GTR passengers suffer through crew shortages
MORE evidence has emerged of the impact that train crew shortages are having on services run by Govia Thameslink Railway ( RAIL 792).
In the most recent accounting period (December 2015), the effect on the Public Performance Measure (PPM) is almost four times greater than on any other train operator, and ten times greater than on neighbouring South West Trains. A PPM failure is counted when a train does not arrive at its planned time or is cancelled.
Train crew failures have doubled compared with the same time last year on GTR routes, according to the most recent figures. The operator with the next highest number of failures due to train crew shortfall is Southeastern, followed by Northern Rail, London Midland and TransPennine Express.
A spokesman for GTR said: “Although our services are sometimes cancelled because of the non-availability of train crew, there are many reasons why this happens. Sickness, leave, reliance on taxis, the non-uptake of rest day working and occasional rostering errors all have an effect on the ability to crew every train.”
Conductors belonging to the RMT union voted for strike action before Christmas over a “complete breakdown in relations”. Talks between the two sides have continued and no strike dates have been announced, but the company says that some crew have chosen not to work on rest days.
“It is customary to use the option of rest day working to cover sickness, leave and short-notice changes,” said the spokesman. “Rest day working is voluntary and most train crew are choosing to work rest days, but some are not.”
A driver who works for GTR told RAIL that the crew shortage is delaying the entry into service of new Siemens Class 700 trains for Thameslink services. The company said this was incorrect, with the first service expected in April.
GTR responded that it has launched the UK’s biggest ever driver recruitment programme. Last year it brought in 152 new drivers, and has a further 267 currently in training.
“It takes over a year to train a driver and we can’t train everyone we need all at once,” said the spokesman.
Much of the low performance on routes from Victoria and London Bridge stations is due to infrastructure failures. Last August the Office of Rail and Road reported that across the whole of England and Wales, Southern routes accounted for half of all cancelled and delayed trains due to Network Rail.
NR spokesman Kevin Groves countered: “Underlying infrastructure performance is improving. It was 9% better in 2015 compared with the year before. There are less and less incidents of points and signal failures. But reactionary delays are increasing as there is less operational flexibility - not enough
train crew to move around and catch up.”
GTR said the train crew shortage improved during January, and had been less of a problem that it was during December. It said infrastructure delays are now a greater issue, including a broken rail at three Bridges on January 22 and more than 20 speed restrictions on the Brighton Main Line.
For passengers in the area affected by the Thameslink engineering programme, the combination of infrastructure delays and train crew shortages has resulted in by far the worst performance in Britain.
GTR and Southeastern services show overall PPM twice as bad as the next worst operator (Northern Rail).
GTR reported a PPM failure rate of 4,084 due to train crew issues in the most recent period. South West Trains was 357, Great Western Railway 144 and Virgin West Coast just 36.