Memorandum submitted by Dr Roger Sexton
RAIL PASSENGER
FRANCHISING
I can be relatively brief. I wish to address
a question which you do not expressly mention in the terms of
reference for your enquiry:
Who should grant rail passenger franchises?
A. Local and Regional Services
The franchising should be in the hands of regional
PTEs. I take the liberty of repeating a section from my memorandum
to your 2003 enquiry on The Future of the Railway. There I said
(Evidence page 194, section 12).
"In my submission to the Committee regarding
bus services, I advocated that the London system of bus franchising
should be extended to the rest of the country. The franchising
would be done by regional PTEs. I stick by this proposal, but
with a crucial addition.
The regional PTEs would also take over the franchising
of local railway services in their respective areas. The regional
PTEs would have their own budgets, but I would expect them to
ensure that bus and train services were integrated with each other,
not competing with each other.
The model for this proposal comes from Sweden,
where all local bus, train and boat services are franchised by
regional PTEs called `Lanstrafiken'. All transport timetables
are integrated with each other. All services within a particular
Lanstrafik area have the same fares system. I would suggest that
the committee pays a study visit to the Vast region based
in Gothenburg, to see how things should be done."
B. Long-Distance Services
The franchising should be done by a national
body (with regional representation) supported by the national
Department of Transport. Again borrowing from Sweden, I will call
that body British Rijkstrafiken—"BRT".
It would be a major function of BRT to ensure
the co-ordination of long distance services with local services—both
ticketing and timetables. The current Route Utilization Surveys
started by the Strategic Rail Authority and being continued by
the Department of Transport would come under BRT's auspices. On
busy sections of line (eg St Pancras-Luton) and at congested stations
(eg Birmingham New Street), BRT will have to make tough choices.
C. Why this Franchising Structure?
My franchising structure is intended to give
Britain the properly integrated system of public transport enjoyed
by the Swiss and by some of our EU partners. As things currently
stand, the legal regimes now governing British public transport
(bus deregulation and over-centralised rail franchising) make
such integration impossible.
13 June 2006
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