What we have done is bring in the
people who have been some of our more consistent correspondents
David Statham, the new MD at First Capital Connect has been busy during his first weeks in the role.Rail Professional visited the Toc’s HQ to hear about his achievements and plans
H
aving started his railway career as a British Rail management trainee 20 years ago, Statham has demonstrated his mettle and suitability for a Toc top spot over many years. Most recently, he led the development of FirstGroup's strategy for the expanded Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise. Statham’s the type who gets down to the business briskly but with economics driving the privatised world in which he operates, he is cool and focused by necessity. His passion for a business-led rail service is clear. ‘We can demonstrate that privatisation has put some real benefits to the taxpayer and to the customer, you can see the amount of money returned to the taxpayers’ purse consistently increasing year-on-year. You can see how customer satisfaction is improving year-on-year and we can show that the industry is coping with ever-increasing passenger growth levels year-on-year,’ he said. It’s not an easy job he has taken on and, given the enormity of ‘being in charge’ (to use Statham’s own expression), his jolly enthusiasm is an unexpected boon. At the time of our meeting, Statham was weeks into his role and brimming with determination, vigour and facts, facts and more facts. ‘It’s not rocket science but it is about focusing on getting the basics right. What that means is the reliable delivery of the timetable, clean trains and better information when things go wrong,’ explained Statham, and at that point I referred him to the latest (February 2013) Which? passenger survey in which FCC’s Bedford to Brighton line scored just four out of 10 for customer satisfaction.
Statham quickly responded with the findings of the
National Passenger Survey – ‘which is what we tend to measure ourselves against in the industry’. In that survey, conducted in the first three months of this year, FCC came up at 76 per cent, and Statham pointed out that was the lowest FCC score for three years. Since that period which saw the service 'suffer from lots of disruption and infrastructure issues', said Statham, ‘our own surveys have started to show scores between 78 and 80 per cent. We are starting to come back up to the levels of customer
Page 48 October 2013
satisfaction that we saw last summer, and for us a good result is greater than 80 per cent.’ Taking Statham’s quite high percentage score for customer satisfaction and comparing it to the scores collated in the Which? survey, there has either been a vast improvement quickly or the differing measurements reflect the same reality. Although I had really only asked Statham to estimate the score he expects from the Which? survey next year, I wasn’t provided with a direct answer to that particular question.
Working really, really hard
According to Statham, more than 60 per cent of FCC’s delays are caused by Network Rail and, with that a given, it would be fair to say FCC is on the right track in many ways. Explained Statham: ‘We started off the franchise with seven of the top 20 most crowded trains in the UK back in 2006. Since then, we have added 29 per cent capacity to the Thameslink route and more than 20 per cent extra capacity for the Great Northern route to make sure that we are keeping pace with demand. We’ve worked really, really hard to put on extra capacity as a business and we’ve been successful in that. Some has come through the Thameslink programme, which has brought us 23 additional four-car units onto that route. Some came through proposals that we have worked up ourselves, like the 61 extra carriages coming onto the Great Northern route. We have been successful in putting on additional carriages to such a degree that we actually won’t have any of the top 20 most crowded trains once we’ve done our capacity upgrade. ‘We have worked really hard to put on extra seats. If we pick the Thamselink route we have got an extra 14,500 seats at the busiest times of the day. In terms of the number of four-car trains that we operate at those times, we have reduced them from 25 to 11 at peak times.'
Statham is aware that customers have found capacity issues ‘frustrating’. ‘It’s been a source of feedback to us throughout the life of the franchise and we’ve been working very hard to get extra carriages to make sure that there is enough space for
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140