DfT outsources data collection to Labour

What are we to make of this response?

East Coast Rail Franchise

Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 5 December 2017 to Question 116801, how much Virgin Trains East Coast paid in premium payments (a) from the commencement of the franchise in 2015 to date and (b) will pay in each year until 2023-2024.

Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys): The current East Coast franchise operated by Virgin Trains East Coast commenced 1st March 2015. An announcement of the expected premium over the duration of the contract was made at franchise award. All premiums due to date under the contract have been paid. Payments by franchised operators are published by ORR annually and can be found on their website. We have set out our plans to end the operational divide between track and train, and from 2020 we are establishing the East Coast Partnership, one of the first of a new generation of integrated regional rail operations. This will be subject to a competitive process, and will include appropriate premiums paid from the private partner to the Government.

This is unhelpful to the point of wilfull obstruction.

DfT has a spreadsheet of premium payments year by year on its website so why not simply provide a link?

Perhaps because the subsidy spreadsheet on the DfT website stops at 2015-16. The next update (for 2016-17) was due in August 2017 but it ain't there.

No doubt the DfT is hoping McDonald can find the information on the ORR website and pass it on to New Minster House?

Industry 'improved finances' - a gentle reminder

This from Benjamin Disraeli...

According to the Rail Delivery Group Notes to Editors on today's launch of the 'Landmark coming together':

"The plan details the progress that the industry has made since it was restructured in the 1990s, when Britain’s railway ran a £2bn a year operating deficit (1997-98) compared to generating a £200m surplus today, benefiting taxpayers. The plan says that improved finances have helped to sustain improvements in the railway that see Britain’s network now ranked by passengers as the best major railway in Europe".

In 1997-98 all Government subsidy to the railway went to the train operators who then provided all Railtrack's income through track access charges. In other words, they met their full operating costs.

Today Network Rail's income comes from a combinatioon of track access charges and a direct grant from DfT.

According to the ORR, in 2016-17, only South West Trains and Virgin Trains East Coast made a net contribution to DfT after Network Rail's Direct Grant had been allocated to the TOCs. The rest ran an operating deficit requiring subsidy. 

And SWT was in revenue share, while VTEC is running at a loss…

ORR narrative overlooks the positive...

This from Orrville...

Good news from the Office of Rail Regulation!

The department within ORR tasked with man marking Passenger Focus, and justifying its own existence, has issued the following press release...

Rail passengers' complaints data shows focus on train punctuality

New statistics published today on the regulator's data portal show that passengers' complaints continue to focus on train punctuality.

Updated rail complaints data highlights that, between 1 October 2012 and 31 December 2012, rail passengers' complaints concentrated on train punctuality (42%), followed by complaints about the quality of facilities on-board the train (14%), and fares (14%).

Data also shows that the overall number of complaints has been steadily decreasing over the past decade – dropping from a high of 128 complaints per 100,000 journeys recorded at the end of 2002-03, to latest levels which stand at 33 complaints per 100,000 journeys in the last 12 months.

Quite so.

But equally this would also have been a factually correct headline:

‘Rail Passengers’ data shows 74% reduction in Passenger Complaints in a decade’

Heaven forfend that ORR should suggest that things are actually improving!

ATOC starts journey from wrong place?

This from Captain Deltic...

I note that ATOC's Michael Roberts has a letter published in the Pink 'Un today, in which he says:

Your article “Network Rail lays out £37bn spending plans” (January 9) states that the “average rail fare has risen 40 per cent in the past decade”.

Rather than taking an average of all the prices that were advertised, looking at tickets people actually purchased reveals that between 2001-02 and 2011-12, the average price paid by passengers for a single journey expressed at 2011-12 prices fell by 1.9 per cent, hovering round £5 through that period. That is down to train companies working to attract passengers by offering a range of good value fares, including cheap advance tickets and Railcard deals.
 
So, the average cost of a journey between 2001-02 and 2011-12 'hovered around £5'.

Yet another case of Year Zero statistical legerdemain.

In 1991-92, with the recession biting the average fare, at 2011-12 prices, was er... £4.30.

And while passenger journeys have increased by just over 80% over the same period, subsidy per journey is still 50% more than in 1991-92!

Proof positive of the triumph of privatisation?

