Opinion
had accelerated to 22.4 journeys by 2011- 12. As the RAC Foundation noted in its report On the Move, the growth in rail travel, compared to car use, is remarkably evenly spread across the country and has resulted from a larger proportion of the population using rail services over time, rather than existing passengers travelling more often.
A further explanation often cited for the growth in rail travel is increased investment in the network. Significant investment in new trains, faster services and better stations will have all played a part in promoting growth, yet most of the expenditure by Railtrack and Network Rail between 1997-98 and 2011-12 was on maintaining the railway to clear the backlog in maintenance and renewals that built up under BR.
Responding to customers' needs We believe that an important part of the explanation for recent growth can be found in the success with which the industry has responded to customers’ needs. Overall satisfaction recorded in the National Passenger Survey rose from 76 per cent in 1999 to 82 per cent in Spring 2013. Taking into account
passenger growth, this is equivalent to an extra 500 million journeys being rated ‘satisfactory’ or ‘good’ each year. The collective efforts of the industry have improved punctuality to a near record high, 4,000 more services a day are being provided compared to the mid- 1990s and frequencies on many mainline routes across the country have been doubled since 1997-98. At the same time, the average price paid per mile by passengers has risen just 4 per cent between 1997-98 and 2011-12. While government policy since 2004 has been to increase regulated fares (such as Season tickets) above the rate of inflation, passengers are responding to the choice of tickets and prices on offer. More than a million trips are now made each week using cheaper Advance fares, and increasing numbers of journeys are made with Off-Peak and other discounted fares. The above successes reflect the work of many organisations and the powerful impulse created by the franchising model. Government specifies improvements it wants to buy and operators commit to a payment line that then drives companies to attract more passengers and contain costs.
The competitive bidding process drives innovation in how this is done, through improvements to services, pricing, better timetables and investment. Furthermore, franchisees are motivated to deliver on the contracts they have with government in order to improve their chances of retaining their business.
In short, a strong partnership between the public and private sectors, with franchising at its core, has helped create a virtuous circle, generating record levels of revenue to pay for more and better services, in turn encouraging greater rail use. It is no wonder that many other countries are seeking to replicate our success by adopting the franchising model.
It is a model which, like the rest of the industry, has evolved since its introduction. Rail’s transformation continues, most recently through the creation of the Rail Delivery Group. The key for policymakers thinking about the continued success of rail is not to reject that model, but to build on its positive
record to date. • Michael Roberts is chief executive, Association of Train Operating Companies
www.atoc.org
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AW.indd 1 Page 26 September 2013
19/03/2013 12:33
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