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First Great Western (FGW) has been warned by the Department for Transport (DfT) that it could lose its franchise after it exceeded the threshold on cancellations in the second half of last year ” and for misreporting figures on those cancellations, has been issued with a Breach Notice.
Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said: ”The performance of FGW has fallen persistently short of customers” expectations and has been unacceptable to both passengers and Government.”
The operator is being asked to pay ”29m ($57m) to improve its services, which will include leasing five additional two-carriage trains for the Cardiff-Portsmouth line, doubling expenditure on refurbishing Thames Valley commuter trains, recruiting more staff, providing an extra 500,000 discounted fares, and increasing passenger compensation by 50% in 2009 (it was already doubled this year).
Performance will be monitored and reviewed, and failure to deliver the promised commitments could lead ”to the Government terminating FGW”s franchise” said a DfT statement.
"Their efforts to enhance their service will be assessed in February 2009," said a DfT spokesman, "and their level of cancellations will be measured in February and August 2009, to ensure they are at, or below, the target level."
FirstGroup chief executive Moir Lockhead, said: ”We have already put in place actions to address performance. We are encouraged that during January 2008 performance improved and cancellations were at their lowest level for 18 months and this trend is continuing during February.”
A spokesman for the operator told ABTN that the cancellations figures had been misreported but ”not for any reason other than there was an error. We told the DfT this happened, and apologised.” He said that FGW is ”very aware of the ramification of not achieving the commitments and we”re very focused on doing that. It”s not an overnight fix ” it will be an incremental positive change.”
He said the operator”s performance problems did not mean the ”200m FirstGroup has already invested since 2006, had been badly spent.
”It doesn”t mean that at all ” the spend has been very specific on trains - we leased 53 high speed trains for the long-haul routes from London Paddington, and these have new engines which reduce CO2 output by 64%. And most importantly, their reliability is hugely improved, but the benefits haven”t been recorded yet. Only now are we beginning to see payback from that investment.”
And to the suggestion that this much-needed investment would not have happened without the DfT”s intervention, he said: ”We were the first to acknowledge performance was not right, and we were looking at ways of fixing that. We”ve agreed this package with DfT ” it is conjecture to say what would have happened ”if”. Chief operating officer Andrew Haines took a very careful assessment when he came in last September and has talked to the government throughout.”
Watchdog Passenger Focus chief executive Anthony Smith, said: ”Passengers have for some time been telling us about the consistent failures of FGW to deliver and our National Passenger Survey showed them as the worst performing train company. We will be watching FGW”s progress very closely. Clearly if it cannot get this right then they should not continue with the franchise.”