Peer review: Stephen Joseph
Chief Executive, Campaign for Better Transport
Anthony has, as ever, nailed a crucial issue - the importance of passengers being involved as full, grown-up partners in the railways. I think his suggestions for increasing passenger involvement in the franchising process and in feeding back on how franchisees are doing are very sound.
I’d echo his view that passengers don’t feel engaged in franchising and other railway industry processes - like Transport Focus, we get asked by local user groups and others (parish and district councils, for example) about how they can influence local rail services and facilities such as stations. In fact, we have (with DfT support) ended up creating a Passenger’s Guide to Franchising to explain to ordinary people how the system works and how they can influence it (www.bettertransport.org.uk/sites/default/files/research-files/franchising-guide.pdf).
However, the issue of the moment is Network Rail. Even the best performing and most responsive train operator will look like a failure to the public if the infrastructure lets them down. Not only is this too often the case at present, the wholesale failure of communication to passengers that often accompanies problems on the railways (and which drives passengers absolutely wild) is very often down to Network Rail and its failure to communicate to train operators. The recent high-profile problems at London Bridge, Finsbury Park and Paddington have all involved a failure of communication between operators and Network Rail.
So one challenge that the various reviews looking at Network Rail will need to address is to find ways of changing the culture so that it sees satisfying users as a core part of its business and of its day-to-day operations. This raises much wider issues - whether the rail structure needs to change so that increases in user numbers and satisfaction are directly reflected in NR’s bottom line.
A traditional “plc” approach to this would be to attach success in these areas to bonuses for senior managers. But maybe a more radical way would be a John Lewis Partnership approach, mutualising Network Rail in some way so that all staff get financial rewards from increased user satisfaction and increased revenue.
However, I’m not sure that the passenger voice can entirely determine the future of the railway. The railways affect wider interests and have wider impacts than simply on their current users. Especially in cities, railways form part of wider transport networks that should be integrated more closely, and the current push towards devolution of local rail services to groupings of local authorities reflects this.
The interests of present users have then to be considered alongside the wider social, economic and environmental impacts, and the extra users that achieving these benefits will represent also need to have their interests considered. There is a really interesting question as to how the new devolved railway operations and “combined authorities” can involve users and the wider public, both in day-to-day operations so they become more passenger-focused and in planning future developments.
With passengers providing the bulk of the income for the railway, they will increasingly flex their muscles and will want a say over what they are getting for the money they contribute. For some parts of the railway, that could be challenging.
