In article ,
Roland Perry wrote:
The Long Island Railroad also goes to that Airtrain much faster and
lots of people take it. The NJ Transit train goes to Newark airport
via another airtrain and it's also quite popular.

How many of those people are visitors on their first trip to NY?

I haven't a clue. Probably depends where they're from.

Elsewhere in North America, the subway or local commuter train goes to
the airports in Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington
DC (National), Atlanta, Chicago (both airports), Dallas, St Louis, San
Francisco, Portland OR, Seattle, Vancouver, and probably other places
I haven't been to. In each case there's been plenty of people on the
train with me with suitcases.

First time visitors to the city, who would normally use a taxi?

Here in the US, the normal thing at an airport is to rent a car, not
to take a taxi. The distances are greater, and we have absurdly large
car parks. One time at a conference in Lyon (where there is a
convenient overpriced tram from the airport) a young guy from
California on his first international trip rented a car and attempted
to drive it around the city. It was pretty funny.

Atlanta's another metro system where people have said I was crazy to mix
it with the locals. It's a very deep seated prejudice.

I can believe it. The local snark is that MARTA means Moving Africans
Rapidly Through Atlanta. The communter traffic is horrible but
adjacent counties have repeatedly voted down MARTA extensions because
Those People could come to their counties. (It is my impression that
a whole lot of those people come as house cleaners and garden guys,
presumably arriving by magic, or more likely very slow buses.) I've
never had any trouble on MARTA.

--
Regards,
John Levine, , Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

In message , at 06:30:02 on Fri, 8 Nov 2019,
John Levine remarked:
In article ,
Roland Perry wrote:
The Long Island Railroad also goes to that Airtrain much faster and
lots of people take it. The NJ Transit train goes to Newark airport
via another airtrain and it's also quite popular.

How many of those people are visitors on their first trip to NY?

I haven't a clue. Probably depends where they're from.

It's vital to your thesis because HEx is catering for the high-end
airline passenger who has probably never visited London before, and just
wants to be spoon-fed an "airport express" service to the city centre.

Elsewhere in North America, the subway or local commuter train goes to
the airports in Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington
DC (National), Atlanta, Chicago (both airports), Dallas, St Louis, San
Francisco, Portland OR, Seattle, Vancouver, and probably other places
I haven't been to. In each case there's been plenty of people on the
train with me with suitcases.

First time visitors to the city, who would normally use a taxi?

Here in the US, the normal thing at an airport is to rent a car, not
to take a taxi.

I think that's a huge stretch for the kind of travellers involved. For
example the first time I flew into Atlanta from the UK for a trade show
in the city centre, a hire car would be a huge liability. As would one
have been to a similar trade show six months later in New York. What I
needed was to hire a car for an hour to take me to my hotel (and a few
days later, back to the airport). That's called a Taxi.

That doesn't mean I've never flown into a city and hired a car, but
thinking back it's always when I've been on holiday, and my destination
was some way outside that city. That's quite disjoint from HEx's target
market which is people otherwise taking a taxi from Heathrow to Zone 1.

And, of course, for whom even the regular HEx fare is down in the noise
level compared to their $2000 flight or $200/night hotel.

The distances are greater, and we have absurdly large
car parks. One time at a conference in Lyon (where there is a
convenient overpriced tram from the airport) a young guy from
California on his first international trip rented a car and attempted
to drive it around the city. It was pretty funny.

It'd be like that in London. And remember, we are discussing why people
would use HEx rather than other modes of transport. To hire a car at
Heathrow to drive to hotel in Zone 1 would be insane.

Atlanta's another metro system where people have said I was crazy to mix
it with the locals. It's a very deep seated prejudice.

I can believe it. The local snark is that MARTA means Moving Africans
Rapidly Through Atlanta. The communter traffic is horrible but
adjacent counties have repeatedly voted down MARTA extensions because
Those People could come to their counties. (It is my impression that
a whole lot of those people come as house cleaners and garden guys,
presumably arriving by magic, or more likely very slow buses.) I've
never had any trouble on MARTA.

I've never had any trouble on MARTA either, and yes the resistance to
extensions is for precisely the same reason people fear city metro
systems almost everywhere (regardless of the ethnicity of the locals):
that it's perceived as the mode of choice of thieves and muggers.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 16:35:39 on Thu, 7 Nov 2019,
Recliner remarked:
Atlanta's another metro system where people have said I was crazy to mix
it with the locals. It's a very deep seated prejudice.

