The available papers rather nicely lay out what performance measures the operator will be judged on, providing an interesting insight into current franchise thinking within TfL. Broadly speaking, the measures are broken down into three categories Headway, Delay and Capacity.
Headway is the temporal gap between a train and the one preceeding it. On Crossrail, every train which passes through the Central Operating Section between Paddington and Whitechapel will be subject to the Headway Measure. If that train exceeds by 40% or more the timetabled headway between services then the operator will be fined.
40% may initially sound like a generous measure, but it is worth remembering that for trains on the central section, particularly during peak hours, that timetabled headway is going to be very small often around 2.5mins. This means that every train which is a minute late through the central section will be subject to a fine.
The baseline fine is currently set at £150 per minute, rounded to the nearest second, per train. When the headway increase is the result of an identified delay, that figure will be modified by whose fault the delay is if it is the fault of the operator then theyll pay 110% of that baseline figure. If its someone elses fault (e.g. Network Rail) then the operator only pays 10% of the baseline figure.
Handily, TfL include some examples of how this might play out in reality:
a peak service operating 6 minutes headway at a recording point due to a passenger action where timetabled headway is 2.5 minutes in this example, the delay is attributed to the Operator who incurs a headway deduction of £577.5; that is, 3.5 minutes over the timetabled headway of 2.5 minutes multiplied by £150 per minute plus ten per cent.
And:
three peak services operating 3.5 minutes headway at a recording point due to a fault with the train doors where timetabled
headway is 2.5 minutes in this example, delay is attributed to the RSP but the Operator incurs a headway deduction of £45; that is 3 lots of 1 minute over the timetabled headway of 2.5 minutes multiplied by £150 per minute multiplied by 10 per cent.
Including the Headway Measure makes sense when you consider what one of TfLs biggest concerns with Crossrail is likely to be, which is that Crossrail is effectively a service that has to mix both metro and regional services. TfL are clearly looking to ensure that the metro element close headways through the central section is taken very seriously indeed. This is necessary to minimise the risk of overcrowding on platforms and to cater for the fact that in the Central Section it effectively needs to be like the Underground as thats how people interacting with it there will treat it.
In this context, headway is really important as passengers dont judge the Undergrounds performance on how strictly it runs to its timetable (although one naturally exists in the background), they judge it on how long they have to wait until the next train.
