Sustaining the benefits

RAIL is to be congratulated on the service it has provided by letting Ian Taylor set out the basis of the Labour party policy on renationalisation, and printing a number of responses to it.

However, it seems to me that overall, this is a classic case of a non-conversation. Taylor sets out clearly the issue of fragmentation across the industry in a way that very many passengers would identify with, but fails to address the very considerable improvements to customer care, service frequencies and so on that have occurred under privatisation, with an implicit if somewhat naïve assumption that all in the industry will work together for the common good rather than self-interest under the eye of a benign government.

The industry responders rightly point out the benefits of privatisation, but do not really address the issue of fragmentation other than in very vague terms, especially the cross-TOC issues raised by Taylor.

The complexity of the proposed East Coast Partnership hardly inspires confidence in this regard. I would thus like to see the answers to two questions that might enable the debate to be taken forward:

How would a renationalised network sustain the benefits of privatisation, particularly in terms of customer care and journey frequency, while building a co-operative culture that focuses on the passenger, and ensuring that the DfT (benign or otherwise) is kept away from operational decisions?

How would a privatised railway address the issues of fragmentation outlined by Taylor, particularly those that affect and worry passengers - lack of connections, cross-TOC acceptance of tickets, and so on? Prof Chris Baker, Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education, University of Birmingham