The transport secretary has announced a ‘Rail Sale’ for early 2025. We need to be more radical in reducing costs and raising revenue
Marketing from train operator Greater Anglia during this year’s ‘Great British Rail Sale’
In announcing the trajectory towards rail renationalisation on September 3, one footnote towards the end of the press release was Louise Haigh announcing a “Rail Sale” early in 2025. We’ve been here before, of course, with a similar experiment earlier this year. Welcome though this was, it did make me wonder whether such an initiative is capable of creating a legacy in terms of trip frequency and modal shift, or merely unlocking social mobility where it doesn’t currently exist. In the 1980s, we had vouchers on Persil washing powder boxes and Kellogg’s cereal too, offering £1 fares, accompanied by the ‘This is the Age of the Train’ bold marketing campaign. Then there were the Network South East Fundays where unlimited travel across the region could be enjoyed for only a quid, alongside the launch of the new Network Railcard. But, the ‘Rail Sale’? I admit to being a bit cautious.
Don’t ask me why but I’ve been hanging round coach and bus stations lately talking to customers about the reason why they have chosen their particular mode of transport. I was expecting folk to say that they have given up on rail as it is too expensive – and unsurprisingly I received this feedback. But, what was noticeable, like never before, was the almost complete ambivalence to train travel. It didn’t even enter the consciousness of people to, consider for one nano-second even going by train. They wouldn’t check train fares, times or even route maps – it was never going to happen. They had long been priced out.
A number of those I spoke to claimed that a trip on a bus or coach was more comfortable than by train
I can tell you – subjective though this might seem – that it wasn’t just those that came across as destitute, but what I would categorise as middle class, bordering on la-de-da characters, who answered ‘never even entered my mind to go by train’. Quicker journey times and higher frequencies by train made no iota of difference in their thought processes. Besides, a number of those I spoke to claimed that a trip on a bus or coach was more comfortable than by train – no surprise given the idiocy in recent times of introducing new rolling stock with ironing boards as seats and/or without power sockets.
It made me wonder whether we’ve reached a tipping point where travelling by rail is now only available to those with a sizeable disposable income. Certainly, in terms of some longer distance journeys, it feels as though train travel is like those products that were once accessible to all but are now beyond the reach of the ‘average person’, like a day watching Test Cricket or a Premier League game, or a trip to the theatre, or a round of drinks in a London boozer. Eating out in restaurants is also moving in that direction – remember all those affordable chains where, pre-Covid, there was always a special offer but now you’ll struggle to get a family meal for under £150? The railway is no different and there’s a danger that the next generation will grow up in a world where getting on a train is not remotely a lifestyle choice.
Another concern I have is around the issue of social mobility. I spend most working weeks staying overnight in all parts of the UK, sometimes in some deprived locations. Time and time again, I strike up conversations on the streets, in coffee shops or pubs and am struck by the number of people who make comments like ‘oh I went to London once’ or ‘I went on a train a few years ago’. Others admit to barely having been to any of the big cities in the UK or even travelling a few miles away from where they live. I’m not claiming my insight is quantified or sophisticated, but anecdotal conversations are a fairly good barometer of something that requires further scrutiny.
We may see the end of those self-serving HQ ‘support’ functions that irritatingly get in the way
The problem is that the railway costs too much and for all the differing views on whether the recent pay settlement that ended the long-standing spectre of strikes was right or not (and I am undecided), the industry can do more to reduce its financial burden. As a starting point, it is to be hoped that with the set-up of Great British Railways a uniformed structure can be created avoiding duplication, with 14 train operators, Network Rail and regional transport authorities all having their own HQ structures just to ultimately create the same output of getting customers from A to B by train in the best possible way.
We may see the end of those sometimes pointless roles in some owning groups with divisional directors acting as post-boxes, too far removed from the action to create strategy that makes a meaningful difference, or where they just exist to check scorecard metrics among the train companies.
We may see the end of those self-serving HQ ‘support’ functions that irritatingly get in the way and in the history of privatisation have added absolutely no value whatsoever. GBR needs to lead by example here, though – the Strategic Rail Authority of yesteryear (the nearest parallel we can structurally compare it with) lost credibility by growing from a close-knit, collegiate team of a few dozen as the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF) into an organisation of not far short of 500 with many on six-figure salaries – a genuine novelty in business back then, over two decades ago.
It’s not just about bloated head office structures. Better performance management all round would help. Whilst the pay settlements didn’t lead to formal productivity gains, managers can still cajole, inspire and motivate employees to do better and scrutinise their outputs with conviction. I’m delighted that on my commuter line on Southwestern Railway, DOO (driver only operation) has not happened, and ticket offices remain open. It makes me feel more secure about my kids travelling. But what I can’t accept, despite them being one of the most improved operators in recent years, is when the on-board member of staff rigidly stays in the back cab of the train, or the folk in the ticket offices remain rooted behind their windows rather than proactively looking out for issues on the station. Yesterday, I arrived at Shepperton station and there was a handwritten notice on the ticket machine telling us not to buy a ticket as the trains weren’t running and the ticket office was shut. Our train did run, arriving at its destination only 10 minutes late.
