Questions to the DfT

One of our contacts at the DfT - the Franchise manager for FGW no less - has let us know that he's ahppy to respond to questions directly asked. Rather than flood him out at this stage, I've put the following summary / questions together and will let you know of any reponses. I'm also sending courtesy copies to those whoi I have mentioned so they can comment if they wish.

Dear Peter,

I'm writing to you concerning train services on FGW's Swindon to Westbury line, where traffic grew by between 8% and 35% per annum from 2000 to 2005 (depending on which statistics you use), but has evaporated since the new timetable of 11th December as the service is infrequent and often cancelled (1 in 2 already for this week), with no trains at all left at the time that people need to travel.

I understand (email copy at the end) that you have been reading with interest various letters copied to you, but haven't to date responded as they weren't asking you questions directly. So please can I ask some questions directly? ((I'm going to put "QUESTION" in my text where I would like a response, but I'm also going to give a lot of supporting background as I'm copying other parties who may not be as well informed as - I hope you are ;-) ))

*** BACKGROUND

GEOGRAPHY AND PASSENGER FLOWS

The line / service concerned is from Swindon to Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge, Westbury with potential service onward to Warminster and Salisbury, and / or to Frome. Passengers from the northern 2 stations (Swindon and Chippenham) to the southern stations (Trowbridge and beyond) can travel by other services changing at Bath. This is a 'dogleg' journey with connections that are "hit and miss" and a change at a station that's far from good for the change. Journey times are much extended. Melksham, population 24,000 and estimated to rise to 32,000 under the RSS (Regional Spatial Strategy) has no alternative train service, and the bus to London (for example) takes 3.5 hours rather that 1.5 hours by train. Journey times from Melksham to Swindon - perhaps the most popular journey - extend from 25 minutes to over an hour when you add in connection time in Chippenham.

Under the RSS, Westbury, Warminster, Chippenham, and Trowbridge will also grow rapidly, and Swindon is earmarked for major growth too.

Swindon, Salisbury, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Melksham are the five largest towns in Wiltshire, and there are many people living in Melksham / Trowbridge / Westbury / Frome / Warminster who work in Swindon. There is also considerable other flows between the towns.

The "West Wilts Corridor" as it's known has a trunk road - the A350 - servicing it. It's single carriageway for the most part, with some new bypass sections and other sections that run through towns and villages - Westbury, part of Melksham, Beanacre, and Yarnbrook. The road is crowded at the best of times, with a number of accident blackspots and severe jams at the rush hour and at times when road works / service maintainence are in progress.

RAIL TRANSPORT

Until December 2006, The train service on the TransWilts line (as I'm choosing to call it) was 5 trains each way on Mondays to Fridays, 4 each way on Saturdays, 3 on Sundays. Key features of the service were:

1. A service arriving in Swindon at around 08:30 and a service leaving at 17:30 for commuter traffic.

2. A Service arriving in Melksham at around 09:00 (and a few minutes later in Trowbridge) and returning at around 17:00 made it practical to commute from Swindon to both of these towns, and to travel to them from London / return afterwards and get in a whole day's work

4. A service in each direction in the middle of the day which provided half day work / leisure opportunities and long distance connection options.

5. A really early train each way, which gave West Wilts passengers the ability to get to London for a full day's work by train, and also to Salisbury and beyond.

6. A through service between Chippenham and Salisbury, Swindon and Southampton.

7. A direct daytime train service between the county town (Trowbridge) and the largest town in the county (Swindon)

8. A Saturday train in the later afternoon from Swindon, suitable for shoppers and soccer fans

9. A Sunday / Bank Holiday daytime service both ways.

With all of these travel opportunities, ticket sales for journeys to and from Melksham rose in five years from 3000 to 27000. And that was with very little sales and marketing input. And it's important to note that this in not JUST about Melksham - journeys on the line as a whole rose similarly; I don't have figures for early years, but I understand from First that journeys rose to 109000 per annum.

