BLOGS
April 9 Bold claims
Sir Richard Branson has made a bold suggestion that underperforming operators should lose their franchises in future agreements.
Bold because although East Coast – the contract Virgin has its eye on – has been underperforming according to Network Rail’s PPM statistics, the only comparably poor TOC has been Virgin Rail itself.
The two have been vying for last place over recent periods, which somewhat damages Sir Richard’s claims that he could “do an awful lot better” on the East Coast line.
Could Virgin really improve the route? Or just lower the fares?
March 27 Ending the monopolies?
Could allowing more open access operators transform the quality and cost of rail delivery, and break up the rail ‘monopolies’ that currently exist on parts of the network?
Privatisation was introduced to increase competition,
drive
down costs and improve services. But limiting competition to the bidding for franchises, rather than it being a constant factor in TOC’s operations, may be preventing the industry from achieving the largest gains.
John Leech MP has also called for DOR to be allowed to bid for the East Coast route, now it is to be put back out to tender.
With the new franchising programme just kicking off, if greater open access is the way forward, now is the time to do it.
March 11 Top of the league
National train performance fi gures have been published for period 12, showing that the majority of trains are arriving on time.
However, there is signifi cant variation, and several TOCs have scored worryingly low PPM fi gures.
The way the various routes work has a huge effect on companies’ ability to minimise disruption and delays.
Some lines criss-cross over the country, dependent on a number of other routes working well and interaction with other TOCs; others are self-contained networks of a single city.
It means that fair comparison between TOCs is diffi cult – it will always be easier for operators like c2c and Merseyrail to perform well, compared to operators running
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services on some of the busier and more complex routes, like Virgin and East Coast.
As Network Rail is working to publish more and more detail on how reliable rail services are, perhaps tables that compare more similar TOCs together would provide a useful extra indicator on performance.
March 6 Not forgetting Wales
How plausible is the business case for connecting Wales to HS2? Clearly it is a big priority for the Welsh Government, who may fear the loss of potential jobs and economic growth such a connection could bring.
But the speed of the line will depend upon a minimum number of stops, with stations only being built in the largest cities, with a large enough population to use the services.
Wales cannot offer the same level of demand, and with a business case that is already criticised, it is diffi cult to see how HS2 could be expanded to include Welsh connections.
Is there scope instead to improve cross-border lines which then connect to hubs at Crewe or Manchester?
© Richard Burdett
© GeeHock
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