Office of Rail and Road Glaister timetable crisis report

07 December 2018

Commenting on the Office of Rail and Road final report of its inquiry into timetable disruption in May Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said:

“Stephen Glaister’s report rightly requires the rail industry to place the interests of passengers at the heart decisions such as major timetable changes in future.

“Passengers paid a hefty price for the catalogue of over optimism, missed deadlines and blurred accountability that led to a summer of timetable crisis and ensuing chaos.

“When the latest timetable changes take effect this weekend on Thameslink, ScotRail and elsewhere, we will be looking to see that lessons flagged by Glaister have already been learned.

“We want Govia Thameslink to put automated delay repay in place as part of improvements it must deliver for passengers using the penalty £15m levelled earlier this week by Government.

“Someone must be clearly in charge of major timetable changes in future to ensure robust oversight and with the power to hit the stop button when something is clearly not going to work.

“The Rail Review must look at how, in future, the structure and funding of the rail industry can be changed to better underpin day-to-day delivery, management of change and value for money from the significant investment being made by passengers and taxpayers.”