TfL to take over most, if not all London suburban services

[Monty]

You are not serious, surely.

I'm being deadly serious, there is a massive difference from 'expecting closer TfL involvement in running some services' to absorbing entire lines into the LO. The former could mean anything from TfL merely specifying the level of service to the metro lines being run as a concession with the incumbent TOC taking responsibility for it's management (in fact the ITT did ask for the bidders to create plans for two seperate business units).

It's not just about transferring services over to another operator you will need to carve up staff, train fleets, train care depots (a big issue since Strawberry Hill and Wimbledon do a lot of work on SWT's mainline fleet as well as its suburban fleet) and on top of that how Clapham Yard would work after the split would be pretty interesting. Diagrams would also have to be completely rewritten (something that as already been done once for the works at Waterloo next summer). Put simply, the transfer of SWTs metro routes is a massive undertaking. It's going take a lot of long term planning and if they try to do it quickly and force the issue it's going to go horribly wrong.

 

[bicbasher]

Crummy unstaffed stations, howlingly bad customer communications, lousy evening and Sunday service levels and a fare structure that penalises south Londoners for switching from rail to tube, however, may be.

It really is the pits. Anyone who lives in outer SE London will know how cut off from the capital those areas are during evenings and Sundays when the service is so poor. Luckily Crossrail is on it's way to Abbey Wood which will help Thamesmead, one of the deprived areas of the capital with a more regular service into Central London and Canary Wharf.

The majority of North and West London don't have these issues with LUL providing regular services until the end of service.

I'll give credit to Southeastern for finally providing a 7 day service on the Victoria to Dartford service via Peckham Rye and 4tph between Victoria and Oprington via Herne Hill late evenings, but it should have happened years ago.

One advantage of having LO in my part of South London is that there are more visitors from other parts of London visiting the Horniman Museum. Visitors have increased dramatically since the ELL extension opened in 2010. There isn't a weekday when school parties aren't using Forest Hill station and weekends are full of families using the service.

Passenger use is up on TfL Rail and LO's West Anglia lines since they replaced GA thanks to an integrated fare structure where passengers aren't penalised for transferring between NR and TfL services in Zone 1. This is despite very little change to the service or units in service.

 

[Robertj21a]

I'm being deadly serious, there is a massive difference from 'expecting closer TfL involvement in running some services' to absorbing entire lines into the LO. The former could mean anything from TfL merely specifying the level of service to the metro lines being run as a concession with the incumbent TOC taking responsibility for it's management (in fact the ITT did ask for the bidders to create plans for two seperate business units).

It's not just about transferring services over to another operator you will need to carve up staff, train fleets, train care depots (a big issue since Strawberry Hill and Wimbledon do a lot of work on SWT's mainline fleet as well as its suburban fleet) and on top of that how Clapham Yard would work after the split would be pretty interesting. Diagrams would also have to be completely rewritten (something that as already been done once for the works at Waterloo next summer). Put simply, the transfer of SWTs metro routes is a massive undertaking. It's going take a lot of long term planning and if they try to do it quickly and force the issue it's going to go horribly wrong.

I don't think anybody underestimates the amount of effort that will be required if there needs to be a major upheaval. However, there are always means of organising major changes if the right people are tasked with the job. Hopefully, Stagecoach will remain heavily involved, and bring their expertise to it.

 

[ScotGG]

It really is the pits. Anyone who lives in outer SE London will know how cut off from the capital those areas are during evenings and Sundays when the service is so poor. Luckily Crossrail is on it's way to Abbey Wood which will help Thamesmead, one of the deprived areas of the capital with a more regular service into Central London and Canary Wharf.

The majority of North and West London don't have these issues with LUL providing regular services until the end of service.

I'll give credit to Southeastern for finally providing a 7 day service on the Victoria to Dartford service via Peckham Rye and 4tph between Victoria and Oprington via Herne Hill late evenings, but it should have happened years ago.

One advantage of having LO in my part of South London is that there are more visitors from other parts of London visiting the Horniman Museum. Visitors have increased dramatically since the ELL extension opened in 2010. There isn't a weekday when school parties aren't using Forest Hill station and weekends are full of families using the service.

