Future of Rail (Passenger Experience)

Robert Flello Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Sixth Report from the Transport Committee of Session 2016-17, The future of rail: Improving the rail passenger experience, HC 64, and the Government Response, HC 905.

It is a pleasure, Sir Edward, to serve under your chairmanship.

Our inquiry into improving the rail passenger experience started early last year, as the second of a series of five investigations into the future of rail. We have also looked at rail technology and rail franchising; we are currently considering rail safety; and we will complete our rail inquiries by looking at rail finance and governance.

There is no doubt that the number of people travelling by train has increased dramatically, which is a real success story, but what of the passenger experience? Examining this issue means examining some pretty basic issues. How easy is it to find and purchase the best-value ticket? How crowded is the train? Are there enough seats? How clearly is information presented on websites and apps? Are staff available to assist people at the station and reassure passengers about safety? How well does the train company keep passengers informed about disruption during the journey? Most fundamentally of all, will the train be on time? Will it be on time to the station to which the individual passenger is travelling and not simply on time at its final destination? We identified many improvements that are required, and the need for some of them is very long standing.

Let us consider the first aspect—looking for and buying the best-value ticket for a journey. The sheer complexity of ticketing, with different types of tickets across the patchwork of operators, has been an issue for far too long. Ten years ago, the Transport Committee described the complexity in rail fares as an “insult to the passenger”. In 2006, the Transport Committee decried the fact that the situation had been allowed to persist for several years. Yet last year we found that this fundamental problem had barely been dealt with and that the situation had barely changed, beyond some very small improvements. Some improvements to ticket vending machines had taken place, for example, but they were small improvements in comparison with the scale of the problem. Despite in-depth research by consumer groups and numerous pronouncements by the regulator—the Office of Rail and Road—and the industry, the problem persists.

A particularly unfair phenomenon is split ticketing. It is often possible for passengers who have the knowledge and time to undertake intricate research to save considerable sums of money by buying separate tickets for different portions of the same journey. It was possible to save money through split ticketing on 33 of 50 cross-country journeys that were examined by The Times last year, when it conducted a survey on this problem. This situation is unsatisfactory and unfair. People can pay as much as £85 more than is necessary for a single train journey, for example on the service from Penzance to Birmingham. There is a differential of £85 if someone buys split tickets rather than just buying one ticket. Further examples can be found on numerous routes.

Despite the problem having been well understood for a long time, no one in the rail sector appears to have a grip on it and no one seems to be responsible for dealing with it. The Transport Committee has been told on numerous occasions by a succession of Ministers that this issue will be dealt with, but nothing has happened and nobody seems to have the power to enforce any change.

Recently the Department for Transport, together with the Rail Delivery Group and the regulator, published a plan to deal with these issues; it contained proposals in December about certain trials that were to take place. It is unclear how effective this plan will be and we still do not know the full details of what these trials will be and where they will take place. I assure the Minister that, as a Committee, we will follow this matter up. It is good to have a plan, but we need to know exactly what it is, how effective it is and—if it is effective—how it would be rolled out across the system.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Given that there are some extremely good websites out there—I have personal experience of using seat61.com and loco2.com—it is possible, quite straightforwardly, for someone to work out good rail routes, if they have access to a computer. So, given that it is possible, why does it seem so difficult for the Government and the train companies to resolve this issue, and what about those people who do not have access to a computer?

[Mrs Ellman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. If somebody has the time, the knowledge, the ability and the access to the appropriate technology, they can discover a lot of information, but it is not available to everyone, and I find it very surprising that Ministers and the rail sector as a whole are simply unable to take up this issue and ensure that information that is technically available is actually available to the ordinary passenger. That is where my concern lies and where the Committee’s concern lies.

[Mrs Ellman]

My hon. Friend makes another excellent point. There is nothing more frustrating for a passenger than to be told that tickets are available, only to go along to their local station and find that that simply is not the case. I say again that this is a long-standing issue. It is known about, Ministers are well aware of it, but very little indeed has been done to resolve it. My hon. Friend has done a great service to her constituents in drawing attention to this issue during this debate.

Rail passengers want clear and accurate information about their journeys. They want information not only on how to go about their journey and what sorts of journeys are available but on how a journey is progressing. Too often, however, that information is simply not being provided.

When we conducted our inquiry and called for evidence, it came flooding in and we saw that passengers were largely negative, first about their experience of train operating companies’ websites. One such website was described by a passenger as being

“appalling, badly designed, inefficient, difficult to use, often to the point of being unusable”.

