Keynote: Mapping out an ambitious vision: The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail

Wendy Norton, Rail Minister, Department for Transport

Keynote summary:

Wendy began her speech by saying that this is an existential moment for our railways and that ensuring the health of our railway would be crucial to helping the country level up, reach net zero and build back better. To make this a reality she said that we need to move away from a model that delivered multiple franchise failures, a timetable collapse and spiralling costs.

On passenger numbers she stressed that our immediate goal must be to get passengers back on seats and to boost revenue, adding that continued funding for the industry is “impractical and wrong”, with the rail having received more money than buses and aviation combined.

Wendy said she was confident that the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail would get the industry “back to basics”, with GBR as a guiding mind being essential to this. On passenger experience Wendy stated she wanted this to be unrecognisable in five years, with the GBR app being a “one-stop shop” for tickets and the industry giving customers the personal service that they need.

On comments that the industry is nationalised in all but name, Wendy said that the door to nationalisation remained “under lock and key” and that the underlying goal for the industry is simplification. She closed her speech by saying our industry ills are serious, but not yet terminal and that major reform is essential in avoiding a slow and steady decline. She added that we need to focus on reviving our railways, putting them on a long term, sustainable footing, to build the fairer, sustainable service customers need.

Leaders’ Forum: Great British Railways: coming together under the new structure

Andy Bagnall, Director General, Rail Delivery Group

Andrew Haines, Chief Executive, Network Rail

Claire Mann, Managing Director, South Western Railway

John Larkinson, Chief Executive Office, Office of Rail and Road

Phil Whittingham, Managing Director, West Coast Partnership

John Abel, Technical Director, Office of the CTO, Google Cloud

Key themes:

Recovery: Andrew Haines said he was still confident that we can recover passenger numbers, even if new working from home patterns would mean that business travel in particular would be “permanently different”. He added that we should not worry about chasing the ‘high peak’, rather we should think about recovery more holistically. Claire Mann echoed Andrew’s comments, but noted that despite the pandemic, nothing should really have changed, because the customer should have been, and should still be at the heart of all that we do.

The future of GBR: Andy stressed that GBR must be a guiding mind and not a controlling mind that looks outwards to customers and enables operators who know their markets best to deliver. On Passenger Service Contracts, he added that the focus must be on the passenger and freight customers and that GBR must be an intelligent client with operators having the right incentives, flexibilities and levers to respond to a changing environment.

Fares reform: Andy said that the pandemic had put petrol on the fire after years of the industry calling for fares reform. He said while the White Paper pointed in the right direction with regard to fares reform, we still need to flesh out the detail. To really simplify things, he said the industry must go “further and farther” by rewriting the underlying framework for fares.

Technology and innovation: John Abel began his remarks by saying that our number one priority should be to focus on the customer to ensure we first understand their wants and needs, citing Gmail and Google Maps as examples of where in his experience this had been successful. On innovation, he said the best innovation would come from within the industry itself and that we need to ensure we give our people a voice that can be heard at execution level. He added that innovation should happen quickly and that a fear of failure or red tape should not be an excuse for not trying.

Culture: John stressed that when thinking about culture, we shouldn’t look to get rid of our culture, instead we should look to add to it. Phil Whittingham added that the industry is traditionally culturally hesitant and to deliver true reform, the industry would need to become agile and flexible to give passengers what they want.

Panel discussion: Putting rail at the heart of UK transport: strategies for recovery, stability and prosperity

Key points:

Jac Starr, Chief Executive Officer, Rail Delivery Group

Jac began her remarks by saying that when considering recovery, the emphasis for the industry should first be on contributing to the British economy. It should then be focussed around three key areas – a retail revolution around fares, targeted customer marketing and customer reassurance. On innovation, Jac echoed comments made earlier in the event that innovation should be carried out by the people already in the industry and she added that it should be both collaborative and cost-effective, as well as customer focussed. She closed by saying that crucial to the industry’s recovery would be the industry setting out its stall for customers in a way that outlines clear ambitions for our future.

Tricia Williams, Chief Operating Officer, Northern Trains Ltd

Tricia said that Northern were doing well in attracting customers back to the railway – recent recovery for Northern has been led by leisure journeys and last weeks figures had exceeded pre-Covid revenue for the same period two years ago. She stressed this upturn in revenue had not been reflected in the commuter market. On data, Tricia said that 25% of their fleet is now digital and that they were able to track customer behaviour far more effectively as a result of this change.

Suzanne Donnelly, Passenger Revenue Director, GBR Transition Team, Rail Revenue Recovery Group, GBR Transition Team

Suzanne said that revenue recovery was currently a very “varied picture” and that the industry still needed to address the multi-million pound gap. Despite this, she said she had seen a real coming together of the industry as a result of the pandemic in our efforts to attract customers back, in particular during the development of the industry’s marketing campaigns. She added that this collaboration would need to continue to take place as we look market the railway to customers new and old.

David Crawford, Managing Director, Cellnex

David said that in order for the industry to recover we would need to challenge conventional thinking and practice to prove we can deliver for the customer. He said a reset of the public/private would be crucial to this, with connectivity being the main issue from his perspective where we are losing ground to our competitors.