Submission to the UK Parliament’s Transport Committee

25th May 2016 | News

Below is our submission to the UK Parliament’s Transport Committee ‘Improving the Rail Passenger Experience‘ consultation, which closed on 25 May 2016. It is also published here.

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Dear sir / madam,

I am writing to make a submission on behalf of the national Bring Back British Rail campaign.

Launched in 2009, our volunteer-run campaign has now grown to represent well over 150,000 passengers and train employees via our online communities and petitions (Facebook: 102197, Twitter: 4154, Riseup email list: 42062, website petition: 38789, Care2 petition: 62372 people as of 25 May 2016).

Together we are calling for a re-unified national rail network, run in the interests of passengers and train employees rather than the shareholders of the private train operating companies, many of whom are based overseas (Abellio is Dutch, Arriva is German, Keolis is French, MTR Corporation is in Hong Kong).

Privatisation has failed the people of Britain. Not only does the fractured rail franchising system waste more than £1billion every year, which could be saved under public ownership (and used to reduce fares or re-invest in infrastructure), but it also creates an unnecessarily complicated, frustrating, inefficient and expensive system for passengers to use.

We now have more than 10,000 comments archived on our website, detailing our supporters’ concerns and frustrations with the privatised rail system. I urge the Transport Committee to take a good look through these.

Here I will summarise some of the most frequently cited problems and concerns, which result from a system where train operating companies compete with each other rather than co-operate in the public interest:

• Train tickets are far too expensive and many people simple cannot afford to travel by rail. Britain has the most expensive trains in Europe. This is at a time when we need to be encouraging more people to choose more sustainable rail travel to meet our national / international commitments to reduce carbon emissions.
• The fare structure is overly complex and people are unfairly penalised for having to travel at short notice. There should be one simple and affordable price to get from A-to-B and flexibility to change travel plans if necessary without losing out.
• There is confusion and lack of co-operation between train operating companies in all of the main aspects of a rail journey: planning, making the journey and complaints / accountability afterwards:
o Planning: Buying a ticket is overly complicated because of vast number of websites and competing information provided by the different train operating companies. For anyone without access to the internet the system becomes even more opaque and these passengers (predominantly elderly or on low-incomes) are more likely to have to pay higher prices.
o Making a Journey: because different train operating companies manage different stations and routes, there is often a communication breakdown when passengers have to change trains or find out information. Train operating companies often blame each other for problems rather than putting passengers first.
o Complaints: Because train journeys are so frequently delayed as a result of lack of co-operation, complaints are a regular occurrence.
The complexity of the system makes this procedure overly complicated and again favours passengers with internet access.

All of the problems outlined above would be eliminated by re-unifying our national rail network under one simplified, publicly-owned structure. We would have one website to buy tickets and get the correct information. We would have one body of staff managing all our country’s stations, wearing the same coloured uniforms, sharing information and communicating with each other as a matter of course. But most importantly, we could have one body responsible and accountable for all problems and complaints on the railways, who passengers know they can turn to should they need help.

The only way to reliably improve the rail passenger experience in the long-term is to abolish the flawed market approach, and to return our railways public ownership to ensure that they are always only ever run in our interests.

We look forward to hearing the outcomes of your inquiry and to seeing our railways truly improved as a result.

Yours sincerely,

Ellie Harrison
Bring Back British Rail
info@bringbackbritishrail.org

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