Speculation: what could replace the rail franchising system?

[Jorge Da Silva]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...crap-britains-broken-rail-franchising-system/

Can’t see the rest of the article. So in short answer yes. It’s the end of the franchising system! What will replace it?

Boris Johnson is planning to scrap Britain's "broken" rail franchising system and replace it with a new model focused on "performance and reliability", The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

The Prime Minister is expected to use Monday's Queen's Speech to announce proposals to embark on a "revolutionary" overhaul of the railways as early as next year.

It will also include plans to introduce a Withdrawal Agreement Bill to implement a Brexit deal if one is reached with the EU this week. A further 21 bills will include legislation introducing a new points-based immigration system, laws to ensure faster access to new medicines, major environmental reforms, and a requirement for voters to produce photographic...

 

[Aictos]

If the answer is concessions then it needs to be operated like the 1st London Overground concession by MTR with strict penalties for poor performance, strict quality control such as in Scotland before bonuses for good performance come in.

What we don’t want is something like GTR where the absolute minimum is done, DfT takes the revenue risk and sloppy management is rewarded.

Also instead of short term contracts of 7 years, it should be minimum of 15 years with the average being a 20 year concession with the holder of the concession encouraged to invest and be proactive in delivering benefits and upgrades to the concession be it station improvements (access for all, staffing etc) onboard improvements (WiFi, seats etc) to route improvements (double tracking previous single track sections, extending platform lengths to electrifying etc) by working with partners to deliver a railway fit for the 21st century without all the short termism that seems to plague the industry atm.

 

[hkstudent]

It could be devolution of the railway to local authorities and not giving them enough money to run it. It would be another Tory trick for shifting the blames.

 

[yorkie]

... it should be minimum of 15 years with the average being a 20 year concession with the holder of the concession encouraged to invest and be proactive in delivering benefits and upgrades....

The original Chiltern franchise is a good example of this. The route between Marylebone and Banbury saw an incredible renaissance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The original Chiltern franchise is a good example of this. The route between Marylebone and Banbury saw an incredible renaissance.

A longer franchise similarly was the basis of the significant turnaround of the WCML. If you've got that long, you can invest and get a return.

 

[Meerkat]

Is there any point to long concessions though? By definition they restrict innovation. You may as well have short ones (bid costs should be lower on a tightly specced concession) but have some kind of bonus score for performing well so a top performing provider has a head start on keeping the gig.
It does depend whether the TOC leases the stock or the authority does that separately

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is there any point to long concessions though?

Not really, no, just as there's little point in short "franchises" with significant freedom.

 

[Aictos]

The original Chiltern franchise is a good example of this. The route between Marylebone and Banbury saw an incredible renaissance.

I agree, this could and should be used as a template for investment.

 

[hexagon789]

What about a scheme similar to that proposed by the LNER in the 1940s?

 

[Gareth]

I still lean towards a vertically integrated regional system, one per main London terminal, plus ScotRail, TfW Rail, Merseyrail and London Overground.

Not sure about the fine detail, but quite long franchises with some imput from the DfT regarding intercity and interregional services and regional transit authorities for the commuter and metro stuff.

From the rumours though, I'd be surprised if we ended up with anything like that.

 

[Jozhua]

I definitely think domestic rail operations for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should be devolved to the individual countries, they can choose to give operations to other operators or run them themselves.

For the rest of England, I think operators should be combined into larger entities, lumping unprofitable feeder routes with the jntercity ones that are boosted from the extra passengers they provide.

I'd probably have a Mid/North West operator, Mid/North East operator, South West operator and South East operator. I'd probably have these run as a public-private partnership with no specific franchise lengths, but the very real possibility of having a franchise stripped if poor service is being provided to passengers. Hopefully, with the motivation to keep up quality of service and promise of long term returns, operators will better invest in staffing and infrastructure. I'd probably keep Roscos to remove the need for large amounts of upfront cash needed to buy rolling stock.

They, along with local authorities will be responsible for rail infrastructure, meaning that they can invest in whatever projects are most important for keeping trains moving in each area. No greenlights from Westminster will be needed for any improvements/adjustments to be made to lines.

Funding wise, I'd probably try and divvy up the current amount of subsidy to each regional operator to match roughly what is being spent on each region currently.

