The figures quoted in today’s BBC story seem to bear out my claim with St Albans annual season tickets coming in at 31 pence per mile travelled.

Of course there are the oddities – the absurdly expensive Heathrow Express and the infamous tube journey from Covent Garden to Leicester Square which was always supposed to be more expensive per distance covered than Concorde.  My concern is for standard commuter journeys which people have to use every day.

As I told the BBC, we are paying Rolls Royce prices but not getting the Rolls Royce.   I welcome any thoughts on the appropriate car model which best describes the Thameslink experience!

PS I blogged before Christmas about my meeting with rail minister Norman Baker, where I put on the table a dossier compiled by two local commuters on their recent daily experiences of First Capital Connect.  Norman promised to pass it to Tim O’Toole, chief executive of First Group, the parent company of FCC.  This has resulted in a five page letter of explanation from Mr O’Toole which Norman Baker forwarded to me today.  When I have digested its contents, I will report on them here.

What this means is that they have issued an “OJEU Notice” – ie it has been advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union, as is mandatory for all public procurement.

This minimum seven-year franchise will:

• include all services that are currently operated by the First Capital Connect (FCC) franchise from September 2013;
• at a point between April and December 2014 the franchise would include some services currently operated by Southeastern. These services would be all those that are jointly operated by FCC and Southeastern at present, and some further current Southeastern services which may be transferred to enable the implementation of the full Thameslink service operations;
• include all the services operated by the current Southern franchise at some time between July 2014 and July 2017;
• operate until 2020 (unless the Secretary of State exercises her contractual rights to extend beyond this date) allowing for the Thameslink programme infrastructure works to be completed, the new Thameslink programme rolling stock to be fully deployed, the new train control systems to be commissioned and the future Thameslink timetable to be implemented.

Using 2010/11 data, the APTU calculates this will be a £1bn per annum business from the time current Southern services are included.  We will have to see whether First Group decides to bid – if so, their many manifest failings must be put under the microscope and any promises to reform examined as rigorously as possible.

I also know (because they have contacted me) that Dutch railway operator Abellio is interested.  They already have the Northern Rail and Merseyrail franchises in the UK, and are about to take over the Greater Anglia franchise out of Liverpool Street.  Dutch railways seem to operate like clockwork and they might have some good ideas about making our rail service as bicycle friendly as possible…

Should you have £100m to spare (that is the size of the performance bond wanted to ensure that applications are serious), you can pursue this via http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/thameslink-franchise-2013

I remain sceptical about the UK rail privatisation model which has led to us having the most expensive railway in Europe in terms both of fares and of carrying out routine procedures such as renewing points and track.  When we recently met Norman Baker, the rail minister, he assured us that all new franchise agreements will be much more output driven – as compared with the current contracts which specify all sorts of inputs but don’t seem to result in trains running on time or at all.

Well the proof of the pudding will be in the travelling.

We took with us a dossier prepared by two St Albans commuters about their recent experiences using First Capital Connect’s Thameslink service.  Issues covered were

• the hopelessly inadequate knowledge of FCC staff during disruptions, when passengers using smartphones and social networks seem to know far more than platform staff but then get hopelessly frustrated because the latter cannot confirm things;
• poor and incorrect announcements, so that people are allowed to board trains which FCC know will end up being at a standstill down the line outside Radlett or wherever;  or being advised to go to Hatfield and catch a bus when a Thameslink train will come in half an hour and so is still the best alternative;
• the continued lack of effective interworking beween FCC and Network Rail, for example the age before the broken electronic information board at Farringdon was replaced;
• the refusal of East Midlands trains to accept FCC tickets during disruptions, which would at least allow St Albans commuters a sensible and timely alternative;
• increasingly high levels of off-peak overcrowding and the way that FCC has quietly dropped its previous passenger charter commitment that ‘we plan services so off-peak you should always have a seat’; and
• all the flaws of the delay repay scheme for commuters, particularly the way that compensation vouchers can’t be used for on-line ticket purchases, and compensation is only given when a journey is actually attempted, although often FCC advise people not to travel and commuters have to make alternative arrangements such as working from home.

