County’s rail services have faced major disruption

Here are the key developments with GTR services over the past half decade: SEPTEMBER 2014 Govia Thameslink Railway takes over Thameslink services from First Capital Connect. MAY 2015 A summit is held between MPS, ministers as well as representatives of Southern and Network Rail. Problems including delayed services, engineering work and shortages of carriages and train drivers. JULY 2015 Southern and Gatwick Express services become part of GTR, making it the largest rail franchise in the UK. GTR is a subsidiary of Govia, itself a joint venture between the Goahead Group and Keolis. JANUARY 2016 Following several months of repeated disruption MPS blast the ‘unacceptable’ performance of Southern services. Network Rail and GTR describe how increased passenger demand and work to improve London Bridge made any problems that occur on the Brighton Mainline up to four times more difficult to recover from, with less room for the huge number of trains running on the network every day. APRIL 2016 A dispute between the RMT union and GTR begins over the further extension of driver-only operation on Southern services. As part of the proposals guards would become on-board supervisors. The union raises accessibility and safety concerns, suggesting the changes would eventually lead to the loss of a guaranteed second member of staff on board trains. But GTR argues the changes are about modernisation, freeing up conductors to spend more time with passengers. JUNE 2016 Both union and GTR

bosses are hauled before the transport select committee in Parliament as Southern announces the implementation of a revised timetable – cancelling hundreds of services a day. GTR chief executive Charles Horton apologises to passengers but says: “We are fit to be running this railway.” DECEMBER 2016 Train drivers’ union ASLEF joins the dispute and holds three days of strikes, leading to every single Southern train being cancelled on those days. As the dispute continues in 2017 ASLEF brings in a ban on overtime working. JUNE 2017 A report is released by Chris Gibb after he was commissioned by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to look at how to improve services across the GTR network. The report argued that a number of factors had come together to cause the overall system to fail but viewed official and unofficial industrial action by unions as the ‘primary cause’ of the 2016 crisis. Other factors and changes that contributed include the Thameslink investment programme, a franchise agreement containing an exceptionally high number of committed obligations, an insufficient number of trained staff including drivers at the start of the franchise, rapid growth in passenger demand and a complicated timetable. NOVEMBER 2017 ASLEF members vote to accept a deal with GTR over the extension of driveronly operation on Southern services, which includes a pay rise. MAY 2018 Massive timetable changes are brought in across the country, causing chaos across the GTR network, particularly on Thameslink services. SEPTEMBER 2018 An interim report into the timetable problems describes how ‘nobody took charge’ in the rail industry to avoid the chaos caused by the changes. GTR was then told to contribute £15million towards a passenger benefit fund following the disruption to services in the summer of 2018. The company is now working with passengers and stakeholders to determinate what schemes the programme will fund with a closing date of July 31 for ideas to come forward. For more information visit www.passengerbenefitfund. co.uk