These are impressive growth figures but they could have been even better; the timings were wise, but the following factors should be noted:

a) There was very little publicity about the service in the area covered

b) There was a lack of information about the service at Swindon and Chippenham - almost as if First wanted to pretend that the Wessex Trains service didn't exist. I was told to get the First train to Bath and then the bus to Melksham, even after First took over.

c) The service was notoriously unreliable, with frequent cancellations during the week, and some weekend trains replaced by buses on the majority of weekends.

d) No train service at all was provided to Melksham, nor for other local journeys, for extended periods when the line was in use for diversions.

e) The station at Melksham is unwelcoming - currently in the back of an industrial estate. But there is an opportunity to put a new access / entrance via a new development which requires a few yards of road across a piece of BRB residuary land.

f) Passenger use at Melksham peaked at around 1 journey per annum per head of population, compared to 20 journeys at the broadly comparable town on Bradford on Avon.

So there was much more scope for growth.

*** Current Status

The "SLC2" service under the Greater Western franchise called for removal of the through trains south of Westbury, and the running of 2 trains each way daily between Swindon and Westbury. The bidders were given freedom of timing, except that one train was to be a commuter service into Swindon and arrive between 08:00 and 08:30, and a return commuter train was to leave between 17:30 and 19:00.

The service actually provided arrives in Swindon at 07:50 and 20:08, and leaves Swindon at 06:19 and 18:42.

The new service is even less reliable than the previous service, in spite of First's assurances that matters would improve (a) from 90 days after they took over the franchise then (b) from the timetable change in December 2006.

QUESTION ONE. I understand that the SLC2 has been modified to allow First to arrive in Swindon before 08:00. Why was this done? Are you aware that consultation inputs suggested an arrival of around 08:30, and yet the time was made even earlier in the final timetable than it was in the early drafts?

QUESTION TWO. Are you aware that the consultation inputs suggested that the then-current 17:43 evening departure was about right, and yet that crept later and later? Did the DfT make any inputs on this / have any say?

Current traffic levels have plummeted, since the new service has removed ALL NINE key features of the previous timetable. The morning train toward Swindon now has about 12 passengers on it into Chippenham (i.e. at the end of the section it uniquely serves) whereas the previous loading was between 40 and 50. The evening train had 6 people on it the other day, whereas it used to be over 50. The other two trains also have only a handful of passengers.

Further calculating on this, I estimate that an extra 60,000 journeys per year are being made on the road, with around 30,000 being made via the Bath dogleg and around 20,000 journeys are not being made at all.

QUESTION THREE. What consideration was given to passengers making use of the key features of the previous timetable and their alternative travel plans? Which of the nine travel patterns did you look at?

QUESTION FOUR. What do you consider the potential market to be for the new services, or have they been provided (in your opinion) at times which are EITHER operationally convenient for the operator OR intentionally timed when they won't be used as a prelude to closure?

However, Peter, I do NOT want to concentrate on the current disaster - I would like to work with you, with First and with other interested parties to provide an appropriate service that:

a) Meets the needs of the previous travellers
b) Encourages new travellers
c) Is cost effective for First (or another operator) to run
d) Requires minimal financial input from the taxpayer via the DfT

and that it meets aspriation (a) AS SOON AS possible.

*** FUTURE

POTENTIAL TRAFFIC FLOWS

The rapid growth of passenger numbers on this service in the early part of the decade and the recent loss of most of it indicates that this service's use is dependent on it meeting user's requirements in terms of its timing, and that the current service supply does NOT meet the demand. This now historic behaviour also suggests that an increase in service will, with time, give an our-of-proportionally good return on numbers. THIS IS NOT A SERVICE where doubling the trains would halve the passengers on each - with the right timing, and with a service as frequent as every hour, you would find that more trains gave you more passengers PER TRAIN. I can supply further data / contacts / references if required to back this us.

Potential traffic - with a single train (class 153 single coach would suffise for the first year or two) running a "clockface" service - every 2 hours, from
Swindon at 06:45, 08:45, 10:45, 13:45, 15:45, 17:45, 19:45, returning from Westbury 1 hour later:
2007 - 100,000 journeys
2008 - 120,000 journeys
2009 - 142,000 journeys
2010 - 170,000 journeys
2011 - 204,000 journeys
That's started from a forcast DROP in the first year due to the current (we hope short-term) unreliablity and lack of service. And it assumes a conservative growth figure compared to what the ORR tell us was acheived historically.

OPERATIONAL SUGGESTIONS and QUESTIONS

There IS a need to meet the travel needs with the service provided - and the nine features that I listed above are an excellent start. Alison Forster wrote (8th January) that the service that First provide "must still meet the needs of the customer". Clearly, it's not doing so at present as the customers aren't travelling on the train.