 

[Meerkat]

Horses for courses.
Where possible vertically integrated devolved commuter and local network concessions, with local funding mechanisms.
Major individual mainlines as separate companies (state freehold, poss long term private leasehold or maintenance concessions), with packages of slots sold to competing operators.
Government network operator overseas timetabling on mainlines and where it crosses boundaries.

 

[Meerkat]

I definitely think domestic rail operations for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should be devolved to the individual countries, they can choose to give operations to other operators or run them themselves.

Agree for Scotland (let them try nationalisation if they choose - would give a good benchmark in both directions...) and NI (might have to fix system to avoid a politically awkward winning bid from IE!!), but more difficult for Wales due to the large amount of cross border activity.

lumping unprofitable feeder routes with the jntercity ones that are boosted from the extra passengers they provide.

I hate this concept - I just see it as a way for railway fundamentalists to hide the loss makers. Some things deserve subsidy, but let’s have honesty about what is getting subsidised and how much. Taxpayers in general should subsidise things, not other rail users.

 

[LOL The Irony]

My proposal is like the big 4 but on a smaller scale; The medium 12.
London: comprises Overground, Crossrail, Thameslink & metro services currently with other franchises.
South Eastern: comprises everything remaining from SouthEastern & Southern.
South Western: comprises everything remaining from SWR & GWR North Downs services & Wessex services.
Great Eastern: comprises of Greater Anglia, Great Northern slows & C2C.
Great Western: comprises of everything remaining from GWR.
Midlands: comprises of WMT, EMR & Shrewsbury - Crewe services.
Wales: comprises of all TfW Rail services bar Shrewsbury - Crewe & Chester - Crewe.
Northern: comprises of all Northern services & all TPE services bar Manchester Airport/Liverpool - Scotland & Liverpool - Edinburgh services.
Scotland: comprises of all current ScotRail services.
West Coast: comprises of all VTWC services & Manchester Airport/Liverpool - Scotland services.
East Coast: comprises of all LNER services & Great Northern fasts.
Cross Country: comprises of all XC services & Liverpool - Edinburgh.

 

[Gareth]

I envision 11 main regions with aligned BR branding, similar to JR in Japan. Devolved systems ScotRail, TfW Rail, Merseyrail & London Overground remain unaltered; although there may be scope for Overground to take over some other metro services such as the Northern City Line. Probably not going to happen but for fun's sake...

BR West Coast - Virgin, LNW, North West half of Northern plus TPE North West to Scotland.

BR Midland - East Midlands Railway

BR East Coast - LNER, Eastern half of Northern and Great Northern

BR Thameslink - Thameslink

BR Great Eastern - Greater Anglia

BR Essex Thameside - C2C

BR South East - South Eastern

BR Southern - Southern

BR South West - South Western Railway

BR Great Western - Great Western Railway

BR Chiltern - Chiltern

CrossCountry services would be arranged in cooperation between regions, as encouraged, if not specified, by the DfT.

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

At the risk of going off topic, a lot of the ideas that are mooted would be a lot easier to introduce if there was a regional tier of governnment in England.

At the moment there's a hodge-podge of local government, Metro Mayors and bodies like TftN whose powers and lines of accountablity are opaque.

Without a regional tier with a wide range of responsiblities over things like highways, education, health etc there's no way of ensuring that public spending is distributed according to the needs of the region.

If the Welsh or Scottish Governments decide to finance a new fleet of trains, say, by shaving money off the housing or highways budgets, they can do so. A regionalised rail system in England, on the other hand, would be pretty much hamstrung by what ever budgets the DfT came up with.

 

[Jozhua]

Agree for Scotland (let them try nationalisation if they choose - would give a good benchmark in both directions...) and NI (might have to fix system to avoid a politically awkward winning bid from IE!!), but more difficult for Wales due to the large amount of cross border activity.



I hate this concept - I just see it as a way for railway fundamentalists to hide the loss makers. Some things deserve subsidy, but let’s have honesty about what is getting subsidised and how much. Taxpayers in general should subsidise things, not other rail users.

Yes, I think allowing Scotland to nationalise would be a useful benchmark and fantastic for Scots who want to see more power devolved to the Scottish government.

Yeah, but all big companies have profitable and unprofitable aspects. Many airlines doing connecting flights will run unprofitable shuttles in their own right to connect passengers to larger profitable flights. The trip overall makes a profit and that money may have not been made had that shuttle flight been run.

