Campaign update

Several things to update you about today:

1. Passenger Focus survey results

You may have seen in the press that Passenger Focus, the independent national rail consumer watchdog, have recently released their 2007 passenger survey. It shows that satisfaction levels have dropped again this year to just 72%, and that FGW is the second worse performing company in terms of customer satisfaction – not at all surprising. The full report is available from the Passenger Focus website. It is interesting to note that the bottom three worst performing rail companies are all FirstGroup franchises.

The reaction in the local press can be read here (The Oxford Mail), and the reaction of FGW in the national press can be read here (The Telegraph).

2. New RingGo parking system

Those of you who drive to Oxford station will have noticed the new RingGo paying system, designed to keep the car park free for rail passengers. After some initial doubts, most people seem to think the new system is an improvement (no trying to find those pesky pound coins!) but there has been a hike in the prices to £4.50 per day, which seems to have sneaked in without comment. We’ve been contacted by Cobalt Telephone Technologies who provide the technology behind the new system, who advice that if people are worried about giving out their credit card details over the phone on the platform or the train, you can pre-register at the RingGo website. The company wish us luck with our campaign. I’m sure if there are any comments or suggestions for making the system easier to use, Cobalt would be pleased to hear
them and we can pass them on.

3. Campaign progress

There are several meetings on the horizon at which Ox Rail Action organising members will be again representing the views of Oxford passengers and attempting to get a better service. Firstly, we have been invited to meet the Secretary of State for Transport, Douglas Alexander, in mid-June. We hope to raise the profile of our campaign and talk directly to him about the issues facing Oxford passengers. Secondly, we are hoping to have a date soon for a meeting with FGW to discuss the draft December timetable. Updates on both meetings will be forthcoming.

Meeting minutes added

The minutes of the meeting with FGW are now available from the meetings page.

May timetable changes

Some of you may have seen the posters advertising timetable changes in May. Will this mean an improvement in services for Oxford commuters? Well, don’t get too excited – there are very few changes that will affect you:

Early services at 0400 from Oxford to London Paddington are subject to slight change, whilst the 0546 Reading to London Paddington now starts from Oxford at 0506.
The 0725 Banbury to Paddington leaves Reading earlier and now calls at Langley, Iver and West Drayton.
The 0752 from Oxford to London Paddington has been re-timed to depart Twyford at 0844 to provide an additional connection from Henley on Thames.
Some Oxford services now feature High Speed Trains – with greater capacity than the previous Adelante trains – which will also add seat capacity at stations en route.
The 2050 Worcester Shrub Hill to London Paddington will call at Didcot Parkway.

If you need more information, the new printed timetable booklets are available from the station now.

Meeting update

Many of you will know that Ox Rail Action put together a monitoring report in early March this year, demonstrating the continued problems for Oxford commuters, particularly our morning services. As a follow-up to this report, representatives were invited to meet FGW to discuss our findings and recommendations. This meeting, attended by three Ox Rail Action members, Chris Bates (FGW Customer Panel representative), Richard Rowland (FGW Regional Director), Glenda Lamont (FGW Customer Services Manager) and Adrian Ruck (FGW External Relations), happened on the 20th April.

The minutes from this meeting will be soon be are available to read in full but here is a brief summary of the main points:

1. ORA members expressed disappointment that the changes in May would not improve travelling from Oxford in the short-term. Apparently large-scale changes will not be made until the December timetable.
2. The changes in December 2007 will not involve a complete re-draft of the present timetable (FGW is keen not to repeat last December’s fiasco) but will involve some significant changes. FGW will have a draft timetable by early summer 2007 and wishes to consult with ORA when it has this – we will arrange another meeting at this time.
3. FGW is aware of the performance and timekeeping issues that it has with all trains. Some of this (e.g. the 7.33am) is due to trains that were squeezed into the timetable. There are some long-term solutions to this ( i.e. major investment plans for both Oxford and Reading stations) but few short-term apart from the December changes.
4. Complaints about the state of the turbo trains have meant that FGW have brought forward an interior ‘refreshment’ program to next year. In the meantime, if there are specific problems on a turbo train ( e.g. window keeps flying open, smelly toilets etc) passengers have been asked to make a note of the problem, the specific carriage and the train number (on the front, usually starts 165…) to Chris Bates, who will pass this information on to the appropriate engineers – his e-mail is chrisjbates@btinternet.com
5. FGW is investing in customer service training for its staff and setting minimum standards of service. In particular, the issue of the electronic boards not working at Oxford station was raised, and the suggestion of ORA that the station should use wipeboards to give service information when they are working was taken on board.

For the full minutes, please check back to the website in a few days!

Future meeting with FGW

Ox Rail Action members are in the process of arranging a meeting between Ox Rail Action and FGW’s Regional Director, Richard Rowland, to discuss our monitoring report and our recommendations. We will be asking them about further changes that have been hinted at for May and the changes in December.

There is a petition on the Prime Minister’s website, calling for the removal of the FGW franchise. If you feel strongly about this, then please go and sign up – http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/FirstGW/

Also, if anyone was invovled in the fiasco that was Wednesday 7th March’s afternoon journey home, FGW have promised to give compensation to passengers involved. Have a look here for details about how to get yours. They’ll give season ticket holders £50 of rail vouchers and £100 if you cc in Alison Forster.

Further timetable changes

You may have heard in the press at the end of this week that FGW have made some changes to our timetables. The changes will not affect Oxford commuters that much, but if you look here you can see them in full.

