Not as a simple copy/paste - note that DfT has ostensibly tried this with GTR and... well... yeah.
Metro and long distance have very different passenger profiles, and that's before issues such as geography and historical service pattern requirements kick in /1
Metro and long distance have very different passenger profiles, and that's before issues such as geography and historical service pattern requirements kick in /1
What TfL have been very clever at doing is making sure that they don't 'mix and match' - they have metros that can be run as metros and avoid overlap where possible. That engineers a level of (relative) simplicity into the franchises. /2
And simplicity is important because - again - the risk sits centrally. That's good in terms of minimising operator cost, but it's BAD if things do go wrong.
The simpler a franchise is, the easier risk is to quantify and avoid. /3
The simpler a franchise is, the easier risk is to quantify and avoid. /3
And that - pretty much straight away - should show you why a broadly similar approach to fanchising didn't work when DfT Ctrl C + Ctrl + Ved it onto GTR:
Too much complexity, not enough ability to accurately quantify risk. /4
Too much complexity, not enough ability to accurately quantify risk. /4
There's nothing to say, however, that the overall STRATEGY of 'Concessions' can't work much more broadly across the board. The barrier to that though is the DfT.
Because to work, it requires the DfT to have a level of expertise that RIGHT NOW they just don't have. /5
Because to work, it requires the DfT to have a level of expertise that RIGHT NOW they just don't have. /5
Under successive governments the DfT has BLED rail talent. Periodic efforts to avert that have been largely undermined by spending cuts, a lack of cultural change and general mismanagement
If you're young, cool clever and like trains you don't work at the DfT. Or not for long /6
If you're young, cool clever and like trains you don't work at the DfT. Or not for long /6
That's left the DfT heavily reliant on external contractors for expertise, which doesn't help at all - it demoralises internal staff, prevents the organisation from building up internal knowledge and costs a lot of fucking money. /7
Basically, if you want to fix the railways then you begin by fixing the DfT.
It needs to be smarter, bolder, braver and - once it's BUILT an expertise culture again - fight furiously to keep it and act CONSISTENTLY on it.
It needs to be a cool place for a rail nerd to work. /8
It needs to be smarter, bolder, braver and - once it's BUILT an expertise culture again - fight furiously to keep it and act CONSISTENTLY on it.
It needs to be a cool place for a rail nerd to work. /8
Get that in place and the DfT would be a powerful weapon for both the industry and a Minister. One that could confidently and (mostly) create and police the multiple, slightly different concessions that would together form a coherent railway. /9
The WHOLE COUNTRY will win when the DfT's response to being asked "who runs the railway?" ISN'T to release a diagram like that below (from after the timetabling debacle), but instead to stand up, proudly but apologetically in front of @LilianGreenwood and co and say:
"We do."
"We do."
(Oh and JUST AS IMPORTANTLY stand up and say it even if the Transport Minister doesn't want them to)
