Industry Insider

West of England franchise is a beneficial future network option

“Focus on customer service and localised market knowledge was seen as a matter of secondary importance, and the culmination of this folly was seen in the creation of the amalgamated TSGN) franchise.”

There is growing acceptance that larger franchises are less successful in meeting passenger needs, and as a result have less service development activity and lower levels of growth. It is therefore no surprise that the Department for Transport has carried out a consultation process regarding the future design of the Great Western franchise.

The option described is that a new franchise would be created, with West Country services operated over the Berks and Hants route between Paddington and Penzance/Paignton becoming the spine of a company that would also add secondary routes and branch lines to the geographic reach.

Services linking Weymouth with Worcester via Bristol, and Portsmouth and Brighton with Cardiff, would be removed from Great Western control, along with branch lines in Devon and Cornwall and the embryo network of local services that are intended to form the MetroWest network serving Bristol.

The remainder of the existing GW services that have boundaries at Swansea, Bristol, Oxford and Cotswold destinations would remain as now, with London commuter services also retained.

When the Great Western franchise was created in 1996, it was made up of only the core Intercity routes. It later absorbed the London area operator Thames Trains (19962004) and much of the Wessex franchise (2001- 06) that had been carved out of the original South Wales and West contract (1996-2001). This had been remapped to allow the creation of a Wales and Borders operational area (2001-date), in a response to Welsh Government devolution.

The smaller franchises that were in place at the start of privatisation demonstrated high levels of passenger growth. In the seven years to 2003- 04, Anglia Railways grew passenger numbers from 5.4 million to 10.1 million, while the number of total network journeys rose by 30.7%.

Chiltern Railways was another stronger performer, lifting its passenger numbers from 8.1 million to 14.4 million.

Wessex Trains breathed life into quieter parts of the network in the West Country, raising usage from 8.4 million to 12.6 million in its five-year period of existence.

Fewer larger franchises were intended to bring the benefit of operational simplification, and there was a view that where possible a single operator should serve individual routes. Focus on customer service and localised market knowledge was seen as a matter of secondary importance, and the culmination of this folly was seen in the creation of the amalgamated Thameslink Southern and Great Northern (TSGN) franchise that has operated from 2014.

A franchise has other important stakeholders, not least of whom are the staff employed to provide the services. TSGN was structured as a management contract where the bidding competition was based solely on the cost of providing the services, with revenue being paid directly to the DfT.

Encouraged by the Government, the winning bid included the widespread adoption of Driver Controlled Operation (DCO) that relegated guards to a nonoperational role. As we have seen, the assumption that this would be accepted with demure by the staff concerned has proved to be one of the management misjudgements of the decade, with ramifications that have featured ongoing disputes where new rolling stock based on DCO is due to enter service on Greater Anglia, Northern, Merseyrail, and South Western Railway routes.

The partial resolution of the Southern dispute over the same issue has resulted in a percentage double-digit enhancement to drivers’ pay, which has negated any possible savings that might have been made. Matters have not been easier by the ScotRail decision to abandon proposals for greater DCO operation.

For TSGN to be a success, devolved route management was needed. But the reality has been the removal of this second management tier in pursuit of cost reduction. This was necessary to meet the financial terms of the contract, whereby Govia bid some £40 million less annually to run the services than that proposed by the previous franchise holder.

As well as the contentious switch to DCO, the closure of booking offices at busy commuter stations was intended. As soon as this was proposed, the reality dawned that ticket vending machines cannot advise passengers of the cheapest fare available.

A bright spark suggested that booking office ticket machines are brought out of the office for use by gateline staff. That might be seen as a good idea, until it is realised that the staff concerned are being replaced by agency workers who do well if they even know where the trains run to, let alone the validity of tickets that can be used.

The point about these issues is that operational and market circumstances vary widely on a national network. And returning to the Great Western proposal, it must be better to bring stronger focus to operations in the West Country by a more local management structure.

Benefits have been seen elsewhere, with Transport Scotland deciding that the Caledonian Sleeper is better run as a separate business (which has resulted in new product investment), while in Wales the Cardiff Metro light rail option is being actively pursued.

There are big opportunities for infrastructure investment following the devolution of the Network Rail budget in the next Control Period to Route Managers. They are clearly in a position to respond to stakeholder input from areas that have found the centralised bureaucracy difficult to penetrate.

The DfT itself says that smaller franchises give greater attention and tailor services more closely to the individual routes and markets they serve. Strangely, instead of cheering on the proposal, both Cornwall and Devon Councils have in summary said “we object”.

The thinking seems to be that the existence of a single Great Western franchise allows revenue from profitable flows serving Bristol and South Wales to be used as a source of funding to improve regional operations in the peninsula.

Without doubt support payments would be required for a West of England contract, but that is not different from the situation in Scotland and Wales. It’s strange how organisational systems become set in stone with an inability to push for the benefits of change.

“The culmination of this folly was seen in the creation of the amalgamated TSGN franchise that has operated from 2014.”