How could the DfT cut the costs of providing rail services?

[yorkie]

Given the news stated in the thread Rail Franchises to be Replaced with Fixed Fee Contracts , how do you think money could be saved?

I personally would be against any changes that could deter people using rail; if even fewer people decide to travel by rail, this could be a vicious circle.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Get rid of delay minutes. Just in terms of management hours alone they'd save a bloody fortune.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Longer, less frequent trains, which will not only be cheaper to operate but also be more punctual and reliable. I'm not suggesting silly-low frequencies, but in the North West the pre-1998 timetable would seem a reasonable guide to what is needed - that by and large operated reliably through Castlefield. Similarly with XC - double up all the Voyagers and halve the timetable give or take busy bits.

In the South East, an all-week (possibly except Sunday) timetable - the commuter demand won't fully return so there will be no need to run peak extras any more, just lengthen the odd diagram, maybe requiring about 5-6 additional units over the base for the south WCML. Not having the London commuter peak is likely to be the biggest saving imaginable I would say.

End competition, which where it exists causes duplication of resources. An example, though it does to some extent take demand from coaches and cars, the Trent Valley local service would be fine as a 4-car set if it didn't have fares deliberately designed to take passengers from Avanti services, which are often not busy as a result.

End Delay Repay. It's become an industry in itself and takes up so much time to deliver it that it prevents a proper responsive customer services operation. Similar for delay attribution as someone else already said.

More DOO (sorry, but it had to go in; it would be a big saving if all urban routes could be switched over, though we would need to deal with things like accessibility - perhaps one-off spending on low floor trains for the long-term saving?). A long term view towards unsupervised ATO where feasible, i.e. "guard only operation".

Closure of ticket offices, supported by the roll-out of contactless payment in urban areas and other means of obtaining tickets, and simplification of the fare structure to abolish things like excesses and other complexities you can't get online or at a TVM. With single fare pricing as being trialled on the ECML you can do refund-and-replace instead of excesses. Also there needs to be an online method of obtaining a reservation without a ticket sale. Furthermore all railway sales points need to be able to deal with all bookings. I would probably retain customer service centres in major stations (probably about 20 of these at most nationally) - all other ticket offices would go.

Technology improvements on rural branch lines (no, not ETCS, something cheaper) so they can be operated using literally just a unit and a driver (and guard if you must). That brings the cost down to a similar level as a bus service.

Beyond that I think you get onto the rather more controversial issue of actual route closures.

Some of those obviously more controversial than others.

 

[StephenHunter]

At the end, most people just want the trains to run on time and not pay over the odds on fares.

 

[dk1]

At the end, most people just want the trains to run on time and not pay over the odds on fares.

Chances of either happening all the time is pretty much zero.

 

[Mintona]

In before ‘cut drivers’ wages’

 

[dk1]

In before ‘cut drivers’ wages’

You've just made my day haha.

 

[The Planner]

Get rid of delay minutes. Just in terms of management hours alone they'd save a bloody fortune.

We have done this before, delay attribution is going nowhere. You need minutes to see the impact, investigate and remedy.

 

[Tom Quinne]

I was under the impression the Wales route and TfW where doing just that removing delay minutes, or the actual money going between at least?

 

[daikilo]

An opportunity to rationalise some timetables like LNER/XC/TP between Newcastle and Edinburgh?

 

[Fedupnorthern]

Hope they still manage to sort out the unions......

 

[The Planner]

I was under the impression the Wales route and TfW where doing just that removing delay minutes, or the actual money going between at least?

The money might go, but I fail to see how you can get rid of minutes and attribution to a cause.

 

[Ianno87]

An opportunity to rationalise some timetables like LNER/XC/TP between Newcastle and Edinburgh?

If it's a TfL-style concession, that does remove incentive to duplicate services and chase revenue.

But operators may no longer be incentivised to drive revenue. This may not be a good deal for passengers after a bargain...

 

[paul1609]

Whats needed is a Beeching 3 report so the real lost makers post covid can be identified and a closure programme initiated. Social need could be factored in but nice to haves like the Settle and Carlisle are no brainers.

