With the implementation of the strategy “Reforming our Railways”, Great Britain wants to significantly improve passenger transport services and with the application of mea-sures and projects the government wants to increase the reliability and capacity of passenger transport, to elaborate a programme for upgrading stations and optimize railway transport access. Also, the Strategy allocates a broad area to tariff problems, which “play an important role in the railway sector funding permitting the government to operate improvements”. At the end of 2010, the go-vernment announced the increase of tariffs starting with January 2012 by 2015 to support the payment of essential investments in infrastructure projects, including the acquisition of over 2,700 passenger coaches and the electrification of the network. “It is the right thing for passengers to continue to contribute to major network investment costs as this will result in faster, more frequent, more reliable and more comfortable services. Carrying on the increase of tariffs in real terms for an unspecified period of time will have negative effects on social inclusion, economy and competitiveness”, the strategy shows.
To attract a higher number of passengers, to encourage industry and manage the demand, the government supports the introduction of intelligent ticketing technology, such as travel cards. Although operators have already introduced such ticket acquisition systems, the government will specify the use of intelligent technology in franchise agreements. Adopting the delivery of intelligent transport and increasing the acquisition potential would mean reducing very high costs, and, in operation, companies will be-
nefit from the use of precise and detailed data which will help introduce a broader range of services and products and optimize tariff regulations between railway transport companies. In this context, the Department for Transport (TfL) in London will elaborate a financing programme on the implementation of such technologies. The investment programme presented by the authorities in the autumn of 2011 stipulated the financing of these projects by EUR 56 Million (GBP 45 Million), and together with the operators, a plan for the development, acquisition and implementation of technologies will be elaborated starting with 2013, the first phase including London and the south-east of the country. These technologies will be functional starting with 2014.
Diverging opinions
Although in passenger transport the Stra-tegy also approaches the identification of solutions for optimising capacity and avoiding congestion, increasing performance for delivering an efficient transport and launching more flexible franchise specifications to give operators the opportunity to meet new demands, the launch of the Reforming our Railways has been criticised by MPs.
Thus, at the beginning of May, more than 100 MPs have signed a motion criticising the government’s plans for the railways – warning of declining services, higher fares and job cuts.
The proposal submitted by John McDonnell (Member of the Labour Party) urged the government to run the railway as a “public service”, but the government said its plan was to reduce the cost of running the railways, make services efficient and increase the infrastructure performance.
Rail Minister Theresa Villiers said the government’s plan was “to reduce the cost of running the railway by GBP 3.5 Billion (EUR 4.33 Billion) per annum by 2019″. The minister said funds were allocated for thousands of new carriages across the country, electrifying swathes of the rail network, and redeveloping many of the railway stations.
Frances O’Grady, Deputy Secretary of Trades Union Congress – TUC (conducts analyses on the British labour market), said that the MPs have expressed their concern regarding the behaviour of private operators who increase the ticket prices, while the number of staff drops and investments in facilities were still kept to the minimum. However, a spokesperson of ATOC (Operators’ Association) declared that operators were making pressures on the implementation of the reform “which contributes to the future limitation of the prices of tickets by reducing exploitation costs, while we will be able to improve services. The reform programme will help unify the railway system to the benefit of both passengers and tax payers”.
TSSA (Union for employees in transport and travel in the United Kingdom) General Secretary Manuel Cortes said that now passengers are being told that they are expected to stand for further fare increases, fewer trains which will be more overcrowded and fewer staff delivering a less safe and more confusing environment in and around stations.
TUC research, carried out in March, said fare prices were rising “despite a 50% decline in investment by train operating companies in the railway network over the last five years”. There has been an 80% reduction in investment in stations, while there has also been a 15 % reduction in private investment in new rolling stock and a 100% reduction from GBP 105 Million (EUR 130 Million) in funds spent on track and signals in 2006-2007 to 0 last year.
Although opinions are diverging and the implementation of the reform demands a review, the government proposes “a reform which, once implemented, will help make railway transport the economic growth engine by delivering safe and reliable passenger transport services which facilitate the growth of the business sector and encou-rages the use of this mode of transport”.
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