Norman Baker listened intently.  He is already raising the issue of poor passenger communications during disruptions with ATOC, the industry body which represents rail franchisees.  The key thing is to look at best practice elsewhere (it does exist) and then ensure that all operators reach these standards.  He also revealed that the next generation of franchises will focus far more on outputs than on inputs – so the passenger experience will matter far more.  This meets one of my own long-held hobby horses, that Government has been all too ready to remove franchises when the Treasury is not paid, but strangely reluctant to bite when it is the fare-paying passenger who is let down.

By sheer chance, he was due to have a meeting with Tim O’Toole, chairman of the First Group parent company of FCC, later this afternoon and promised to raise all these issues directly with him – including giving him the above-mentioned dossier.

So we’ll watch this space.

PS Norman is also the minister to thank for getting next year’s fare rises reduced from the planned RPI+3 percent to the previous RPI+1 percent

PPS On the way there and back (on trains that were on time and using the south bank exit from Blackfriars for the first time) I was re-reading the appropriately titled Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood – no Erste Kapital Konnekt in Berlin…

He wrote that he and senior colleagues “have spoken to and corresponded with many customers as well as meeting with a high proportion of MPs along the route.”

And guess what, they have decided to improve the compensation package for season ticket holders (annual season ticket holders will now get a 7 percent discount and weekly ticket holders a further two free tickets).  He also announced investment in trains and also in better communications technology for staff when future problems happen.

Anyone would think there was an election in the offing.

Perhaps they are finally smelling the coffee.  But it has come so late that it will do little to quell the fury of travellers.

I am knocking on doors across the constituency and the feedback is the same everywhere.  Only last evening I met a voter in London Colney who told me that she had lost a promotion at work because of her problems getting into work on time over so many months – and this is just one voter among many.

This announcement still provides for less than one month’s free travel for annual ticket holders.  It still does absolutely nothing for regular off-peak travellers for whom it does not make sense to buy season tickets because they work from home some days a week or their work demands that they travel outside peak hours.

The Delay Repay scheme so trumpeted by FCC is despised by everyone for its complexity and meannesss.

As for the announcements on train and station investment, this is what they should be doing as franchisee.  It is welcome to have the confirmation that improvements are finally underway, but for many it will feel like bolting the stable door.

The picture taken by Gary Shore of Gaslight shows Norman and myself telling the audience at the end of the meeting that we were off to The Goat, where Norman had performed in a gig back in 1978, long before he got into Parliament and achieved his current reputation as a tireless campaigner and Liberal Democrat spokesman on transport.

But first of all there was the serious stuff.   Chris White, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Herts County Council, opened the meeting and set the context.  I then covered all FCC’s multiple failings which have been well rehearsed previously in this blog – just type First Capital Connect into the search box on the right hand side.  I pointed out that statutory mechanisms exist for franchises to be taken back temporarily into public sector management as has happened with East Coast Mainlines currently and previously happened with the terrible Connex.

The audience was then invited to share their own experiences,  and we had a stream of interesting comments and questions, including whether it is now possible for FCC to lose their franchise.

Norman listened hard to all the points and interjections, and then gave a thoughtful and detailed response, showing a considerable grasp of First Group and FCC’s history and performance both on Thameslink and elsewhere.  He reeled off the statistics on FCC’s relative performance not just over this last winter but for the previous few years and showed how they had consistently under-performed the rest of the rail industry.

He agreed with members of the audience that FCC’s business choice not to employ a sufficient number of drivers and rely disproportionately on rest day working barely justified the argument that all the consequential train cancellations were the result of force majeure when the drivers quite legally refused to play ball.  Since this was the basis of the Department for Transport deciding FCC were not in breach of their franchise obligations, it does indicate an unhealthily close relationship between ministers, officials and franchisees.

The core of his argument was that current franchise arrangements are far too Treasury-focused when they should be passenger-focused.  So the franchises were taken away from Sea Containers and National Express on East Coast Mainlines when they failed to pay the Treasury, while no similar action was taken against FCC when they failed their passengers.  We have a railway run for the Treasury and not for the public.

