Some 15 - 20 years ago in the UK, there was a fashion for Customer Charters guaranteeing - or at least stating - standards of service. Train operators, for example, had to say that no more than x% of trains should run late and if they ran more than a specified time late, passengers could apply for compensation. All of this subsequently mutated into European Union passengers rights and obligations legislation.

One immediate response on the part of train operators was to add recovery time to their timetables. There always had been some, for understandable operating reasons. Building a complex timetable where 100% performance is expected day in, day out is just not realistic, so an allowance of 3 - 5 minutes was routinely put into the schedules of long distance trains.

But the new recovery time was put in to make it easier to meet Charter standards. It was put in between the last two stops, so that trains would find it easier to arrive at their final destinations on time. So the time in the timetable for trains to run between these two stops in one direction was rather larger than in the other - people would talk about timings "in the Charter direction". And this led to the odd headline in newspapers keen, as always, to knock railways.

But the practice is not unique to rail.

If you look in the timetable for London - Paris flights, you'll see they are scheduled to take an hour and ten minutes. As you reach cruise altitude, the captain welcomes you to this 40 minute flight. That's 30 minutes recovery time on a 70 minute flight! Wow!

Going to Lisbon recently, I was a bit surprised to see how long the flights took - 2 hours 40 minutes out, and ten minutes longer coming back. Going out, actual flying time - take-off to touch down - was exactly 2 hours. Chocks off to chocks on was just under 20 minutes longer. Coming back, the captain gave our flying time as 2 hours 10 minutes: it was actually about 5 minutes more, with a push-back to chocks on time of a few minutes over two and a half hours. Again, 40 minutes recovery time on a flight scheduled to take 170 minutes. That's just under 25% - that's some padding!

Clearly, sometimes it will be necessary - indeed, sometimes more will be necessary. When it isn't, you are allowing more time for a journey than it actually needs - indeed, the practice of padding might actually affect connections, again making your journey longer than it needs to be.

Is there any answer to this - apart from trying to make the aviation system more efficient?

The signalling system in the Lotschberg Base Tunnel in Switzerland uses a variant of the ETCS (European Train Control System).

This has a unique reversing feature. If there is an emergency and a train has to reverse out of the tunnel, this can be done under ETCS control without the driver having to leave his cab.

This is pretty amazing. Normally a train couldn't be reversed without a driver at the (new) front: in a very long and very deep tunnel like the Lotschberg, this would either mean having a loco and a driver at each end of each train just in case something bad happened, or (if it ever did) waiting until a new loco could be found, driven up to the rear of the train, attached and then driven out again.

This system allows a very quick reaction to problems.

The downside is that it is unique: it's yet another variant of ETCS whic means it isn't truly inter-operable across Europe (and indeed the world: take-up of ETCS seems to be higher outside Europe than inside!).

The European Union has just issued a consultation document on "A sustainable future for transport".

While I haven't started to read it yet, I was very struck by the cover picture - a stunning shot of the ULTra personal rapid transit system on trial at Heathrow's Terminal 5.

The ULTra system was created by IARO member Advanced Transport Systems Ltd. (see ATS's website)

The document is on the EU's web-site ec.europa.eu

There is always something of interest in the Transport Statistics Bulletin National Travel Survey report from the UK's Department for Transport. The 2008 edition has just been issued.

Note that generally the figures relate to Great Britain only.

One figure I have been following for some time is the percentage of people between the ages of 17 and 21 who do not have a driving licence.
Historically, it was thought that the first priority of a 17-year old was to get a licence. This is no longer true - partly, as this year's report says, because of cost (and this could be allied to the need to fund university education).
Licence holding in this group rose steadily until the 1992/94 report, when 48% had a licence. Then it dropped to 2004, when just 27% did: the figures then started to climb again to 38% in 2007; and in 2008, dropped to 36%. It's interesting as an indication of the value placed on being able to drive, and the availability of alternatives.

Table 3.8 shows the massive irrelevance of domestic air travel to most people: 90% flew domestically once a year or never in 2007. The figure for rail was 47%, with more than a third of the population travelling by rail more than once or twice a year. 4% travelled by express bus or coach more than once or twice a year.

Over half of the population made no international flights in the last 12 months, a figure which has remained constant over the last 3 years.

When looking at long distance trips by mode and distance (table 3.11), only over 350 miles does air become significant with 45% of trips in this distance bracket being made by air. Car (at around 80%) and rail (around 12%) dominate for all other distances over 50 miles.