I get frustrated seeing their on-board staff lacking the usual spring in their step and attentiveness towards customers
One operator, which shall remain nameless, is on an entirely opposite trajectory to the improving Southwestern. I get frustrated seeing their on-board staff lacking the usual spring in their step and attentiveness towards customers. I’m told that it’s because they’ve got the hump with those at the top in their organisation.
As a customer service advocate, it pains me to say this, but efforts to reprofile timetables to better reflect supply and demand to reduce costs haven’t made marked progress. The network, as a whole, hasn’t made the breakthrough to become less peak-centric or flexed up at weekends and down in midweek. Even on a granular basis, train plans seem beset by too many conflicting paths, complicated routings or over-ambitious timings. Or, in some cases, there is excessive use of busy trains on cramped platforms with high and opposing customer movements, where dwell times can never properly be managed and trains stack up behind each other (platforms 13 and 14 at Manchester Piccadilly always feel like an unmanageable pinch point). Spend 30 minutes or so at many a station and you’ll pick up on a mix of ‘doomed to fail’ timings or planned movements. Meanwhile, a sloppy disciplines such as tardy announcements about platform changes that have been known to station control centre teams for hours, can cause a sudden rush of customers and inevitable delay to departure, as well as train despatch by staff that is as pedestrian as the Crystal Palace back four.
I also feel that the frequency on some suburban lines is over the top. Again I come back to my comments in previous articles about the necessary cost-cutting that British Rail did in the recession years of the early 1980s and 1990s, when many lines serving London from the Home Counties cut back to hourly frequencies at weekends and there was no sense of shame in doing so. It was necessary to get control of the finances during difficult times. So too, when I joined London Underground in 1993, we spent ages looking at ways to close parts of stations, superfluous walkways, entrances and exits or turning escalators off at times and shutting some Zone 1 and 2 stations at weekends. Again, no stigma was attached to having these plans developed and some measures were enacted.
It’s not just about cost-cutting though.
As an industry looking to rebalance its finances, the immediate post pandemic chuntering from those in charge was about the decline in passenger numbers, making enhanced railfreight a necessity in terms of the functioning of the future railway. However, we’re yet to create more competitive prices for those seeking to use the railway to carry freight. The recent decision by Royal Mail to move away from rail felt unexpected and not in keeping with the narrative.
There’s a market ready to be unlocked. It will, however, take much more than a New Year ‘Rail Sale’
The industry needs to restore its commercial bite in the passenger sector too. Simplistically, we’ve not concentrated enough on the very essence of trying to make Joe and Johanna Public aware of just how compelling a product it is to travel by train. Have we genuinely engaged with either those bus and coach customers of which a journey by rail is not remotely on their radar or your average car driver? As you know, I don’t drive and hate cars, but a couple of Sundays ago, out of necessity, Mrs Warner drove me from our Surrey home to my youngest daughter’s university halls of residence at Canada Water. The car was packed with her belongings as she was just starting a degree course at King’s College. A more hideous trip of two hours (nearly double that than if we’d gone by rail), I could not imagine – stop, start, with me gripped the whole way looking at the Sat Nav (or ‘Prat Nav’ as the wife calls it when I’m its custodian on a journey), giving instructions and unable to relax, petrified at inadvertently entering the congestion charge zone. Most of the way the speed restriction was a stultifying 20mph and parking at our destination bordered on farce. As I observed other fellow car-users, I reckoned that fewer than 10% were travelling like us because public transport wasn’t a viable alternative and then I reflected on the comparable merits of Southwestern Railway, London Underground, and London Overground, that we criss-crossed at various points on our journey from hell, as well as the many bus routes. How many of those cooped up in their cars were aware of how much better it would have been to have used public transport, and to what extent were they living in blissful ignorance? Just imagine how their perceptions would be changed had they got out of their car!
Are we not just skirting round the issues, shilly-shallying around when it comes to being more radical in our approach to both cost reduction and revenue generation in the rail industry? It’s possible to do both simultaneously, but we now need to stop thinking conceptually just get properly stuck in. If we can reduce costs and make it easier not to have to increase fares, I believe there’s a market ready to be unlocked. It will, however, take much more than a New Year ‘Rail Sale’ to create a positive legacy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alex Warner has over 30 years’ experience in the transport sector, having held senior roles on a multi-modal basis across the sector. He is co-founder of recruitment business Lost Group and transport consultancy AJW Experience Group (which includes Great Scenic Journeys). He is also chair of West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration and chair of Surrey FA.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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The post Rail needs a reset – not just another sale first appeared on Passenger Transport.