Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 19:22:08 on
Sat, 16 Nov 2013, Paul Corfield remarked:
Why doesn't TfL send out "tube touts", or make more of an effort to
publicise its service?

At this point I should simply say "LU and TfL do not own Heathrow
Airport" and leave you to draw the obvious conclusions about what is
and is not feasible in the environs of the Airport.

That seems fair enough. Although TfL could build partnerships with
airlines, especially when it comes to the information pages at the end of
the in-flight magazine.

I don't want to see people paying more than they need to, but the tube
can be very confusing for the first time visitor and at least HEx is
simple.

Oh come on. The Tube or Underground is world famous and is very easily
researched. It features prominently in any half decent guide book
about London just as the Subway does for New York or the MTR does in
Hong Kong. Guide books usually provide a simple explanation as to how
to navigate the relevant mass transit system.

Only for road-warriors. The majority of travellers don't do that kind of
research (partly because they've found in the past that it's often wildly
out of date).

I don't believe that (either that it is, or that readers think that it is)

Yes, in an older guide, the ticket prices might have changed but nothing
else of significance will.

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 20:08:38 on Sat, 16 Nov 2013,
Mizter T remarked:

I don't buy into the above assertion that the majority of passengers
arrive at Heathrow blind as to their onward travel plans from the airport.

Nor are the patrons of Heathrow Express a majority either[1]. Having spent
years trekking round the world on business I'm confident that my comments
are correct.

Some stats:

97% repeat travel rating.
96% recommend us to colleagues and friends.

Both of which rather debunk the "as soon as we get to Paddington we'll
realise the tube was a better option".

Business (69%) and leisure (31%) travellers.
93% overall satisfaction

[1] They are doing quite nicely on about 8% (16k daily from 191k)

is that 8% of PT or 8% of all visitors

tim

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

In message
,
at 10:57:51 on Sun, 17 Nov 2013, Recliner
remarked:

Bizarrely, the only time I've used the airside transfer from T4 to T1 was
when I was actually flying from London.

I used it only once, when flying (quite by chance using Heathrow as the
hub) from Amsterdam to LAX.

A friend used it flying Nice-Heathrow-Japan, while I was on the same
originating flight doing Nice-Heathrow-London.

My second Heathrow transfer (about a year later) was
Dubai-Heathrow-Geneva and I used landside for T123-T5. Partly because my
bags weren't checked through.

I was dismayed to find another long security queue in the Transit
centre

That's one of the reasons the airside transfer is so slow.
--
Roland Perry

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 15:25:11 on Sat, 16 Nov
2013, d remarked:

Heathrow Express will still be attractive to visitors for all the

reasons I've mentioned earlier in the thread.



I don't see why it would be. Someone arrives in London, sees a train going

to central london or another going to paddington (where?). The choice is

pretty simple it would seem to me.

Because it's a brand name, and if you are a stranger in the city then
there's an assumption that the airport express is the train you want.

There's also the aspect (which I agree is almost a market failure) that
you don't get to see which trains are leaving until you get to the
platform, which is after buying a ticket. The tube platform is somewhere
else entirely.

As someone else said , the piccadilly line
carries far more people than
Hex , now double or triple the speed and
you have crossrail.

And accept Travelcards of course. Which this discussion is predicated on
NOT happening.

Even if BAA still gets sacks of gold from track access charges - and
personally

I think the track should be compulsoraily purchased and handed over to
NR -

the HeX service is on borrowed time.

Government wouldn't build it, so why would they buy it now?

Yes, to some extent the HEx fare is a tourist "tax" (although I believe
the fares are only at a level that the line breaks even), but let's not
forget it's a tiny fraction of the APD full-in-your-face tourist tax that
we seem quite happy to relieve all flyers of.

There's some funny maths in your part of the world where 50 quid is a tiny
fraction of 13 pounds

tim

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

In message , at 17:11:57 on
Sun, 17 Nov 2013, Recliner remarked:
Because if you have easy entry to UK, landside is much faster. The
airside bus is extraordinarily slow. Didn't you see then 100+ minute
timings I posted a day or two ago. And having used it T4-T123, I can
confirm it's not overly pessimistic.

The one time I used it, it was much, much quicker than that. I think
those times allow for waiting in security queues (on the assumption
that transit pax need to be screened again), rather than the few
minutes the bus takes.

It took me 15 minutes to walk to the bus, then I'm sure they managed to
keep me waiting another 10 minutes for a bus that probably took 15
minutes to do the drive.
--
Roland Perry

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

In message , at 18:05:13 on Sun, 17
Nov 2013, tim...... remarked:
The official Heathrow touts work very hard to push people towards HEx,
so Heathrow Airport Ltd certainly seems to feel that it's in
competition with Heathrow Connect and the Tube.

A small amount of mission creep perhaps, but the people taking up
that offer are probably unaware of the existence of either HC or the
tube.

which "offer" is this?

The offer of being sold a HEx ticket for a quick and simple trip at
least as far as Paddington, rather than having to grapple with the local
metro/tube system. (For these purposes I regard Heathrow Connect as a
metro train).
--
Roland Perry

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 17:12:46 on Sun, 17 Nov
2013, tim...... remarked:
And of course the MAD scenario is only people *arriving* at the airport.

Not sure what you mean by this, of course it's only for people arriving at
the airport (otherwise they'd be at some other station).

As you go on to say, the surcharge ticket thing only applies to those
arriving. People departing will have bought an inclusive ticket already.

Well yes, but only because that's all that the ticket machines/window at the
airport sell

But people with a packet of pre-bought tickets in their pocket, aren't able
to use them.

And it only applies to arriving pax who bought the wrong ticket in the first
place (either by accident or more likely IMHO who did it thinking that they
could "get away with it because Madrid underground station don't have exit
barrier checks")

tim

--
Roland Perry

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 17:01:21 on Sun, 17 Nov
2013, tim...... remarked:
Couldn't they just issue free tickets for use between the terminals
that are only available at the terminals? Perhaps only valid for half
an hour or something.

Which would be used as free ways around paying the extra! Didn't get on
at Heathrow mate!

Difficult if only issued airside.

why would someone airside want to make a free transfer land side, they
would surely use the airside bus?

Because if you have easy entry to UK, landside is much faster. The airside
bus is extraordinarily slow. Didn't you see then 100+ minute

Um no

Personally, I have never seen anything like this, but I don't usually look

tim

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 17:25:32 on Sun, 17 Nov
2013, tim...... remarked:
I don't recall reducing the number of taxis at the airport ever being an
"objective".

Then you weren't aware of the reason then.

Oh I think that I was

I lived three miles from the airport at the time and took an interest

We are disagree over my (and yours) misremembering, not anything else

It's all about reducing carbon footprint (the trains are electric) and
reducing vehicle emissions on site (from those vehicles called taxis,
mainly).

AIUI Taxis count as PT for the purposes of LHR meeting its objective to
reduce numbers arriving by "car"

tim

Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend
 

In message , at 18:19:05 on Sun, 17
Nov 2013, tim...... remarked:

[1] They are doing quite nicely on about 8% (16k daily from 191k)

is that 8% of PT or 8% of all visitors

It's 8% of Heathrow passengers. Of course some will be in transit so
that'll reduce the numbers requiring access on/off site, but some will
be met by people[1] so that increases the number on/off site accesses.

As an order of magnitude (perhaps +/- two percentage points) it's
probably quite accurate.

By comparison, T5 Underground has about 10k passengers a day, T4 about
7k and T123 about 21k.

[1] The last time I used HEx was to meet someone off a flight, and we
then took the train back to Cambs.
--
Roland Perry