How do we start 2013 - reliable, cost effective service too much to hope for?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

December was the busiest month of the whole of 2012 on this forum - which is quite remarkable for a month which includes the Christmas holiday season, and at the end of a year which had included so much to talk about on Reading, Crossrail, Electrification, IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.), and on refranchise both on our own Greater Western Lines and on the West Coast Main line.

So why was December so busy?    Because to some extent people visit this forum and post here when things aren't going very well - when their daily journeys fail, when the feel they're being fed a pup, and when there's the feeling of unfair fare rises.   And December was a disaster, operationally, for the railways.

I'm not going to turn around and blame FGW^▸ (First Great Western) for the whole series of things that have been going wrong. Flooding. Landslips. Train Faults. Signalling system faults. Points failures. Fires. Lack of available staff. Not running any trains on the busiest shopping day of the year. Overrunning engineering works. But FGW are the major point of contact to the travelling public by rail in our area, and so it falls on them to make sure that their suppliers in turn provide resources and infrastructure that are reliable, fit for purpose, and available when promised in the timetable.    And that's simply not happened - be it with advise not to travel (at one extreme) through to replacement of 8 coach trains with 3 coach trains, with reservations thrown out of the window and occasional travellers who have timed their journey to travel in comfort finding themselves josting for seats (if they're lucky) on a long distance train comprised of stock designed for suburban hops.

At times that things are going wrong, it's hard to provide clean and accurate information to the travelling public, but at times many travellers have felt that there's been a lack in even the limitied information supply, with customers simply not being told what's going on. It took quite a while for the reasons for the lines from Paddington being shut in the week before Christmas to come out (electrical fire), and you have to wonder why the reasons were hidden behind what seemed like a cloak of secrecy. It's on occasions that things go wrong that your customer can be your greatest ally; keep him infrormed, and he'll be on your side.   But not everyone has learned that lesson - or perhaps there's just been so much going wrong that the word "occasion" doesn't apply any more and the customer is getting to be less accepting of a continual flow of excuses for not delivering a service to the required level.

And so we head into January, and the "annual" range of fare rises (though there are other 'changes' midyear!).   The headline says "1% above inflation" and a First Great Western Spokesman says "We have used the Government guidelines as the basis for all our fare changes ^ regardless of whether they are regulated or not.  Aside from sensible rounding, none of our fares will rise by more than the formula."   Problem is ... that's simply not true; the Westbury to London TravelCard has risen from 80 pounds to 158 pounds, advanced fares that were previously avialable quite easily seem to have dried up, (and there are suggestions that as a result, prices charged have been trebled), and others report that their season ticket for 2013 travel is 15% up n price on what they paid for 2012 travel.   Of course, all this stuff is very hard to check because (a) there's no published list of quotas that I'm aware of on advanced tickets and (b) it's not possible to go online and look up last year's fares ...

You can, of course, understand the commercial desire to maximise income from the train services being operated; fares are said to be increasing to generate more income for investment, but at this late point in the current franchise in our area, I'm not terribly sure how the additional income that's raised will be channeled back by the train company into long term investment.  Perhaps that's why we see staff shortages rearing their head again. Perhspa that's why there seems to be a such a series of events, one after another, that prevent the scheduled service running - perhaps it's all being cut too fine, run too hard, to squeeze the last juice out of the system and customer?

[chuffed]

Thank you grahame for your very thoughtful and insightful comments ..it is almost an cri de couer type of editorial, which I hope is read, and more importantly, acted upon by those in FGW^▸ (First Great Western) who can make all the difference!

[phile]

Hello GrahamE.  I hope you don't mind me posting this, bur I see that you are referring to passengers as customers as per theTOC "disease".   This, I think could almost become a thread on it's own.   However, my personal opinion is and that of an overwhelming number of posters on another Forum some time ago was that it just does'nt sound right but patronising.
My definition is that the status of a person travelling is that of a "passenger" but to elaborate further could be "a passenger who is a customer of TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)".  It just doesn't sound right to hear "customers" unless perhaps in a retail environment.   Almost perhaps tampering with the Dictionary./
Again, I hope you dont mind this especially when I am addressing a Moderator !!!

[grahame]

Hello GrahamE.  I hope you don't mind me posting this, bur I see that you are referring to passengers as customers as per theTOC "disease".   This, I think could almost become a thread on it's own ....