I'd be for a release of finances of each route, so information on operational profitability is available publicly.

My proposal is like the big 4 but on a smaller scale; The medium 12.
London: comprises Overground, Crossrail, Thameslink & metro services currently with other franchises.
South Eastern: comprises everything remaining from SouthEastern & Southern.
South Western: comprises everything remaining from SWR & GWR North Downs services & Wessex services.
Great Eastern: comprises of Greater Anglia, Great Northern slows & C2C.
Great Western: comprises of everything remaining from GWR.
Midlands: comprises of WMT, EMR & Shrewsbury - Crewe services.
Wales: comprises of all TfW Rail services bar Shrewsbury - Crewe & Chester - Crewe.
Northern: comprises of all Northern services & all TPE services bar Manchester Airport/Liverpool - Scotland & Liverpool - Edinburgh services.
Scotland: comprises of all current ScotRail services.
West Coast: comprises of all VTWC services & Manchester Airport/Liverpool - Scotland services.
East Coast: comprises of all LNER services & Great Northern fasts.
Cross Country: comprises of all XC services & Liverpool - Edinburgh.

I think lumping franchises in together is a good idea. More flexibility in regards to rolling stock and staff.

The current hodge-podge of franchises makes things confusing for passengers, especially when booking tickets and using delay repay. In fact, for a journey of 70 miles back home, I have sometimes ended up using 4 different TOCs...

I'd also be pro seeing these larger TOCs take a more active role in infrastructure maintenance. Doubt Network Rail is that bothered wether a train arrives at it's destination on time, as long as they don't get fined.

At the risk of going off topic, a lot of the ideas that are mooted would be a lot easier to introduce if there was a regional tier of governnment in England.

At the moment there's a hodge-podge of local government, Metro Mayors and bodies like TftN whose powers and lines of accountablity are opaque.

Without a regional tier with a wide range of responsiblities over things like highways, education, health etc there's no way of ensuring that public spending is distributed according to the needs of the region.

If the Welsh or Scottish Governments decide to finance a new fleet of trains, say, by shaving money off the housing or highways budgets, they can do so. A regionalised rail system in England, on the other hand, would be pretty much hamstrung by what ever budgets the DfT came up with.

Unfortunately I don't see regional governments coming anytime soon, Westminster will want to cling on to their power as much as possible. Lumping franchises in together and consulting closely with local authorities is probably the best we can get for railways, given the circumstances.

 

[Meerkat]

Yeah, but all big companies have profitable and unprofitable aspects

Regional trains aren’t really feeders are they, more local travel networks.
InterCity and local trains are different businesses, like you have BA and EasyJet, or Jaguar and Vauxhall.

 

[Jozhua]

Regional trains aren’t really feeders are they, more local travel networks.
InterCity and local trains are different businesses, like you have BA and EasyJet, or Jaguar and Vauxhall.

Yeah, but they don't run in isolation from each other either. Either way, combining routes within regions together to reduce the confusing, ineffective mess of TOC's can't exactly be a bad thing.

Plus, unfortunately as it is, the government splits the profitable IC franchises from the local routes and then expects the local routes to be profitable and operate with low to no subsidies. In an ideal world local could be seperate from intercity, however, under current funding conditions it's probably not the best.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Regional trains aren’t really feeders are they, more local travel networks.

They're a bit of both, really.

 

[PeterC]

Replacement? Whatever it is will start off as an excellent idea and be implemented in the worst possible way.

/cynic

 

[randyrippley]

doesn't matter what structure is used, as long as we have a single integrated ticketing and fares system which treats the network as a cohesive whole, not as a bunch of competing unlinked entities

 

[Bletchleyite]

There are few, if any, safer modes of transport in this country than rail.

Precisely. It remains my view that throwing any more money after rail safety other than that needing to be spent on a maintenance type basis is a waste of money. That money should instead be spent on reducing fares so as to increase the number of people travelling by rail and reducing the number of people travelling by road, which coupled with some targetted spending on road safety would save far, far more lives.

 

[Meerkat]

Precisely. It remains my view that throwing any more money after rail safety other than that needing to be spent on a maintenance type basis is a waste of money. That money should instead be spent on reducing fares so as to increase the number of people travelling by rail and reducing the number of people travelling by road, which coupled with some targetted spending on road safety would save far, far more lives.