Yes, it's straightforward racial prejudice with MARTA. That could also
apply to some other public transit systems that serve airports.

It's a prejudice against muggers, which Hollywood (and others) portray
as infesting metro systems. The ethnicity of the muggers will depend on
which country, as well as which city.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 21:39:44 on Thu, 7 Nov 2019,
Recliner remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:35:39 on Thu, 7 Nov 2019,
Recliner remarked:

Someone trying to catch HEx from T4 will actually have to start their
journey on a Crossrail train and change at Central, and perhaps again at
Paddington, rather than just taking a through train. They'll be able to
realise their mistake while looking at the route map on the Crossrail
train.

By then they've bought their ticket. On their next trip to England they
may make a different choice.

Yup, HEx may only catch them the once, and probably only in one direction.
Not a good long-term business model.

You are over-estimating the willingness of the sort of person whose
normal policy is "no-one got fired getting a taxi end to end", to start
grappling with London's commuter rail services.

Not at all: the keenest taxi users use taxis anyway, not HEx.

The target market is those who *can* be persuaded to try the airport
express instead.

For many people, Paddington just isn't in the right place, even to get
a taxi.

HEx's ridership, exceeding their estimates, appears to prove this wrong.

And you seem to under-estimate the effort in getting from the HEx Padd
platform to the taxi rank;

It's pretty easy, actually. And a very similar experience to seeking a
taxi rank at an airport.

many Crossrail stations will have more convenient taxi ranks.

Nominate one, and we'll see what it's like when the station eventually
opens.

People, particularly with luggage, or if travelling as a couple or family,
will find a door-to-door taxi much more convenient than taking a train part
of the way, then getting a taxi. So HEx only gets a subset of possible taxi
users. And that subset will shrink when Crossrail gets going.

No-one has claimed they get the whole market, but it has successfully
got the market it projected.

How would they even know (or care) what the cheaper fare was on
Crossrail?

Probably large signs advertising Crossrail's lower prices. They'll also see
the much more useful route map.

People navigating an unfamiliar airport like Heathrow will be suffering
from sign-blindness. There's simply too much going on. That why (whether
you approve of it or not) the HEx ticket sellers have an easy time.

Even assuming that a railhead at one of the Crossrail stations in
central London is a compellingly shorter taxi-ride to their ultimate
destination than Paddington.

Not just central London: Ealing Broadway may be more convenient for people
heading to west London, and people going to the City or Canary Wharf would
be crazy to take HEx rather than Crossrail.

I agree that if you are going to Canary Wharf then Crossrail should be a
better choice, but you have to persuade people it's better than the
average big city commuter railway.

Ealing Broadway (in general not just the station) is rather inhospitable
as a railhead. I don't think I'd recommend it for a novice overseas
visitor.

--
Roland Perry

On 08/11/2019 07:54, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 06:30:02 on Fri, 8 Nov 2019,
John Levine remarked:
In article ,
Roland PerryÂ* wrote:
The Long Island Railroad also goes to that Airtrain much faster and
lots of people take it.Â* The NJ Transit train goes to Newark airport
via another airtrain and it's also quite popular.

How many of those people are visitors on their first trip to NY?

I haven't a clue.Â* Probably depends where they're from.

It's vital to your thesis because HEx is catering for the high-end
airline passenger who has probably never visited London before, and just
wants to be spoon-fed an "airport express" service to the city centre.

Elsewhere in North America, the subway or local commuter train goes to
the airports in Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington
DC (National), Atlanta, Chicago (both airports), Dallas, St Louis, San
Francisco, Portland OR, Seattle, Vancouver, and probably other places
I haven't been to.Â* In each case there's been plenty of people on the
train with me with suitcases.

First time visitors to the city, who would normally use a taxi?

Here in the US, the normal thing at an airport is to rent a car, not
to take a taxi.

I think that's a huge stretch for the kind of travellers involved. For
example the first time I flew into Atlanta from the UK for a trade show
in the city centre, a hire car would be a huge liability. As would one
have been to a similar trade show six months later in New York. What I
needed was to hire a car for an hour to take me to my hotel (and a few
days later, back to the airport). That's called a Taxi.

That doesn't mean I've never flown into a city and hired a car, but
thinking back it's always when I've been on holiday, and my destination
was some way outside that city. That's quite disjoint from HEx's target
market which is people otherwise taking a taxi from Heathrow to Zone 1.

And, of course, for whom even the regular HEx fare is down in the noise
level compared to their $2000 flight or $200/night hotel.

