Friday 18 December 2009
When Chris Rea was Driving Home for Christmas he was ‘top to toe in tail lights’ and it seems the British public are fed up with that too in December with 42% of the UK population finding traffic jams more stressful than any other part of travelling during the festive season.
And traffic jams were felt to be more stressful than public transport delays with only 18% of respondents grumbling about being stuck on trains. Both were more stressful than cooking Christmas dinner (17%) or spending time with family (14%).
But cramped conditions and reduced timetables over the holiday period add to the woes of rail travellers at Christmas with 49% finding trains overcrowded while 35% agreed it was the worst time of year to travel.
The survey, undertaken by high speed rail campaign group HSR\\UK, revealed travellers feel the existing rail network is stretched to capacity, along with the nation’s patience.
But a high speed rail network would be a welcome remedy for festive travellers improving speed, capacity and reliability in one go.
Sir Richard Leese, HSR\\UK campaign chair, said: “Our survey shows that people find travelling on the current transport network very stressful, and there is a need for something that’s much more efficient and reliable. Undoubtedly one of the solutions is an effective high speed rail network.”
The new HSR\\UK campaign launched in September this year, is a coalition of 11 of the UK’s major cities, including Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham and Cardiff; working together to build support for a national high speed network to ensure both business and pleasure travellers get to city destinations faster and more efficiently than any other form of land transport.
Operating at speeds of 200 mph and above, journey times from all of the UK’s major cities would rapidly decrease following the introduction of HSR, helping to take the stress out of traveling especially during busy times of the year.
For further information, please contact Pamela McDade at Freshwater on 0141 229 4050 or email pamela.mcdade@freshwater-uk.com
Notes to editors
Survey carried out by Opinion Matters covered 1,231 adults spread across each of the 11 UK cities in the campaign.
High Speed Rail (HSR) is commonly defined as a railway capable of operating at 320km (200mph) and above, and is typically designed for passengers rather than freight. The first HSR line opened in Japan in 1964 and other countries followed quickly. Today France, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy are just some of our European competitors with HSR networks. The UK’s first high-speed railway, HS1, linking London to the Channel Tunnel opened in November 2007 and is having a major impact on travel between the UK and continental Europe, cutting journey times between London and Paris to 2hr 15mins and between London and Brussels to 1hr 51min, whilst also helping to ease capacity constraints on London’s radial commuter rail network. Europe is now developing a network of high speed rail lines which allow for seamless journeys across Europe with co-ordinated ticketing and passenger services.
High Speed Rail capacity forecasts were included in the Greengauge21 – a not-for-profit organisation that aims to develop the concept of a high speed rail network and to promote its implementation as a national economic priority.