Passenger use is up on TfL Rail and LO's West Anglia lines since they replaced GA thanks to an integrated fare structure where passengers aren't penalised for transferring between NR and TfL services in Zone 1. This is despite very little change to the service or units in service.

So, so true. I can't believe anyone who objects has to use lines like the Dartford routes as well as those that are now LO and compares the two. With SE it's no staff at 50% of stations despite passenger numbers rising sharply. Maybe one guy behind a window for a few hours at best. The number of ticketless travel is off the scale. I just couldn't believe the numbers who legged it last week when 2 REOs appeared which is bloody rare in itself. 50% of the carriage I was on and the next. No exaggeration. It's something else.

SE really is bad and no one seems to want to do a thing. Give it to TfL who will.

I don't even know if I can blame Southeastern. The DfT set up a structure which doesn't make it worth SE hiring staff if it's short term extensions all the time, nor if extra income is not retained by the TOC. But we come back to the old point - will the DfT do what's needed? Who can have faith they will given their lamantable record for Southeastern metro passengers (those that pay that is)
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Supported by those with unrealistic expectations? Signal failures, points failures, leaves on the line and broken down freight trains aren't all going to suddenly become things of the past.

Come on. Most don't expect that. Many know capacity issues but at least TfL have a plan. It's only supported only by the vast majority of politicians from both the right and left.

Look at the facts. They are all out there. Look at passenger number growth with TfL takeovers. Look at fare evasion reductions. Look at passenger satisfaction. It's not perfect - nothing is but the DfT have failed and failed again. Their time has come to be ditched as they hold back the area.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

I'm being deadly serious, there is a massive difference from 'expecting closer TfL involvement in running some services' to absorbing entire lines into the LO. The former could mean anything from TfL merely specifying the level of service to the metro lines being run as a concession with the incumbent TOC taking responsibility for it's management (in fact the ITT did ask for the bidders to create plans for two seperate business units).

It's not just about transferring services over to another operator you will need to carve up staff, train fleets, train care depots (a big issue since Strawberry Hill and Wimbledon do a lot of work on SWT's mainline fleet as well as its suburban fleet) and on top of that how Clapham Yard would work after the split would be pretty interesting. Diagrams would also have to be completely rewritten (something that as already been done once for the works at Waterloo next summer). Put simply, the transfer of SWTs metro routes is a massive undertaking. It's going take a lot of long term planning and if they try to do it quickly and force the issue it's going to go horribly wrong.

What's the splits like for work done on metro "reds" and mainline "blues and whites" at Strawberry Hill, Wimbledon and Clapham?

 

[Antman]

So, so true. I can't believe anyone who objects has to use lines like the Dartford routes as well as those that are now LO and compares the two. With SE it's no staff at 50% of stations despite passenger numbers rising sharply. Maybe one guy behind a window for a few hours at best. The number of ticketless travel is off the scale. I just couldn't believe the numbers who legged it last week when 2 REOs appeared which is bloody rare in itself. 50% of the carriage I was on and the next. No exaggeration. It's something else.

SE really is bad and no one seems to want to do a thing. Give it to TfL who will.

I don't even know if I can blame Southeastern. The DfT set up a structure which doesn't make it worth SE hiring staff if it's short term extensions all the time, nor if extra income is not retained by the TOC. But we come back to the old point - will the DfT do what's needed? Who can have faith they will given their lamantable record for Southeastern metro passengers (those that pay that is)
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Come on. Most don't expect that. Many know capacity issues but at least TfL have a plan. It's only supported only by the vast majority of politicians from both the right and left.

Look at the facts. They are all out there. Look at passenger number growth with TfL takeovers. Look at fare evasion reductions. Look at passenger satisfaction. It's not perfect - nothing is but the DfT have failed and failed again. Their time has come to be ditched as they hold back the area.

Well we shall see if and when it happens although I do think there will be a lot of unrealistic expectations. I don't know about attracting more passengers, much of the network is pretty near capacity as it is although Crossrail will help.

