SUPPLEMENTARY MEMORANDUM
FROM THE
DEPARTMENT FOR
TRANSPORT
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
TO THE
COMMITTEE
Question 18 (Matthew Hancock): Have you done
any assessment of whether you could successfully revisit those
(the 650 carriages already contracted) in order to get better
value for money given that you are such a large purchaser in this
area?
Franchise Agreements do not contain clauses
that would allow the Department unilaterally to revisit the basis
upon which these transactions were concluded. Any re-opening of
these deals would therefore require the agreement of the train
operators, who are likely, in turn, to seek to re-open other aspects
of the Franchise Agreement which they perceive to be to their
disadvantage. Since the business and commercial environment that
existed at the time these deals were struck in 2009 and 2010 have
not substantively changed, the Department judges that there is
little to be gained by Government in attempting to re-open these
Deeds of Amendment, a position which has been agreed with the
Cabinet Office (through the Efficiency and Reform Group).
Questions 33-34 (Stephen Barclay): Is it
a specification for all the new rolling stock that they will have
Automatic Passenger Count systems?
When directly procuring new trains the Department
includes in the output specification a requirement that a system
is fitted which will allow the automatic calculation of the number
of passengers in each carriage,
Question 36 (Stephen Barclay): Are you not
going to retrofit [older carriages] because of the cost?
A number of older carriages have already been retrofitted
with Automatic Passenger Count equipment and the Department seeks
further retrofitting of carriages when letting a new franchise;
for example, Northern Trains have met a franchise commitment set
in summer 2007 to provide a representative passenger count sample
by fitting Automatic Passenger Count equipment to 25% of its train
fleet.
The two main types of Automatic Passenger Count systems
work either off the air-bag suspension system or through infra-red
beams across the doorways. Trains that have spring suspension
systems and that were built before digital technology became commonplace
can be expensive to modify. In such cases, the Department and
industry parties review the expected train life, the passenger
services the train will be used on and whether extensive detail
of passenger counts will be important to understanding the usage
of these passenger services. If the trains are not used on busy
routes there may not be much value in having detailed passenger
counts and simpler routine manual counts may be sufficient.
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