Penalty for cancelling train ?

[notadriver]

Can anyone tell me how much it normally costs a TOC if they have to cancel a train?

 

[cf111]

I imagine it depends on the TOC and their franchise agreement, as well as any knock-on effect the cancellation may have as well as the reason for the cancellation. Probably all commercial secret too.

 

[Bald Rick]

It depends on:

The Operator concerned
The service group (origin/destination and peak/off peak)
The nature of the cancellation (full, part, and if part, how many monitoring points were missed)
The responsible party (Network Rail, or the TOC)
How much notice is given to passengers for the cancellation
The number of other services cancelled in that service group in the relevant reporting period.

All this is wrapped up in the franchise / concession agreement with the specifying authority (DfT, TfL, Transport Scotland, etc) and the track access contract with Network Rail.

Typically the 'penalty' is more (much more) for busier trains.

All this is before the payments to passengers who can (potentially) claim through delay / repay.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Its probably worked out as a % of revenue and not something that is disclosed to the public

 

[Bald Rick]

Its probably worked out as a % of revenue and not something that is disclosed to the public

It isn't (either).

 

[BestWestern]

GTR have a slightly different system, whereby they blame all cancellations on their Conductors skiving and the government pays them £20 million.

 

[yorkie]

Can anyone tell me how much it normally costs a TOC if they have to cancel a train?

There is no single answer to this.

There was a thread posted just the other day...

Every cancelled train has a cost attached, of course.

...but that cost will vary (it wouldn't make sense for a 2-car Pacer from York to Leeds to have the same cost as the Highland Chieftain, for example)

Also it may be difficult to attempt quantify a cost for a "a train" on its own because it may depend on how many other trains are being cancelled within that period.

 

[notadriver]

Would £1k as a minimum for a 4 car London bound service be a reasonable guess ?


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[deltic]

Would £1k as a minimum for a 4 car London bound service be a reasonable guess ?


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Not a bad guess but likely to be at around double that and that would be an all day average

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

GTR have a slightly different system, whereby they blame all cancellations on their Conductors skiving and the government pays them £20 million.

I thought that someone on this website had said that £20 million had not been paid to GTR, but had been placed in a special account that only Network Rail controlled.

If that person was wrong to have made this statement, can someone else make a statement of the correct facts of the case.

 

[Class377/5]

GTR have a slightly different system, whereby they blame all cancellations on their Conductors skiving and the government pays them £20 million.

Unless it's a failed sense of humour, don't see how spending money on a review by an external person, money towards infrastructure issue and more signalling staff counts as anything towards a TOC. In fact most is being spent on improving NR. But again I'm using facts when the OP was jumping on the current bandwagon.

 

[HH]

Can anyone tell me how much it normally costs a TOC if they have to cancel a train?

Several good answers to this already, but there are some missing elements. In most franchises there are several possible costs associated with cancelling a train:

1. They may have to pay delay/repay to members of the travelling public; this depends somewhat on both their passengers' charter on delay/repay and the frequency of the service.

2. They may have to make Schedule 8 payments to Network Rail; this is not a definite, because performance is averaged over a 4-weekly period and compared to a benchmark. This is payable because NR have to pay other TOCs for the delay caused. Rates depend on the rates NR have to pay those other TOCs and this is (very) roughly based on the revenue they earn.

3. They may have to pay penalties to DfT; again this is not a definite, because again this is a periodic measure against a benchmark. Rates depend on what DfT decided when it let the franchise. In addition, if they go too far over the benchmark, TOCs may be forced to spend additional money on improving their performance, at the DfT's discretion (always exercised in my experience).

4. If they cancel too many trains (or are too late too often) they will lose customers and that means loss of (long term) revenue.

It ought to be clear from this that there is no exact answer to the question. TBH there's not even a meaningful rough answer. Most TOCs will look at some of the above and do an average calculation based on what they pay out in total, but that's all it would be - it's not even a very good predictor for future cost.

What you could say is, that a one-off cancellation on country route in the off peak would cost very little, but that a peak cancellation on the ECML (say) during a period of poor performance could cost quite a lot.

 

[grumblingalong]

Unless it's a failed sense of humour, don't see how spending money on a review by an external person, money towards infrastructure issue and more signalling staff counts as anything towards a TOC. In fact most is being spent on improving NR. But again I'm using facts when the OP was jumping on the current bandwagon.

I'd be questioning whose sense of humour has failed here, because I don't think it was the OP.

 

[hwl]

I thought that someone on this website had said that £20 million had not been paid to GTR, but had been placed in a special account that only Network Rail controlled.

If that person was wrong to have made this statement, can someone else make a statement of the correct facts of the case.