I do agree about fare evasion especially on the Dartford via Woolwich route and I've seen people disappear down the train at the sight of REO's although they weren't checking tickets anyway. That said fare evasion also seems rife on the Goblin line.

 

[Bald Rick]

The real issue, as ever, is if it does go to TfL, who will pay?

As can be seen on another thread, LO is one of the most heavily subsidised operators, which given that the trains are generally pretty busy does rather show the economics of purely suburban railways when you buy lots of new trains doing short trips and have lots of staff.

The growth seen on other LO services has been partly through better enforcement, partly through much improved service frequency (which is the single biggest driver of passenger demand in London, after London employment), and partly because of changes to fares. Not least Freedom passes.

It is pretty clear that a different regime could do something about ticketless travel on SE. But it is unlikely to justify the cost of the extra people - otherwise SE as a private company would be doing it now to benefit their shareholders.

Equally a new regime could fully staff stations. But that costs money, with little in return.

But a new regime couldn't improve service frequency, except around the margins (evenings and weekends on some lines, which incidentally are rarely profitable). The railway is at capacity.

So, all the proposed improvements cost money, and will not be covered by extra revenue. So who pays?

 

[matt_world2004]

The real issue, as ever, is if it does go to TfL, who will pay?

As can be seen on another thread, LO is one of the most heavily subsidised operators, which given that the trains are generally pretty busy does rather show the economics of purely suburban railways when you buy lots of new trains doing short trips and have lots of staff.

The growth seen on other LO services has been partly through better enforcement, partly through much improved service frequency (which is the single biggest driver of passenger demand in London, after London employment), and partly because of changes to fares. Not least Freedom passes.

It is pretty clear that a different regime could do something about ticketless travel on SE. But it is unlikely to justify the cost of the extra people - otherwise SE as a private company would be doing it now to benefit their shareholders.

Equally a new regime could fully staff stations. But that costs money, with little in return.

But a new regime couldn't improve service frequency, except around the margins (evenings and weekends on some lines, which incidentally are rarely profitable). The railway is at capacity.

So, all the proposed improvements cost money, and will not be covered by extra revenue. So who pays?

The huge subsidies to LO are because of a massive rolling stock replacement programme , stations built modernised and refreshed , the extention of the East London Line when Silverlink allows it to run down so much it takes a huge amount of money to get it up to spec,

 

[HH]

The huge subsidies to LO are because of a massive rolling stock replacement programme , stations built modernised and refreshed , the extention of the East London Line when Silverlink allows it to run down so much it takes a huge amount of money to get it up to spec,

Those are some of the reasons, but there are also more staff, more gatelines, money spent on signage, etc. etc.

TfL want to see improvements in every passenger measure so they can hold these up to say, "Look how we're improving things!". Spending money tends to do that...

 

[Antman]

Those are some of the reasons, but there are also more staff, more gatelines, money spent on signage, etc. etc.

TfL want to see improvements in every passenger measure so they can hold these up to say, "Look how we're improving things!". Spending money tends to do that...

But not more trains because the network is pretty much at full capacity.

 

[matt_world2004]

Those are some of the reasons, but there are also more staff, more gatelines, money spent on signage, etc. etc.

TfL want to see improvements in every passenger measure so they can hold these up to say, "Look how we're improving things!". Spending money tends to do that...

I would find it difficult to believe that the underground can make a profit but the overground cant. On ordinary operations especially as future rolling stock orders are going to be owned outright by rail for london and leased at cost to the concessionaire

 

[HH]

I would find it difficult to believe that the underground can make a profit but the overground cant. On ordinary operations especially as future rolling stock orders are going to be owned outright by rail for london and leased at cost to the concessionaire

ROFLMAO.

LU Revenue £2,729m
LU Opex £2,676m
LU Capex £1,257m

If my business made profits like that we'd be bust in 3 hours.

 

[Bald Rick]

The huge subsidies to LO are because of a massive rolling stock replacement programme , stations built modernised and refreshed , the extention of the East London Line when Silverlink allows it to run down so much it takes a huge amount of money to get it up to spec,

LO haven't built a single new station, and those they refurbed were largely done many years ago. And they lease the rolling stock, at similar rates to that which other TOCs do for similar trains. The capital cost of the extension of the ELL has been paid for and does not feature in ongoing revenue expenditure.