He was adamant that FCC should not have any franchise extension after the end of the current term in 2012 and that they had to be on  notice for any further failure to deliver their promises to passengers.

Norman ended by painting a vision of longer franchises with passenger-focused targets rather that Treasury ones.  He highlighted the investment being made by Chiltern Railways (which has a 22 year term) in a brand new stretch of track which will create a new route from Oxford to London.  More money could be pumped into the system by making Network Rail match international benchmarks for efficiency and so lower the industry’s costs, by cutting expenditure on new motorways, and by channelling funds through the new National Infrastructure Bank envisioned by Vince Cable.

And on a final note, he alerted us to announcements to be made later this week by the Liberal Democrats on a new vision for fares and better ways of compensating passengers for poor performance.  Watch this space.

The mechanism exists for rail franchises to be handed back if franchisees fail to deliver the promised service.  FCC seems to have had a charmed life in hanging on to its lucrative monopoly, it is time that passengers had their say.

So we are calling a public meeting for next Tuesday 16 March to discuss whether FCC should now lose their franchise.  The main speaker will be my friend Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesman in the House of Commons.  The meeting will take place at Marlborough Road Methodist Church in the centre of the city (see directions here) and starts at 7.00 pm with doors opening at 6.30 pm – so do put the date in your diary!

When I successfully proposed my motion on rail franchises at last autumn’s Liberal Democrat conference, Norman summed up the debate.  The Daily Mail has described him as having ‘consistently been a thorn in the Government’s side’. In 2001 he was named “Inquisitor of the Year” in the Zurich/Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards and, in February 2002, he won the Channel 4 Opposition MP of the Year Award.

It’s going to be a lively meeting, I hope to see you there.

The arrival and departure boards at St Albans City gleamed with on-time trains tonight. How different from recent months.  And what a coincidence that the FCC top management were doing their Meet the Managers (or “Face the Music”) session, not to mention more radio and television crews as well as local media than you could shake a stick at.

It’s nice to know an on-time service can be delivered.  More please.

FCC certainly has “transformed” travel but not perhaps in the way that the marketing copywriters had intended.

Ms Grant was there with Neal Lawson, the new MD of FCC, to meet Norman Baker MP, the LibDem shadow transport secretary, and fellow LibDem MPs Tom Brake and Paul Burstow, both of whom represent constituencies “served” by FCC.  Also present was Bill Bradshaw, former Director of Strategy for British Rail and now LibDem transport spokesman in the House of Lords.  Norman had kindly asked me to join them, together with Nigel Quinton, my counterpart in Hitchin & Harpenden.

At least there were no New Labour crocodile tears.  But no tears at all really.  Some routine expressions of regret – “how we inconvenienced passengers was unacceptable” – but I had no sense that they truly understood just how horrible the last few months have been for local commuters.  As a met police detective said to me last night, “Ive never had such an awful time.”  We heard a lot of excuses and “force majeure” was dusted down rather a lot.

There was some explanation of what went wrong.  The new 377 class trains delivered late by Bombardier so that driver training had to be compressed, taking a lot of drivers away from their daily duties.  Lack of new trains meant the old trains had to stay in service and miss key modifications.  As a result more need to rely on goodwill from the remaining drivers in terms of rest day working.  Mix in an unpopular pay proposal.  Have the inevitable teething problems with new trains, add snow, stir well and wait for chaos.

I listed just some of the litany of complaints I have received, particularly the niggardliness and complexity of the compensation packages, and I compared it with the much more generous terms offered to travellers in Berlin who experienced a similar collapse in service.  I particularly criticised the Delay Repay scheme, echoing many comments made to me by St Albans travellers.

Ms Grant told us that they had already processed 73,000 delay repay schemes, with many more coming in.  When pressed, she conceded that they were being as flexible as possible.  Firstly the 30 minute delay is being measured against the original timetable and not the emergency one.  I am not sure this has been clearly communicated so I am communicating it now.  Secondly they are waiving all time limits for claims.  Thirdly they will not demand tickets or receipts as long as there is some evidence of travel, for example a credit card bill.  I report all this because it may allow people to bump up their own personal compensation, albeit through a tediously bureaucratic process.

