Southern rail franchise faces spending watchdog criticism for giving passengers “worst service” on Britain’s rail network
The huge Southern rail franchise has been criticised by parliament’s spending watchdog as failing to deliver value for money, with passengers experiencing the worst service performance on the national rail network.
Major disruption to the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (TSGN) franchise has resulted in the assessment given in a National Audit Office report out today.
Since Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) started operating the franchise in July 2015, which is used by 900,000 passengers each day, around 146,000 services have been cancelled or delayed by more than 30 minutes. That is around 7.7 per cent of planned services, compared to 2.8 per cent on the rest of the network.
Exclusive: Over 25,000 Southern rail passengers miss out on compensation
Over half of those disruptions were caused by GTR, predominantly due to strikes and shortages in train crew, said the NAO report. Other causes of disruption included the reliability of train fleets, Network Rail’s management of the rail network, and failures of track.
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, saying some of the problems could have been avoided “if the Department had taken more care to consider passengers in its design of the franchise”.
The NAO said the DfT did not seek sufficient assurance that GTR would have enough train drivers when it took on the franchise.
Passengers on Southern have suffered widespread disruption with a long-running row over the role of the guard prompting waves of strikes by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and train drivers’ union Aslef. The former is still unresolved.
The DfT previously set GTR a £13.4m fine for missing its performance targets, after weighing up whether to terminate the contract for the franchise altogether. The government though, has to pay the train operator for costs that could run to tens of millions of pounds, due to changes in its requirements.
According to the NAO report, the contract changes are needed as the DfT has agreed to alter the train services required in the franchise contract, and to reflect delays to the delivery of new trains for Thameslink services.
It comes as fresh figures reveal the loss of farebox revenues due to industrial action on GTR has risen from £8.7m in October 2016 to £22.2m.
The franchise uses an unusual management contract where fare income does not go to GTR. The Department for Transport receives revenue from ticket sales and takes on the revenue risk, with the firm operating the service in exchange for a management fee, in the region of £1bn.
City A.M. revealed earlier this week that £13.6m had been paid out in a special compensation scheme for 58,785 long-suffering Southern season ticket holders, but around 25,000 individuals eligible for compensation missed out.
Charles Horton, chief executive of GTR, said: “TSGN is the UK’s largest franchise – carrying almost a million passengers a day – and the report identifies numerous root causes for the challenges it has faced since its formation in 2014. These difficulties have sometimes been greater than expected and we regret the disruption caused to our passengers.”
He added: “It is only right that a franchise of TSGN’s unprecedented scale and ambition receives scrutiny, and I am more confident than ever that its trailblazing achievements will be felt by rail travellers for generations to come.”
The DfT confirmed in November that it was mulling a split of GTR to assess the best way to improve the network.
A DfT spokesperson said today: “The TSGN franchise was brought together to deliver the Thameslink Programme which will transform North-South journeys through London this year. New trains will run every 2-3 minutes through central London, a new rail hub will connect to Crossrail at Farringdon, and a new station opened last week at London Bridge.
“Clearly the disruption passengers have experienced is unacceptable but the NAO recognises that service has improved over the last 12 months. The government has taken a number of steps to ensure this improvement, including the provision of an additional £300m to improve reliability on the Brighton Mainline. We expect service improvements to continue as the Thameslink programme is completed.”
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