Some smartphone apps seem little better, as they routinely failed to provide reliable information, for example about which platform a train will depart from. Once again, that is basic information and it is galling for passengers to read reports about systems being put in place, which can all sound very good. What really matters is what happens to an individual when they make their journey. That is what really counts.

It is important that the technology is available and accessible, but it is also important that people are actually at hand in stations to give assistance and information. That help is essential for everybody—travellers want to see actual people around who can help them, and give them guidance and information—but for people who have a disability it is absolutely essential. Although the systems in place for assisting people with disabilities to travel by train sometimes work, there are also occasions when those systems break down, which is another great concern for us.

Overcrowding is another ongoing concern. It does not happen everywhere, but where it does happen it is extremely important and creates major obstacles. Many people told us that their journeys were uncomfortable. They often worried about whether they could actually get on the train. Many were concerned about the potential danger in getting on very crowded trains, and that is stressful.

[Robert Flello]

My hon. Friend is being generous with her time. I had an email recently from a constituent who is trained in first aid and who was concerned about a journey from Birmingham to Wolverhampton; she and others were standing and somebody fainted so she went to provide assistance. There was not space for the person to lie down, as is required when giving first aid to someone who has fainted. When the train crew got on, they said, “This happens regularly, because the train is so regularly crowded. We are used to people passing out.”

[Mrs Ellman]

My hon. Friend draws attention to a situation that is all too common. If there is sporadic overcrowding, that can perhaps be coped with, but when it happens regularly, it requires attention and the situation is not being addressed. A great deal of the publicity about overcrowding relates to commuter lines into London, and that is where most of the overcrowding takes place, but it does not solely affect London. There is overcrowding on other routes, too. In Manchester, rush-hour trains are on average 4% over capacity, with 12% of passengers regularly standing. That is a lot of people, and average figures mask a lot of difference. The top 10 overcrowded train services in England and Wales are between 61% and 129% over capacity. Eight of the 10 most overcrowded services are in the London area, with two in Manchester, but there are examples throughout the country. This issue needs attention and it must not be ignored.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Flello]

Absolutely, and the same is true on the train that runs through Stoke-on-Trent on the Crewe-Derby line. It is a single unit and overcrowded, but nothing has been done for years. Nobody seems to care.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside said, there is even a top 10 of overcrowding. I do not know whether the Market Rasen service is on it, but it certainly ought to be. The reality is that it is a single unit. East Midlands Trains will say, as it has said to me, “There isn’t enough rolling stock available, even when it cascades down after new stock has come on,” but that has been the case for 10 years. How long does it take to produce a new diesel unit to run that service?

If trains are regularly overcrowded, notwithstanding the fact that the rail experience is not particularly desirable from the passenger’s point of view, surely the companies are falling down on the commitments they made in their franchises. If they are not falling down on their commitments, the franchise agreements need tightening up.

Finally—the Minister would not expect me not to mention this issue; we have spoken about it on many occasions—the rail experience is much better if people do not have to change trains and there are through services. British Rail ended through services from Cleethorpes to King’s Cross in 1992, and it is about time they were restored.

I know the Minister is sympathetic and that you, Sir Edward, are sympathetic, because you would like through services to go through Market Rasen and Lincoln as they used to. It is about time that the Minister made some more sympathetic noises and guided me through the system, so that in the not-too-distant future—preferably before the next general election—we have an absolute commitment to provide such a service.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on her introduction to the report and the Government response. I came on to the Committee part way through the investigation, but I feel a certain amount of ownership because in my previous life on the Select Committee I was involved in the 2006 report. I am dismayed to be back here still debating exactly the same things we raised in our report all that time ago.

Before the 1997 general election I went to an event attended by the comedian and satirist John Bird, back when rail privatisation was still in its fledgling years. He said that the rail operating companies had given up calling people “passengers” because they did not want to give them the idea that they had any intention of taking them anywhere. People served by Southern and Southeastern —my constituents are served by Southeastern—get the impression that nothing at all has changed since. Things have not moved on.

The passenger experience is at the heart of what we should be seeking to achieve in our railways. It is not satisfactory to say that the railways must be a success because so many more people are travelling on them. People travelling on Southern, for example, do so because they have no alternative but to suffer the service they are being offered. After all, there are few alternatives for getting to work other than to suffer that service.

