Perfomance on the railway is underpinned by contracts with incentives between the players. Passengers also have rights in this respect. You can see the effects of incentives on your own job.....the prospect of commission on ticket sales incentivises guards to collect revenue which in some cases might not see anyones pockets.
As far your last point, a key element missing from the early days of franchises was the qualitive element.....this isnt the easiest thing to measure , but having Passenger Focus on board as part of the Franchising Authority would be a start - which goes bacl to your point about independence of this authority.
But then if you got rid of that commission and just paid us guards an extra --Insert average yearly commission here-- then you would obviously see revenue collection going down as less guards would actually bother to collect revenue .
Is guaranteeing the TOC the franchise for longer without any performance related aspect to the award process not the same as getting rid of our commission . in that they wont have to work as hard to meet their performance targets to run the toc for longer ?
Or do you think (like I actualy do ) that the profit margins in it for TOC's are not that high that they would go into the business with any sense of complacency or laziness , the investors and the management at the TOC are well aware of what they are getting into and that it isnt easy money really by any stretch of the imagination
if the investors wanted a quick buck they might go and invest in an NHS or MOD tender or a energy supplier or a big four supermarket where there is a lot of complacency because the profit margins and potential to make money with minimal effort and risk is higher .
Yeah I do think passenger groups have a role to play in the franchising process ,just in the same way that economists , people that have experience in railway operations , and even people with experience in other business areas have a part to play