Neil Robertson, chief executive of NSAR (National Skills Academy for Rail), says: “GBR was conceived by previous politicians who have now moved on. No new Secretary of State would want something that has Grant Shapps’ name all over it - they will want to make their own mark.
“I’ve said all along that this should have been done by better regulation, rather than by a new ‘guiding mind’. But the activities that GBRTT is pursuing are substantially directed at the right questions. And the work needs doing, regardless of the name above the door.
“The analysis on what the future holds, how the railway is made cheaper, modernising and improving the workforce - these are the right things. I don’t care what the name is. I’m just glad these activities are happening.”
Steve Medhurst, head of the rail account for insurer RSA, is another sceptic about GBR’s future. “This was very much Boris’s baby. I think the six-month delay is more about giving the Government time to review what it really wants to do. My view is it will do away with GBR and continue to fudge it.
“They can’t go back to the old system - it was broken, and everybody recognises that. But we are at a golden moment where we can redesign the railways to be fit for purpose post-COVID. We don’t need a Monday-Friday peak commuter service now, so a complete rewrite of all the timetables is needed.
“The phrase in the City, ‘Thursday is the new Friday’, is so true. On Fridays, the City is empty. Where I work, you can count the number of staff in the whole office on two hands. It’s nearly the same on a Monday. There is fundamental change.
Meanwhile, we have one of the most modern rolling stock fleets in the world, because of privatisation, so we aren’t going to need many new trains for a few years. There is nothing to stop us getting on with this redesign.
“But first, the industry has to learn from the industrial dispute. All the good messaging has come from the unions. The industry is not good at publicising its position or working as a team, presumably because it needs approval from the Department every time it opens its mouth.
“So, the public only hears about the bad stuff - the strikes and the politics. GBR has been completely silent in all this.”
Alistair Lees adds: “The least likely bit to survive is the Whole Industry Strategic Plan. It’s right to have a long-term vision. But planning 30 years ahead in a pandemic and a recession is just guesswork. It won’t officially be dropped - it will just fall by the wayside. Because that is what happens to most railway reports and reviews.
“If anything is going to survive from GBR, it’s the ticketing and retail reform. There’s a trick missing here. Fares and ticketing are the cost and access mechanisms to travelling. I’m not convinced that travellers are well-served by continuing to have many train operators with many brands and many products, and many different levels of service.
“If we want customers, we have to go out and market to them. That job would be much easier if there was a common product. GBR wouldn’t have the power to impose that, so it will have to guide, rather than impose.
“If you’re a TOC, what is a brand to you now anyway? It doesn’t really matter to you. It only matters when you are a revenue-risk organisation. Now you are the deliverer of a service on behalf of someone else. That has been true for two and a half years now.”
Lees argues that “the Treasury has been scared of big-bang fares reform for some time”, noting: “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. If a million customers do well from a revenue-neutral fares reform, a million will do worse. And the only people the Treasury will hear from are the one million unhappy people. So, instead, everything keeps getting more complex. And more complex is always worse.
“We need a different approach. You need legislation to be an enforcer, to boss others around. You don’t need legislation to be a persuader. So, let’s all agree that big-bang fares reform is dead. GBR need to think about who they are, what they are, and how they behave. They need to work with others, and not act as if the opinions of others are not that important.”
Cara Murphy, GBR client director at consultant Atkins, counters: “GBR is a necessity. While this might not fit the original intention in 2019, it very much needs to be done. It’s a concept and not yet a detailed design.
“One of the biggest failures of the existing structure is the inability for decisions to be made without considerable amounts of governance and processes, which create inefficiencies and add cost. We are in a spiral of not making decisions.
“There needs to be a fundamental shift in culture and a significant increase in commercial maturity, instead of allowing a shifting of risk, blame and accountability to the point where nothing actually gets done.”
And GBRTT Director Michael Clark observes: “How quickly and excitably the death of GBR was written by the newspapers! We were quite sanguine about it. There was a frisson behind it that we didn’t understand.
“People were saying GBR was buried, but we don’t see it that way. We are pushing forward, although more slowly. Nothing too much to read into it, in my view.
“We are still up for it. But it is, of course, still subject to any decisions by the new politicians.”
