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1. Greater Western: The performance short-comings of First Great Western and Network Rail have continued to dominate the Travelwatch SouthWest agenda since the last General Meeting.
• First Great Western’s services achieved the lowest score for overall passenger satisfaction in the most recent National Passenger Survey. Passenger satisfaction with FGW’s punctuality/reliability scored particularly poorly.
• Network Rail’s most recent Public Performance Measure shows that only 79.1% of the services that First Great Western planned to run in the four weeks to 7th January 2008 arrived at their destination ‘On Time’. First Great Western was easily Britain’s worst performing train operator during this period.
• Infrastructure short-comings (e.g. track and signalling) account for a disproportionately high proportion of the poor performance. The majority of delay minutes in excess of Network Rail’s internal targets for the whole national network were suffered by First Great Western.
• Over-crowding is a continuing problem, with some of the more graphic examples exposing First Great Western to media contempt, particularly on the Bristol-Southampton corridor. A recent example was the seven year old girl who fainted while standing on a Saturday service that was so over-crowded it was difficult to clear air-space in which to revive her.
• First Great Western’s has some of the EU’s most expensive turn-up-and-go-anytime standard single fares. Swindon to London costs over 39.5p per kilometre – the highest for any comparable route. Even journeys within the rural South West are priced exorbitantly: Westbury to Tiverton Parkway costs a whisker less than 38p per kilometre.

To be fair, the new management teams at First Great Western and Network Rail seem alive to some of these short-comings. Under the direction of Andrew Haines, the Managing Director of FirstGroup’s Rail Division who is currently running First Great Western, we have encountered a new readiness to discuss the problems facing rail passengers in the South West and to engage TravelWatch in the identification of solutions. Monthly meetings have now been established between TravelWatch and FGW’s Chief Operating Officer. The most recent monthly meeting included consultation of TravelWatch on timetable planning, performance, fleet, crew resourcing, fares, catering and management reorganisation issues. FGW has also demonstrated a greater readiness to engage the TravelWatch officers in its internal operational discussions such as those relating to timetable planning and in developing its aspirations for route development. While I take the view that these contacts - the commercial subject of much of which necessitates confidentiality – are of potential benefit both to passengers and to the operator, I am also conscious that TravelWatch must not to be beguiled. We have remained critical of FirstGroup where to do so is just – no less so than in our press releases condemning this January’s exorbitant fares’ increase at a time of continued appalling performance. We therefore noted with interest First Great Western’s decision to improve its compensation package for passengers who have been delayed. We remain concerned that FirstGroup’s short-comings should not be allowed to obscure the culpability of the Department for Transport for its inadequate franchise specification and contract management.

2. CrossCountry: Arriva assumed responsibility for the New CrossCountry franchise in November 2007. One of the early effects of the change from Virgin operation is the increased over-crowding of peak time trains, exacerbated by the reduction in the number of 5-car Voyager units working through to the South West since the advent of the winter timetable. Arrive now operate a fleet of twenty-two 5-car (previously twenty-seven) and thirty-five 4-car trains. Arriva expect to start operating five refurbished High Speed Trains in 2009. In the meantime, we have suggested to the company that it should make greater use of its advance ticketing to transfer passengers, where appropriate, to the Cardiff-Nottingham services through Cheltenham and Birmingham. Surplus capacity exists on many of these services.

Along with passenger groups and local authorities throughout the South West, Travelwatch responded to Arriva’s consultation on the proposed winter 2008 timetable. We were therefore surprised and irritated when the company told us that many of the considered proposals that we and others had made did not comply with the Department for Transport’s timetable specification – a further example of the way in which railway planning and operation is insulated from customer preference, determined instead by Government officials. The points we raised included the unattractive timing of the one remaining through service between the Bournemouth conurbation and the North East. This entails a 0601 departure from Bournemouth with the return working arriving at 2343. We were also critical of the reduction from seven to four in the number of through workings on Summer Saturdays to and from Torbay and, in particular, the loss of adequate connectivity with the North East, Yorkshire & Humberside and the East Midlands. The Department for Transport appears to be unmoved by the economic significance of the tourist sector in the South West.

3. South Western: Network Rail confirmed that it has started final design work on the passing loop at Axminster to enable an hourly service on the route between Exeter and London Waterloo from winter 2009. The scheme for a three mile loop includes reinstatement of the second platform at Axminster and the provision of a footbridge. The changes should enable reduced eastbound journey times. The improved service frequency will be achieved from within the existing pool of stock operating the line. However, it appears that, without a change of heart by the Department for Transport about the number of units available to South West Trains, there will be insufficient spare unit availability to permit retention of the existing through workings to west of Exeter. TravelWatch SouthWest and others failed to persuade the Government of the importance of these through services to Torbay and Plymouth during the negotiation of the South Western franchise. As a fall-back strategy we have drawn the attention of First Great Western to the particular importance of peak time services currently provided by South West Trains west of Exeter, particularly the 1735 from Exeter Central to Paignton and the 1748 ex-Plymouth.

