Rail subsidies per passenger mile (2015/2016)

[northwichcat]

DfT have revealed rail subsidies per passenger mile for 2015/2016.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-subsidy-per-passenger-mile As usual ATW, Scotrail, LO and Merseyrail aren't included as they aren't let by DfT. Greater Anglia has seen the biggest negative change and Southern (ironically) have seen the biggest positive change. Obviously for Northern and TPE the franchises have since been re-let on reduced subsidies with the intention that TPE will move to premium paying and it won't be long before LM is re-let.

Northern 35.3p (up 1.1p)
LM 14.4p (down 2.2p)
TPE 11.4p (down 1.9p)
Southeastern 10.5p (up 1.1p)
CrossCountry 7p (down 1.3p)
VTWC 6.5p (down 1.1p)
GWR 6.1p (down 0.7p)
EMT 5.2p (up 0.5p)
Greater Anglia 4.6p (up 2p)
Chiltern 2.7p (up 0.5p)
VTEC 2.4p (up 1.3p)
c2c 1.8p (down 2.6p)
GTR 1.6p (up 0.8p)
SWT 3.3p premium (premium down by 0.1p)
Southern 3.8p premium (premium increased by 3.5p)

 

[ainsworth74]

Maybe it's just me but I'm a bit confused by the colour scheme you've chose there. Any chance of a key?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The figures are completely skewed by the Network Grant figure (payments directly from DfT to Network Rail), which tips all but SWT and SN into subsidy.
The overall passenger rail subsidy (in the DfT document) is still over £2 billion.

 

[HowardGWR]

Maybe it's just me but I'm a bit confused by the colour scheme you've chose there. Any chance of a key?

It's just you possibly.. Green is improved, red is worse than before.

 

[northwichcat]

The figures are completely skewed by the Network Grant figure (payments directly from DfT to Network Rail), which tips all but SWT and SN into subsidy.
The overall passenger rail subsidy (in the DfT document) is still over £2 billion.

There is also the criticism that the Network Rail charges are a lot more favourable to the operators who operate long trains over those which operate slow trains.

 

[WatcherZero]

Government subsidy per passenger km published by ORR this week.

http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/22982/rail-finance-statistical-release-2015-16.pdf

All Tocs -1.2p
ATW 13.1 (Highest per km, £160m)
Northern 10.7
Scotrail 10.2 (Highest subsidy of £293m)
Caledonian 9.1 (subsidy of £17m previously paid to Scotrail)
LM 1.6
Southeastern 1.2
TPE 0.7
GWR -1.5
VTWC -2.2
XC -2.2
Chiltern -2.3
EMT -3.3
GA -3.3
C2C -3.3
Thameslink -3.8 (second highest premium £279m)
SWT -6.1 (Highest premium of £388m)
Southern (pre merger) -6.2


Edit:

Pilot review of changes to Network Grant allocation published in June. ORR has written to Network Rail to confirm they want this trial rolled out to a national level, that they are unhappy with the capacity cost of infrastructure enhancement suggestion (since its hard to judge what enhancement is being done purely due to pathing capacity constraints and what other work has the knock on benefit of increasing capacity). They also want included the opportunity cost of peak pathing, ie. operating a service in peak should cost more than during a quieter time of day because its using limited capacity.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...D_NeM5vYFplDmmTYtdLBuA&bvm=bv.135475266,d.ZGg

 

[ainsworth74]

It's just you possibly.. Green is improved, red is worse than before.

Possibly the way my head works then. To me the green would suggest premium and the red subsidy!

 

[daccer]

These figures are always an interesting read but with the methodologies that are being used changing so often year on year comparisons are pretty pointless. The overall amount of subsidy is what really matters and as long as this keeps coming down the Govt will be happy. It would be interesting to see what the current subsidy levels are overall and what they are forecast to be with the current franchise plans and Network Rail ' savings' (if they ever occur!)

 

[Greybeard33]

The figures are completely skewed by the Network Grant figure (payments directly from DfT to Network Rail), which tips all but SWT and SN into subsidy.
The overall passenger rail subsidy (in the DfT document) is still over £2 billion.

The reason for the differences between the ORR figures and the DfT figures (after converting miles to km) is, of course, that the DfT includes the Network Grant allocation whereas the ORR does not.

As I understand it, the reason the Network Grant is paid directly to Network Rail is that the Treasury regards it as Capital Account investment in network improvements, rather than Current Account operating subsidy. It is additional to the track access charges that the TOCs and FOCs themselves pay to NR to cover day-to-day operations and maintenance. So it seems somewhat disingenuous for DfT to divvy up the Network Grant arbitrarily between the TOCs and include it in the published subsidy chart. Like regarding investment in new roads as a subsidy to bus and road haulage operators.

 

[Chrisgr31]

bizarre that DfT used Southern to try and get rid of guards. They were making a positive return, bet they arent at the moment!