Why is there now an obsession with re-nationalisation?

[sprunt]

Do not get me wrong I do personally think the current privatisation system doesn't work as success is dependent on either DfT or the bidder screwing up the numbers. A concessionary model similar to TfL buses would probably work better in terms tax payer return

Ah, more GTRs then! [winking smiley]

 

[Goldfish62]

Ah, more GTRs then! [winking smiley]

No, London Overground.

 

[squizzler]

Ah, more GTRs then! [winking smiley]

Or indeed almost all the EU municipal and regional competitive tendering.

 

[Goldfish62]

Or indeed almost all the EU municipal and regional competitive tendering.

Including the numerous regional rail concessions in Germany.

 

[Goldfish62]

Or indeed almost all the EU municipal and regional competitive tendering.

Including the numerous regional rail concessions in Germany.

 

[quantinghome]

Then you see reports that for example state the privatised system costs £1.2bn pa, which whilst superficially true ignores how the system functioned in BR so things like the cost of delay attribution is put down as privatisation cost. Even if 100% state owned and control delays would still be attributed so the relevant operating budgets could be charged accordingly, e.g. your 180 sets down outside Doncaster delaying all ECML services heading north for a couple of hours, the fictional Intercity east trains would be attributed the delay and thus delay costs..., broken rail outside Euston blocks all movements for three hours. The fictional GB rail maintenance west gets the delay attribution.

Railways are complex systems and there will always be internal conflicts and so on to deal with. However, a single entity holding all the strings and bearing full responsibility would be better able to use things like delay attribution in a positive way. Currently the function of delay attribution is to determine the money that should be paid between parties for delays caused. Whilst in theory this should incentivise the different components of the railway to perform better, it doesn't seem to work. Perverse incentives come into play due to fragmentation and short term thinking in franchises, and there's a bunfight over who's to blame. A single entity would be able to decide to what extent internal accounting charges are useful from a system perspective and adjust accordingly. At board level, the main concern of delay attribution would be to determine how overall system delays can be minimised (thus reducing overall costs and improving performance), whereas the current boards of train operators or network rail are only concerned with minimising delay attribution to their own businesses without consideration of the whole.

A parallel example in the company I work for: There used to be a significant amount of time wasted arguing with different parts of the business (all with their own profit centres) over what margins and overheads should be allocated between departments. Each project we worked on would produce the same argument. In the end senior management said 'enough!', streamlined the profit centres and standardised the rules for internal cost accounting. If we were actually different businesses (such as the railway is now) we would still be arguing with each other.

 

[Dr Hoo]

As has been explained many times before (yawn):
Delay attribution and the supporting TRUST system was invented by BR before privatisation, for internal purposes;
The performance regimes essentially only need to know the ‘perpetrator’ of a delay (Network Rail, operator on self or another operator). The detailed causes of delay are needed for performance management and improvement;
The main passenger performance regimes work on ‘lateness’ at monitoring points not ‘delays’ anyway. The use of delay information is to understand the overall share of responsibility;
The idea that hundreds of people simply argue over every single minute at £80 a go or whatever the going rate is, is a complete myth. In many TOCs the performance regime and delay attribution are managed by different people (e.g. ‘finance/commercial’ and ‘operations’)