For 3/4 of a year I’ve commuted from Rickmansworth to central London. On a good day it can be passable and tolerable. On a bad day it can be extremely long, awfully crowded and thoroughly uncomfortable. Now, I’ve commuted from a good few places in London in the past and have become used to busy, basic inner-London commuter trains. However, moving beyond the boundaries of London made me hope that a better commute would accompany the other improvements in living standard. So far I’ve not been impressed.

My feeling is that the service could and should be better. While changing the status quo with large transport operators is unlikely to ever be easy, this does not put me off trying. After all, if we don’t make our grievences known, why should we expect anything to change? Action may not produce quick results, but fighting our corner and arguing for a decent service can only help going forward.

A big part in making an argument is to be informed and empowered. Most commuters may be all too familiar with their own commute but are likely unaware how it compares with commutes on other, similar routes. Perhaps if they did they’d feel all the more compelled to taking action. Many facts and figures that would assist a campaign aren’t made very public friendly, however they are out there if you know where to look.

In this series of blog posts I’m going to try to better empower other commuters to make their views known and hopefully also reveal just how good or bad commuters in Rickmansworth and the local area actually have it.

How busy are trains from Watford Junction on the morning commute?

I’m a big believer that passengers or customers, call them what you will, should be kept informed. This allows them to better manage their journey and might well help the service all. I was therefore impressed today to come across London Midland’s feature listing how busy peak trains are to and from town. Customers become empowered; they can see at a glance their chance of getting a seat on each service, which, if they’re like me, is a big factor when deciding when the travel.

I really wish this was a feature provided by all train companies, indeed the Underground too. Instead on the whole we gradually and through no end of trial and error try to piece together when works well and which journeys will be hell. However if the companies are collecting this information anyway – and let’s face it they must do to some extent – why not make it available and empower the customers?

This should work to the benefit of the train companies too. Think about it: they’re telling us which trains are likely to be crowded, so we can actually try to avoid them and take the quieter train. We could be given the power to avoid being in the jam at the same time help balance out the usage of the train services as a whole.

Just looking at these guides actually provides an interesting insight into just how crowded the trains are heading into Euston. Out in the Shires there’s largely space enough: at Tring all bar one morning train has space aplenty. By Watford Junction only about 1 in 5 trains has plenty of space and almost a third were standing room. By Harrow & Wealdstone 3/4 are standing room and the remaining 1/4 are almost full. Ok, so the commute is shorter from the London ‘burbs, but would you prefer to be seated for 30 mins or stand in a crowd for 15 minutes? But them I’m a country lad so I’m biased…