In the research, passengers said that they feel the rail industry remains a total information void. No one really tries to communicate with them. Therefore, into the void creeps suspicion and lack of trust. Passengers, many of whom rely heavily on the railways to make their lives work, would like to be consulted and want to have more of a say. This can be done.
The results of our research are unequivocal. Passengers are often unaware that a franchise is being negotiated in the first place - for some, the first they know is when station announcements refer to the new company or the train livery changes. They do not feel that enough is being done to involve them in the process, and there is a very definite desire to ‘have more of a say’, in two main ways:
- Priorities for the new franchise - influencing what goes into the franchise specification
- How well the operator is doing at delivering the promises made in its franchise bid
This is a very simple message. Passengers want a chance to influence what services are being purchased on their behalf, and then they want to hold the operator to account for what it actually delivers.
Some passengers pay little attention to the company that operates their train service - it was telling that many East Coast and Greater Anglia passengers in this research could not accurately remember the names of previous (quite recent) operators.
Ultimately, it seemed to matter little to passengers who operated the service, they were far more concerned with the quality of that service. Nor were passengers unduly concerned with the structure of the railway or questions of ownership. What mattered, again, was performance and delivery.
Bus passengers feel even more in the dark about the structure of the industry. The fact that the industry is privately run with limited local government involvement comes as a shock! Passengers like the certainty of some sort of agreement between the private sector and government, and want to see them working together for passenger benefit. So how can we boost the passenger voice in the short term?
Government commitment to rebuilding passengers’ views into the heart of the process, thus giving passengers an enhanced role in deciding whether a future new operator can get a franchise extension, will be welcomed by passengers.
It is crucial that effective passenger consultation and input takes place in the process of potentially extending existing franchises, as some of these decisions will affect passengers’ daily travel for a long time (CrossCountry will potentially get a 43-month extension). If current contract extensions are simply presented as a commercial ‘done deal’, they will not command passenger confidence.
First, this requires good, meaningful consultation to find out what passengers want from their train company. This is not easy - distilling individual passenger aspirations into a coherent set of priorities takes real effort, but we think it worthwhile.
Clearly, in order to comment, passengers need to know that such a consultation is under way in the first place. Our respondents suggested a mixture of posters at stations and on trains, emails to passengers, and surveys. If this consultation can also be extended to include people who do not use rail, then so much the better.
Passengers were relatively pragmatic when it came to the actual decision on who was to ‘win’ a franchise - they recognised that the commercial nature of such bids means that they are unlikely to see (and hence judge) all the detail in advance. This makes it all the more important that past performance, quality and deliverability play a bigger part when assessing bids.
Second, it requires the winner of a franchise competition clearly setting out what it has promised to deliver over the length of the franchise. Passengers want to know why it has been awarded the franchise, and what its investment plans and passenger-facing commitments are. This can cover traditional ‘hard targets’ for elements such as punctuality and cancellations, but also ‘softer’ commitments for passenger satisfaction.
And finally, it requires proper accountability mechanisms. Passengers want to be involved in assessing delivery - in terms of the train company both providing regular progress reports back to passengers, and in actively gathering passenger opinions on performance. The best judges of a service are those who actually use it. I look forward to playing a part in all this. The existing research on passenger priorities creates a good starting point when specifying franchises, and there is plenty of scope to enhance the use of the National Rail Passenger Survey in setting franchise targets and then in monitoring satisfaction with delivery (For example, see http://www.transportfocus.org.uk/research/publications/passenger-views-of-northern-and-transpennine-rail-franchises).
Furthermore, I think another (potentially far more radical) approach could be to make franchise extensions contingent on two things:
- A published ‘opinion’ on the performance of the train company, and its plans for the final years of the franchise, from passenger representatives. This opinion or rating is delivered to the Government, which then has to say why it accepts or rejects the opinion.
- Then a well publicised, well organised passenger ‘vote’. “Do you think company X should be allowed to keep operating this franchise?”
Passengers would need access to plenty of information about the company and its performance, as well as the scope to deliver improvements in the next contract period, but it would marvellously align the interests of the passenger, the train company and the Government.
In the longer term, it is hard to see rail franchising as an activity staying within the Department for Transport. The capacity and capability needed for these major procurement exercises will be difficult to build in this era of central government restraint. Passengers need someone on their side who can match the skills, experience and knowledge of private sector bidding teams. So what price National Rail: a passenger/rail industry joint venture?
Government has toyed with the idea of setting up a government company (‘GoCo’) to handle defence procurement. And it was recently announced that the Highways Agency will be turned into a GoCo, to deliver the Government’s five-year spending plans for the strategic road network. So it is not impossible to imagine that a GoCo could deliver rail franchise procurement in the future.
However, given that we passengers are the main funders of this activity, why should this be a government company? Could the organisation be a not-for-dividend mutual, owned by and accountable to its main shareholders (the passengers) themselves?
Given the projections of revenue for the railway, the industry will be subsidy-free by around 2026, which strengthens this argument even more. Government might need to keep some sort of casting vote or golden share, to ensure the taxpayer interest remains well represented, but otherwise it could finally get out of the detail of running the railway.
The new company could help deliver the objectives that Government requires in return for the subsidy it provides, but even decisions about fare levels could be set free from Government - the industry could become more like a normal regulated utility industry. The final move might be to create a mutual organisation that the industry also plays a part in - a true joint venture.
Managing the different pressure and accountabilities within such an organisation would be far from easy, however. Tough decisions would have to be made, but the best transparency would help this. Under such a structure, trials and pilots on ownership, devolution, open access, franchise lengths and types could all take place.
The time has come to put passenger needs clearly and squarely at the heart of all rail industry decision-making. Passengers in many parts of the country are now the main funders of rail, and that balance should argue for much greater engagement, consistent delivery and transparency on the part of the train companies, Network Rail, government in all its forms, and the Office of Rail and Road. The ORR is also thinking radically about an industry where subsidy becomes the exception rather than the norm (http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.11196).
But regardless of the structures that are set up in future, the final accountability should all come back to one place… the passenger.
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