20.02.08
David Franks interview
David Franks, managing director, National Express Group Trains Division
National Express has been running the East Coast franchise for almost two months. How is it going?
Obviously it is still early days but the signs are very positive and encouraging, after a successful launch. There is a real buzz and excitement about the place and a real desire and passion to get things done and to make this railway a big success.
A new top team is in place, representing a blend of change and continuity. And we are getting to grips with tackling our four main priorities this year:
1. to get more trains to run on time, in partnership with Network Rail
2. to deliver a high quality service, but much more consistently than at present
3. to increase ridership and revenue
4. to manage costs more effectively
Have you made many changes to the way in which GNER managed the operation?
We are trying to take the best of GNER and make it even better. GNER was a popular operator, renowned for its customer service, although standards probably dipped in the last year or so. However, as it recognised itself at the time, it was far from perfect.
We’re aiming to continue to harness the passion, potential and pride of the people on this prestige railway. But at the same time we need to provide better processes and planning and give our staff the right tools to do the job to an even higher standard.
GNER was a relatively successful franchise and was popular with passengers but had a poor punctuality record. Is punctuality your top priority? How will you make the trains run on time?
As you say, GNER was very popular with its customers, but its punctuality had dropped to the bottom of the league table.
Punctuality is a top priority for us – it is what passengers want first and the first thing they judge us on. Every other aspect of their journey might be spot on but if their train doesn’t run on time, then a customer is likely to judge their journey poorly. It’s a fundamental part of good customer service.
By January 2010, our target is to deliver 90.1% of trains on time – as measured by PPM.
Our fleet is the most reliable long-distance train fleet in Britain and supported by first-class engineering and maintenance centres at Bounds Green, near London, and Craigentinny, Edinburgh. But there are further reliability improvements we can deliver, as the new HST engines are rolled-out.
We can also improve on the operations side, particularly around how we respond to periods of disruption.
However, most delays relate to infrastructure problems and we need to partner with Network Rail in a more targeted and robust manner to ensure we get a railway that is fit for purpose, most if not all the time.
What are your other top priorities and how will you achieve them?
Obviously we want to carry more passengers on the existing network and extend our services to Lincoln. A new timetable in 2010 will deliver 25 extra services, faster services and, importantly, more than 14,000 extra seats every day.
Overall, the rail industry has seen enormous growth and, despite some predictions of an economic downturn, further significant growth in demand is predicted, partly due to congestion elsewhere and greater concern over the greater environmental damage caused by other means of transport, such air. Even the Civil Aviation Authority recently noted the improvement in long-distance rail services as being one of the reasons behind a slowing in growth of air passenger numbers.
The challenge is to fully exploit the opportunities now being presented to us, partly by sophisticated revenue management and clever pricing, as well as capacity enhancements. An early win for us was securing a slot to run an extra 7.27 pm service from London to Newcastle on Friday evenings – providing an extra 500-plus seats at a busy time of the day.
We’ve also launched a major advertising campaign to remind people of National Express’s pedigree in the rail sector and to highlight the fantastic cities and towns along the route and our headline fares, such as £10 Leeds-London.
What is the 100 day joint improvement plan you have agreed with Network Rail?
The 100 day plan is a set of priorities we agreed with Network Rail for the early days of the franchise. Clearly we need to improve punctuality quickly so we publicly stated this in our ‘improving train punctuality’ leaflet that was distributed on trains and stations.
If this was easy to achieve then it would have been done before now. It covers a whole host of areas such as engineering possessions, track quality and vandalism – trying to avoid things going wrong in the first place and having the capacity to put things right quickly when they do.
Longer term, there is a two-year project called ‘on the dot’ which will drive us towards delivering a railway where nine out of ten trains arrive on time. This important project, which is being briefed out to all staff, aims to ensure that everyone is doing all they can to keep our services running to time. There are some matters that are applicable to all stations, such as providing plenty of announcements about the locations of First and Standard carriages and discouraging customers from congregating around a few doors before trying to board when other access points are available.
Despatch plans are being written tailored for each station, reminding platform staff what can affect punctuality at each location.
Making a success of the franchise is partly out of your control. For example, NEG’s one railway customers experienced severe disruption using services in and out of Liverpool Street station over the Christmas and New Year period. What do you think should be done to prevent this happening again?
There were some serious planning and resourcing issues over the Christmas period with not enough overhead line engineers being available to carry out the amount of work required. Network Rail has already reviewed and apologised for what happened and the Office of Rail Regulation has launched an investigation. There is also a move towards making Network Rail much more accountable to train operators, its customers, to ensure that such episodes are never repeated.
There have been calls for an inquiry which ranges wider than Network Rail's failures, and extends to the adequacy of the regulatory regime and how it is now being operated. Do you agree?
I think some kind of inquiry is inevitable and, in the longer term, no doubt passengers will benefit from that. In the short term, Network Rail has already recognised that serious errors were made and senior management have got to focus their efforts on ensuring they’re not put in the position again of having to eat so much humble pie – at Christmas or any other time of the year! Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of passengers were massively inconvenienced and the industry’s reputation was severely and unnecessarily damaged. Such failures must never be allowed to happen again.
National Express Group’s East Coast franchise was launched in December last year to provide services on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the north east of England and Scotland.
This new franchise, which runs until 2015, will become the standard bearer for the Group’s explicit promise to passengers to ‘make travel simpler’.
To deliver that promise the Group will invest almost £44 million to grow the business and significantly improve the total customer experience.
NEG’s franchise plans include:
• Free WiFi in standard (as well as first) from day one
• Modernised catering offer, including lighter options, from mid-2008
• Restaurant service retained
• Faster service for shorter trips
• Hot meals served at seat in standard
More and faster services are scheduled. From 2010, with the addition of five more trains to the fleet, there will be a further 25 services providing 14,000 extra seats each weekday. London-Leeds will take 2 hours and London-York 1 hour 45 minutes, whilst the London-Edinburgh services journey time will be reduced to less than 4 hours 20 minutes on key services.
At stations more than £10 million will be invested to improve waiting rooms and information provision, increase CCTV cover, add more cycle spaces and increase car parking by 33 per cent.
And National Express is aiming to make East Coast Britain’s greenest railway. A predicted 17 per cent reduction in fuel consumption will be targeted across the entire service and a number of stations will benefit from water conservation measures and wind turbine installation. Improved recycling and reduction in landfill waste will also be targeted.
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