Government Rail Reform Update – Putting Passengers First

13 November 2024

The railway in Great Britain is heading towards a period of significant change, with the Government continuing to progress the Rail Public Ownership Bill through Parliament.

On Monday the Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh, shared an update to Parliament on the progress being made on rail reform – “the biggest overhaul of the railways in more than 30 years”. As part of this, she announced an initial step towards greater transparency for passengers, committing train operators to displaying performance data at stations, providing a picture of how the railway is working.

Our research shows people don’t care who is in charge if it’s clear someone is and they’re accountable for the service they provide, so this is a welcome step forward. We know that long-term change will take time; greater transparency along with some tangible signs of progress can help re-build trust in the meantime.

Transport Focus are already starting to work closely with colleagues at the Department for Transport, Great British Railways Transition Team and with Laura Shoaf who was recently appointed as Chair of Shadow Great British Railways.

We recently shared with them some priorities we believe are vital to creating a better railway for passengers:

• ensuring the railway is safe and accessible for all
• demonstrating to passengers that operators care about them
• working together as an industry to rebuild trust and confidence
• ensuring passengers receive the service that operators have committed to deliver
• providing clarity of accountability for when things go wrong
• stimulating revenue growth.

Drawing from our insight and experience, we are also starting to set out some practical ideas to help with this. For example, we have suggested ways to simplify fares and ticketing in the short-term, including the elimination of split tickets by charging the lower fare as standard starting with ‘train operating company internal’ split tickets (where the through fare and constituent parts are all journeys owned by the same organisation).

The relationship between passengers and the people who work on our railways is important too: how can an industry be customer focussed unless we’re confident all the people providing that service feel empowered to work in that way? Taking forward industry-wide customer and colleague surveys would be a significant step forward signalling a real desire to shift industry culture, even if the results and action took longer to deliver changes.

It is an exciting time for passengers, but one that also brings a huge challenge for the industry. We’ll keep working with everyone involved – train operating companies, the Government, Great British Railways Transition Team and many others – so that passengers stay at the centre of the reforms.