GTR services have also been prone to frequent infrastructure problems. Prior to the current dispute, the franchise area was the source of half the total number of delay minutes attributable to Network Rail in the entire country. Almost daily signal failures have continued to wreak havoc.
GTR services are also particularly prone to reactionary delays. When something goes wrong on Southern or Thameslink, there are almost always knock-on effects. Like the runways at Heathrow or Gatwick, the network is so busy there is little margin for error. Flat junctions, a lack of platform capacity and minimum headways mean that the slightest failure can have an impact that lasts all day.
At East Croydon, Up Slow trains all use Platform 4. An overcrowded train may have a scheduled dwell time of one minute, but a packed short-formation train or a large group of travellers with suitcases can easily double that time. A service that arrives on time then leaves a minute late, with the next two trains already queuing outside.
So the industrial action has been perhaps the final straw that broke GTR’s back. Govia promised a transformation of the passenger experience, and is contractually committed to providing it. It thinks a reform of outdated working practices is at the centre of this.
The future of GTR
It was always a tall order. The DfT knew it - that’s why GTR was created. Competing business units would no longer bicker with each other during the years of upheaval at London Bridge. The unquantifiable financial risks of disruption would be neutralised by a simple management contract.
Even before it all started, this was the poorest-performing passenger rail service by almost any measure you choose. Govia therefore reckoned on enduring a few rough years before eventually emerging into the sunlight with happier passengers towards the end of the contract, and an enhanced reputation that would help to secure future long-term deals.
But it hasn’t turned out that way at all - at least, not yet. The corner is a long way from being turned. GTR’s public reputation lies in tatters, comprehensively trashed by months of truly abysmal service that is unacceptable on any level.
Politicians, passengers, consumer champions and pressure groups are all howling for the failing company to be stripped of its contract, for its executives to be sacked, and for a public sector replacement to be given the chance to repair the damage.
Govia’s shareholders must be quietly regretting ever signing on the dotted line, even if their greatest offence has only been to attempt to carry out the DfT’s wishes. They have been hung out to dry. New Transport Minister Paul Maynard has said the industrial strife is a matter for GTR to fix, not civil servants at his department.
Even senior executives at GTR do not expect the franchise to survive in its current form beyond 2021. It was structured as the UK’s largest train operator specifically to cope with the upheaval of completing the Thameslink programme - new trains, new tracks, new technology, additional routes, far more services and a completely revamped timetable. It was always destined to be broken up once the tasks have been completed.
But performance, stuck resolutely at the bottom of the National Rail Passenger Survey table, gives the impression of GTR being too big to handle.
And the succession of industrial disputes with all three unions - RMT, ASLEF and TSSA - show the company has failed to encourage enough of its own employees along its chosen path of change management.
Has the DfT demanded too much of GTR, on too many fronts and on too short a timescale? Might it have been better to pick a fight over staff terms and conditions at a more stable later date?
Over just four years, the company has to transform customer service, reform employment structures, replace ticket offices with vending machines and a reworked website, introduce four new fleets of rolling stock, launch new journey opportunities never previously offered to passengers, rewrite the timetable, and cope with one of Network Rail’s largest and most disruptive engineering projects.
The Go-Ahead Group, which has the largest stake in Govia, has already told shareholders that it will make at best 1.5% profit across the seven-year concession. It lost money last year and seems certain to repeat the performance this year.
It must be concerned that this could have an impact on its chances of winning further franchises. Imagine the howls of protest from passengers in other parts of the country if they think the level of service experienced in Sussex and Surrey could be heading their way.
So should the train set be taken away and given to other people to play with?
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has twice called for GTR to be handed to Transport for London. In a letter to Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling, he said TfL could deliver a better product by “immediately assigning an experienced team to fix the service”.
TfL would be operating a contract that will soon run from Southampton and Bognor Regis in the south to Peterborough and King’s Lynn in the north. Non-metropolitan stakeholders would take a dim view of that. TfL has no experience of running longer-distance services. It is almost certain that South London Metro services will be handed to TfL next time the franchise is redrawn, but the DfT seems most unlikely to hand over Britain’s biggest passenger franchise as a whole.