The distances are greater, and we have absurdly large
car parks.Â* One time at a conference in Lyon (where there is a
convenient overpriced tram from the airport) a young guy from
California on his first international trip rented a car and attempted
to drive it around the city.Â* It was pretty funny.

It'd be like that in London. And remember, we are discussing why people
would use HEx rather than other modes of transport. To hire a car at
Heathrow to drive to hotel in Zone 1 would be insane.

Atlanta's another metro system where people have said I was crazy to mix
it with the locals. It's a very deep seated prejudice.

I can believe it.Â* The local snark is that MARTA means Moving Africans
Rapidly Through Atlanta.Â* The communter traffic is horrible but
adjacent counties have repeatedly voted down MARTA extensions because
Those People could come to their counties.Â* (It is my impression that
a whole lot of those people come as house cleaners and garden guys,
presumably arriving by magic, or more likely very slow buses.)Â* I've
never had any trouble on MARTA.

I've never had any trouble on MARTA either, and yes the resistance to
extensions is for precisely the same reason people fear city metro
systems almost everywhere (regardless of the ethnicity of the locals):
that it's perceived as the mode of choice of thieves and muggers.

Shades of the Duke of Wellington!

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 21:39:44 on Thu, 7 Nov 2019,
Recliner remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:35:39 on Thu, 7 Nov 2019,
Recliner remarked:

Someone trying to catch HEx from T4 will actually have to start their
journey on a Crossrail train and change at Central, and perhaps again at
Paddington, rather than just taking a through train. They'll be able to
realise their mistake while looking at the route map on the Crossrail
train.

By then they've bought their ticket. On their next trip to England they
may make a different choice.

Yup, HEx may only catch them the once, and probably only in one direction.
Not a good long-term business model.

You are over-estimating the willingness of the sort of person whose
normal policy is "no-one got fired getting a taxi end to end", to start
grappling with London's commuter rail services.

Not at all: the keenest taxi users use taxis anyway, not HEx.

The target market is those who *can* be persuaded to try the airport
express instead.

For many people, Paddington just isn't in the right place, even to get
a taxi.

HEx's ridership, exceeding their estimates, appears to prove this wrong.

And you seem to under-estimate the effort in getting from the HEx Padd
platform to the taxi rank;

It's pretty easy, actually. And a very similar experience to seeking a
taxi rank at an airport.

many Crossrail stations will have more convenient taxi ranks.

Nominate one, and we'll see what it's like when the station eventually
opens.

People, particularly with luggage, or if travelling as a couple or family,
will find a door-to-door taxi much more convenient than taking a train part
of the way, then getting a taxi. So HEx only gets a subset of possible taxi
users. And that subset will shrink when Crossrail gets going.

No-one has claimed they get the whole market, but it has successfully
got the market it projected.

How would they even know (or care) what the cheaper fare was on
Crossrail?

Probably large signs advertising Crossrail's lower prices. They'll also see
the much more useful route map.

People navigating an unfamiliar airport like Heathrow will be suffering
from sign-blindness. There's simply too much going on. That why (whether
you approve of it or not) the HEx ticket sellers have an easy time.

Even assuming that a railhead at one of the Crossrail stations in
central London is a compellingly shorter taxi-ride to their ultimate
destination than Paddington.

Not just central London: Ealing Broadway may be more convenient for people
heading to west London, and people going to the City or Canary Wharf would
be crazy to take HEx rather than Crossrail.

I agree that if you are going to Canary Wharf then Crossrail should be a
better choice, but you have to persuade people it's better than the
average big city commuter railway.

Ealing Broadway (in general not just the station) is rather inhospitable
as a railhead. I don't think I'd recommend it for a novice overseas
visitor.


Why? Lift up to the station, a few steps through the barrier, taxi rank
right outside. Far better than the long hike at Paddington from platfrm 6/7
to the taxi rank above and beyond the H&C line platform 16.

On 08/11/2019 06:30, John Levine wrote:

Here in the US, the normal thing at an airport is to rent a car, not
to take a taxi.

I've never done that when arriving from the UK. I'm usually too
jet-lagged to even think about driving. I mostly stay with friends, so
either they pick me up or I get a taxi. If I need a car, I'll get it the
next day.

I have picked up cars at airports on internal flights, though.


