New rail franchise includes requirement for more night trains to serve Luton Airport
Britain’s biggest ever rail franchise will include a requirement for more trains to serve Luton Airport Parkway station. There have been complaints for years that Luton airport does not have a good enough rail service, to too many passengers arrive by road. Documents supporting the new rail franchise, issued on September 26, stipulate there must be a minimum of two trains per hour arriving at Luton Airport Parkway between 3am and 6.59am from Blackfriars on Monday to Saturday morning, with a maximum interval of 40 minutes between consecutive arrivals. The Department of Transport says the new combined Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (TSGN) Franchise will be the largest UK rail franchise ever let. It is anticipated the successful bids will be announced in May 2014. The Thameslink and Great Northern elements of the TSGN franchise will start in September 2014 with the Southern element being phased in by July 2015. The franchise will run for seven years.
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New rail franchise includes requirement for more night trains to serve Luton Airport
by David Tooley
13 October 2013 (Luton Today)
Britain’s biggest ever rail franchise will include a requirement for more trains to serve Luton Airport Parkway station.
The move has been welcomed by a spokesman for Luton Airport who said they had been lobbying behind an increase in rail services for some time.
Oliver Jaycock, general manager, marketing, for London Luton Airport told a business meeting in Leighton Buzzard on Thursday that part of the reason so many people drive to the hub is the currently limited rail service from London.
He said he felt it would make a difference if there was a reliable and frequent service 24 hours a day.
Documents supporting the new rail franchise, issued on September 26, stipulate there must be a minimum of two trains per hour arriving at Luton Airport Parkway between 3am and 6.59am from Blackfriars on Monday to Saturday morning, with a maximum interval of 40 minutes between consecutive arrivals.
The Department of Transport says the new combined Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (TSGN) Franchise will be the largest UK rail franchise ever let.
When all the services have been incorporated, it will have the greatest passenger numbers, the highest income and the most trains and staff of any franchise in the UK rail sector and is likely to be worth many hundreds of millions of pounds.
The franchise will be responsible for planning and delivering rail services across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Greater London, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk, Surrey and East and West Sussex.
The rail franchise is the first to go out to tender since a debacle in Department for Transport’s number crunching lead to the scrapping of the award of the West Coast franchise.
But rail minister Simon Burns [ he is longer Transport Minister and resigned last week] has said he believes franchising has been a “force for good”.
He added: “We are now looking for innovative bids that provide value for money for taxpayers and put passengers right back at the heart of our railways.”
It is anticipated the successful bids will be announced in May 2014. The Thameslink and Great Northern elements of the TSGN franchise will start in September 2014 with the Southern element being phased in by July 2015. The franchise will run for seven years.
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Earlier:
London Assembly calls for improvement in airport rail services
2 September 2013
Better transport links would help unlock some of the spare capacity at London’s airports, according to the London Assembly.
The elected body is expected to say today that improving rail services to the likes of Stansted, Luton and Gatwick would help persuade people to use them and also relieve pressure on Heathrow.
The assembly’s arguments are included in its submission to the Airports Commission, chaired by sir Howard Davies.
“Luton, Stansted and Gatwick all have spare airport capacity that might prove useful to determining the UK’s future aviation policy,” Val Shawcross, the assembly’s transport group chairman, told the Daily Telegraph
“However, transport seems to be a key barrier preventing passengers travelling to alternative airports.”
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Bids for two London commuter rail franchises sought
By Jane Wild (FT)
26.9.2013
The first big rail franchise competition since the botched West Coast mainline rail tender opened on Thursday, as the government sought bids to run two London commuter franchises.
The competitions for Thameslink and the smaller Essex Thameside service linking London and Southend are expected to prompt a rush of interest from operators after a hiatus following the cancellation of the West Coast mainline competition last year.
The fallout from this saw the government cancel three other active tenders, including the two restarted on Thursday.
As part of the changes by the government to the franchising process, Thameslink will be let as a seven-year management contract in which the government bears all the risk on revenues and the operator is paid a fixed fee.
The government also plans to expand the Thameslink contract, which currently covers services north of London including from Peterborough and Luton and south of the capital to Brighton.From July 2015 the winning bidder will take over the running of the Southern franchise, which operates commuter services out of London Bridge and Victoria stations to the south coast.
The four UK-listed transport groups – Go-Ahead, Firstgroup, National Express and Stagecoach – are all expected to bid for at least one of the franchises but will face competition from foreign bidders, including Hong Kong-listed MTR, and Abelio, a subsidiary of Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the Dutch state railway.
Go-Ahead is expected to team up with its partner Keolis, a subsidiary of France’s SNCF.
The government is set to announce the successful bidders next May, with both contracts starting in September next year.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1b14f482-26c6-11e3-9dc0-00144feab7de.html#axzz2hbPrPPF2
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