Posted 11th May 2022 | 1 Comment

More transport devolution called for

The Urban Transport Group, which represents city region transport authorities, has responded to the Queen’s Speech by calling for more devolution. UTG director Jonathan Bray said: ‘We welcome today’s announcement of a new Transport Bill which, if true to the Government’s wider devolutionary objectives, should provide an opportunity to deepen and extend the proven benefits of local decision making on local transport. On rail, we want to see the legislation facilitate the full range of options for devolving responsibilities for local and urban rail services to transport authorities so that more places can benefit from the kind of transformation in rail services that, thanks to local control, has already happened on London Overground and on Merseyrail.’

Railway will close for upgrade before Commonwealth Games

A four-day possession will close the Chiltern Main Line between Birmingham Moor Street and Solihull next month, so that points can be replaced at the entrance to Tyseley depot. The £3 million upgrade should make sure there are no problems using the depot during the Games in Birmingham between 28 July and 8 August, which could attract an extra million rail passengers. The line will be closed to allow the possession between 20 and 23 June.

Chiltern Railways introduces Delay Repay for 15min delays

Chiltern Railways has halved its Delay Repay window from 30 to 15 minutes, following the example of many other operators. Passengers using season tickets will be able to claim according to the fare for a single journey and the type of ticket, and passengers with a season ticket lasting at least a month which started on or before 30 April will be eligible for a discount on their next ticket if Chiltern has not met its performance targets.

Reader Comments:

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  • david c smith, Bletchley

    Good ! At last sommeone seems to think that different types of operation need different approaches. Localised commuter / suburban services are by their nature "captive market" natural monopolies, and cannot rely on competition to give passenger accountability. Here, typical commuter systems ( TfL, for example ) are compact enough to be publically owned, but effectively managed by a local directly elected transport supremo( who can offer local franchises or concessions). A nationalised ,publicly owned equivalent would be too large and unwieldy.

    Intercity / long distance service, though, is much more suited to be run on a commercial, private operator basis , with effective inter modal and inter operator competition being feasible.

    An important role for central and local government would be to build a structure of subsidies and charges that would give benevolent incentives to the operators.