the combination of modern units and regulation. Take the South Western long-distance electric services out of Waterloo for example (a subject close to my heart!!). A 10-car class 444 EMU will have 70 first class seats on it (despite the price, first class commuter travel is very much in demand on the Portsmouth and Bournemouth services), the "equivalent" mark 1 EMU had 12 cars with a total of up to 108 first class seats. This reduction has been made in order to try to prop up the number of standard class seats.

A large part of the reason for the reduction is the vast amounts of space now set aside for disabled lavatories and the access to them (they are like ballrooms!), a buffet counter that is almost never used as the trolley generally passes through the train, large cycle storage spaces and some very empty spaces ostensibly to allow wheelchair access to seating. While these are all, to varying degrees useful things to have, the strictness and inflexibility of the Disabled Access Regs. has certainly resulted in a vast loss of seating space on what are long-distance, not "metro" trains.

This is then combined with the PIXC problem whereby operators are penalised when there are too many standing passengers. There are then only 2 solutions to the problem, being, where possible to "raid" the first class seating space (a minor option, with a probable reduction in revenue) and, on a larger scale, to suppress demand through pricing in order to avoid PIXC penalties. While it is true, as Gwiwer says, that capacity including standees is now greater, the operator does not want to have so many standees that they officially become "PIXCies" (passengers in excess of capacity) so that the operator cops a fine.

Of course, it is now no longer within the power of an operator to do the obvious thing to make its business grow and please everyone - i.e. invest to enhance capacity! Demand management through pricing really becomes the only significant option left open to the operator - hardly satisfactory...

Precisely!

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I don't know if Mr Bear has ever been to the UK. For those who haven't here's a few notes to put things in perspective.

The permanent population of Greater London, at around 22m, is more than the total population of Australia, but they live in an area which would encompass metro Melbourne, Geelong, the lands in between and Port Philip Bay.

This number is increased by around 10% (over 2 million, or over half the population of Melbourne) by daily workers many of whom travel into the area by train. This does not include purely local suburban routes or passengers who both live and work within Greater London - it represents medium to longer distance travel equivalent to perhaps Geelong / Bendigo to Melbourne or Newcastle / Wollongong to Sydney.

Many rail lines are already running at maximum peak time capacity with trains every 2 minutes or so, feeding into terminals with anything from 6 to over 20 platforms. Many lines are four-tracks although two will be used mainly by local suburban trains.

The 10-car class 444 trains 21C123 refers to are almost the same length overall as the older 12-car trains they replaced, since car length has increased. Therefore within the present signalling and platform limitations additional cars cannot be attached to trains. Neither can more trains be run.

Most lines are at the stage where if closer headway signalling was provided (which would be at enormous cost) it would not increase the total capacity as line speeds might need to be lowerered to account for braking and overlap distances. In fact it might reduce capacity through lower speeds.

The problem of overcrowding is massive, increasing, and requires creative thought to manage. It cannot be done by traditional quick-fix solutions other than pricing. Given that the entire Greater London area is built up it is impractical to consider new surface routes, but underground lines such as Crossrail are continually being looked at.

Imagine Melbourne's Southern Cross station dealing with maximum length fully loaded trains arriving from each of Seymour, Traralgon, Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong every 10 minutes or so, giving a movement in and out of its 8 country platforms every minute or two, (plus occasional other services) plus its suburban task, and you might get some idea of the scale of the problems faced.

And yes, the operators are between a rock and a hard place in being effectively fined if they carry "too many passengers" (PIXC, as explained by 21C123 perfectly), yet they are unable to do anything realsitic to overcome that situation. If passengers present themselves for travel then they have to be carried.