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Rail Fares and Franchises

The answer must be that given that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister cannot agree, we should not be surprised that that disease is prevalent further down the Government. The key point must be that a change of vision is needed that will pave the way for more flexible and less prescriptive franchises, giving operators real scope for innovation and giving passengers a better service. Over the past 10 years, there have been unprecedented levels of control and micro-management, which means that railway professionals find it more and more difficult to find ways of innovating to bring benefits forward more quickly and cheaply to customers. Over-specification of franchises was taken up by the Select Committee in its third recommendation. It said that on the east coast network, the current service level commitment is 45 pages long and contains great detail on frequencies and stopping patterns for each route. But if the Government had wanted, they could have set first and last trains with minimum times and the number of stations to be stopped at. It was not necessary to go into great detail of each pattern, which has the effect of inhibiting flexibility. Some straightforward timetable adjustments could reduce overcrowding by providing a better match of supply and demand as the franchise moves forward, and increasing route capacity for both passengers and freight. On the line between London, Tilbury and Southend, c2c's franchise is 15 years. It was let in 1996 when the Government did not specify franchises so tightly. That flexibility has enabled its management to focus on delivering to its customers, improving station environment, introducing a wholly new fleet of trains, and focusing on operational performance with better stations and platforms. It has transformed what was once known as the misery line into a line with some of the highest levels of customer satisfaction and punctuality within the profile of the original franchise agreement. Within the rail industry, there is a clear and well-understood relationship between journey times, revenue and punctuality. Faster scheduled journey times lead to increased revenue, provided that that is not at the expense of punctuality. Faster journey times enable improved rolling stock utilisation, as it becomes possible to operate more train services for the same fleet of rolling stock. There is no need to specify journey times. The TOCs will work to optimise those requirements within the framework of the overall performance. Several times, I have debated with the Government—in the guise of various Ministers—about the practice of civil servants setting detailed timetables across the network. The Government occasionally tell us that that is not happening, but a previous Minister has put it on record that at one stage he had 14 civil servants writing detailed timetables. Of course the Department for Transport has a role in monitoring franchises, but it should concentrate less on inputs, and set more outputs for the TOCs to deliver in the most effective way in areas such as operational performance, passenger satisfaction and station cleanliness. That is the way forward.