I suspect it won’t help the occasional traveller even when they are regular users – I have had numbers of comments from people who travel into London off peak or no more than three times a week.  In both cases there is no need for them to have season tickets and they slip through the net.

I told her about inaudible announcements at West Hampstead, rude and offensive staff at St Pancras, and flakey text alerts.  I told her that FCC was deep in the mire and would have a long journey to recover any respect from its customers.  “God is in the detail” I said – they will have to be perfect in every aspect – clean toilets, clean stations and rolling stock, excellent timekeeping, good real time communication, full length trains, staff there when you want them.  It will be a long haul back, I’m not sure FCC gets it, in which case steps should be taken to remove the franchise.

PS I hope any reader using St Albans City Station comes along to Meet The Managers this coming Friday between 4.30 and 7 pm.  Mary Grant won’t be there, but Neal Lawson will – and so will Three Counties Radio.  It will be worth making your voice heard.

The latest proposals are unnecessarily complex and frankly niggardly.  People who had a break in season tickets – for example when the previous one expired around Christmas and there was no point renewing before going back to work – look to be losing out.

As for people who have already claimed under the Delay Repay Scheme, the way this has been handled beggars belief.  I am told by local commuters that rather than one single set of tickets for a combined claim, passengers are receiving a separate envelope and letter with rail travel voucher for each journey leg where delays were more than 30 minutes.  One local commuter told me she came home to 13 separate letters, each with 36p postage.  One of her fellow passengers had his letter box inundated with 24 identical envelopes, again each carrying 36p postage.  This will have been repeated for thousands of commuters.  A huge amount of money swallowed up in postage and unnecessary bureaucracy.

Presumably if you are a season ticket holder, you have to put these vouchers behind the proverbial clock on the mantelpiece and wait till your season ticket runs out, then use the vouchers (which won’t cover any underground element) and then renew the season ticket.

I have previously noted the basic unfairness of the one-size-fits-all national Delay Repay scheme with its cut-off point of 30 minutes, so St Albans commuters have to be delayed by more than 100 perent of their journey time to qualify.  It would have been far better if FCC had devised a simple and appropriately generous season ticket extension scheme from the beginning.  My son lives in Berlin.  They had a major problem lasting weeks with the surface railway S-Bahn – operated by a private company.  Annual season ticket holders got a month’s free travel, monthly season holders got an extra week.  Simple and uncomplicated.

The 14 December temporary timetable still shows a reduction of 30% in the advertised train service – hardly an improvement on the previous timetable which was a reduction of 38%.

Apparently drivers at two of the three depots on the Thameslink route have returned to normal working.  But if you read some of the comments posted on the self-styled “First Crapital Connect” website (mordantly funny but with a powerful string of passenger comment), even when drivers are making themselves available to work on rest days thay are not always being found things to do.

Nor does it look particularly optimistic on the compensation front apart from the almost meaningless industry standard “delay repay” for 30 minutes or over.

They seem to have ruled out ticket extensions because of the impact on other operators.  And if cash refunds are offered, it seems that we the taxpayer will be paying most of the money rather than FirstGroup because of the hideously complicated revenue support arrangements under the franchise.

I cannot do better (or worse) than quote the APTU newsletter:

The issue in this case is “Revenue Support” – often known as “Cap and Collar”.  This is a feature of franchise contracts where the operator receives monies from the Government if revenue is short of expectation (as defined in the contract) – and conversely, pays an additional fee if revenues exceed those expected.  The exact rules and precise amounts at which it kicks in are shrouded in mystery (“commercially confidential” is usually claimed), but it is clear that FCC are now receiving the maximum amounts payable, so for every £1 reduction in revenue, 80p is paid by the Department for Transport (or, to be more accurate, the tax payer).  If we are to be reimbursed, 80p in every £1 will therefore, in effect, come from the government.

The whole thing is simply surreal.  We have to keep pushing for proper compensation but First Group will have to do a lot to persuade me that they should ever be granted a rail franchise again – and any future franchises must have much tougher sanctions to protect passenger interests.