It's an expensive railway.

 

[matt_world2004]

ROFLMAO.

LU Revenue £2,729m
LU Opex £2,676m
LU Capex £1,257m

If my business made profits like that we'd be bust in 3 hours.

ROFLMAO.

LU Revenue £2,729m
LU Opex £2,676m
LU Capex £1,257m

If my business made profits like that we'd be bust in 3 hours.

TFL Annual Report year end May 2016

Income: 2740.7 Million
Expenditure: 2555.50 million

page 172 2015/2016 annual report.

Included in the expenditure, is the depreciation cost of assets. In contrast if you what to include capital expenditure costs. The upgrade works at waterloo station alone if South West trains were paying for it, instead of network rail would almost wipe out SWT's entire income from ticketing. £800 million to rebuild waterloo station, verses £910 million in total revenue for SWT . Revenue support for the SWT network was £160 million . Taxpayers supported 17% of South West Trains income. In contrast TFL are dependant on "Grants" for 24% of its revenue. However when you factor in that pays for the road network and the infrastructure of LU and some of the infrastructure of London Overground . Compared to South West Trains just renting the infrastructure from Network rail that isn't that bad.
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LO haven't built a single new station, and those they refurbed were largely done many years ago. And they lease the rolling stock, at similar rates to that which other TOCs do for similar trains. The capital cost of the extension of the ELL has been paid for and does not feature in ongoing revenue expenditure.

It's an expensive railway.

No new stations except, Shoreditch High Street, Hoxton, Haggerston and Dalston Junction, Shepherds Bush, Imperial Wharf.

 

[HH]

TFL Annual Report year end May 2016

Income: 2740.7 Million
Expenditure: 2555.50 million

page 172 2015/2016 annual report.

Included in the expenditure, is the depreciation cost of assets. TFL are dependant on "Grants" for 24% of its revenue. However when you factor in that pays for the road network and the infrastructure of LU and some of the infrastructure of London Overground.

I'm not interested in comparisons that are not valid in the slightest, so I've deleted that part of your post.

Let's take some numbers from that report. On Page 171 there is a breakdown of revenue, unfortunately not by sector, which shows that £328.3m is "Revenue in respect of free travel for the elderly and disabled".

On Page 176 there is an amount of £418.7m for "Financing and investment expenditure" which hasn't been attributed to any sector.

On Fixed Assets around £2.6m was added to the NBV, with £3.6m of new Assets and only £1.0m charged to depreciation. We are not shown how the depreciation is apportioned. The large part of it is Infrastructure and office
buildings. We know that LU Capex was £1,257m (page 128), so clearly LU is significantly cash negative. TfL buy their assets, rather than take an operating lease, but that also comes at a cost, just one which they don't attribute to the separate businesses.

Amounts for Software are being charged to Intangible Assets (page 196). This is perfectly valid accounting practice, but whether the software is worth the value stated in the accounts is another matter. TOCs would almost certainly write off such amounts over a shorter time period.

On page 210 you can see that TfL Loans to subsidiary companies total £8,688.8m. Clearly these loans are made without charging interest.

The Accounts tell a story, and depending on how that story is told they can present a picture. That picture may be a little misleading to the uninitiated, especially if they start comparing TfL accounts to normal commercial businesses.

 

[Bald Rick]

No new stations except, Shoreditch High Street, Hoxton, Haggerston and Dalston Junction, Shepherds Bush, Imperial Wharf.

The first four were built by TfL, not LO.

Shepherds Bush was built and paid for by Westfield (and they messed it up).

Imperial Wharf was built and (mostly) paid for by a property developer.

None of the construction costs are counted as part of the ongoing subsidy to LO.

 

[matt_world2004]

The first four were built by TfL, not LO.

Shepherds Bush was built and paid for by Westfield (and they messed it up).

Imperial Wharf was built and (mostly) paid for by a property developer.

None of the construction costs are counted as part of the ongoing subsidy to LO.

