And the new Greater Anglia Franchise goes to….

In a press release from the Department of Transport this morning, The Minister of State for Transport (Rt Hon Theresa Villiers) announced:

I can today announce that Abellio Greater Anglia Limited has been awarded the Greater Anglia (Short) franchise.

The new franchise will begin operation on Sunday 5 February 2012. It will operate for 29 months (32 rail industry periods).

Bids were received from Abellio Greater Anglia Limited (NV Nederlandse Spoorwegen), Eastern Railway Limited (Go-Ahead Group PLC), and Stagecoach Anglia Trains Limited (Stagecoach Group plc).

Abellio Greater Anglia Limited has been chosen to run trains on the network, which operates across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. The franchise will also play a significant role in transport for the London 2012 Games providing crucial services to the Olympic Park area.

The terms of the contract the Government has agreed with the winning bidder will deliver a series of improvements for passengers during the 29 month franchise.

These include providing better station and ticket facilities and measures to improve passenger information. A text messaging service to keep passengers informed if service disruption occurs will be introduced. New information desks will be provided at major stations including London Liverpool Street, Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich and Stansted Airport.

The new franchise will make it easier for passengers to buy tickets, including:

• extending Oyster Pay As You Go between London Liverpool Street and all stations to Shenfield, and stations to Hertford East
• improvements to ticket vending machines, and
• introducing mobile phone and print-at-home ticketing facilities.

Abellio Greater Anglia Limited has also committed to provide an additional 600 car park spaces (subject to planning approvals), more cycle storage facilities and deliver a number of other measures to improve the service to customers including deep cleaning of stations and trains.

The train company will take over station leases from Network Rail, taking on responsibility for all repairs and renewals at stations. This accords with the Government’s overall franchise reform programme which advocates transfer of more responsibility for stations to train operators as the passenger-facing side of the rail industry.

To date, only overall figures for the performance of the franchise as a whole have been published. From the start of the new franchise, Abellio Greater Anglia Limited will start publishing a break down of punctuality figures by route giving passengers more transparency over the performance of the lines they use. The reliability requirements for the new franchise are also more demanding than the previous one.

When the franchise is renewed again in July 2014, the contract is expected to be 15 years in length. This forthcoming franchise will provide the opportunity to seek further improvements for passengers. We also intend to draw on the work of Sir Roy McNulty in setting the terms of the franchise with the aim of reducing costs and improving efficiency.

 

All together now, Nah Nah Nah Nah, Nah Nah Nah Nah, National Express GOODBYE!!!

 

Transport minister Philip Hammond delays Virgin Trains’ West Coast sale

Despite announcement of four-strong shortlist, new-look contract for West Coast franchise will not now begin until January 2013.

Virgin West Coast Class 390 Pendolino speeds North through Harrow and Wealdstone.

An auction of Virgin Trains’ west coast rail franchise has been delayed by transport secretary Philip Hammond in a move that is likely to leave bidders with a multimillion-pound bill and will see a new deal delivered in 2013, nearly a year later than expected.

A hold-up in revamping the UK’s fastest-growing rail route comes as the Department for Transport (DfT) prepares to publish an independent report by former Civil Aviation Authority chairman Sir Roy McNulty that will outline savings of £1bn a year on the network .

The West Coast route is being lined up as a centrepiece of franchise reform as the government seeks to impose a new vision on rail contracts. However, the DfT has told bidders that the new-look contract will not begin until January 2013, instead of April 2012 as intended, despite announcing a four-strong shortlist recently.

It is understood that Hammond has sent the west coast contract back to the drawing board, after deciding that the outline terms due to be sent to bidders last week were not radical enough.

Because the contract will be altered from its previous guise, Hammond will launch a further industry consultation into the proposals, forcing the delay that has put the auction on hold.

A DfT source said: “We put out a consultation and listened to responses. We then spoke to bidders about their plans for the franchise and the result was that the new ITT [invitation to tender] was going to be radically different to the one we consulted on. Therefore it’s only right that we publish a draft next week for further comment. We are keen to press ahead with reform and are determined to get the west coast franchise right.”

The hiatus is a fresh disruption in rail franchising, hot on the heels of FirstGroup’s decision to hand back its First Great Western network three years ahead of schedule, to avoid making payments of £826.6m to the government. FirstGroup, one of the shortlisted bidders for west coast, said it exercised a break clause because the contract would have been loss-making in its final years.

The other bidders are: Virgin Trains; Dutch-owned operator Abellio; and the French state-rail company, SNCF. The delay is expected to add to the already considerable cost of bidding for the franchise, with FirstGroup alone spending £2.7m on its bid so far, while consultants hired to draw up bids will be let go and re-hired at a later date. The shortlist is expected to remain unchanged.