On Jul 14, 12:03*am, Mizter T wrote:
[x-posted to utl, solely to annoy Walter Mann]

On Jul 13, 10:50*pm, Bruce wrote:





START QUOTE

TfL's bid to control trains has much going for it

Posted by: Mark Hansford
12 July, 2011

By 2031 there will be 1.3 million more Londoners and 750,000 new jobs
in the capital. But getting those Londoners to those jobs will be
impossible unless Transport for London (TfL) is able to wrestle
control of suburban rail services away from the Department for
Transport and its phalanx of train operating companies (TOCs). That at
least is the view of TfL, which late last month went public on a very
bold plan to take charge of routes currently operated by a bewildering
array of 10 TOCs.

Its point is simple: more than 600,000 extra passengers will need to
be carried at peak times by the public transport system by 2031, a
large proportion by rail; Londoners make more than five times as many
rail trips than the rest of England, and pay higher fares, yet receive
only a quarter of the public expenditure per trip; significant long
term investment is needed to avoid trains becoming more crowded and
service quality falling. In short, without investment, London’s
ability to grow and support the UK economy will be undermined.

The wheels are already turning on this one: London mayor Boris Johnson
has agreed to provide transport secretary Philip Hammond with an
independent review of the case for devolution of inner suburban
services in London; TfL’s London Rail division has already
commissioned one from NERA economic consulting.

The report has not been published, but TfL managing director for rail
Mike Brown has told TfL’s rail and underground panel that it concludes
that “TfL has put forward a compelling case for adopting a different
approach to rail services in London, and for being given the powers to
provide the leadership that is required in London”.

The report, Brown says, focuses on two devolution options: joint
TfL/DfT franchising of rail services and TfL concessions. He says NERA
finds that these options could deliver a higher level of services and
standards but at a lower cost if revenue risk is transferred from the
TOCs to TfL.

Industry experts who spoke to NCE were surprised by the boldness of
TfL’s message. “I’ve not heard them [TfL] be as bold as that before,”
said one.

But TfL is coming from a position of some strength, with the early
indications that its London Overground concession is proving a
storming success.

In April, London Overground was the best performing part of Britain’s
national rail network, with 96.3% of trains arriving on time. This
builds on 12 months of good performance – over the last year 94.9% of
Overground trains were on time, the highest annual figure of any train
operator in Britain. Customer satisfaction on the Overground has also
reached an all time high.

Then May saw the completion of £550M of improvement work on the North
London part of the London Overground network, delivering up to double
the number of trains on a key Olympic rail route to Stratford, and
following on from the introduction of new trains and refurbishment of
stations. In total Transport for London has invested £1.4bn in the
route since taking over the former Silverlink network in 2007.

It runs it through a concession, awarded to a joint venture of MTR and
Deutsche Bahn and differs from DfT franchises because TfL takes 90% of
the revenues for reinvestment in London’s transport network, leaving
just 10% for the joint venture. The concession runs stations and the
trains; Network Rail maintains the track and signals. TfL would use a
similar structure to run other lines that come under its control.

Investment would largely be focused on providing 12 car trains on most
routes, along with providing additional connectivity and capacity on
the West Anglia Main Line through phased four-tracking. This makes the
job not dissimilar to the work done on the East London and North
London lines through London Overground, where capacity has been
greatly increased through two or three significant infrastructure
investments, several smaller scale junction improvements and a big
investment in rolling stock and station upgrades.

The timing is good, should such a move come off. *The Greater Anglia
franchise – which serves a massive planned housing development area in
West Anglia – is currently out to tender for a short term replacement
franchise that will start in February 2012 and run until July 2013,
with a possible extension of up to 12 months. Stagecoach, Netherlands
State Railways and Go Ahead are in the frame. The Southeastern
franchise has been extended by two years and will now run until March
2014.

“It’s an important time for rail planning,” Brown told NCE’s London
Rail summit. “It’s time to put our case.” And a good case it would
seem to be.

END QUOTE

Mark Hansford is managing editor of New Civil Engineer magazine. *The
above appeared yesterday (12 July) on his blog.

Not a new idea of course - the London Regional Rail Authority concept
was being pushed a few years back by TfL under then Mayor Ken. Any
plans to wrest more control over to TfL of London area rail services
are to be welcomed I reckon - Livingstone failed to persuade the last
government that the inner suburban (aka South London Metro) routes
should be transferred over to TfL control, but succeeded in winning
all sorts of passenger benefits under the new Southern franchise. TfL
have stuck their oar and money in across the London rail network for
the benefit of the passenger and of London.

In a sense this is just all just the age old issue of the LT / LU and
BR / NR divide in Greater London, which bubbled up all those years ago
in the Fares Fair wrangle of the early 80's, and continues to live on
in one form or another (its most acute reincarnation of recent years -
being the inability, until Jan 2010, for passengers to be able to use
Oyster PAYG on much of the NR network in London). It was encouraging
to hear Bozza, early on in his Mayoralty, commenting on how it seemed
obvious that there should be a better way of handling the rail network
in London - though to be fair he probably hadn't the faintest about
how it all worked until he found himself plonked on the top floor of
the glass testicle with a remit to actually do something about such
things.

IIRC the original LPTB pooled income and investment. I do not recall
how large was its area of control.