 

[BayPaul]

If it's a TfL-style concession, that does remove incentive to duplicate services and chase revenue.

But operators may no longer be incentivised to drive revenue. This may not be a good deal for passengers after a bargain...

I think you are right, the days of cheap operator specific tickets are probably very much numbered, as well as cheap advances on busy services, as the government will have no reason for a passenger to travel on one concessionaire's trains rather than another. Probably also an attack on split ticketing, by removing some of the fares that make it work. I suspect there may be fares reductions on headline tickets however, to try to encourage people back onto the railways, and to put some political spin on 'we've taken back control of the railways, and your fares are already cheaper'

 

[AdamWW]

I think you are right, the days of cheap operator specific tickets are probably very much numbered, as well as cheap advances on busy services, as the government will have no reason for a passenger to travel on one concessionaire's trains rather than another. Probably also an attack on split ticketing, by removing some of the fares that make it work. I suspect there may be fares reductions on headline tickets however, to try to encourage people back onto the railways, and to put some political spin on 'we've taken back control of the railways, and your fares are already cheaper'

It would be nice if it meant we could go back to the idea that during disruption you can just get whatever train gets you to where you're going, rather than worrying about what ticket acceptance rules are in operation.

And if I recall correctly there used to be a principle that if you held a ticket from A to B and B to C you could take a direct train from A to C if you wished.

 

[Dr Hoo]

We have done this before, delay attribution is going nowhere. You need minutes to see the impact, investigate and remedy.

And most of the hard work is done by quite junior staff rather than 'management' anyway.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

An opportunity to rationalise some timetables like LNER/XC/TP between Newcastle and Edinburgh?

Those duplications are there only because the DfT agreed to them (or specified them in the first place).
They could be changed today on the old contracts if DfT really wanted to.
Same with WMT's "competing" Birmingham/Liverpool services out of Euston.

 

[Huntergreed]

I can see some of the previously quiet lines getting the axe sadly if this is the case. Beeching Mark 2 perhaps? (Slightly less extreme though)

 

[Yew]

Could this simplify delay-repay, or are we still going to see the expensive blame game that we have currently?

 

[dk1]

I can see some of the previously quiet lines getting the axe sadly if this is the case. Beeching Mark 2 perhaps? (Slightly less extreme though)

I very much doubt it. Need to look no further than the Blaenau Ffestiniog branch. How many times has it been washed out & how many £Millions have been spent on repairing it for such a low frequency & passenger base? Many of the local routes have done very well this Summer. Its the commuter & main lines that are worst affected & hardly going to be any closures there.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Could this simplify delay-repay, or are we still going to see the expensive blame game that we have currently?

Delay Repay is distinct from either delay attribution or the performance regimes.

A payment for Delay Repay relates to a passenger's 'journey' being affected by over 30 minutes (or whatever). This may be due to things like a missed connection caused by sub-threshold delay and may be at a station that isn't even a Monitoring Point. It may relate to multiple incidents.

Delay Repay 'payments' are not included in the Performance Regimes (that are calibrated on the basis of the future marginal revenue effect).

 

[cactustwirly]

Longer, less frequent trains, which will not only be cheaper to operate but also be more punctual and reliable. I'm not suggesting silly-low frequencies, but in the North West the pre-1998 timetable would seem a reasonable guide to what is needed - that by and large operated reliably through Castlefield. Similarly with XC - double up all the Voyagers and halve the timetable give or take busy bits.

In the South East, an all-week (possibly except Sunday) timetable - the commuter demand won't fully return so there will be no need to run peak extras any more, just lengthen the odd diagram, maybe requiring about 5-6 additional units over the base for the south WCML. Not having the London commuter peak is likely to be the biggest saving imaginable I would say.

End competition, which where it exists causes duplication of resources. An example, though it does to some extent take demand from coaches and cars, the Trent Valley local service would be fine as a 4-car set if it didn't have fares deliberately designed to take passengers from Avanti services, which are often not busy as a result.

