PASSENGERS crowding on to trains in and out of Huddersfield have been warned: “It’s not going to get any better.”
Overcrowding on trains is set to get worse in the next four years and beyond despite rail passengers paying more for tickets, an influential report by MPs has warned.
And experts in Huddersfield have echoed the findings of the Department for Transport study.
The department’s latest plans showed that all the relevant targets for increasing the number of passenger places on trains by March, 2014, will be missed.
There will be 15% fewer extra places delivered in London in the morning peak and 33% fewer into other major cities.
In Huddersfield, there have long been complaints about overcrowding, particularly on trains running between Leeds and Huddersfield.
Prof Colin Bamford, a transport expert at the University of Huddersfield, said: “The problems are that the train companies who operate the rolling stock are not willing to invest in more trains because of the short franchises they have.
“We also have problems at some smaller stations, where platform are not big enough to cope with longer trains and no-one will fund improvements.
“It is a major problem in West Yorkshire and it is not just the off-peak services.
“People have turned to the rail network because of jams on the roads, but now we have people crammed into railway carriages. It must be sheer hell for people who live in Huddersfield but work in Leeds.”
Peter Marshall, Honley-based spokesman for the Penistone Rail Users Group, said problems on that line had increased noticeably.
“The services on the Penistone Line are still using 1980s carriages and they are full to standing at peak times on many days.
“Even off-peak, more and more people are finding it difficult to get a seat.
“It is even worse on the transPennine line, where the Department of Transport have refused to fund extra carriages.”
The report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said it was “not clear to passengers where the money from increased fares has been spent.”
The MPs said: “Clearly, alternatives must be found to meet the capacity challenge in the future.
“The DfT should vigorously pursue and promote smart ticketing and other demand management techniques to reduce the inefficiencies of overcrowding in peak hours and underused rolling stock at other times.”
The committee’s chairman Margaret Hodge said: “This committee is concerned that, for commuters, the already unacceptable levels of overcrowding will simply get worse and ever more intolerable.
“At present there is no incentive for the rail industry to supply extra capacity without additional public subsidy.
“The DfT should, for future franchises, require operators to take measures themselves to avoid overcrowding and to meet the costs of doing so.
