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Reducing passenger rail delays by better management of incidents

The Committee of Public Accounts recently published its report on how the rail industry manages incidents on the network and how passengers are treated when delays occur. Committee chairman Edward Leigh MP reflects on the report’s findings

Imagine you’re sitting on the 2.55 from Newcastle. You have pulled out from York’s lofty station, passed the cooling towers at Doncaster and sped on through the Lincolnshire countryside to Grantham. It’s June and it has been a hot day. Just after 5 you leave Peterborough on the final leg towards King’s Cross. As you reach the little village of Sawtry in the Fens, the train’s lights cut out and it comes to a jolting halt.

There is a silence and then a collective groan rumbles through the carriage. In a few minutes, the train guard hurries through the train, handing out bottles of water and apologies. He has no idea why you’ve stopped. The temperature and tempers begin to rise in the carriage, but within a quarter of an hour the water supplies have run out. People are getting worried about missing connections and want to know how long they will have to wait.

Time passes and the carriage heats up further to near unbearable levels. Overhead you hear a helicopter trying to land and suddenly extra supplies of water arrive and a couple of people are airlifted to hospital. There’s a grinding noise at the back of the train and it is slowly towed back the eight miles to Peterborough station, which you left two hours ago.

At Peterborough the platform is crammed with passengers looking lost, disgorged from other trains that could travel no further. There are no station staff to be seen. After what feels like hours, you hear an announcement about rail replacement buses and join the throng waiting at the bus stop.

Delays caused by rail incidents

These events happened in June 2005 to a member of my committee trying to travel from his constituency to London. He told his story to the chief executive of Network Rail, ATOC and the Department for Transport when we questioned them this summer in the House of Commons about their management of rail incidents.

The committee heard that passenger rail services are being used more heavily than at any time for almost sixty years. Over 1.2 billion journeys were made in 2006-07 in Britain and the number of passenger services increased from 18,000 trains running each day in 2000 to 22,000 in 2007. This expansion means that, when problems do occur, they can cause greater disruption to more passengers. It is increasingly important to resolve incidents quickly.

Despite the improvements to rail services, delays in 2006-07 still cost around £1 billion in terms of time lost. There were 800,000 rail incidents in 2006-07 which led to almost 10,000 days of delay to passenger rail services. But in that same year passengers were paying handsomely to travel on trains - some £5.1 billion in fares – and the Department for Transport provided £3.4 billion from taxpayers’ money to Network Rail and £1.7 billion to train operating companies.

Over 20 per cent of rail incidents are caused by faults on the train. However, faults with infrastructure such as track, points and signals take longer to sort out. Incidents caused by external factors, like weather, trespass and fatalities, were responsible for around one in five minutes of delays.

Since 2002, Network Rail has gradually reduced delays for which it is responsible, and it is investing nearly £9 billion in renewing the West Coast Main Line which opened recently. But, despite this upgrade, commuters have recently had several days of disruption due to problems with the overhead lines.

Train performance on the passenger rail network has only just returned to the levels that existed before the Hatfield derailment of October 2000.

Communication with passengers

As the member of my committee found, passengers want to be told why they have stopped when there is a delay with their train. Indeed, knowledge of the cause of a delay can make the delay itself easier to bear. But, too often, train staff don’t seem to know what is happening so cannot advise on how long it will take to resolve the delay. Even if the driver or guard doesn’t know what is going on, an announcement to that effect and a promise to keep passengers regularly updated are reassuring.
In our report published in November last year, we found that three quarters of passengers who were dissatisfied with delays felt that they did not receive sufficient information. Over 40 per cent of passengers also said that there were not enough staff present to answer their queries.

The Association of Train Operating Companies told us that they have recently issued good practice guidelines to help train operating companies provide better information to passengers during service disruption. But there is clearly still a long way to go, particularly with drivers on driver-only operated services who may be reluctant to communicate with customers.

I agree with the recommendation by Passenger Focus that a train should be stationary for no more than two minutes before train staff make an announcement to passengers –even if it is simply to inform the passengers that the staff are trying to get more information.

Working effectively with others

We found that, during rail incidents, communication within Network Rail can be poor, particularly between the incident site and the control centre. This has sometimes led to repair staff being sent to the wrong place and sections of track being closed for repairs without line controllers being consulted. This kind of thing can obviously result in unnecessary delays to passengers. A big problem for Network Rail is that large sections of the rail network are not covered by mobile phone signals. Network Rail told us that, to solve this, it is introducing a new radio system to provide better communication links for its staff across the country.

Network Rail also struggles to communicate effectively with other parties at incident sites. When there is vandalism, fire or a fatality on the line, Network Rail works with others such as the British Transport Police, local police forces, ambulance, fire and rescue services. Rail incidents can involve utility companies when there are problems with supplies running near the train line, or coroners and undertakers when a fatality is involved. A big problem is that many emergency services have only infrequent dealings with the rail industry and may not be involved in a rail incident in any given year. It seems somewhat absurd but emergency service personnel do not always know how to contact Network Rail and may have out of date contact details for its staff. Network Rail is now acting to remedy this.

The truth is that the relationships between the rail industry and the emergency services are fragmented. My committee considers that the Department for Transport should play a more active role in improving the management of incidents by bringing together and improving communication between the rail industry, the emergency services and other stakeholders such as the Samaritans and Passenger Focus.

In investigating rail incidents, Network Rail produces detailed reports which set out lessons to be learned and examples of good practice. Yet it has not used these reports in a systematic way to analyse national trends and make improvements to its management of incidents. Following my committee’s report, it is now starting to carry out that analysis.

Compensation

Passengers delayed by service disruption may be eligible for compensation. Levels of compensation, however, vary widely between train operating companies. At the time of our report, some operators offered a full refund for delays between 30 minutes and one hour while others offered no compensation for them at all. This is a confusing state of affairs for passengers, particularly those whose journey involves more than one Train Operating Company.

We estimated that up to 70 per cent of eligible passengers may not claim the compensation to which they are entitled. Train operating companies have no incentive to assist their passengers in claiming compensation and therefore in some cases their performance leaves a lot to be desired. Train operating companies do not know how many passengers claim compensation, or even how many are aware that they have the right to.

Only four long distance train operators hand out compensation claim forms on services which are delayed. Handing out these forms is much more useful to passengers than hiding the information in a weighty Passenger Charter, which very few travellers are likely to read.

So the answer – or part of it at least – is improved communications. Certainly with long-suffering passengers who deserve to have as much information as is available on the causes and expected duration of delays. They also need to be fully appraised of their rights to compensation and how they can exercise those rights.

And communications need to be far better between all the parties that might be involved in the management of rail incidents. The rail industry is a highly complicated one involving a wide range of organizations and lines of accountability are confusing. The network is congested and the effect of an incident in one part of the network can have a huge knock-on effect in terms of delays elsewhere.

The way to improve the management of incidents must be for the operators to have well thought through contingency plans and for communications between parts of the industry to be improved. New integrated control centres where Network Rail and train operating company managers work alongside one another are helping staff to make decisions more quickly and in the interest of passengers. What must be improved are the relationships between the rail industry and outside third parties, such as local police forces and fire and rescue services, so that the personnel on the scene of an incident know exactly whom to contact.

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