Taking a moment away from the challenge of establishing our new company, East Midlands Trains, has given me the opportunity to think about how the business we’re building will look and feel in seven years time, and indeed, what changes we may see.
The pace of change and growth of the railway has been quite spectacular in the last seven years and, economy permitting, there is every reason why we can expect similar levels of success and continued growth. This will provide huge challenges and opportunities and we will need to work hard to take advantage of these and continually improve our levels of service.
The area that has seen the most significant improvement is the amazing recovery of train punctuality. The picture was very poor back in 2001, which saw a low point of dreadful performance results and very low expectations from customers and from ourselves in the industry.
Years of hard work have made a huge difference, with improved track and signalling combining with increasingly reliable trains and timetables, and more focused teams throughout train despatch to signalling. None of this is rocket science – it has been a result of hard work and attention to detail. It is now often the case that all train operators will record over 90 per cent PPM on good days. Yet I think our work has only just begun and the challenges for us all will get harder.
It’s great news that the amount of passengers and freight has increased significantly and continues to grow. It is, after all, what we are here for. The number of trains we run increases every timetable change and, in many cases, the existing capacity of the railway may seem to be stretched. Our challenge then is to provide further improvements in performance and punctuality whilst the railway gets even busier and the consequence of any delay becomes increasingly significant.
I believe that in order to do this we will have to raise our game by as much again as in the last seven years. Our focus and discipline will have to step up. PPM has, and will, become increasingly irrelevant as a measurement. Only a focus on, and delivery of, a Right Time Railway will allow us to achieve what is required.
PPM targets the arrival of a train at destination within 4 minutes and 59 seconds, or for longer distance trains, within 9 minutes and 59 seconds. It may be that some passengers are comfortable with this degree of punctuality, but we cannot be.
Trains are timed through busy junctions, leaving a gap between trains of perhaps just two and a half minutes. So whilst we may think that a train leaving only three minutes late is all right, it clearly has the potential to cause the signaller a headache and to start a series of potential clashes and knock-on delays.
As an example, the East Midlands Trains service from Norwich to Liverpool can be no more than four minutes late at Manchester Oxford Road if it is to keep its ‘path’ for a fast run to Warrington and Liverpool. If it misses its path, it will often have to follow a service to Liverpool that calls at all stations and be severely delayed. So, a train that runs from Norwich across the East Coast main line at Peterborough and the Midland line at Nottingham and Sheffield before crossing the West Coast main line at Manchester, has to achieve all that and stay bang on time.
Of course, this is just one example and there are countless others around the country, but I think it clearly illustrates the potential for what may appear a tiny delay in Norfolk to spread right across the rest of the network, affecting many more services and passengers. Any suggestion that a few minutes late running is ‘OK’ and that ‘it will still make PPM’ is misguided and misses the point.
As an industry we now have to grasp the opportunity to carry more passengers and freight. This is coupled with the fact that the actions we take to recover service during times of disruption get harder as our trains get busier (once we could cancel one train and combine the passengers on a following train in order to recover service).
In summary, a great deal more sophistication will be required to not only avoid disruption but effectively manage delays to ensure minimal impact on services.
That starts with a commitment to running trains exactly on time. With rising demands on our resources, no other measure will ensure the
railway’s potential.