As reported by yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, the Department for Transport are sitting on a report showing how modern day business travellors use time on the train.
The report uses empirical data, based on fieldwork, rather than theoretical assumptions which date back to the 1960s.
It can now be downloaded here.
As the report says
“The combined effect is that a reduction in scheduled journey time by, for example 10 minutes, would increase the average amount of time spent working by all business travellers by just 0.75 minute.”
Stop HS2 have been saying since we were founded that the Department for Transport assumptions that no-one works on a train were outdated. These days, some trains have wifi and plug sockets, to enable you to use a laptop while travelling. Ideas that people twiddle their thumbs while on a train are outmoded and should be changed.
(Other outdated thinking from the Dft is their refusal to update to a more recent forecasting model = see HS2 Forecasting – not “the highest standards of evidence.”)
Another interesting article was posted on Conservative Home – the editor, Tim Montgomerie said “A firm prediction… HS2 will never happen”
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Who commissioned this report and who knew about it and when
Surely MPs should be asking searching questions