QUESTION FIVE. What action can / will the Department for Transport take in the short term to ensure that the operator meets their committment - which seems a sensible one - to meet the need of their customers in the very short term?

This week, five out of 20 trains - 25% of the remaining service - were cancelled even before the week started. A second train was cancelled on Monday (8th January) so that as I write this paragraph at quarter to 7 on Tuesday night, just three out of six trains scheduled so far have run.

This is not a new reliability issue. There was a cancellation most weeks under Wessex Trains - the previous operator - and that gave us a 98% record. First assured that although they needed a "honeymoon" period of three months, things would get better. In May, Alison Forster was writing on the First web site about how things had improved since they had taken over, but she was a bit premature; services became progressively more prone to cancellation to the extent that (I understand) there was a standby bus always on hand in late November / Early December for certain service - at it was frequently called in to action. "Never mind" said First - once we've cut your trains by 60% we'll be able to operate the remaining ones reliably".

Performance has deteriorated further, and the latest promise is that the service will be up to snuff soon. "We expect to be up to full strength with the fleet by 22 January at the very latest." writes First's Andrew Griffiths. As this is the latest of a line of promises on reliability, with the previous ones broken, I wait to see the outcome.

QUESTION SIX. Is the current performance of between 50% and 75% of services running, and the rest cancelled, acceptable performance? If not, what action will the Department for Transport take to rectify it, and when?

QUESTION SEVEN. Subject to timetable planning, would the Department for Transport object to service being retimed to provide a Swindon arrival at 08:25, and a Swindon departure at 17:45?

Looking at the two-hourly service I described above:

QUESTION EIGHT. Would the Department for Transport allow the operator to increase the service to the suggested level if they chose to do so? Would the Department for Transport allow the operator to add an additional train to their resources for the purpose?

QUESTION NINE. Are there any capacity issues on the lines which prevent the service level being raised either (a) to its previous level of 5 trains a day or (b) up to a 2-hourly service

RESPONSIBILITIES

a) I understand that the First group bid to run the Greater Western Franchise for a certain price, and using a certain number of trains, and that their bid was the one that your department chose to accept. Therefore, the number of trains required and the funding thereof was decided by First.

b) Once the First bid was accepted and the contract written by the Department for transport, First are no longer able to change it without your agreement.

c) If First are unable to perform to the contact they themselves suggested, then it means that they set the hurdle too high and that - although they cannot change it - it's them who set it up like that in the first place.

QUESTION TEN. Can you confirm that my understanding of (a), (b) and (c) is correct in each case.

I understand that you - Mr Peter West - are the main contact for operation, enforcement and improvement of the FGW franchise at the Depratment for Transport, and that political changes / instruction would come from Mr Tom Harris.

Mr Andrew Seedhouse, your office based at Government Office South West, stated (public meeting, 20th November, Trowbridge) that his role is "managing expectations". To me, that indicates that GOSW has no direct role in providing or specifying the service, but rather is there to ensure that passengers accept a reduced level of service with as little fuss as possible.

I understand that local government (regoional, county, district, town, parish) has no responsibility for rail services in their area - at least in the rural parts of England.

QUESTION ELEVEN. Can you confirm that I have the correct names / contacts, or if not please tell me who has which responsibilities so that I can address the right questions to the right people.

QUESTION TWELVE. Can you tell me whether or not you give consideration to inputs received from local government. Do you rate it as highly important to get local input?

I understand that the current service (SLC2) has been specified to run for 10 years, and that no services in it will be reduced during that period. In other words - that the SLC2 specifies a minimum 10 year service level.

QUESTION THIRTEEN. Can you confirm that understanding is correct?

FUNDING

I understand that First offered to provide an improved service at a price of about 300,000 per annum on the TransWilts line, but that offer was rejected by the Department for Transport.

QUESTION FOURTEEN. Was this offer made at a time when First knew they were likely to win the franchise and could quote a price that was highly profitable for them?

QUESTION FIFTEEN. In light of the evidence of the volatility of traffic on the TransWilts line, and the new RSS growth plans, would the Department reconsider their decision of funding the additional trains - perhaps against a reduced bid from First in light of the extra traffic that might now be expected? Under what mechanism, and to what timescale?