East Coast solves PPM problems

Good news from state owned East Coast!

Usually languishing at the bottom of the PPM table the nationalised operator has leapt straight to the top!

And this despite the leaf-fall season.

Here for example are the figures for the period covering Friday 12th November...


Surely other operators can do just as well?

Perhaps by also monitoring just eight trains...

UPDATE: This, surprisingly, from Barbara Dixon...

Personally, I am quite impressed at East Coasts performance on Friday 12th November.

As one of the patrons on a late afternoon service from Peterborough to Leeds on said date where the guard or train manager or whatever they call themselves nowadays was advertising delay repay at all stops.

Are we talking some dodgy wires or a Network Rail signaller spilling his coffee?

No, it was a brake pipe failure on the said train at Biggleswade.

Lies, damned lies and ATOC statistics

This from Herr Dr Kalculus...

On April Fool's Day Michael Roberts titillated an early morning audience on Radio 5 with the 'fact' that railways were a mere 1% of total government service spending (or as he put it "a penny in the pound") .

If ATOC were important enough they would be expecting a letter any moment now from Sir Michael Scholar, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, for misusing government statistics.

On the basis that total government support to the railways is £5bn (ORR's figures only go up to 2008/9 when it is recorded as £5.2bn in National Rail Trends) this seems to indicate that £500bn of the government budget goes on services.
This is certainly an imaginative way of looking at the figures

The respected website www.ukpublicspending.co.uk shows that total central Government expenditure for 2010 is £488.5bn but that includes £247bn of interest payments as well as expenditure on pensions, defence and welfare - hardly services in the way that Michael means.

Also if capital spending on schools etc, paying for running government, such as HMRC, and such mysterious figures as £12bn of accounting adjustments are excluded the amount spent on services in its widest sense, probably does not exceed £200bn.

On this basis ATOC has got its figures completely wrong.

But to help them out a little, if local authority spending on services of some £100-110bn is included the variation is not quite so bad but still a long way adrift.

Almost certainly the Radio 5 audience didn't give a toss when this statistic was produced but it's not going to help the industry if it receives wider exposure and can easily be countered by those who do not mean us well by pointing out thar overall government support has risen from £1.4bn to £5.2bn in a decade.

An increase that is probably the biggest rise in any category of spend across Whitehall.

ORR seeks to improve data available to industry

This from the ORR...

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) today launches a project aimed at improving the data it makes available to the rail industry.

The regulator is keen to shed light on how data can be most effectively disseminated to the rail industry, and is seeking views through a range of interviews and an online survey. Information emerging from the research will inform the future delivery and scope of ORR’s data.

ORR chief executive Bill Emery said: “The study will help us better understand how we can best deliver rail data and statistics to the rail industry and interested public.

“It is vital that the rail sector has ready access to reliable and useful information so that it can continue to improve standards of service, safety and efficiency for rail users.”

To take part in the online survey, which runs until 15 February 2010, click here.

Is anyone there?

Exciting news from Railway Herald.


Guaranteed to warm the heart of any advertiser!

Station usage shocker

Telegrammed by The Master
You may remember the little faux pas from the spotters who run the 'Going Loco' forum where they managed to confuse reopening an old railway line with a brand-new one.

Well, it seems that they're at it again.

They've attempted some analysis of the latest station usage figures from ORR and come up with this gem:

"In a rather disappointing finding for the newly opened Ebbw Vale line the 2 stations with the lowest usage are both on it. Crosskeys was the least used station with 8 people in the 2007/08 period. 2nd least used station was Llanhilleth with 10."

Hardly surprising really.

Llanhilleth (28th April 2008) was opened three weeks after the reporting period and Crosskeys opened two months (7th June 2008) after the reporting period!

A career with DaFT certainly beckons.

UPDATE: This from an 'Anonymous' reader...

They've come up with another stunner today in their 'Front page news'

"The Rail Regulator has published its report on the average of rolling stock on the network, which shows that the average age has risen to a five year high. [b]The average age is now 15.5 years, compared to 15.7 in the Summer of 2004[/b]."

Err...

One hopes that putative careers at DafT have nothing to do with statistical analysis.

UPDATE: This from a completely 'Anonymous' reader...

I had hitherto thought that was patently obvious ...