🚉 Loyal Customers - MM#617
Brand loyalty may not exist in public transport
Good day my good friend.
As I write this, old Charles “Charlie” Charles has just delivered his very first speech to open Parliament, in a ceremony that gives a lot of people a chance to say “they are doing that because it is traditional” despite not much of it making sense. Apparently there is going to be some sort of regulation of self-driving cars. You can find some of the background briefing notes to read here, and I will post something on this at some point. Have fun!
If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else who you think will love it. I will love you forever if you do. ☺️
James
😘 K-I-S-S
The always-excellent Reece Martin has recently published a post on his Substack on London’s Confusing Railways. Specifically in relation to the confusing level of branding and the lack of a coherent identity of the railway network brought about by the sheer variety of train operators that serve the capital.
If you take the Oyster Card area as covering London rail services, there are 14 different rail ‘brands1’ that serve London stations:
c2c
Chiltern Railways
Elizabeth Line2
Great Northern
Gatwick Express
Great Western
Greater Anglia
Heathrow Express
London Northwestern
London Overground
Southeastern
Southern
South West Railways
Thameslink
And that’s if you exclude the long distance operators (Avanti West Coast, some Chiltern Railways services, East Midlands Railway, Grand Central, some Great Western services, some Greater Anglia services, Hull Trains, Lumo, LNER) and Eurostar who only call at the terminus stations in Central London. The complexity that this brings can be seen on the combined Tube and Rail map for London.
To add further complexity, some rail services within London are within the Oyster Card area, but you need to buy a top-up to use them. These are the Heathrow Express from Paddington to Heathrow Airport, and Southeastern ‘Javelin’ services from St Pancras International to Stratford International.
This situation has come about due to the source of many-an issue on the UK rail network - privatisation. The fragmentation of British Rail into numerous franchises meant that numerous operators were able to develop their own brands and colour schemes, and market themselves in competition to other lines and even other operators on the same lines. Resulting in silly situations like at Clapham Junction, with 3 different train operators competing for the same trips into Central London at the start of franchising (Connex, Gatwick Express, and South West Trains).
Things have subsequently got better since that point. All train operators are required to deliver station signs and maps to agreed industry standards maintained by RSSB, so while the colours may be different the signs and wayfinding are the same. This is written into franchise agreements. Maybe an example of Department for Transport micro-management working out well.
This is all well and good, but a question remains - do the passenger ultimately care? I mean, to many transport geeks having a large map with numerous operators is confusing, but does that really matter to the average passenger? There are numerous guide books on how to do wayfinding effectively, but ultimately they come back to the same 5 principles of wayfinding through any system:
Understanding the journey - People often go where you don’t expect them to (or want them to go), and you need to plan your wayfinding to be adaptable to their needs.
The system is legible - It is easy to read, to understand quickly, and gives people the right information at the right time.
Accessibility is critical - Different people with different needs must be able to read and interpret the information that you are giving them.
Clear signage is a must - Clear fonts, colours and pictograms applied consistently.
Consistency - A consistent design, applied in the same way across the network.
London has a funny transport network where it both does and does not meet these standards. There is different branding and colour schemes from different operators, which are also applied differently to that of London Underground (and London Overground, who apply the same design standards as the rest of Transport for London). But the signage, legibility, accessibility, and understanding of the journey is consistent throughout any journey on the network. You can expect to see the same type of signs at Finsbury Park as you would at East Croydon or Richmond.
Just don’t look at the rail map. That is a horror show.
A final observation on this is that of brand loyalty within public transport. Namely, there is not much evidence of there being any. Let me put it this way, if comparing between the performance of two different operators, there is some evidence of people being favourable towards brands that are more in keeping with their values. And there is some indication that there is some trade-off between different operators that could be construed as loyalty.
But this is a misunderstanding of what constitutes loyalty. If you need to make a regular journey, and when you trade off speed, cost, frequency, and other factors and you find that one option clearly outperforms the rest, who runs the service is likely to be of secondary performance. To paraphrase a good friend of mine.
Nobody cares about the name on the side. They just want a train that gets them there on time.
I don’t have the evidence to back this, but I sense that there is little loyalty to most of the train operators in London - even to Transport for London. Operational aspects of the service matter more when making journey choices. Yet a fragmented rail system means that doing a simple thing like bringing public transport under a single, unified, simple identity is hard.
This probably doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Inconsistent branding is certainly not an argument for bringing all public transport into public ownership. But it is an example of how fragmentation makes the easy things hard and leads to unnecessary complications.
What you can do: If you are delivering any kind of wayfinding scheme or trying to help people navigate around public transport systems, Transport for London’s Design Standards are the best in class. Read them, learn them, deploy them in your wayfinding work.
🎓 From academia
The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author - they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.
Strategic use of fare-reward schemes in a ride-sourcing market: An equilibrium analysis
TL:DR - Different types of reward schemes lead to different changes in rider behaviours, and often these changes are extreme. But it all balances out in the end.
Pushing towards shared mobility
TL:DR - Economists look at parking, and find that prioritising parking for shared use vehicles leads to greater social outcomes.
The role of autonomous vehicles in transportation equity in Tempe, Arizona
TL:DR - Autonomous vehicle policy could make cities less equal.
TL:DR - Restrict car use to reduce pollution. There is no mention of Metallica.
✊ Awesome people doing awesome things
We don’t do enough arty things as transport professionals, and we certainly don’t engage with young people enough. So, when you hear of the artwork of the likes of St Bede’s Catholic Primary School, in Sacriston, County Durham, it is heartening to see. Putting the creativity of school children to improving road safety is more than worthwhile.
And in case you think this is all a bit gimmicky, nothing could be further from the truth. Murals have been shown to reduce speeds and crashes. Asphalt art has been shown to reduce speeds and collisions. The evidence is clear - more art please!!
📼 On the (You)Tube
Is Europe insanely well designed? I happen to think that this is just an accident of history as opposed to intention, but this video explores connectivity between places in an accessible way. Which is good.
🖼️ Graphic Design
Occasionally Transport for London re-uses the iconic Underground map for something impactful or fun. This week, they published an Underground map showing Engineering Icons. A really good touch is how for the Elizabeth Line stations, they used engineers who actually worked on the Elizabeth Line. Take it all in, its quite something.
📚 Random things
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.
Case-Based Learning as a Tool for Capacity Development in Public Policy (Asian Development Bank)
Coping with Weather Disasters through International Migration: The Role of Search Frictions and International Migrant Demand (Development Impact)
WeBroke WeWork, WePromise WeFix it: How subleasing giant hopes to survive bankruptcy (The Register)
Orcas sink another sailboat as a bewildering wave of attacks continues (New Scientist)
Why 40% of people choose willful ignorance (Big Think)
✍️ Your feedback is essential
I want to make the calls to actions better. To do this, I need your feedback. Just fill in the 3 question survey form by clicking on the below button to provide me with quick feedback, that I can put into action. Thank you so much.
Note that the actual number of companies operating services is less: Arriva Rail London (London Overground), c2c, Chiltern Railways, Elizabeth line (under Transport for London concession), Govia Thameslink Railway (Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Southern, Thameslink), Greater Anglia, Great Western, Heathrow Express, Southeastern, South Western Railway, and West Midlands Trains (London Northwestern).
Contrary to what most people think, the Elizabeth Line is, in fact, a National Rail service.