Rory Sutherland Columnist H Oblivious to the obvious the option, if capacity were available, to board one of the two eres something I genuinely dont understand and, earlier trains. You could even charge a small fee. given that the readers of this publication must I would, therefore, have reduced my journey time by 20 or 40 include many astute people with the greatest minutes. Better still, by taking an earlier, empty seat, I would have possible experience of the vagaries of human increased the capacity of the network. Why? Well, heres the decision-making, I thought I might share it with you in the hope thing. Its something that is completely obvious with cars, buses, of enlightenment. coaches and even helicopters, but for some reason its completely A few years ago, I asked a collection of rail engineers: What is non-obvious when it comes to trains. the point of High Speed 2? Suppose you had a fleet of taxis waiting to take people from a Very simple, they replied: To increase capacity, and to wedding to a reception, and there was a queue of people. You reduce journey times. would obviously fill each car with as many people as were Fine, I said. But you do realise you can do that not only at a available at the time of departure. You wouldnt allow cars to cost of 60-100bn with a project that will take 15 years, but in six leave part-full if there were people waiting in line. The same months for 3-4m? would apply with buses and helicopters. If youre evacuating the I elucidated further. All you need to do to achieve these two US embassy compound in Saigon, you make sure every ends is simple: reformulate the problem so that journey time is helicopter leaves with a full complement of passengers, because defined not as time spent on a train, but as end-to-end journey that way youre maximising the use of available capacity. time. Once you do that, you can reduce travel time for perhaps You wouldnt let a helicopter leave 50% of passengers by 20-40 minutes, at half-empty and tell the 50 desperate minimal cost, without making the trains Reformulate the problem so people waiting Im terribly sorry, but any faster. At the same time, you will that journey time is defined not youre booked on the 16:07 departure. significantly increase the capacity of the as time spent on the train, but Youd fill each Chinook. existing rail network and reduce the as end-to-end journey time Why is this not obvious when it comes likelihood of overcrowding. Again, this to trains? Thats my first question: I will cost you little more than 3-4m and want to know what this phenomenon is will only take six months. (domain-blindness?) where we can see something absolutely They looked on in disbelief. But let me explain my proposal. Every time I travel to Manchester, I buy an advance ticket. The truth is now practically invisible. reason I do this is simple: if you dont, your journey will cost Heres my second question. When I propose this jump-the-wait about 300 per leg. The downside, of course, is that this requires app idea to rail engineers, Im careful to caveat it by saying, you to travel on a specified train. As a result, because I cannot Im not suggesting for a second that you dont need to build HS2, but wouldnt it make sense to do this app thingy in the and arrive from Kent at Euston station about 45 minutes before meantime? How come they dont disagree with me, or refute my train is due to leave. In that time, two trains leave, 20 and 40 my argument, but simply dismiss what I have to say? Is it that minutes respectively before my designated train, and usually by recontextualising or reconceptualising a problem, you are half-empty. But Im not allowed to board them no siree. So, somehow seen as cheating of not playing by the rules? Its I have to hang around the forecourt looking like a prat. Those worrying if so, because this process is at the heart of most 40 minutes are much more annoying and less productive than 40 creative problem-solving, and a great deal of marketing works minutes spent on a train. the same way. If you spent 200,000 producing an app, and a few million If anybody can think of other instances of these phenomena pounds advertising its existence, you could solve this problem. It or, equally, if anybody knows a name for them Id really like to would work like this. As soon as I arrive at Euston, I could notify know. Contact me @rorysutherland on Twitter. 7 Impact ISSUE 34 2021_pp6-7_Rory.indd 7 18/06/2021 11:02