GTR’s franchise bid was the only credible one

The National Audit Office (NAO) report about Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) is so naive as to raise the question as to whether the NAO is itself good value for money ( RAIL 844).

The passenger was very much at the heart of DfT planning of the GTR franchise. It was recognised that keeping a credible railway operation in place during the Thameslink upgrade works, and the accompanying rolling stock introduction and cascade, was a huge challenge that (because of the complex inter-dependencies) had to be managed by a single operator.

Had the NAO bothered to try to understand the Invitation to Tender for the franchise, it might have grasped why it had to be structured in the way that it was.

Had the NAO read the bids presented by the competing operators, it would also have realised that GTR was the only one that presented a fully credible plan, adequately understanding all the risks involved and providing comprehensive solutions.

That GTR’s timetable plan was only rated ‘orange’ by Network Rail is an irrelevance, since NR’s own scrutiny of the operators’ plans was itself woefully inadequate. NR examined only tiny proportions of the timetable proposals, and did not even look (for example) at how the operators proposed to deal with the various incarnations of the London Bridge layout during the years 2015-18. DfT realised that only GTR understood how restrictive the interim layouts would be.

If there was an error by DfT and GTR, it was in underestimating the Luddite approach of the RMT to the spread of Driver Only Operation (DOO).

It is now clear that no franchise operator was going to be able to manage an extension of DOO without strike action. In the long run, DOO will be seen as another passenger-friendly initiative because it will reduce the causes of delay and cancellation. Having two (or more) members of staff on a train is desirable in lots of cases, but that has nothing to do with door operation - GTR made the mistake of assuming that RMT members would respond to this logic more quickly than has proved to be the case.

I should probably point out that I was one of DfT’s assessors of the TSGN franchise, so this is really an ‘Industry Insider’ view. I have now retired from DfT - if I was still employed there, I would obviously have been unable to write this! Peter Foot, Bedford