Private operators ... service and operator futures

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Daily Post

Future of rail services between North Wales and London to be decided next week - with 'all options open'

Avanti are currently operating under Emergency Recovery Measures Agreements (ERMA) which were put in place by the Department for Transport during the pandemic. The current agreement is due to come to an end on October 16. This means a decision on the future of services on the route needs to be made by the end of next week.

UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Transport Minister Kevin Foster told MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) that the UK Government is "considering all options" but that no final decision had yet been made. He added that Avanti is currently facing unprecedented challenges and is working to improve services for the benefit of all its passengers.

Avanti's problem stem from its reliance on workers carrying out overtime to run services. The industrial action has seen staff halt overtime which has left the company unable to staff all its routes - forcing it to cut services. The company has said that direct routes to North Wales will restart in December - when new staff complete their training

Edinburgh News

Caledonian Sleeper contract terminated after financial disagreement between operator Serco and Scottish Government

The outsourcing firm’s 15-year franchise until 2030 will be terminated in June, transport minister Jenny Gilruth announced on Wednesday.

She said she had rejected the company’s proposal to “rebase the franchise agreement” because it was not value for money.

[infoman]

ref the June date,I presume that means June 2023?

[grahame]

ref the June date,I presume that means June 2023?

It does - the man article linked confirms that.

[stuving]

Transport Scotland say this:

Scottish Ministers have published a Prior Information Notice (PIN), on 24 June 2022, in respect of the Caledonian Sleeper Franchise. This PIN has been published due to existing provisions in the Franchise Agreement whereby the franchisee may exercise a rebasing option on or after 1 April 2022 with a number of possible resultant consequences.

Presumably one of those "resultant consequences" was to trigger a break clause whereby TS could terminate the contract. In any case I suspect Serco, in requesting this "rebasing", had said they could not continue under the old terms. If those were even on offer after their EMA -that might have reverted to the old contract, or might not.

[ChrisB]

It did revert.

Serco terminated the contract, not TS. TS refused the rebase, and Serco didn't choose to continue as is.

So not 'stripped' either, as many in the (social as well) media try to make out.

[Celestial]

So not dissimilar to the situation a few years ago when FGW^▸ (First Great Western) (as was) reached a break point and decided not to carry on? It was perfectly entitled to do so under the contract, but was widely regarded as walking away from its obligations.

[Timmer]

So not dissimilar to the situation a few years ago when FGW^▸ (First Great Western) (as was) reached a break point and decided not to carry on? It was perfectly entitled to do so under the contract, but was widely regarded as walking away from its obligations.

Oh yes, I remember it well and yet here we are today with First still running the show on the GW^▸ (Great Western).