I think it has been a tread of its own in the past.  But I'm delighted for you to (re)raise it as it's hugely important as to how the train operating companies think of the people who travel on on their trains.

I run a customer oriented business, and I refer to the good people who walk in through our door as customers.  And I believe that's a respectful term which indicates that these are people who choose to bring us their business, people we should look after, and people we should invest effort into making sure they have a good experience, and will want to come back and be customers for more of our services.   I'm reasonably happy to describe our hotel customers as "guests" too, as that also indicates the paramount importance of these people, without whom we wouldn't have a business.

How is showing this sort of respect for the people who in the end pay to keep the thing running "patronising"?   It may not sound right - perhaps that's because certain monopolies are a long way from being the true service industry that cares for its customers that they should be 

[phile]

Thanks for your reply Graham and I fully underatand your views.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Again, I hope you dont mind this especially when I am addressing a Moderator !!!

Thanks for your post, phile, and grahame and I as administrators don't mind being challenged so constructively.

These days, I'm an occasional 'passenger' on the railway - but I'm also a 'customer' of the train operating company, and I therefore expect a reasonable level of 'customer service' when interacting with them.

I'm not sure there's so much difference between the two terms for the same person, though. 

[Andy W]

I think the difference is more a frame of mind & responsibilty:-

A passenger is - A person who travels in a conveyance, such as a car or train, without participating in its operation.

A customer is - One that buys goods or services.

Clearly when you have bought a ticket and are travelling you are both but the mindset of having a customer is that you provide customer services to ensure that all aspects of the service you have sold are satisfied.

A passenger is a person on a train that has been reduced from 8 to 3 carriages and the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) is happy that the job is done

A customer is the person that the TOC accepts will be dissatisfied and although the job is done it is none the less unacceptable.

Hope that makes sense. (modified because it didn't)

[broadgage]

I forecast a significant decline in reliability over the next few years, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, experts in the Met office and elswhere have predicted that the recent severe weather may be the "new normal" rather than an exceptional and seldom repeated event.

Secondly electrification and Crossrail works will cause both planned disruption, and the traditional overuns after holiday weekends.

Thirdly, electrification will result in new electric trains, which for the first few years at least wont work reliably resulting in short formations and cancellations. And of course UK^▸ (United Kingdom) electric railways dont work in high winds or icy conditions. The recent weather disruption was bad enough, but imagine a repeat with with wires coming down, traction substations flooding, and electrification masts being displaced by ground movement.

And of course new centralised signalling systems can close large areas to normal operation as a result of a single fire, flood, cable theft or other mishap.

[TaplowGreen]

Grahame you sum it up superbly and succinctly, well done.

As for the passenger v customer debate, if FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and some of their staff adopt a Customer Service culture and start treating their customers with more respect and consideration, rather than troublesome human freight who are there to be tolerated whilst funding their wages/bonuses, we might get somewhere!!!

"Customers" of course suggests choice, which is one thing we don't have unfortunately!

[swrural]

Do we think that current performance and commercial attitude will be taken into account when the franchise process is re-commenced (if it ever is).  I suppose the competitors would have to be judged (scored?) on how they run other franchises, if they run any.   

[ellendune]

Do we think that current performance and commercial attitude will be taken into account when the franchise process is re-commenced (if it ever is).  I suppose the competitors would have to be judged (scored?) on how they run other franchises, if they run any.   

In the water industry the regulator introduced a customer service incentive scheme a couple of years ago. Every time you ring a water company about a problem that is logged as a point, if you write that is several points if you escalate a complaint even more and so on up to an investigation by the consume council for water.  Also the regulator calls back a few people periodically with a questionnaire on how the company handled their problem/complaint.  So far so good, just some more bureaucracy? No this is serious because each company is ranked on its score against other companies. The best (lowest) scoring companies get a bonus, and the lowest scoring, penalty. It is taking time, but I can see that it has totally transformed the attitudes of the managers in these companies.  If they need to come to deal with your problem, they will now ring you periodically to give you progress and to give an update on when they expect to be there (as that stops you calling again) they are also much more committed to stopping problems occurring, rather than just dealing with them when they arise.  They have also been training their staff in customer service skills.

Now what if that sort of scheme came to the railway industry?

Oh I forgot to say.  The penalty and bonus... ... is reflected in how much they can increase their prices.  So the customer will pay less for poor customer service.