--
Ria in Aberdeen

[Send address is invalid, use sipsoup at gmail dot com to reply direct]

On Wed, 6 Nov 2019 20:50:33 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:05:39 on Wed, 6 Nov
2019, remarked:
On Wed, 6 Nov 2019 09:38:02 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 22:16:22 on Sun, 3 Nov 2019,
Recliner remarked:

It's not just tourists and Heathrow workers who have to get to the airport:
plenty of British travellers and savvy foreign travellers use the airport
too. Any of them who have been HEx users will switch to Crossrail when it's
fully open, and not just because it's cheaper. That won't leave enough
premium payers on HEx to keep it viable.

It'll leave all the first-time visitors, which will probably be the

Why would it? I'm sure most of them can read a metro map and will immediately
spot the lines that go to central london and won't much care for the one
that goes to a bears home.

For the reasons I've explained why airport express services are more
attractive than the local commuter services.

I think you're underestimating them. Its not the 1990s anymore where tourists
rock up in a new place scratching their heads and clutching a Lonely Planet
book not quite sure what to do. I imagine most of them will have done their
homework online including the best way to get from the airport to their hotel
and if that involves a train no doubt Crossrail will feature.

Aside from Hex I suspect the piccadilly line will face a hefty slump in
passengers too given how slow and uncomfortable it is.

In message , at 14:37:03 on Fri, 8 Nov
2019, MissRiaElaine remarked:
On 08/11/2019 06:30, John Levine wrote:

Here in the US, the normal thing at an airport is to rent a car, not
to take a taxi.

I've never done that when arriving from the UK. I'm usually too
jet-lagged to even think about driving. I mostly stay with friends, so
either they pick me up or I get a taxi. If I need a car, I'll get it
the next day.

I have picked up cars at airports on internal flights, though.

UK internal, or USA internal?

Back in the day, I did once have a long weekend in Glasgow which
involved a flight from London and a rental car. But that was when
I had a very well paid job where being on any kind of holiday was
hugely disapproved of. So one had to flit around within strict
limits, that would not have allowed any other means of transport
(other than perhaps a private helicopter).
--
Roland Perry

In article , Roland Perry
writes
As a result, and even as a more adventurous traveller (colleagues were
amazed I dared get a bus from Geneva to the airport, and didn't even
consider rail) I think I've only once got a train on first arrival at a
suitably equipped overseas airport.

Working backwards through my travel log.

Vienna: caught the CAT train then the U-bahn to the hotel. No problem.
Possibly CAT is overpriced but it went to the right place and I could
buy a ticket right in the terminal.

Seoul: first trip I used the express bus that stopped outside the
company hotel rather than two or three (long) metro trips and then a 2
km taxi in a country where I can't even read the signs. Second trip,
just used the metro to the (different) hotel; both cheaper and faster
than the express bus.

Seattle: wasn't going anywhere on the tram, so rented a car (perhaps I
should have tried Uber, but I never have so far). In the past I've used
the tram. I forget what I did before there were trams.

Minneapolis St.Paul: wasn't staying near the metro, such as it is, and
wasn't staying close enough to the meeting place to walk, so rented a
car.

Perth: got picked up by relatives this time. Last time, rented a car
because I was going several hundred km. When I returned the car I took
bus+metro to my hotel. (I eventually left Perth by train.)

Sydney: train. Opal card. Trivial.

Cairns: no metro, rented a car. But did catch the train once.

Copenhagen: metro or train every time (including to Aalborg, Lund, and
Goteborg).

Atlanta: MARTA works fine. What's the problem?

Singapo metro, of course.

Madrid: metro.

AYQ: got the dedicated bus service.

Melbourne: bus to central area, then tram to hotel. Trams and local
trains thereafter (left Melbourne on a coach trip).

Hobart: rented a car because going to catch the Ida Bay railway then
drive to Launceston.

Cagliari: rented a car because was going all over the place. But did
ride the entire tram network while I was there.

Aalborg: no trams to hotel, so used a taxi.

San Francisco: always been going somewhere that needs a car, though I
have used the San Jose trams (and once acted as conductor on one).

Billund: no public transport and needed to get to Aalborg.

Hong Kong: metro and tram. Octopus card. Simples.

Amsterdam: train and tram.

Montreal: from memory, express bus to the city (Dorval train wasn't
workable) but metro in the city.

Calgary: rented a car because had to drive half way to Banff.

ACE: rented a car because going all over the place.

DFW: rented a car because it's nowhere near D or FW with no public
transport I can find.

Stockholm: train and metro.

That's 7 years; I think I'll stop there.

--
Clive D.W. Feather