Great Western Coffee Shop

I assume this is for some "operational reason" - but the usual Twyford to Henley and Henley to Twyford arrivals and departures have been replaced by a circular service.

(http://www.mbob.co.uk/rforum/twycirc.jpg)

Makes for a rather confusing CIS display

(http://www.mbob.co.uk/rforum/twycis2.png)

Not convinced that everyone will know what a 'Circular route' means in that context.

Not that the majority will immediately think "It's been some time since the railway had the ambition to extend the Henley branch to Marlow, in which case we could certainly have Twyford - Bourne End (reverse) - Maidenhead (reverse) - Twyford."

Mark

It means that Wargrave now has four trains per hour to Twyford  ;D

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/warcirc.jpg)

The timings are no different from normal - every 30 minutes, service pattern obviously skips Shiplake in one direction.  I can see they might need to build in a couple more minutes dwell time (hence the skip) and I wonder if this circular route is so they can say every service still stops at all stations?

Came past Twyford on P4 today (11h30) heading to PAD and the blazers and summer dresses were squeezed into 4 Turbos tighter than any Bakerloo scrum that I have ever seen. And the queue out onto the forecourt was huge. Can't have been a pleasant 10 minutes for the revellers but looked highly profitable for GWR.

It’ll be no more profitable for GWR had there be double the number of passengers.   ;)

So is there any motivation for GWR to encourage people to use the train, or is that now a task of the ministry?

.....how about "Five go to Henley"?

They spent a fair few £ on the Enid Blyton campaign, could try to squeeze a few drops out of that?

We don't have the text of GWR's NRC, but SWR's is available and no doubt the structure will be much the same. There are, inevitably, incentives. These are listed, but most of the numbers of pounds and some of the key details are omitted. But here's a list of the components of that calculation, and what they are can be guessed. One amount of money is given: the maximum performance based fee is £1,092,307.69 per period.

£PBF = OP + CS + SQ + FIN + BM

£PBF   shall have a value between zero and the Maximum Performance Based Fee in relation to the relevant PBF Assessment Period;
OP    means the sum (in pounds sterling) that is zero or a positive number representing the Operational Performance Fee calculated in accordance with the Applicable Assessment Methodology;
CS    means the sum (in pounds sterling) that is zero or a positive number representing the Customer Satisfaction Fee calculated in accordance with the Applicable Assessment Methodology;
SQ    means the sum (in pounds sterling) that is zero or a positive number representing the Service Quality Standards Fee calculated in accordance with the Applicable Assessment Methodology;
FIN   means the sum (in pounds sterling) that is zero or a positive number representing the Financial Performance Fee determined in accordance with paragraph 2.3; and
BM   means the sum (in pounds sterling) that is zero or a positive number representing the Business Management Fee calculated in accordance with the Applicable Assessment Methodology.

There are two ways of calculating £FIN, depending on something (Shapps, I think):
FIN(Cost) + FIN(Revenue) + FIN(TT)   or
FIN(Profit) + FIN(TT)

For operational performance, the further breakdown is:

The value of OP for the purposes of the formula set out in paragraph 2.2 of Chapter 7.2 shall be calculated as the aggregate of the calculations performed with respect to each Reporting Period in the relevant PBF Assessment Period pursuant to paragraphs 2.2 to 2.4 of this Appendix 5 to Chapter 7.2 (as applicable), in respect of each of:
(a) TOC on Self Cancellations;
(b) TOC Minutes Delay;
(c) Short Formations;
(d) T-3;
(e) T-15; and
(f) All Cancellations.

In most cases that I can see, upper and and lower target levels are defined and the relevant payment component scales from zero to its defined maximum over that range. A lot of words are involved in this process (I can't guarantee that none were harmed).

So, to sum up Stuving's post.  There's a lot less incentive than there was before.

...........and let's face it, they never tried particularly hard when there was.