You mean the organisation that owns the London Overground brand name and recieves London Overground ticket revenue who built the stations used for London Overground. LOROL is not London Overground it is the contractor paid to run those services. If Arriva lose the concession they lose the right to lose the London Overground name, they cannot brand any of their other franchises London Overground. To all intense and purposes London Overground is a TfL owned service whose operation is contracted out to another company.

 

[infobleep]

I don't know about fewer cancellations but just calling it London Transport again would be a service to simple English.☺

But it's not London Transport as it extends further. Calling it Transport for London shows that the transport goes into and out of London. It's transport for the benefit of London and those going to and from London. I admit some may not reach London if they start and alight from outside it's administration boundary.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
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Probably because it's too late to include them in any TfL takeover, The SW franchise competition has been on going for a while now and both First and Stagecoach would have made their bids on the understanding the metro routes would still be a part of it.

Could they not explain why they don't want the Woking and Guildford lines or would that harm any competition?

I did a search on Woking in the document and nothing came up.

If TfL are the savour they claim to be, does this mean the SWT Metro lines and services will be ledt behind in terms of service and quality compared to the other routes that TfL do take over. Will they be second rate? Or will it not actually matter because if Stagecoach win the next franchise, they are actually good and TfL are not the savours they claim to be?

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

 

[PeterC]

But it's not London Transport as it extends further

The geographic range of TfL, despite recent expansion, is far more limited that the former London Transport.

I imagine, however, that the main reason for the new name was to avoid association with a former nationalised industry.

 

[Goldfish62]

Those are some of the reasons, but there are also more staff, more gatelines, money spent on signage, etc. etc.

TfL want to see improvements in every passenger measure so they can hold these up to say, "Look how we're improving things!". Spending money tends to do that...

No, that not why TfL wants to see improvements. Its role is to support the economy and growth of one of the world's major cities.
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The geographic range of TfL, despite recent expansion, is far more limited that the former London Transport.

I imagine, however, that the main reason for the new name was to avoid association with a former nationalised industry.

It's a very different organisation with a much wider remit than LT, which was abolished in 1985, being replaced by LRT, which itself was replaced by TfL in 2000,although LU didn't become part of it until 2004.

 

[Busaholic]

The geographic range of TfL, despite recent expansion, is far more limited that the former London Transport.

I imagine, however, that the main reason for the new name was to avoid association with a former nationalised industry.

Or association with the GLC, or, as some would say 'Ken Livingstone's GLC'! This would have been more true of Blair/Brown than Thatcher/Tebbit even.

Might I also remind anyone, or inform them if they didn't know, that London Transport buses/coaches pre-1970 reached Hitchin, Tunbridge Wells, Guildford and Ascot, and London itself was much smaller prior to 1965 e.g. Wembley was in Middlesex, Ilford in Essex.

 

[HH]

No, that not why TfL wants to see improvements. Its role is to support the economy and growth of one of the world's major cities.

It's role is to do what the Mayor says. And the Mayor is a Politician.

 

[Callum J]

Autumn Statement: Is rail devolution in London dead?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38087100

 

[Nym]

Is it not the case anyway that when/if TfL take over any more lines, performance will probably go down...?

But marketing will go up significantly.

From what I can tell, the inner GA lines from Liverpool St hasn't gotten any better, and the performance on the ELL is questionable at best.

 

[jon0844]

Perception is an important thing in a post-truth world. I think most people have very little bad to say about TfL (there are many, many good things which people outside of London in particular are quite jealous of) and so there's a feeling that they are always going to do a better job.

Facts don't seem to matter so much these days do they?

 

[Nym]

Indeed not...

Look at the current state of play on the Piccadilly Line for an example of how even an operation that has been under "TfL" control for some 13 years now, and some form of 'LT' control for almost 80 years can get it so wrong.

"Lack of Available Trains" due to wheel flats has happened every year for the time I'd care to mention, and there are any number of things that could be done to help this, but only one of them is being done as a, "Oh, this will help." measure.

The A Stock has been clocked running between Uxbridge and Acton / Ealing to try and help adhesion, but nothing has been changed on the trains themselves, not to mention industrial relations at the moment on the line.