End Delay Repay. It's become an industry in itself and takes up so much time to deliver it that it prevents a proper responsive customer services operation. Similar for delay attribution as someone else already said.

More DOO (sorry, but it had to go in; it would be a big saving if all urban routes could be switched over, though we would need to deal with things like accessibility - perhaps one-off spending on low floor trains for the long-term saving?). A long term view towards unsupervised ATO where feasible, i.e. "guard only operation".

Closure of ticket offices, supported by the roll-out of contactless payment in urban areas and other means of obtaining tickets, and simplification of the fare structure to abolish things like excesses and other complexities you can't get online or at a TVM. With single fare pricing as being trialled on the ECML you can do refund-and-replace instead of excesses. Also there needs to be an online method of obtaining a reservation without a ticket sale. Furthermore all railway sales points need to be able to deal with all bookings. I would probably retain customer service centres in major stations (probably about 20 of these at most nationally) - all other ticket offices would go.

Technology improvements on rural branch lines (no, not ETCS, something cheaper) so they can be operated using literally just a unit and a driver (and guard if you must). That brings the cost down to a similar level as a bus service.

Beyond that I think you get onto the rather more controversial issue of actual route closures.

Some of those obviously more controversial than others.

Running less frequent trains makes the railway unattractive, as it means lines lose their turn up and go frequencies.
I remain unconvinced that commuters are suddenly going to desert the railways. Once the offices reopen they'll be back.

There's some lines that are easy to convert to DOO, like SWR inner suburban services, LNR London commuter, Snow Hill and 323 routes, northern Manchester and Leeds commuter lines with 333s and 323s etc.

Contactless doesn't work for railcards, different routes or off-peak/peak restrictions.
I'd support good TVMs that sold the full range of tickets instead.

 

[yorksrob]

It really depends on whether government makes such decisions on social need or cost. If government were only looking at cost, it might well end up shutting regional routes that are still very busy.

A Government interested in social need would hopefully undertake less damaging alterations to services. For example, Ashford - Maidstone East could possibly get by with one train an hour rather than two for a few years. We might only need one Hallam fast an hour, rather than two etc.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Keeping good rail ridership whilst reducing cost could include slight thinning of some services but with more coaches; and some decent Taktfahrplan timetabling across the board.

DfT should specify the timetable, bidders will be required to run them. Facilities etc all part of the bargain.

On some routes, examples including the Little North Western off the top of my head, you can reduce it to a standard three-hourly Lancaster to Skipton (or Morecambe to Skipton) with connections then into the electric services.

In the short term, increase services where possible on LSE stuff (such as Southeastern) to 12 car, fixed route diagramming and then reduce the service levels slightly (e.g. Bexleyheath line 8 x 12 car services into Cannon St only).

 

[Yew]

Delay Repay is distinct from either delay attribution or the performance regimes.

A payment for Delay Repay relates to a passenger's 'journey' being affected by over 30 minutes (or whatever). This may be due to things like a missed connection caused by sub-threshold delay and may be at a station that isn't even a Monitoring Point. It may relate to multiple incidents.

Delay Repay 'payments' are not included in the Performance Regimes (that are calibrated on the basis of the future marginal revenue effect).

Pedantry aside, I've not been around for a while, and think from context you can work out that, in more detailed vernacular my comment related to delay attribution.

 

[RT4038]

Longer, less frequent trains, which will not only be cheaper to operate but also be more punctual and reliable. I'm not suggesting silly-low frequencies, but in the North West the pre-1998 timetable would seem a reasonable guide to what is needed - that by and large operated reliably through Castlefield. Similarly with XC - double up all the Voyagers and halve the timetable give or take busy bits.

In the South East, an all-week (possibly except Sunday) timetable - the commuter demand won't fully return so there will be no need to run peak extras any more, just lengthen the odd diagram, maybe requiring about 5-6 additional units over the base for the south WCML. Not having the London commuter peak is likely to be the biggest saving imaginable I would say.

End competition, which where it exists causes duplication of resources. An example, though it does to some extent take demand from coaches and cars, the Trent Valley local service would be fine as a 4-car set if it didn't have fares deliberately designed to take passengers from Avanti services, which are often not busy as a result.

