On Nov 20, 12:20 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

There is a certain naiivity too - assumptions that TfL will be able to
increase the frequency of services on current commuter routes simply by a
change of ownership?


I think it's more likely. If the railways are regulated by TfL there's
more of an incentive to treat them as a public service. Some of the
privatized rail franchises have been very good at investing to improve
their routes (Chiltern, for example), but others have done
extraordinarily little. Why should they make huge capital investments
to double the frequency when the extra fares won't necessarily pay for
it? This isn't a hit against them, it's just normal business.

Whereas if they're privately run but publically regulated, the
contracts can be drawn up in such a way that the franchisees are given
financial incentives to run the extra services.

This doesn't mean it will happen, or that TfL will do the job well if
it does. But I can see the theory.

Jonn Elledge

wrote in message
...
On Nov 20, 12:20 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

There is a certain naiivity too - assumptions that TfL will be able to
increase the frequency of services on current commuter routes simply by a
change of ownership?


I think it's more likely. If the railways are regulated by TfL there's
more of an incentive to treat them as a public service. Some of the
privatized rail franchises have been very good at investing to improve
their routes (Chiltern, for example), but others have done
extraordinarily little. Why should they make huge capital investments
to double the frequency when the extra fares won't necessarily pay for
it? This isn't a hit against them, it's just normal business.


Its basically because any TOC that has come up with plans to vastly increase
capacity, like SWT did back in 2003, required huge investment in the
infrastructure. More capacity into Waterloo requires things like more
platforms, longer platforms, resignalling etc. Frequency isn't much of a
problem between Clapham Junction and Waterloo, after all.

None of the infrastructure aspects are in a TOCs own control - so any
criticism should be levelled at the DfT really...

Paul