The poor performance of Southern and Southeastern is exacerbated by the development taking place at London Bridge. I commend the railway industry for keeping London Bridge operating while such an incredible feat of engineering is taking place—to add two additional lines through so busy a station while keeping much of it operating is quite an achievement—but that does not excuse the frequency with which my constituents are inconvenienced because the infrastructure has broken down, whether it is a set of points at Charing Cross, London Bridge or Lewisham, as is frequently the case, or a train that is blocking the rail. That is too often the experience of the customer.

Recently, quite late one evening, coming back from the House, I was at Waterloo East and the trains were all delayed—I cannot remember whether it was a train or the points on that occasion. A woman standing next to me shouted across to the central platforms of the station, trying to get some information from the staff about how she could get to the station that she wanted to get to. They were holding their hands to their ears, trying to hear what she was saying, then a train trundled between them and stopped at the platform. The woman sauntered off down the platform and the train left, while the staff kept talking to each other on the other platform. The impression was that the staff were so beaten down by the quality of the service that they had given up making any attempt to assist passengers.

There is something in that about the quality of the customer interface; the interaction of staff and passengers who have been inconvenienced. That needs to be addressed and the Government should hold the train operating companies to account for it. It is not good enough to collect statistics. The companies should train their staff to react and respond to passengers, in particular when the service is disrupted, and they should be readily available to provide prompt advice. Waterloo East station has four platforms, but on that occasion four members of staff were all on the two central platforms. Why were they not deployed to help the customers who needed information? Southeastern needs a rocket under it to provide better information. I have other experiences, which I could go into.

[Robert Flello]

I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s contribution. I wanted to make a point about some of our stations, as I shall very shortly experience the joys of Euston station, to get back to Stoke. Why is it, for example, that we are told only 15 minutes before departure which platform our train to Stoke is to leave from, even though the train has been there for ages? That sort of thing drives people crazy.

[Clive Efford]

My hon. Friend’s intervention is incredibly timely, because I was about to go on to describe my attempts to get to Stoke-on-Trent on Virgin Trains on 23 February. I was fortunate that I did not take the 10.30 am train as my colleagues had. It had left, but perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is present, only got to Stafford at 8 o’clock in the evening, as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) did. He texted me from there; he had been travelling for more than 10 hours. My train did not leave at all. I sat there for 45 minutes and finally it was cancelled, although that turned out to be fortunate, because I did not end up trapped half way up the country, nowhere near where I wanted to go.

I then tried to claim my ticket back. I know we are going to do an inquiry into this, but it too is part of the passenger experience. As instructed, I went on to the Virgin website to claim my ticket back, but there was no facility to say that my train had been cancelled. I was allowed to say that my train had been delayed, but I was unable to say that it had been cancelled. Every time I pressed the button, I was sent back to the beginning, so I took to Twitter and asked, “Is anyone else having this problem with Virgin rail?” I am sure because I am a Member of Parliament and on the Select Committee, I then got Rolls-Royce treatment—[Interruption.] It was absolutely Rolls-Royce, because Virgin wrote back to me saying, “Dear Joseph”, and that they were sorry about my customer experience. They also sent me half the money and we finally resolved the matter. The point, however, is that the experience should not be like that.

In the report one of the online ticketing companies, Trainline, said that people were uncertain whether they had bought the cheapest ticket, which was a barrier to some people choosing to use rail at all. Which companies make the cost of their product so opaque that it might put customers off, other than one that has a trapped market and people who have no choice but to use that service, no matter how bad it is? We really need to deal with that customer experience.

My last point is about overcrowding and capacity. I go back to Southeastern. The figures in the report show that Southeastern operates an appalling service. It is one of the worst, and it should be thankful for Southern which stops it from being bottom of the customer satisfaction rankings. When we consider that every day so many people in south-east London rely on that surface rail service to get to work, and that there is no alternative but road, we realise what an appalling service it is and what an appalling and disproportionate impact it has on the lives of people from that part of London.

Many people think that the whole of London is served by the underground, but my part of London is well outside the orbit of the underground, and buses from outer south-east London take a devil of a time to get into central London. We rely almost entirely on that commuter rail service, and it is not acceptable that it is such an appalling performer. When we do get on trains, they are overcrowded at peak times because they are not long enough and there are so few alternatives to that rail service.

We have lengthened the platforms, so let us now lengthen the trains. We need to ensure that we have the capacity on Southeastern rail services so that people can get on the trains at peak time. We need 12-car trains serving the metro services in south-east London so that constituents from north Kent and my constituency can get to work comfortably and on time every day. Thank you, Sir Edward, for allowing me to make that contribution.