Definitely agree on the first bit, but don’t like the second bit if it is just throwing money at subsidised fares.
Firstly it wastes money on those who can afford the current fares (if you must then have targeted discounts via railcards for certain groups).
Secondly I think it better to spend it on capacity - either longer trains and platforms or line capacity.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Secondly I think it better to spend it on capacity - either longer trains and platforms or line capacity.

Of course if you do add that (and yes, it would be an essential part of reducing fares to get more people travelling) you don't have to price people off any more.

 

[Meerkat]

Plus, unfortunately as it is, the government splits the profitable IC franchises from the local routes and then expects the local routes to be profitable and operate with low to no subsidies. In an ideal world local could be seperate from intercity, however, under current funding conditions it's probably not the best

So, as I feared, you want to merge them to hide subsidies.
Another downside is control. If Intercity is separate and under central control then it stays as Intercity. Too much regional control and it just becomes a fast commuter network.

 

[Jozhua]

Replacement? Whatever it is will start off as an excellent idea and be implemented in the worst possible way.

/cynic

To be honest, that kind of describes the current franchising system, worst of both worlds...

doesn't matter what structure is used, as long as we have a single integrated ticketing and fares system which treats the network as a cohesive whole, not as a bunch of competing unlinked entities

Yes, walk up fares from anywhere to anywhere are an important part of the UK network I hope stays!

So, as I feared, you want to merge them to hide subsidies.
Another downside is control. If Intercity is separate and under central control then it stays as Intercity. Too much regional control and it just becomes a fast commuter network.

Yeah, but there isn't really a massive distinction between regional and intercity anyway... Some journeys are only covered by express intercity trains, while other arguably 'intercity' routes are run by regional services.

Anyway, under my proposals for franchising, private companies would still run the franchises and local councils, etc would have an advisory role, same as now. Regional and Express services would be lumped together to make the networks in each area more cohesive, like the EMR network.

I highly doubt any new system will place things entirely under government control, so the concept of things being run by central and regional governments is unlikely.

 

[Djgr]

I hear that one big change is that new franchises won't carry revenue risk, which would really make them concessions like TfL's. It fits in with the emphasis on performance that has been announced.

On the plus side that would hopefully see the end of various money-go-rounds like Schedule 4, although it will be a bad day for lawyers, given the number of major disputes in recent years.

I have to pull up the Momentum group on here - TOCs are not hoovering vast amounts of cash and they are not "Tory chums". Most of the owning groups have taken several baths and it surely cannot have escaped people's notice how many have been in financial trouble, and/or have left the market, over the years. If you were a Tory looking to make a chum rich, you would not encourage them to run a TOC.

Except this is not a minority political view. The last poll that I saw (Independent, 2018) showed 64% of the British public in favour of rail nationalisation, which is ,accordingly to my calculator, a much higher percentage than BoJo, his circus and his plans command.

 

[Meerkat]

Concessions mean the DfT decides everything. Is that really a good idea?
Why are railway companies pilloried for making money, they don’t even make much?!
Do the staff say “no no, I don’t need the pay rise - I have enough to live on and don’t want to make a profit out of the poor customers”

 

[option]

At the risk of going off topic, a lot of the ideas that are mooted would be a lot easier to introduce if there was a regional tier of governnment in England.

At the moment there's a hodge-podge of local government, Metro Mayors and bodies like TftN whose powers and lines of accountablity are opaque.

Without a regional tier with a wide range of responsiblities over things like highways, education, health etc there's no way of ensuring that public spending is distributed according to the needs of the region.

If the Welsh or Scottish Governments decide to finance a new fleet of trains, say, by shaving money off the housing or highways budgets, they can do so. A regionalised rail system in England, on the other hand, would be pretty much hamstrung by what ever budgets the DfT came up with.

Regionalisation is gradually happening.

TftN is an odd one & probably wont last, but the other TfX bodies are subsidiaries of Combined Authorities, eg TfL - GLA, TfWM - WMCA.
Those bodies are gaining powers, & in some cases growing in geographic area, eg Herefordshire is awaiting membership of WMCA, I expect Worcestershire, Worcester & Bromsgrove to join as they are surrounded by members.
Once Gloucestershire, Staffordshire & Cheshire decide which way to go, everywhere from Bristol to Manchester will be covered by a Combined Authority. (Though WECA don't have rail transport)