When so many things to do that will help are so irritatingly simple, why are they not being done? Some of these solutions (that I won't go into now for fear of going off topic and boring everyone) are so inexpensive to do with very little negative effect that it would be silly not to do it.

Lets then look at the SUP / 4LM Signalling... (Enough said, the 3rd attempt to re-signal the railway now, and still ripping out tens of millions of pounds worth of brand new track circuits installed)

Then if we cast our eye away from LRT/LUL and look over to the concession operated lines...

Tramlink, well enough said there at the moment, there must be a degree of negligence involved in the latest incident when one takes the anecdotal evidence at face value.

ELL, ordering a fleet that cannot be expanded beyond 5 cars, and not taking the opportunity to do some kind of final attempt to get something to form a six or more car service, there was a way this could have been done on the 'capitalstar' platform without overly significant modification, it just wasn't explored by TfL / LOROL.

Barking Riverside Extension, is this really only ever going to be GOBLIN, all this will do is introduce more crush loading into Fenchurch Street, people don't really want to go to Gospel Oak.

What's next, taking a completely standardised signalling system and changing it to have several versions of three or four different systems? Oh hang on...

 

[samuelmorris]

It's a valid point here - it would be nice to see a measured punctuality statistic on TfL routes that aren't mainline services. One of my coworkers uses the Ealing Broadway branch of the district line and the number of times that was delayed by a substantial margin probably exceeds that of a large number of TOCs, certainly both C2C and AGA that I use on a regular basis. All concealed by the 'next train in 5 mins' policy as well as the fact that Chiswick Park station has no destination boards at all. Lots of TfL services are pretty good, but when you get down to routes with 6tph or below, the dehumanised manner in which the service is run starts to become a bit problematic. I think mainly what people are looking at with TfL takeovers are it driving rolling stock investment. I can't see what else they expect to change.

 

[bramling]

Indeed not...

Look at the current state of play on the Piccadilly Line for an example of how even an operation that has been under "TfL" control for some 13 years now, and some form of 'LT' control for almost 80 years can get it so wrong.

"Lack of Available Trains" due to wheel flats has happened every year for the time I'd care to mention, and there are any number of things that could be done to help this, but only one of them is being done as a, "Oh, this will help." measure.

The A Stock has been clocked running between Uxbridge and Acton / Ealing to try and help adhesion, but nothing has been changed on the trains themselves, not to mention industrial relations at the moment on the line.

When so many things to do that will help are so irritatingly simple, why are they not being done? Some of these solutions (that I won't go into now for fear of going off topic and boring everyone) are so inexpensive to do with very little negative effect that it would be silly not to do it.

Lets then look at the SUP / 4LM Signalling... (Enough said, the 3rd attempt to re-signal the railway now, and still ripping out tens of millions of pounds worth of brand new track circuits installed)

Then if we cast our eye away from LRT/LUL and look over to the concession operated lines...

Tramlink, well enough said there at the moment, there must be a degree of negligence involved in the latest incident when one takes the anecdotal evidence at face value.

ELL, ordering a fleet that cannot be expanded beyond 5 cars, and not taking the opportunity to do some kind of final attempt to get something to form a six or more car service, there was a way this could have been done on the 'capitalstar' platform without overly significant modification, it just wasn't explored by TfL / LOROL.

Barking Riverside Extension, is this really only ever going to be GOBLIN, all this will do is introduce more crush loading into Fenchurch Street, people don't really want to go to Gospel Oak.

What's next, taking a completely standardised signalling system and changing it to have several versions of three or four different systems? Oh hang on...

Fantastic post.

You can add to that sustained declining performance on the sub-surface lines for various reasons, and a signalling system on the Jubilee and Northern lines that can't cope when it rains.

 

[Mag_seven]

From what I can tell, the inner GA lines from Liverpool St hasn't gotten any better, and the performance on the ELL is questionable at best.

TfL don't control the track - a big factor!

 

[bramling]

TfL don't control the track - a big factor!

They do, however, control the track on the District, Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines - where performance is currently pretty awful a lot of the time.