16% of journeys between 50 and 75 miles, and 10% of those between 75 and 100 miles, were commuting journeys.

The proportion of households saying that their local train service was "very reliable" or "fairly reliable" increased from 75% in 2002 to 86% in 2008.

In 2008, the average company-owned car travelled twice as far as others.

Average car occupancy was 1.2 for commuting and business trips, rising to 2 on education and holiday trips - on average, 1.6 (an average load factor of less than one third).

London Lite, one of the free newspapers littering the landscape of the capital, was short of news recently. That is the only reason I can think of for it using its front page to criticise Transport for London (TfL) for leaving the River Thames off its latest underground map.

I have news for London Lite. If they actually used the London Underground, they'd find that there are only two lines from which one can see the river at all - and they are way out in the far west of the capital. All the rest are (surprise!) underground - or under water - when they cross the Thames. So the river is massively irrelevant to users of the underground network - unlike the situation in Paris, New York or Hamburg where you can get spectacular views of the rivers.

If they want a real issue to criticise, try TfL's treatment of First Capital Connect's Thameslink cross-London line, not part of the London underground but certainly a valuable part of the transport network in the city. It is not on the versions of the underground map shown in London Lite, despite the good connections it provides - connections which are especially valuable while Blackfriars underground station is closed for reconstruction.

Moreover, the station staff at Farringdon, warning passengers of the closure of Blackfriars, routinely advise passengers to use the stations either side (Temple or Mansion House) instead - completely ignoring the fact that there are through Thameslink trains to Blackfriars six times an hour direct from Farringdon, which would be quicker and far more convenient than going half-way round the Circle Line to the wrong station!

How about real issues in newspapers, please?

Kuala Lumpur International Airport - KLIA - has announced plans to be the hub of the future: the Next Generation Hub. It will facilitate seamless interchange between all sorts of airlines - full service, low cost, regional and so on.

As part of this, the website www.flyklia.com has been launched to help people to plan journeys through the airport. It will help people to try multiple itineraries to see which combination best suits their needs.

The airport is also looking at adding a hotel booking facility, and a Frequent Airport User loyalty card.

The airport has an excellent train service northwards to the city, KLIA Ekspres (and look for the blog on on this site about the premium e-XKL product). There is also a commuter service, KLIA Transit, which provides a connection to the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). There are plans for a rail connection southwards to Johore and Singapore - now that would add to the airport's connectivity!

Barcelona Airport reached a record 30.2 million passengers last year. Yes, this is the Barcelona Airport reportedly badly hit by the new high-speed rail service between Madrid and Barcelona, one of the busiest air routes in the world.

Scottish airports suffered badly last year, with a 2.4 million (4.7%) drop in domestic travel. Yes, cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh have a fast rail service to London, but it takes over 4 hours.

Is air-rail competition biting? Does it exist? Does it matter?

In 2008, over a million - over 5% - of passengers using Dusseldorf Airport originated in the Netherlands.

Part of the attraction is the excellent rail and road connections to the airport.

It has long had a local S-Bahn station, paid for by the airport, but since 2000 it has also had a high-speed and regional station.

As part of its Route Utilisation Strategy programme, Network Rail published "Scenarios and long distance forecasts" in June 2009.

An obvious baseline was the existing market.

One interesting statistic in the discussion of this market (page 20, para. 3.2.3) is that approximately two-thirds of people making a long distance journey by public transport actually own a car but decide not to use it.

An interesting insight into the correlation between car ownership, car use and public transport use.

The report is on Network Rail's web-site

The Texas Department of Transportation publishes a regular e-newsletter, "Keep Texas Moving".

My attention has just been drawn to the issue for 20 November 2006, which carried an article entitled, "Do roads pay for themselves?".

It looked at the costs of a number of roads over a 40-year life. It also assessed "income" based on the gas (petrol) tax generated by each road - the vehicle miles travelled times the vehicle fuel consumption rate times the tax rate (both federal and state).

It concluded that, "there is not one road in Texas that pays for itself": for many, income was about half of costs but for some, it was significantly less. The 15-mile SR-99 in Houston, as an example, was going to cost $1bn to build and maintain: it would only generate $162m in fuel tax income over that period. The remainder would have to come from other sources.

Er - isn't that what's known as a subsidy?

The article is on TxDOT's website. www.keeptexasmoving.com

As Director General of the International Air Rail Organisation, I am sometimes asked how big an airport has to be before it justifies a rail connection. I've always believed that this is the wrong question - the right question is more along the lines of, given the geography, catchment area, business and situation of an airport, what kind of rail connection does it justify?

