Rail Franchise renewals

David Cameron implores us to "Join the Government, Help us run the country, help us make the decisions". Sadly neither Mr Cameron or his local representative in Hendon seems to be in the slightest bit interested in sorting out the biggest cock up of the last Conservative government. This bemuses me. I would have thought that a cast iron promise to sort out the Rail operating companies fleecing us for huge profits and providing a Dismal service would have delivered huge rewards.

How on earth they have failed to tap into the huge groundswell of resentment that has built up, with facebook groups, No 10 petitions etc is beyond me. Whilst they talk about the ability to sack Head teachers (all of whom in Barnet seem to do a rather good job in difficult circumstances), sack your local coppers (who also do a good job), not a  dickeybird about sacking train companies who fleece us and have only managed to meet their required service level once in the last 7 months.

There are an army of disgruntled people out there.  One such person is Joyce Zannoni who was so disgruntled that she sent an freedom of information request to the Department of Transport asking as to whether it was true that a certain rail company had their franchise renewed (by a team of Civil Servants). She posted the response to a Facebook set up to complain about a certain companies service.

Here is there response (with Joyce's address redacted for obvious reasons. Joyce first published this on the relevant website for the train company).

As you can see this franchise was extended in Feb 2009 until 2014. No discussion, no consultation, no opportunity for commuters to pass an opinion on whether they should have been allowed to continue.

This company has been granted a virtual monopoly. Surely the views of it's customers should have been taken into account. Surely, like failing MPs they should be taken into account of it stops performing? I have a simple suggestion. If a company fails to meet it's agreed service levels for a period of more than three months, then the company will be forced to conduct a consultation of its customers. If a majority want the franchise to be stripped, then they will lose it.

At the end of the franchise or prior to renewal, another consultation will be performed. If the perception of the passengers is that the rail company has failed, they will lose the franchise and be banned from bidding for other franchises for two years. I ran this suggestion by a senior rail manager in December "That wouldn't work. We'd spend all our time having to pander to customers whims". An the problem with that is? In my opinion pandering to the customers is far better than pandering to the bank accounts of the directors and the shareholders of the company. We'd then get a bit of customer focus.