Fare Dealer
RAIL fares expert Barry Doe says open access is necessary to rival low-quality services.
I believe that society runs best with a free market where competition is the norm, although within that it’s necessary to know what the competition is between.
In addition, there are some natural monopolies. It is, for example, a nonsense to sell electricity based on customers being able to choose their supplier.
Many tempt customers to switch, saying their energy comes from renewable sources. However, whichever provider I choose, the electricity I receive from the Grid will be the same as that of my neighbour, street and town. It’s a totally false market. Energy is a natural monopoly and it’s the job of government to ensure green production nationwide.
Transport comes under my first case - that we need to know the purpose of the competition. I have always maintained it’s between modes. That might be rail vs bus, but I prefer public transport vs the car.
As an aside, that’s always been the reason I am against coaches. For unlike rail and bus, which should complement each other, coaches compete against other modes of public transport, which I find negative.
Once we establish rail as being in competition with the car, does that require competition within the rail industry?
In theory, no. Indeed, on privatisation I was against open access operators, as I felt that National Rail had replaced British Rail (BR) and the industry should compete as a whole against road, as did BR.
Sadly, where it has fallen down is that the quality of the majority of the original franchises declined. Then, tragically, the situation was made far worse by the new concessions that replace the franchises, because these contracts are driven by the Department for Transport, which actually insists on low quality.
BR was a benevolent monopoly - by far the best way to run the industry. It had very high standards. Indeed, those who try to rubbish the past do so in an attempt to use fake news to hide that historic quality from today’s users.
We now have Intercity Express Trains that offer the lowest standards since the early 20th century: awful seats, barren interiors, and terrible (largely non-existent) catering - all specified by the DfT. Similar arguments apply to Thameslink’s rolling stock.
So, in fact, open access on inter-city routes is now very important, as it’s the only way of offering BR-style service to users now denied it as policy by the government.
However, in RAIL 920’s The Fare Dealer, I asked: “Why is there no open access operator interested in providing a genuinely upmarket service, at least in First Class, rather than merely undercutting other operators on price?”
A spokesman for Grand Union Trains (GU) contacted me following my piece, saying that he agreed, and that GU intended offering a
high-quality service in terms of seating and onboard service - initially on Paddington-Cardiff and later on Euston-Stirling.
Sadly, the news item in RAIL 925 (page 12) explained that the Office of Rail and Road has rejected the Cardiff application, despite Network Rail agreeing paths for six return services a day and despite the Welsh Government supporting the application.
The reason is the ORR’s insistence that a new service is “not primarily abstractive”. Of course, the DfT will have put pressure on ORR to reject the application.
In truth, the DfT would have argued: “We accept Great Western Railway’s services are awful (because we specified the rolling stock that ensured they would be), and that if Grand Union offers something high quality, people might transfer to its services en masse and GWR would end up requiring a higher subsidy.”
Isn’t it appalling that if a franchised operator won’t offer quality, it has to be protected from others who can?
Let’s hope the application is revisited and that Stirling fares better.