My classic example comes from Portland, in Oregon. Portland International Airport is served by the Tri-Met MAX light rail line. Way out on the other end of the line is Hillsboro airport - a business and general aviation airport. This too is served by Tri-Met, by the station called State Fair/Hillsboro Airport which primarily serves the Oregon State Fairground.

The extra costs of calling it that and not just State Fair were, I have always suspected, totally trivial. In the past I've always assumed that the revenue is only just less trivial - the odd airport employee might use it, perhaps someone visiting one of the offices at the airport might take the light rail.

But at the end of August was the Oregon International Air Fair, held at the airport. And spectators were actively encouraged to use the light rail to get there. So use of that station by airport users is even less trivial than I'd first thought!

This is an occasion where an airport with no scheduled air service and a very low passenger usage can justify a rail connection of some kind. The railway is close - a short walk - and calling it "State Fair/Hillsboro Airport" seems to be paying off. Excellent!

I was much impressed by the second edition of the London Railway Atlas, a work of love by Joe Brown published by Ian Allen in 2009.

It gives track diagrams of the past, present and (where known) future rail networks in the Greater London area - a mammoth task.

The only defect I could find was that Heathrow Junction, the short-lived temporary station used prior to opening of Heathrow Express, had been put on the wrong side of the line! Email correspondence with the author revealed that he found it extremely difficult to find out exactly where the station had been: he'd guessed and will correct it for next time.

But all in all, it's a stunning piece of work!

The July/August issue of Public Transport International, the magazine of the UITP (Public Transport Union), has some interesting statistics in an article by Yves Amsler on integrated air-rail ticketing.

It says that the largest region in Europe for air passengers is the Ile-de-France (around Paris): this generates 80 million air passengers a year.

By contrast the ground-based public transport modes in the same region - RATP, SNCF and OPTILE - carry 3.6 billion. This is 44 times the air passenger count.

Clearly the average air traveller goes much further than the average bus passenger - but it's an interesting comparison.

I remember travelling on a train in northern Germany many years ago and stopping at a station called Friedegg - perfectly normal to the locals, but a breakfast fried egg to me!

Hell, near Trondheim in Norway, makes the most of its name. One can buy postcards with lurid red sunsets as a background to the freight depot - in Norwegian, Godsekspedition! There's a place near Bergen called Paradis: this used to be on the railway too so one could buy a ticket from Hell to Paradis!

The airport at Sioux Gateway in Iowa was not best pleased to be offered the 3-letter IATA code SUX. Since the best alternative was GAY, they made the best of a bad job and stayed with SUX - look at their website www.flysux.com for memorabilia.

I was also amused to see airports called Batman, Moron, Ogle and Eek; and I understand that Mafia Airport is in Tanzania!

First Great Western, the UK train operator of the franchise running out of Paddington west to the Thames Valley, is to introduce an intersting season ticket idea from 6 September.

This builds on the fact that the morning peak is always much more concentrated than the evening peak.

Passengers from major stations east of Reading will be offered season tickets which give first class travel to London in the morning and standard class back again in the evening, when trains are quieter.

Prices will be 13% - 15% above the standard class fare.

This is an idea other congested railways could try, to ease crowding in the morning peak. However, in order to work, the first class area needs to be policed and (ideally) consistently in the same part of the train.

I can only think of one similar system - and that goes back to the 1960s. Passengers travelling between London and Ireland by train and ship could buy tickets which were valid for travel in second class on the train, but first class on the boat: for reasons lost in the mists of time, these were labelled "Second class and saloon" - presumably because the first-class area of the boat was called the saloon.

Are there other examples?

Vancouver International Airport published two interesting articles in its latest on-line newsletter: both were about the Canada Line light metro between airport and city, which opened 3.5 months early last month.

One tells you what the 80,000 people who used the line on its first half-day, when the ride was free, did. Many rode to the airport, which very sensibly laid on a whole series of family-friendly events. I'd expect nothing less from this airport - it's stunning!

The other gives you practical information about the line - fares, times, stops and so on.

Look at Vancouver Airports Authority website

I'm looking forward to riding the line next month. On 19/20 October, IARO is running its next conference, "Successful light rail to airports", at the Fairmont Waterfront hotel adjacent to Canada Line's downtown terminus. On 20th, we are having a half-day behind-the-scenes trip to see the operations and maintenance centres. For details, look at IARO's web-site