The key changes for us are:

05.55 will change from a 5-carriage Adelante to a 10-carriage, and will call additionally at Radley and Pangbourne – I imagine that few people use this train on a regular basis, but the extra stops will probably slow dow this journey a little.

07.33 will change from a 5-carriage Adelante to a 10-carriage. This will be good for Oxford passengers as there will be an even slimmer chance of not getting a seat, but it will largely benefit Didcot and Reading passengers who will be pleased to see some empty seats on this train.

These changes are very small, and there as far as I can see, there are no substantial changes to the evening services either, apart from very slight re-timings. What FGW don’t seem to realise is that other trains are far more deserving of extra carriages – for example the 07.05am service.

Monitoring report published

As promised here, we have now completed the analysis of the information that you have provided on the overcrowding and lateness of morning peak-time services. In the next few days we will be handing out copies of the executive summary of the report and you can get the full report and our press notice here.

The report highlights continued issues of overcrowding and lateness, but will also address other concerns raised by passengers such as lack of heating, problems with passenger information boards, a lack of communication and poor announcements.  Representatives of OxRailAction have been invited to a meeting with Richard Rowland, the Regional Director for FGW, to discuss our report and any changes that can be made. Copies of the report will be sent to FGW and other organisations such as the Department for Transport, the Office of Rail Regulation and the Rail Passengers Council.

Monitoring report

Thankyou to all those commuters who have been sent in their train monitoring data to Ox Rail Action. The information was very useful, and we have managed to get data on levels of overcrowding and lateness for nearly all the morning peak trains for the period 22nd January to the 2nd Feb.

Organisers of Ox Rail Action are now collating this information into a monitoring report. The aim of this report is to show FGW the continued problems after the small alterations made to the timetable on the 15th January, and to make recommendations for further changes. It will cover continued issues of overcrowding and lateness, but will also address other concerns raised by passengers such as lack of heating on turbos, passenger information boards, lack of communication and poor announcements.

Representatives of Ox Rail Action have been invited to a meeting with Richard Rowland, the Regional Director for FGW, to discuss our report and any changes that can be made. We will be provide copies of our report on our website as soon as it is written. In addition, we have been invited to an Oxford County Council meeting which the Transport Minister, Douglas Alexander, will be attending, at some point in March. We have not been told of the date of this meeting yet, but will provide updates when we know more.

Please keep e-mailing in (saveourtrains@googlemail.com) with details of your journeys, problems encountered, recommendations for changes and general comments. Also, keep complaining to FGW and to your local MP – train overcrowding is still a very hot issue within Parliament. We need to show everyone that we are still not satisfied with the level of service that we are receiving.

Thanks everyone, and happy commuting!

Susan

Ox Rail Action

Here to stay

Thank you for everyone’s support over the last month and a half of campaigning. According to our calculations, the new changes mean that we have gone from losing 80% of seats in the morning peak to losing 20%.

Ox Rail Action will continue as a permanent Oxford rail users group. The aim of this group is to ensure that Oxford has an adequate supply of services and seats in the peak rush hours. This is particularly important in view of the fact that FGW are changing timetables again in December 2007. Oxford passengers need a voice and a forum to make sure that their views are represented to FGW and the Department of Transport.

One aspect of our campaign should be to ask for better consultation and better passenger representation. We want FGW to learn the lessons of their recent mistakes, and to not repeat such disastrous timetable changes in the future. Also we want them to thoroughly evaluate the impact of the additional services they have now announced, including the numbers of passengers who have to stand. Most importantly, we want FGW to listen to passenger feedback and be ready to put on further additional seats and services should that prove necessary to meet passenger needs.

Ox Rail Action will be monitoring the new services over the next few weeks – but we need your help! We want you to be our eyes and ears. After next week (15^th to 19^th Jan), viewed as a ‘bedding in’ week for the new services, we will run a monitoring system on the Oxford morning trains for two weeks.

During the period 22^nd-2^nd Feb, we need volunteers to monitor the Oxford services. In particular, if people could check their particular carriage on their usual train in the following ways:

1. For those trains that start in Oxford – how many standing passengers without seats after leaving Oxford.
2. For through trains – how many free seats were in the carriage when boarding at Oxford, and how many standing passengers without seats after leaving Oxford.

If travellers could make a note of these figures each day that they travel in the two week period, and e-mail them to saveourtrains@googlemail.com, we can compile the data into a report on the situation. We need to make sure that each carriage of each train is covered for two full weeks, to ensure accurate figures with which we can continue to campaign if necessary. If volunteers could e-mail to say which train they usually get and on which carriage, by Wednesday of next week, we can make sure all the trains are covered adequately.

Also, just to remind people that a ‘Meet the Managers’ session will be happening on Wednesday 17th January, from 4-7pm. Please let the managers and regional director of FGW know your views on the initial timetable changes and the recent alterations.

Thanks very much,

Susan

The details

Following on from the brilliant news broken below, we have now had chance to ‘look at the small print’. The seat availability on the new timetable will be:

• 0638 – Adelante; 282 seats; approx 150 empty on arrival at Oxford
• 0645 – 6 car Turbo; 550 seats; starts in Oxford
• 0705 – 3 car Turbo; 275 seats; approx 13 empty on arrival at Oxford
• 0733 – Adelante; 282 seats; starts in Oxford
• 0744 – HST; 472 seats; approx 100 empty on arrival at Oxford

Giving a total of 1015 seats. Not back to the 1379 we had before 10 December, but a huge improvement on the 270 we have had since (our previous analysis of the timetable changes is still available).