4. Concessionary Bus Travel: Officers continue to play an active part in the work of the South West Concessionary Fares’ Working Group established by Government Office South West. We lobbied actively to secure an allocation of central government grant distribution to local authorities that would be more equitable for the South West. We were therefore pleased by the compromise distribution announced by the Government in December although we are acutely aware that the way in which some local authorities will be operating the scheme means that a number of operators in the South West will lack adequate reimbursement with a consequent risk to existing service levels. We remain sympathetic to the case for future funding arrangements that relieve local authorities of their responsibility for concessionary fares’ administration – and the temptation to divert the funding to relieve competing pressures on district councils’ budgets. We continue to lobby for a national scheme similar to those in Scotland and Wales.

5. Proposed Bus Passengers’ Champion: The Local Transport bill, which is currently going through Parliament, includes provision for the creation of an influential new bus passengers’ champion to represent the interests of bus passengers. The Government is currently consulting on how this might best be delivered. TravelWatch SouthWest has liaised with its sister organisations and, in late January, participated at a further high-level policy consultation meeting with the Minister of State at the Department for Transport. The Company Secretary, who has represented TravelWatch on this subject, will provide the General Meeting with an assessment of the current position.

6. Regional Development Agency: TravelWatch has continued to play an active part in the work on transport infrastructure issues by the Regional Development Agency. We completed a consultancy assignment which involved developing a guide to the bus industry for its development officers and others. We have continued to participate actively in the RDA Board’s Infrastructure Advisory Group. One of the pieces of work considered by this group was a review of the RDA’s policy on airports that the board decided to undertake during the latter part of last year in the wake of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and the Eddington Transport Study. The RDA has now adopted a revised policy on airports which includes the following elements:
• It is committed to consistency with the relevant national policies and regional strategies.
• It has decided that it should not make further investments in airports for the purpose of increasing passenger capacity.
• It has decided that it should support measures that ‘green’ airport operations and improve surface access, particularly by public transport.
• It will specifically lobby for the delivery of AirTrack, to improve rail connections from the South West to London Heathrow.

TravelWatch SouthWest has provided guidance to the RDA on the AirTrack project. We see this as improving access to London Heathrow particularly from the Bournemouth/Poole conurbation, South Wiltshire, North Dorset, South Somerset and East Devon. We have emphasised to the RDA the continuing need to secure western access to and from the Great Western Main Line to London Heathrow. There is a related need to ensure that the tunnel bore that will take Airtrack from the formation of the former Staines West branch to Terminal Five is of sufficient gauge to accommodate overhead catenary. This would facilitate a subsequent decision to use the northern alignment of this branch for a link back from Terminal Five to the Great Western Main Line near West Drayton. It is clear to us that only a link of this sort will satisfy the needs for public transport surface access from the West of England sub-region (Severnside) and points further west.

We have also provided technical advice to the RDA on the analysis of the Department for Transport’s forecasts for rail passenger traffic growth in the region contained in the High Level Output Specification. This analysis is related to work a possible case to be made for investment in additional train capacity. Although the focus is the West of England sub-region and the Cardiff-Bristol-Southampton-Portsmouth route, such investment might have knock-on benefits in releasing stock for the enhancement of services elsewhere in the South West, particularly those linking the region’s major conurbations.

7. Draft Regional Spatial Strategy: The independent Panel appointed by the Government to conduct the Examination in Public into the draft Regional Spatial Strategy reported to the Secretary of State in December. This was the latest stage in the process of developing spatial and transport strategies for the South West through to 2026. Travelwatch SouthWest and many of its members have contributed significantly over the last four years. We were therefore delighted by the emphasis that the Panel decided to give to the need for an identifiable Regional Transport Strategy. In a key passage, the Panel proposed to the Secretary of State that the South West’s transportation priorities should follow a sequence (paragraph 5.83) in which:
• primacy is given to public transportation investment in the SSCTs (Strategically Significant Cities and Towns), particularly where benefiting the effective operation of the motorway and trunk road network; followed by
• SSCT roads investment, particularly where it benefits public transport operations and urban regeneration;
• investment in the motorway and trunk road network, particularly where it improves the operation of an SSCT;
• investment in the inter-regional rail network; and
• demand management measures on the motorway and trunk road network.

