The Department for Transport appears to have hardened its stance over more open access, partly on the grounds that these services could siphon off unacceptable amounts of revenue from operators controlled by Great British Railways.
A letter to the Office of Rail and Road from the DfT’s director-general for rail reform and strategy Richard Goodman, dated 20 June, also highlights the possibility of a conflict of interest between the National Rail Contracts still possessed by transport groups and their open access operations. He says such a possibility is ‘a risk which only increases as contracts approach their end and attentions shift towards new Open Access applications’.
At the moment, FirstGroup still runs the contract for Great Western Railway and has the majority share in Avanti West Coast, but also operates open access services branded Hull Trains between London and Hull, and Lumo between London and Edinburgh, while Arriva owns Grand Central but still has the contracts to operate CrossCountry and Chiltern Railways.
First has acquired two more open access contracts which will provide trains between London and South Wales, and London and Stirling, both of which will share at least part of their routes with GWR and AWC.
However, First has ambitions to run more open access services, including extending Lumo to Glasgow and also running new routes from London to Rochdale, Paignton and Hereford.
Arriva, meanwhile, is promoting a new route between Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Brighton, while Alstom wants to revive direct services between London and Wrexham and Virgin wants to return to the West Coast Main Line by providing up to 35 departures a day from London Euston.
Mr Goodman says: ‘DfT analysis suggests that the sum of annual abstraction of each of the currently live Open Access application would be up to £229 million (2024/25 prices), not accounting for the revenue impacts resulting from those services interacting.’
The Hereford proposal has also caused concern at Network Rail, which is worried about the presence of level crossings on the route and limited capacity nearer London.
It is not the first time that the DfT has turned a cold shoulder on more open access.
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander warned on 6 January this year that ‘We need to be mindful of the impacts of Open Access such as the level of revenue they can abstract from contracted services and the associated implications for passengers and taxpayers.’
Almost a month later her department declined to support any new applications, apart from London to Wrexham, in a letter to the ORR dated 4 February. This said: ‘The Department welcomes the benefits that Open Access services can provide, including improved connectivity and choice for passengers, but, as the Secretary of State set out in her letter of 6 January 2025, we are clear that these benefits must outweigh costs to taxpayers and operational impacts.’
The managing director of FirstGroup’s rail division Steve Montgomery has expressed concern about the DfT’s approach, according to the Financial Times.
Mr Goodman said in his letter that the Office of Rail and Road is likely to make decisions about at least some of the current applications at board meetings in the near future.
Readers’ comments
It's doubtful anyone will be pleased once ORR has deliberated. Clearly the current surge in OA applications is driven by the impending changes as legislation is brought forward to enact GBR. However surely it is clear that some OA applications are pure kite flying and easily discounted? Much of ORR's time will be spent in an abstract, academic analysis of the OA bids to test their commercial viability and if they genuinely, as their promoters contest, add value to the rail market. However their is an inevitability of the tail wagging the dog as while ORR can licence and approve new OA operations can they practically be managed on today's network without creating operational and performance risks? Clearly both NR, supported by DfT, see this happening. For example take WCML where operational performance is already challenged. Following its last route modernisation over two decades ago the train plan was optimised for Pendolino/Voyager-operated tilting services. Since Avanti introduced the 805/807 Enviro non tilting units to replace the Voyagers a more challenging performance environment has emerged. Also south of Rugby fast line capacity has to accommodate LNW Crewe/Northampton services. In turn the already agreed Lumo 222-operated services [to Stirling] will be added. So while OA operators have been bidding for 'white space' in the timetable how much actually exists and in the standard hour does capacity exist for additional OA services when running today's timetable is already proving interesting? How much of that 'white space' would better being allocated as a firebreak to manage performance perturbation? Currently only NR has the full picture of available capacity on WCML and there are many legitimate claims on its use and not just from passenger operators. The opening of Northampton Gateway has added a new freight terminal to the route and the decision of Maersk to divert shipping traffic from Felixstowe to London Gateway has inevitably led to a redrafting of freight operators’ timetables. So NR may have the full picture but in in the absence of a directing mind no ultimate veto on how that capacity is allocated. Recent history is littered with performance meltdowns where capacity has been oversold. DfT's latest letter also raises the issue of conflict of interest. Clearly the Arriva bid to run services shadowing the existing XC services illustrates this with the OA application offering the fig leaf of a return of a cross country service to Sussex. Ditto the sudden rush of First OA bids on GWR and WCML routes.
Chris Jones-Bridger, Buckley, Flintshire
If DfT can manage to throttle the emergence of open access, then just what motivation does anybody have for ‘pleasing the customer’? Do we end up with another 1970s BR monolith?
David C. Smith, Bletchley, Milton Keynes
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