TRANSPORT - TRAINS

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Ticket barriers have been installed at Derby Railway Station to clamp down on fare dodgers. East Midlands Trains, which runs the station, has put up gates in the main building and on the footbridge which links it with Pride Park. The company hopes the gates will prevent those who have not bought a ticket going on to platforms and getting on a train. As well as at Derby, the company is installing the ticket barriers at stations in Sheffield and Nottingham.

EMT's managing director, Tim Shoveller, said the recent increase in ticket sales at the London station highlighted just how much revenue the company had been losing because of fare dodgers. He said, "The increase in sales at the St Pancras ticket office since the gates came into operation has revealed that the level of fare evasion was greater than we'd first thought. As well as normal tickets, the number of season tickets sold has also risen, which shows the gates are working."

According to national figures, fare dodging costs the industry about £200m a year and Mr Shoveller said he was confident the gates would help reduce the number of passengers travelling from Derby without paying. Some businesses on Pride Park raised fears that they would be prevented from using the station's bridge as a thoroughfare but Mr Shoveller said East Midlands Trains had devised "residents' passes" for people not catching a train, which would allow them to swipe through the gates.

He said, "People will have to register before being issued with a pass and we have devised a system to deter people who attempt to use their pass and then get on a train. Our computer system can detect when they have not swiped through on the other side. If this happens then their pass is revoked." He said the ticket barriers were one of a number of innovations the company was introducing to maintain revenue levels during the recession. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Jul/09)

The company at the centre of the Potters Bar rail disaster is to be paid a bonus of "hundreds of thousands of pounds" for simply doing its work properly. Jarvis Rail is among six maintenance companies to receive the handout of taxpayer's money in order to ensure there is no slump in standards. The state-backed infrastructure organisation Network Rail is paying engineering companies the money as part of its strategy of taking maintenance back "in-house".

John Armitt, the chief executive, said there was a significant dip in standards last summer just before it assumed responsibility for work in the Reading area and it was anxious to avoid a repetition elsewhere. Since then Balfour Beatty, two of whose employees face manslaughter charges over the Hatfield disaster, has received an undisclosed sum for "keeping its eye on the ball" in south-west England.

A similar handout was paid to Serco in January 2004 and will be paid to Jarvis, according to Network Rail. Other companies to benefit from the policy will be Carillion, E&W and AMEC. Iain Coucher, deputy chief executive, said the incentives were "self-financing" because they exceeded the amount Network Rail would have to pay to its customers for breaching performance standards.

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT rail union, said, "It beggars belief that huge sums of taxpayers' money can be handed over to privateers simply for doing what they've already been paid to do."

Rush hour commuters delayed for up to half an hour were astonished to be told their trains had been held up because the sun was too bright. Rail operator c2c claimed that a train driver had to be given a hand by station staff at Laindon in Essex after complaining the sun's glare made it impossible to check in a mirror on the platform if anyone was getting in or out of the carriages.

As well as causing hold ups to passengers on the train concerned, those behind it on the line between Southend and Fenchurch Street in London were delayed for up to 30 minutes. When all trains had guards, platformmirrors were not necessary. But in this age of driver-only trains, a mirror has to be used so the driver can check from his seat whether anyone is getting on or off the train as he prepares to leave the station.

A spokesman for c2c said, "Depending on which way the sun is shining and how bright it is, very occasionally it can provide a glare on the mirror which some drivers can't see past. Normally the driver sits in his cab and presses the horn, the doors will close and he will move on. In this case he couldn't see in the mirrors on the station. There are safety procedures which are put in place and that puts extra time on the journey."

He added, "We will always put safety first and if that means causing 10 to 12 minutes' delay that is what will happen. At no time was anyone in danger." Three years ago Network Rail blamed the "wrong kind of soil" for delays in the summer, saying that a heatweave had dried out clay beneath the London to Birmingham line, shifting a ten-mile section of track. (Source: Daily Mail, Aug/06)

Britain’s National Rail Enquiries plan to move their call centres to India. The scheme, aimed at slashing the £10million annual cost of the service, follows the decision by a string of companies to relocate call centres abroad. But unions warned it would lead to worse chaos on the railways and threaten more than 1,000 British jobs. Indian staff at the new call centres would be expected to handle all sorts of passenger queries from train times to details of routes and fares.

But David Fleming, national secretary of the UK’s biggest private sector union Amicus, said, “This would be an act of crass stupidity. Outsourcing this service abroad will not make trains run any faster. And there will be little confidence among the public in getting UK train information from anywhere else.” The National Rail Enquiries service handles up to 60 million calls a year. Chief executive Chris Scoggins has toured eight call centres in three Indian cities in preparation to shift all or part of the service abroad.

He has said they offered an “excellent quality” service and is now trying to set up a pilot operation in Bangalore. Mr Scoggins is reported to have said there need be no British redundancies because call centres here expect work from other sources to replace rail inquiries. But unions fear jobs would be at risk in Cardiff, Derby, Newcastle and Plymouth. And Caroline Jones of the Rail Passengers Council said, “Our main concern would be a lack of knowledge about the rail network in the UK. If you call up asking about trains from Peterborough to King’s Cross they are not going to know every stop.”

A growing number of major British firms have transferred call centres to India, where average salaries are a fifth of what they are in Britain. Tony Blair said the Government could not intervene to stop them doing so, despite concerns over loss of jobs and quality. Answering a question from Glasgow MP John Robertson, he said, “It’s a decision they have got to take commercially.”

Despite the fact that one in five trains continues to fail to run on time, commuter fares will rises by well above rate of inflation. While the average ticket price will rise by 4.1%, some fares will increase by as much as 9%. The increases were described as essential by train companies in order to carry out much-needed improvements but were condemned by passenger organisations as an unsavoury legacy of privatisation.

"Rail commuters will have to pay more for the privilege of travelling to and from work with a one in five chance of being late, thanks to the workings of the privatised rail system," said Cynthia Hay, spokeswoman for the London pressure group Capital Transport Campaign. Caroline Jones, of the Rail Passengers' Council, added, "Passengers are not happy with performance, they're not happy with the state of trains and they're not happy with the cost of their tickets."

Commuters using the London Underground also face a significant price hike. Single tickets in zone 1 increase from £1.60 to £2, while bus fares in outer zones rise from 70p to £1 for cash-paying customers. The new fares were justified by Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, as a way of encouraging people to use pre-paid tickets, which will help cut queues at Tube stations and speed up bus journeys.

The only passengers exempt from the new prices are those with an Oyster smartcard, which has a pre-pay facility and enables passengers to travel at 2003 prices. The rises were announced after a £64m shortfall was found in the Mayor's transport budget, caused by revenue from the congestion-charging scheme being lower than anticipated.

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