Connex plans more standing space

Cattle-truck commuting will reach new levels of crowding under Connex plans to make nearly 800 passengers stand on trains on its new inner-London services.

It will mean cramming up to seven people into each square metre on a train - giving them a space little bigger than a phone box.

The plan was attacked today by the rail passenger watchdog, but Connex South Eastern claims the scheme to create more standing space by removing lavatories and taking out some seats would give customers "more comfortable" journeys

If approved, it would represent the most extreme example of cattletruck commuting exposed in a series of Evening Standard investigations. A long-standing guideline is 0.55 square metres per passenger.

The plan represents further bad news for Connex's 180,000 commuters following yesterday's revelation in the Standard that it will take at least three years before overcrowding can be seriously tackled. Existing power supplies are inadequate to handle the 12-carriage electric trains being introduced on Connex, South Central and South West Trains.

Phil Wilks, policy adviser for the Rail Passengers Council, said the lavatories proposal was a " retrograde step that will do nothing to alleviate the main problem of overcrowding". He said: "It beggars belief that passengers could be asked to go without toilets. The toilets are so small any way that it's hard to see how removing them will make a considerable difference.

"What will happen when you have a train load of people travelling home after a night out in London?"

Connex is looking to introduce new trains on its inner-London Metro services that would leave commuters with Tube-style levels of congestion. As many as 934 passengers - 778 of them standing - would be forced to fit into four carriages. People travelling on journeys of up to 15 minutes from places such as Lewisham, New Cross and Higham will be affected.

Connex South Eastern services into Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Victoria are already the busiest and least reliable commuter routes in the UK. The company was fined more than £1million in December for running trains with too few carriages and making existing over-crowding even worse.

Some 47 per cent of its passengers were dissatisfied with the number of seats available in a survey in the autumn by the Strategic Rail Authority.

Removing lavatories is one of six options being put out for consultation with passenger groups by Connex. It says the option under which seven customers would be forced to share one square metre of floor space was "the worst-case scenario".

Platform lavatories would be modernised and kept open on a more regular basis if the plan is given the go-ahead, Connex stressed today.

Glen Charles, Connex's commercial director said: "Our fleet at the moment is not fit for its purpose and not reliable. Our priority now is to offer customers a better and more comfortable journey on more modern trains. We have to admit that our track record over the past few years shows that we are not experts at giving passengers what they want.

"We want our customers to tell us what they want to see in the future - whether it is getting rid of seats, more standing room or no toilets."

Connex is in talks with train manufacturer Bombardier over the design of trains to run on its London Metro routes. They are aimed at eventually allowing five- and 10-carriage trains to run on the line.

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