What are the latest rumours on the outcome of the South Eastern competition?
Will Govia retain it or will Abellio or Stagecoach come out on top?
I swear there was a thread on this but can’t for the life of me find it!
It's not a steller list of bidders. Incumbent GoVia, also of Thameslink infamy, Stagecoach who handed back east coast (see note 1) and Abellio who appear to have issues with GA, as seen in the other thread on the main page.
The winner is almost in sight.
The bids had to be re-submitted twice, but the main change was around the pension issue (for those who are unaware, the Pension regulator has ruled that the schemes are underfunded). There is at least one compliant bid - and there always was.
Huh? If there is/was a compliant bid then why the re-bids?
It lied. Well, it told a version of the truth that TPR wants changed.Pretty sure that last pension statement said my scheme was in surplus.
Jeremy Long, who was at GBRail (and then a short time at First), is now at MTR. MTR generally prefer smaller TOCs.So who might be on a stellar list of bidders?
As Ainsworth said, plus they wanted to get the pension situation sorted. They achieved a good number of their aims at the cost of many weeks delay.Huh? If there is/was a compliant bid then why the re-bids?
My view is that the winning bidder will be lucky to make a pound note out of it. The steady switch away from 5-days-a-week commuting is biting all the London Commuting TOCs.Doesn't matter who wins it. It's running at capacity. They'll paint the doors a different colour, give the staff a new uniform and carry on as before. The SE network on all its approaches to London is full. New trains or new shareholders taking profits from it won't improve anything for passengers until the whole lot of it gets digital signalling, which I can't see happening any time soon. All the bidders are looking at is how best to make a pound note out of it.
My view is that the winning bidder will be lucky to make a pound note out of it. The steady switch away from 5-days-a-week commuting is biting all the London Commuting TOCs.
What they bid for and what they get are not the same thing. Success for a bidding team is winning; the group tries to prevent this becoming the main focus as they want to "win at the right price", but it doesn't always work. See VTEC, GA, SWR, etc.Why would a company bid for a franchise it couldn't make a profit out of? These are private companies that exist solely to make money. They do not run railways at a loss out of some altruistic public duty. If a firm cant turn a profit from a TOC they won't run it.
It's also worth noting that a HUGE number of passengers travel without tickets on the Southeastern metro area. A revenue inspector once told me that "almost everyone" boarding at Swanscombe and Northfleet is travelling without a ticket. Those stations are a magnet for anti-social behaviour and fare evasion (I'm not singling them out, but using them as an example of a much wider problem) and the revenue inspectors and REOs seldom go down there, although you'll often see them hanging around major crime hotspots like Bickley and Shortlands. The stations are unstaffed much or all of the day and many passengers, especially at night, feel vulnerable or threatened. It's horrible. It's interesting that profit-driven companies knowingly allow people to dodge their fare and create havoc for those who do pay. Presumably it's cheaper to not employ (or deploy) the staff to deal with it.
Hopefully some new blood at the top will make a difference, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you
it seems to me that SE have a history (whoever is running the franchise) of relying on their gates, even though they're not always manned, and the conductors
I live in Abbey Wood and a few weeks ago I had to go and receive a suitcase from my parents containing some more stuff. I used the wide gate to get out since it’s easier and then as I was going through some guy just walked passed me as I was going through the barrier making no effort to hide or whatever and the staff (TfL and not Southeastern there to clarify although I think that they might be ex-Southeastern based on things I’ve overheard when there have been problems) who saw it did absolutely nothing even though they clearly saw it. When the staff don’t enforce the stuff then it’s natural that people will evade fares - and that’s at a station that is at a station that is totally barriered and should be relatively safe from fare evasion if they enforced their own rules.
But the barriers are not always staffed.Where are all these ticketless people going? Surely the popular destinations are barriered?
I live in Abbey Wood and a few weeks ago I had to go and receive a suitcase from my parents containing some more stuff. I used the wide gate to get out since it’s easier and then as I was going through some guy just walked passed me as I was going through the barrier making no effort to hide or whatever and the staff (TfL and not Southeastern there to clarify although I think that they might be ex-Southeastern based on things I’ve overheard when there have been problems) who saw it did absolutely nothing even though they clearly saw it. When the staff don’t enforce the stuff then it’s natural that people will evade fares - and that’s at a station that is at a station that is totally barriered and should be relatively safe from fare evasion if they enforced their own rules.
Where are all these ticketless people going? Surely the popular destinations are barriered?
For Bromley most of them get off at Shortlands and walk up the hill. For Victoria many get off at Brixton and touch the oyster card readers on the platform before getting back on the same train, thus saving the fare up through all the zones they just went through. It's so rife at Brixton it's actually funny to watch. Nunhead is another hotspot for this. And that's just the respectable middle class fare evaders - the badmen don't bother, they just double through or jump over the barriers.Where are all these ticketless people going? Surely the popular destinations are barriered?
Where are all these ticketless people going? Surely the popular destinations are barriered?