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The opinions and views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the management or the publishers.


Alternatives have been suggested, notably more frequent and


Doing so is necessary to judge between bids under the current system, and we’ll be seeing more of it if the Government sticks by its policy of moving towards longer franchises aimed at ensuring TOCs invest significantly rather than just coast along and grab the profits.


Incentives & initiatives W


hat are the chances of the Brown review recommending radical reform to the franchising process,


or


scrapping it altogether? Low, is the conventional wisdom – probably rightly in this case.


The mistakes made in the DfT had huge and costly consequences, and can in part be traced back to the extremely complex – some would say impossible – task of predicting revenue, economic conditions and passenger demand years into the future.


incisive mid-franchise reviews of performance.


These are


superficially attractive, but it all comes back to incentives.


It is the promise of sustained higher profits that would encourage a TOC to invest in its route, but this has to be weighed against the inherent higher risks if they are threatened with losing their investment every few years when a review comes along. Obviously, certain amounts of investment are already in the franchise specifications.


There are fundamental, well- documented, structural and incentive-based problems in the UK rail industry, despite the parallel good news story over the past 10 years about rising passenger numbers and investment in major projects.


The problems, however, go beyond franchising and go beyond Brown’s remit in many ways. If the DfT was


interested in fundamental reform of the way the industry works, it would have broadened Sir Roy McNulty’s terms of reference back in 2010-11.


Sam Laidlaw’s report in December has already identified what went wrong in the WCML franchising process specifically, and his recommendations, internal as they are to the DfT, should go a long way towards ensuring that precise set of circumstances don’t arise again (some consistency and stability in the middle management and senior echelons of the Department itself would help too, of course).


It seems the DfT has accepted and will implement his sensible recommendations. But too many major players have too much invested in the franchising system staying roughly how it is for it to accept anything radical even if Brown did recommend it.


Change will instead be step by step, as we’re seeing with Network Rail to some extent.


It is becoming


much less monolithic and ‘command and control’ and, through the twin processes of devolution and alliancing, is seeking to become nimbler, more responsive and business- focused.


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The preference everywhere in the industry seems to be for gradual change – rather than disruptive radical reform.


Adam Hewitt Editor


16 HS2 to Scotland The irrefutable economic and environmental case.


28 High output


The track delivery ‘factory’ in action in Derbyshire.


42 Pattern recognition The benefits of using PLPR across the network.


47 Open data How passengers are benefiting from TfL’s policy.


rail technology magazine Dec/Jan 13 | 1

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