HeadlineNews GBR plan in doubt
There is a growing belief that the proposed Great British Railways could become too powerful a body, acting in a centralised ‘command and control’ role rather than supporting the industry as a guiding mind. “Not much media attention has been given to the
SINCE the Williams-Shapps
Plan for Rail was published in 2021, there has been pushback from previous rail ministers combined with a stronger voice from Rail Partners, the new organisation that represents private companies operating National Rail Contracts (which replaced franchises during the pandemic).
The principal objection to the plan is the lack of an incentive for train operating companies to promote revenue enhancing ideas, as future contracts will simply reimburse the costs of running a specified timetable and the resources needed to do that.
This lack of revenue responsibility also means there is less incentive to enforce revenue protection. To combat fare evasion, late January saw penalty fares rise from £20 to £100, reduced to £50 if paid within 21 days, plus the price of a full single fare for the journey being undertaken. It is hard to imagine many will pay a sum of this size, especially for local journeys costing a few pounds, so it is likely the appeals process will be overwhelmed – particularly as the proposed closure of ticket offices will also reduce the ease of buying a valid ticket.
Cost control measures are also showing through train fleet reductions, which affects the potential for future revenue growth. There has been a long list of rolling stock cutbacks, including Great Western Railway’s allocation of 19 Class 769/9 ‘tri-mode’ units, converted from Class 319 EMUs. These are going off-lease in March and returned to Porterbrook Leasing, and follows an earlier announcement by GWR that it is to withdraw its ‘Castle’ HST sets this year.
Government meddling
The wisdom of centralised control over the pay and conditions offered to employees is also being questioned, as the pretence that train operating companies are leading these negotiations has been exposed as a facade.
It has become clear that the Department for Transport, and ultimately the Treasury, has placed a cap on any pay rise offered while also adding conditions – such as more widespread driver-only operation, making Sunday diagrams part of the working week, and closing all ticket offices. If established, it is likely that GBR can be expected to act in a similar role.
Not much media attention has been given to the fact that those passenger and freight operators not under the control of the DfT have been successful in reaching 2022 pay agreement with the ASLEF and RMT unions. This includes ScotRail, Transport for Wales, Merseyrail, Transport for London, and open access operators; plus freight operators such as DB Cargo, Freightliner, GB Railways, and Direct Rail Services.
There is every likelihood that, had the train operating companies that originally held franchises been able to conduct their own negotiations, things would have been settled amicably, with the train operator meeting any higher costs by making changes in working practices to allow higher productivity. In this context, it is worth reflecting that the 5.9% increase in regulated fares that is due to take place in March is some way above the initial pay offers made under DfT direction that led to the first ballots for strike action in 2022.
There are other examples where Government control over the management of future passenger service contracts – which GBR will inherit – is leading to poor management behaviour. In particular, there does not appear to be an acknowledgement that funding is necessary to maintain a reliable timetable. This requires sufficient staff to cater for events such as short-term sickness or recovery from out-of-course events, allowing proactive action by controllers to minimise service cancellations and, if necessary, provide replacement bus services.
An example of concern is the recent closure of the South
West Main Line as a result of a serious landslip at Hook (see separate story). At the stations affected, passengers were told no service was available, and the question must be asked why replacement bus services were not organised. These are not minor stations – Hook had 739,000 annual journeys before the pandemic, while Fleet had 1.88 million. The advice was that travel should be confined to essential journeys only, but there seemed to be limited notice that Basingstoke has a regular service to Reading for connections to Paddington.
A shift in approach
Leading actors within the GBR Transition Team have been saying on social media and elsewhere that nothing has changed from the original proposals. But it has, as even Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines has said that he no longer refers to GBR as the driving force for change in terms of policy declarations.
A shift to less confrontational demands for new working practices will hopefully lead to negotiated changes – including the use of driver only operation (DOO) where appropriate, rather than saying it is a default position regardless of individual route or station characteristics. The demand for a blanket closure of ticket offices might also be premature, as digital sales are not universally available and these continue to exclude the purchase of some ticket types.
DOO is currently accepted on some parts of the network, but was never fully implemented because of a failure to authorise the cab secure radio system it requires for safe operation. Suitable radio coverage now exists, but the operational experience of DOO has hardened staff attitudes about its implementation because of ‘trap and drag’ incidents at stations.
The issue is that drivers can receive in-cab information that the train doors are closed, but a lack of sensitivity to detect smaller obstructions means people can still end up being trapped.
Such a situation led to a driver appearing at Blackfriars Crown Court in 2017 charged with endangering the safety of passengers following an incident at Hayes and Harlington in July 2015. A passenger had dashed onto the platform at the last minute and placed her hand in the closing doors in the belief this would prevent the train departing. That did not happen, however, as the equipment in the driver’s cab indicated that it was safe to depart. A reconstruction of the incident took place when it was found that a volunteer could not remove a high visibility vest, fingers, or a hand from the closed doors, despite the interlocking allowing the driver to depart. The driver was cleared, but it is hardly surprising that confidence in DOO among traincrew is low.
Minimum service levels
At the time of going to press, it is not yet known whether the most recent pay offer of 9% spread over two years will allow a settlement to be reached and future strikes called off, but in the meantime the Government has taken steps to require a minimum timetable to be provided on strike days. Proposed legislation described as the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill was published on January 10, and transport is among the sectors to be included in the future law. The framework will allow minimum service levels to be imposed after a union has announced strike action (and given the required 14 days’ notice), with employers issuing a ‘work notice’ to the relevant staff in order to run the defined service. The work notices must be issued at least a week before a strike begins and, if ignored, the penalties are significant as employees will lose their legal protection and be regarded as having breached their employment contract by being absent without leave. It is unclear how a minimum service level will be defined, but it is hard to see that any routes would be left without a basic timetable to allow essential journeys to be made. Some freight services are also likely to be regarded as essential, and might include situations where a failure to run intermodal trains disrupts manufacturing and retail supply chains. The freight operating companies are not in dispute with their staff, but services have been disrupted due to a lack of signallers on routes between ports and distribution terminals. Therefore, in order to provide a nationwide minimum service level, it is likely the whole network will have to be designated as an essential service. Such a conclusion would place Network Rail in a position of certainty in terms of issuing work notices to all signallers and associated staff. But it will be much more complex for train operating companies, as working out who will be required to work an ‘essential timetable’ will be a complicated rostering task.