That person was right, Best Western failed to use the [sarcasm][/Sarcasm] tags

 

[BestWestern]

I'd be questioning whose sense of humour has failed here, because I don't think it was the OP.

Glad you said that, thought I'd walked into a morgue!

 

[work-traveller]

I seem to remember a similar discussion some time ago. One point made was that, apparently, when a train delay becomes long enough, it's cheaper for the TOC to cancel the service (and pay that fine) rather than continue to the destination arriving very late (and pay a larger fine).

 

[HH]

I seem to remember a similar discussion some time ago. One point made was that, apparently, when a train delay becomes long enough, it's cheaper for the TOC to cancel the service (and pay that fine) rather than continue to the destination arriving very late (and pay a larger fine).

Apart from the fact that it's not a fine and it's a gross simplification then that is true - cancelled trains have a deemed lateness and that lateness is generally the gap between trains, so if there are two trains per hour it will be 30 minutes.

However (and this is a big however) the difference it makes is minor in the scale of things and I cannot see a TOC upsetting a pile of passengers to save pennies. If the train is cancelled it's probably because it recovers the service more quickly.

 

[The Ham]

Apart from the fact that it's not a fine and it's a gross simplification then that is true - cancelled trains have a deemed lateness and that lateness is generally the gap between trains, so if there are two trains per hour it will be 30 minutes.

However (and this is a big however) the difference it makes is minor in the scale of things and I cannot see a TOC upsetting a pile of passengers to save pennies. If the train is cancelled it's probably because it recovers the service more quickly.

Although I can see the advantage of cancelling trains to recover the service more quickly, not all cancellations are equal.

For instance if SWT (as the often do) cut short the WofE services so that they turn around at Basingstoke, then that has limited impact on how long it take those passengers to get where they are going (i.e. heading towards London they just get on the next train which could be a few minutes later, heading away from London the worst case is they have to wait 30 minutes at Basingstoke having just missed the previous service). However, if SWT cancel stops at Woking on the Alton services or Basingstoke services then it can make it hard for passengers to get to where they are wanting to go, in those circumstances sometimes it is safer to go to Guildford and then go up to Aldershot or Farnborough (with a walk from North to Main) to ensure that the following train(s) aren't also going to skip Woking out or alternatively go down to Basingstoke and double back.

Given that Farnborough Main has about 1/2 the annual passengers of Basingstoke (but with only about 1/3 of the number of services) it can be (in comparison) nigh on impossible to get to from certain stations (mostly anything not Waterloo east of Brookwood) during times of disruption.

 

[HH]

Although I can see the advantage of cancelling trains to recover the service more quickly, not all cancellations are equal.

They're not from passenger's point of view, but neither from an operator's. That train might be needed for several more services, which would all have to be cancelled if the original service is not terminated, or the driver may be close to exceeding his driving hours, with no available replacement. In general TOCs try their hardest not to cancel trains in the peaks, but sometimes the alternatives are worse or don't exist.

 

[Bodiddly]

"GTR have a slightly different system, whereby they blame all cancellations on their Conductors skiving and the government pays them £20 million."

I thought that someone on this website had said that £20 million had not been paid to GTR, but had been placed in a special account that only Network Rail controlled.

If that person was wrong to have made this statement, can someone else make a statement of the correct facts of the case.

I think you may find that was sarcasm Paul.

 

[pdeaves]

Typically the 'penalty' is more (much more) for busier trains.

Of course, if a train doesn't run, it can't be busy!

(I do know what you meant...)

 

[Bald Rick]

Of course, if a train doesn't run, it can't be busy!

(I do know what you meant...)

Tell that to 1500 people booted off a train that is cancelled mid-journey!

 

[grumblingalong]

Glad you said that, thought I'd walked into a morgue!

I unfortunately expect no different on this forum a lot of the time!

 

[bb21]

I unfortunately expect no different on this forum a lot of the time!

If you read all posts on this forum with a straight face you ain't gonna last long.

 

[Mugby]

I would imagine the rules have been changed or revised in the years since privatisation, I remember when Arriva Trains Northern got into tremendous difficulties in the Yorkshire area about fifteen years ago after allowing too many drivers to take voluntary redundancy. There were wholesale cancellations with bustitution for a prolonged period and some services were never fully restored (Leeds - Goole?) It culminated in a £2 million fine from the former SRA. If the penalties had been imposed piecemeal, they would probably have bankrupted Arriva.

But of course, we must forget that, it's all in the past. Now remind me, who is it who's just been awarded the Northern franchise again?

 

[transmanche]

IBut of course, we must forget that, it's all in the past. Now remind me, who is it who's just been awarded the Northern franchise again?

I think that most of the problems had their root causes well before Arriva purchased MTL in February 2000. You can't recruit and train 290 drivers overnight!