Although train fares on the FGW network as a whole are the highest in the country, the fares on the "TransWilts" are - per mile - much lower. I suggest that a rise of perhaps 10% above the rate of inflation for 2 years would be acceptable if it bought us a 2-hourly, reliable service.

QUESTION SIXTEEN - have funding options such as this been considered?

*** WHO WROTE THIS LETTER?

This letter is written by Graham Ellis - a resident, voter and business owner in Melksham, Wiltshire. Although I initially got involved with the future of the train service in relation to my own use and business, I have found a great deal of support (and virtually no opposition) in the communities up and down the line. You'll find I've placed a great deal more information on the web site http://www.savethetrain.org.uk ... and you'll find the view of many other there too.

Support has also come from all 4 MPs along the course of the route, as well as from MPs on the previous extension to Southampton. That's all three parties who are in favour of the restoration of an appropriate (i.e. 2 hourly) service.

Operational railway staff are also very supportive, as are senior union representatives I have met and emailed.

Local councils, too, have provided support and the line in question, and an improved service on it, is a key aspiration of Wiltshire County Council's local transport plan.

*** CONCLUSION

Peter, that's a long letter setting out how the TransWilts service, providing a link between the major five towns of Wiltshire, grew dramatically to December 2006. It provided a service for which there was no practical alternative for many journeys, and all indications were that it was set to continue its growth.

Under the FGW franchise between the DfT and First, the service was dramatically reduced last month, with the remaining trains scheduled at times that they're hardly used, and cancelled up to half the time. This has resulted in many journeys being transferred to the road, and a great deal of inconvenience and negative economic effect.

There's a golden opportunity to provide a "clockface" two hourly service from Swindon to Westbury. It would meet many transport needs, continue the growth, and bring great utility and benefit to its users at little cost.

QUESTION SEVENTEEN. Can we have your support, and the support of the Department as a whole, for the sorting out of the current reliability issues, and for the implementation of the appropriate level of service suggested? Will you take steps to implement this support in effective action as soon as practical?

QUESTION EIGHTEEN. What (if anything) can I, and all the people I have ofering me support, do to help you achieve our aspirations?

Many thanks for listening, answering and (I hope) acting positively. I would be delighted to supply further information if you need it, or to welcome you on a visit to the area an the line if you would like to see it for yourself.

Yours sincerely,

Received 8th February 2007 ...

Thank you for sharing your thorough appraisal of current issues and your views of future opportunities for the Melksham line service. Apologies for not having been able to reply earlier, but I hope the fact that the following reply addresses each of your questions provides some reassurance that we do take all representations seriously. I have taken the opportunity to copy this to Andrew Griffiths at FGW, who I know you have copied in to your subsequent correspondence with Eric Egar at Wiltshire CC and others.

Q1 I understand that the flex was requested to accommodate users of another service on the Swindon - Kemble line provided by the Melksham line train. You have argued your case for a different arrival time at Swindon on the basis of the needs of passengers from Melksham and we look to FGW to see how the demands of different user groups can be accomodated in the future train plan they put together. I trust that it is clear that the fact the flex was made by colleagues here in response to an identified passenger need communicated by FGW shows that the Department is mindful of the needs of passengers and not bureaucratically rigid.

Q2 Not having been personally involved with the consultation, I can't comment on the specifics you quote. However, if FGW can make improvements to this route, but need some form of flex to the specification in the SLC, then, providing they can provide evidence that it is the right thing to do overall, I would support looking at doing this. I should emphasise that I do not want to form some form of bureaucratic impediment to improvement.

Q3 I was not personally involved in the specification. However, I think that in your earlier correspondence with the Department's specification team, the importance of commuting as a proportion of overall use was identifed, as was the potential for some passengers from Trowbridge and Westbury to use the alternative route changing at Bath.

Q4 We need to put the 'closure by stealth' concept to one side, as it is self-seeding and insidious in its effect. I would like to be absolutely clear that there is no conspiracy going on here. Closure of the Melksham line, whether by stealth or otherwise, is not on the agenda. We actually share the goals set out in your points a) to d). Andrew Griffiths and his senior colleagues at FGW know that they will have my strong personal support if they can put together a package which achieves these.