End Delay Repay. It's become an industry in itself and takes up so much time to deliver it that it prevents a proper responsive customer services operation. Similar for delay attribution as someone else already said.

More DOO (sorry, but it had to go in; it would be a big saving if all urban routes could be switched over, though we would need to deal with things like accessibility - perhaps one-off spending on low floor trains for the long-term saving?). A long term view towards unsupervised ATO where feasible, i.e. "guard only operation".

Closure of ticket offices, supported by the roll-out of contactless payment in urban areas and other means of obtaining tickets, and simplification of the fare structure to abolish things like excesses and other complexities you can't get online or at a TVM. With single fare pricing as being trialled on the ECML you can do refund-and-replace instead of excesses. Also there needs to be an online method of obtaining a reservation without a ticket sale. Furthermore all railway sales points need to be able to deal with all bookings. I would probably retain customer service centres in major stations (probably about 20 of these at most nationally) - all other ticket offices would go.

Technology improvements on rural branch lines (no, not ETCS, something cheaper) so they can be operated using literally just a unit and a driver (and guard if you must). That brings the cost down to a similar level as a bus service.

Beyond that I think you get onto the rather more controversial issue of actual route closures.

Some of those obviously more controversial than others.

All of what you say plus:

Improve staff productivity by changing Ts&Cs. (particularly the expensive ones)
Modify Railway pension scheme, to that now general in outside industries.
Bus replacements of trains on little used routes outside of core times.

If the longer, less frequent service end up being more punctual then delay repay should reduce anyway. Perhaps delay repay needs to be less generous (say starting at over 1hr delay) rather than abolished altogether. Not sure that delay attribution really costs that much to run, and suspect it is actually a management tool. Again, if delays are reduced by running fewer, longer trains there should be less work and therefore less staff.

Hopefully no actual route closures, although I can see temporary (for a long time/ever) bus replacements on little used lines with infrastructure failures that are going to cost serious money to repair (such as Blaneau Festiniog)

It really depends on whether government makes such decisions on social need or cost. If government were only looking at cost, it might well end up shutting regional routes that are still very busy.

A Government interested in social need would hopefully undertake less damaging alterations to services. For example, Ashford - Maidstone East could possibly get by with one train an hour rather than two for a few years. We might only need one Hallam fast an hour, rather than two etc.

I suspect the decisions would be made on a bit of both. Hopefully no actual route closures, although I can see temporarily for ever bus substitutions on lines with infrastructure failure, or where costs are exorbitant. Also possibly bus substitutions of little used journeys where a significant saving could be made by not running a train.

Otherwise more likely to be the sort of cuts that you suggest.

 

[Ianno87]

Keeping good rail ridership whilst reducing cost could include slight thinning of some services but with more coaches; and some decent Taktfahrplan timetabling across the board.

Possibly some examples where hourly through trains (say) can be replaced with half-hourly connections. Possibly more efficient to resource (e.g. one TOC doing 2tph rather than two TOCs each with 1tph).

With demand so low, there is opportunity to remap the network and where gets direct trains to where without causing the usual 'X and Y have always had a direct train so you can't possibly remove it' arguments.

Reshape service patterns to genuinely suit the majority.

 

[RT4038]

Possibly some examples where hourly through trains (say) can be replaced with half-hourly connections. Possibly more efficient to resource (e.g. one TOC doing 2tph rather than two TOCs each with 1tph).

With demand so low, there is opportunity to remap the network and where gets direct trains to where without causing the usual 'X and Y have always had a direct train so you can't possibly remove it' arguments.

Reshape service patterns to genuinely suit the majority.

Or even reshaping service patterns to genuinely suit the cheapest method of operation?

 

[Ianno87]

Or even reshaping service patterns to genuinely suit the cheapest method of operation?

Which would be no trains at all!

Focus on frequency to drive demand between hubs using (where practical) the same operator for all services for efficiency, and get passengers used to the idea that a half hourly service with a connection is better overall than an hourly direct train.