We gave the report a warm welcome although we have subsequently drawn attention to the failure of either the draft RSS or the Panel to address adequately the need to address over-arching regional rural transport issues such as the availability of public transport. There is much in the Panel’s approach to suggest that took note of many of the submissions made to it by public transport users generally and the TravelWatch team specifically during the public examination. The Secretary of State will consult on her proposed changes to the draft RSS later this spring.

8. London-Exeter corridor: In December the Department for Transport announced that it had rejected plans to tackle congestion on the A303 by building a tunnel at Stonehenge, thereby making the prospect of a dual carriageway route to the South West most unlikely. The Government’s approach received implicit endorsement from the EiP Panel a few days later. Their Report questioned the priority given by the region to the scale and timing of the ‘Second Strategic Route’ concept, rejected the notion that dual carriageway standard was required for the whole of the A303/358 route to the M4 at Taunton and argued that, instead, provision should be made for higher levels of service on the Exeter to Salisbury rail line together with an emphasis on achieving more reliable journey times on the road route. The significance of this policy development should not be underestimated. The region faces a period in which there is bound to be renewed debate on the prioritisation of transport investment projects. At the highest level, should the South West now press ahead with the transportation strategies identified by the EiP (see above) emphasising investment in public transport in the SSCTs or should it heed the pressure from the shires where many regard the ‘Second Strategic Route’ as an essential, nonnegotiable, economic lifeline? At a more mundane level but of importance to public transport users, we need to identify those more cost-effective public-transport-oriented interventions that risk being lost with the failure of the grander scheme, such as the need for selective traffic signals to help buses across the A303 at Winterbourne Stoke.

9. South West Assembly Regional Transport Board: The Government has forewarned the regions that work should start this summer on preparing a fresh round of advice on the South West’s priorities for infrastructure investment over the next ten years (known as RFA2). I have pushed hard in the Regional Transport Board to obtain the agreement that any advice on transport investment priorities should be consistent with whatever it is that is finally adopted as the Regional Transport Strategy – presuming that it is likely to reflect the priorities set out by the EiP Panel in 5.83 of their Report (see above). Perhaps ominously, I failed to get local authority members of the Regional Executive to endorse this approach when we debated the process for the ‘refresh’ (updating) of the current advice, RFA1. Without clearly agreed priorities for transport investment, there is a risk that late-running investment allocations for public transport schemes will be treated as piggy-banks from which to fund heritage road schemes.

10. South West Rail Prospectus: The South West Rail Prospectus setting out the South West’s rail priorities in high-level terms has been approved. Its value is that it sets out regional priorities that can provide a focal point for lobbying the Government and the rail industry. It is backed by all 51 local authorities, the 117 organisations represented in the Assembly, the RDA, CBI and many other groups. TravelWatch SouthWest has been closely involved in the development of the Prospectus since its inception. It identifies five key goals:
• Improving South West rail connections and the links between key cities and towns;
• Increasing the reliability and efficiency of trains and the number of seats available to support the growth of key cities and towns and to help tackle road congestion;
• Improve public transport access to airports;
• Transfer more freight on to the railways, particularly to and from South West ports;
• Improve and promote access to leisure and tourism by train.

11. Crossrail legislation: The hybrid bill enabling Crossrail is currently going through the House of Lords. As with its passage through the Commons, the South West Assembly has decided to petition against it. Whilst supporting the principle of the bill there is widespread concern that the potential impact of the construction and operation of Crossrail on the South West economy should be assessed properly – not least the effect of reduced line capacity in the Thames Valley. I will be representing the region’s view before the Select Committee.

12. European matters: The European Commission published its proposals "Towards a rail network giving priority to freight" in mid-October. This is like to lead to legislation in 2008 to underpin the development of a series of “freight corridors” either dedicated to freight or on which freight traffic would have priority. The Commission has indicated that initially, in Britain, the “freight corridors” would run between Dover and London, and then from London via the West Coast to Glasgow and Holyhead, and from London via the East Coast to Edinburgh. Although the Commission’s proposals have much to recommend them it seems important that this development should not take place at the expense of either the reliability or the development potential of passenger services. I have lobbied the Commission and the Department for Transport to that effect.

13. Thanks: Some of you will be aware that illness prevented me from giving as much time as usual to TravelWatch SouthWest this winter. I am grateful to my colleagues on the Travelwatch board, to the Company Secretary, Gordon Edwards, in particular and to Professor Frank Chambers and our Administrators Jenny Raggett and Richard Dixon for ensuring that any disruption was minimal. And I was particularly pleased to discover the vibrant transformation of the TravelWatch website with its weekly Newslog. I commend it to all – http://www.accesssouthwest.org/gordon.html.

Christopher Irwin
16th February 2008.