Q5 As I explained in another piece of correspondence with Lee Fletcher, FGW are not currently in breach of their contractual benchmarks. However, this does not mean that we (or indeed the FGW senior team) consider as acceptable the level of cancellations experienced on the Melksham line and on local services in the greater Bristol area. You may have seen that Rail Minister Tom Harris made a statement in Parliament on 24 January and that FGW at the most senior level has committed to resolving these issues. Lee Fletcher has copied me his correspondence about cancellations on the Melksham line, so I have had graphic evidence of the level of problems seen on this route. The problems appear to have abated more recently, and we look to FGW to maintain the improvement and to ensure no cancellations except in exceptional circumstances.

Q6 No. See Q5.

Q7 No.

Q8 Yes. Contrary to reports which have been widely circulated, we do not prevent franchisees from increasing the amount of rolling stock which they operate. The requirement in the franchise agreement for new rolling stock leases to be approved by the Department is primarily to ensure that they incorporate the necessary step-in rights for the Department to exercise its operator of last resort role and to ensure that our financial interests are not damaged in some fashion. In practice, leases are usually in fairly common language, so approval is unproblematic and we have not refused any requests from FGW we have received. The FGW franchise agreement does allow services above the minimum to be operated if FGW wish.

Q9 I am not really qualified to comment on this question, which is a matter for FGW and Network Rail.

Q10 a) This is correct. All bidders for the FGW franchise were required to develop a fleet size commensurate with operating at least the minimum number of trains in the SLC and meeting the capacity standards in the standard-worded part of the franchise agreement (the so-called 'National Rail Franchise Terms', which is common to all the franchises let at this time - South Eastern and First Capital Connect). In brief, the capacity standards relate to aiming to limit standing to 20 minutes in the peak and aiming to ensure passengers get a seat off peak on boarding (the drafting itself is a little more complicated). Contrary to the widely-circulating stories, the Department did not therefore set the number of trains to be used or refuse to allow additional ones into the fleet. The fact that the franchise agreement contains a list of rolling stock prevents franchisees reducing the fleet without DfT approval and ensures additions have leases that work in practice.

Q10 b) This is correct.

Q10 c) This is correct.

Q10 Roles. I am the focal point at the Department for the franchise going forward. As I am sure you understand, there are other colleagues with important roles, including more senior management above me. GOSW will need to comment on its role itself. Local authorities can and do play roles in National Rail, including both capital (e.g. station improvements) and revenue (e.g. service support) funding. These are at their discretion, however, and you are right to point out that they do not have the level of formal role exercised in larger urban areas by organisations such as the Passenger Transport Executives ('PTEs') or Transport for London.

Q11 I think so.

Q12 As I hope I have made clear above, it is important for there to be local input into decision-making, preferably in the form of positive suggestions, working with FGW as to what could be improved with the available resources. In the first instance, we look to FGW to be the primary interface with passengers and stakeholders about the detail of the timetable. Where, through this work, FGW identifies opportunities for improvement which can be made within the available funding, then we will look at changes to the SLC if a case is made that it is in some manner an impediment. As your concern about the Swindon arrival time shows, however, there are issues of balance and there is some risk that an improvement for one set of passengers can become a degradation for others.

Q13 You are correct to say that the SLC runs for 10 years. The instructions to all bidders were to bid for the whole of the service for the whole life of the franchise.

Q14 I know nothing about the 'offer' referred to here, not having been directly involved in the procurement exercise.

Q15 We will always look at proposals made to us by FGW (but this does not of course mean that we would always accept them). The fares suggestion is imaginative and if there was evidence of support for it, we could certainly look at it. One thing worth considering is whether Community Rail status for the passenger services (but probably not the line) would help, as CR designation explicitly allows some of the normal standards such as this to be challenged and changed.

Q16 We would look in the first instance for a proposal to be made, as we cannot consider something which has not been proposed to us.

Q17 Yes - improving rail performance (and this includes it not slipping backwards) is a key objective of the Department generally.

Q18 a) In relation to the current service and your concern about timings - work with FGW to provide evidence of what passengers actually want and need so that FGW can put these into its planning. b) In relation to possible additions to the current level of service - again, work with FGW to help provide evidence of likely usage and if you have innovative ideas such as the fares one mentioned, help FGW build a case on which an approach to us can be made. Evidence is the key, in particular of what real passengers (and this includes those not currently using the service) really want.

Regards

Peter West
Franchise Manager

I will be digesting the answers over the next few days ... it's been a busy week. But I AM going to give a huge hearftfelt thanks for the time taken and the serious professional consideration given to the questions. Wow - we're really talking.