Bidders / Contacts

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Dear Mr Ellis
 
Welcome to May^s Great Western stakeholder update.
 
Passenger Focus^ response to the Great Western franchise public consultation is now available on our website and via the link below:
 
http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk/news-and-publications/document-search/document.asp?dsid=5535
 
The public consultation phase has now ended and shortlisted bidders have been announced by the Department for Transport as:
 
^ First Great Western Trains Limited (FirstGroup plc)
^ GW^▸ (Great Western) Trains Limited (Arriva UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Trains Limited - DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about) (UK) Investments Limited)
^ NXGW^▸ (National Express Great Western - a bidder for 2013 franchise) Trains Limited (National Express Group PLC)
^ Stagecoach Great Western Trains Limited (Stagecoach Group plc)
 
Our franchise response is the result of many months of research, engaging with stakeholders and capturing passenger aspirations.  Passenger Focus will continue to engage with the shortlisted bidders to share passenger aspirations and highlight issues that have been raised.
 
Stakeholder contacts within the bidding teams are shown below:
 
Arriva ^ Ed Thomas - thomase@arrivatrains.co.uk
First Group ^ Hugh Clancy ^ hugh.clancy@firstgroup.com
National Express - Anthony Vigor - Anthony.Vigor@nationalexpress.com
Stagecoach ^ Phil Dominey - Pdominey@stagecoachrail.com
 
The bidders will receive the official Invitation to Tender in May 2012, with the winner announced in December 2012.  The franchise will run for 15 years.
 

We [TransWilts] have written to all 4 bidders, about three weeks ago.

Arriva are back in touch and want to meet
Stagecoach have contacted us (within the last few days) inviting responses by 11th June

Haven't heard back from National Express nor First / will be in touch in the next days via these emails.

Noted that our MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) tweeted that he had met up with National Express and let them know what he was looking for

[grahame]

We (Sion, Phil, Graham) met with Ed of Arriva and David Jones on Thursday.

Minutes at http://atrebatia.info/gw/arriva_20120531.pdf

Presentation at http://atrebatia.info/gw/gw_bidders_presentation.pdf
Also available as a set of navigable web pages from http://atrebatia.info/gw/ppset.html

I am going to come back and edit this post / use it as a collecting ground for the URLs or documents to forward to Ed.  Overall, very impressed with the.  The elephants in the room GooP, the specification that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) is putting together and its intent, traffic growth consistently underestimated, all raised and discussed.  David Jones (ex operations / station, Swindon) very knowledgable - in my view they already know 10 times what First knew on the day they took over.

[grahame]

Full reply to Arriva:

Dear Ed,

Many thanks for visiting us last Thursday (31st May, TransWilts Community Rail Parnership, in Melksham).  The minutes of the meeting (thank you, Phil) are attached at the bottom.

Over the last couple of days, I've put together the follow-up package I promised of various documents.  As an email enclosure, the total package would exceed the size limit of many systems, so I've bundled into a single file that you can download - your choice of two different formats (.tar.gz and .zip). 
   http://atrebatia.info/downloads/gw.tgz?20132028
   http://atrebatia.info/downloads/gw.zip?20132028
The extra code on the end of the URL is an extra security element - a sort of password. Although all of the documents and letters were copied to us for our ongoing use, we do not have permission to generally publish some of the material.  The presentation is included within the pack, and is also online directly at
   http://atrebatia.info/gw/ppset.html
(links on underscores to left of bullet points)

We don't have David's email address - can you please forward this email / link / documents to him.  Many thanks!

Please keep in touch / ask any further questions.   We were most impressed and encouraged by your team's knowledge, your willingness to discuss, and your case and company profile.  A very great deal depends, of course, on what the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) asks you to bid on / include, and until we have more of that detail there are many open questions for us all. A further meeting would then be useful.

The TransWilts Community Rail Partnership is set up to move from the currently informal arrangements we have to a full constitutional CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership), and it's sensible to do so (we have agreed) at a time when it's clear which franchised operator we'll be supporting and at what minimum service level over the next 15 years. We have some funding in place to "seed" that.  We're in it for the long run (the people you met have all been around for 7 years already), to maximise the potential of passenger rail services in the corridor and their wider connections, for the benefit of the communities there and for the operator too.

Graham

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary of the TransWilts case:

* Links Swindon and Chippenham via Melksham to Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury
* Ongoing connections to other destinations at both ends of the line; two way flows; non-seasonal; link major urban centres.

* One of the most thoroughly analysed cases for the service level that should be in the next franchise.
See enclosures for
   MVA (Business / Financial) case
   Network Rail operational case
   Chambers of Commerce business survey results
   Chambers of Commerce public survey results
   Report on successful trial service on summer sundays 2012

* We have asked the Department for Transport to support a two-hourly service, hourly in the peak
   This is a well researched case, high BCR^▸ (Benefit Cost Ratio), and is sufficient to bring an attitude change

* Price, speed, comfort and timekeeping are NOT critical elements for the service on the TransWilts
* Frequency (every 2 hours requested), timing is service is very limited, reliability and information ARE critical

* The service option requested has an excellent business and operational case and is fully supported locally
* Support is "joined up" with the SWLEP, and Wiltshire Council fully on board.  Part of LTP^▸ (Local Transport Plan), LSTF^▸ (Local Sustainable Transport Fund) bid.
* The service can co-exist with any open access operation we have seen proposed, and they would mutually benefit.

* The improvements will do a huge amount for Melksham - a town with the size & character of Frome is a good comparison
* The improvements will provide a dramatic improvement for journeys from Salisbury and West Wilts to Chippenham / Swindon
* Opportunity to sort out a good service for Dilton Marsh (now urban area) and other occasional services south of Westbury
* All of these items taken together, on the same trains, make for an exceptionally good business case.

* Community Rail Support already in place; much proven work already, much more ready to go.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The enclosures within the bundle:

a) The presentation we made last week:
   gw_bidders_presentation.pdf

b) Responses to the DfT Consultation:
   Duncan Hames MP^▸ (Member of Parliament): 20120329 GW^▸ (Great Western) Franchise Consultation.docx
   Melksham Railway Development group: MRDG_GW_subsmission_120330.pdf
   TransWilts Community Rail Partnership: DfT_GWconsultation_TransWilts.pdf (.txt file is covering letter)
   Melksham Chamber of Commerce and Industry: dftcoc.pdf
   Well House Consultants: dft_gwconsult2012.pdf (.txt file is covering letter)
   Knorr Bremse (Major employer in Melksham): paul_goodhand
   Lee Fletcher: GW Franchise Consultation Response 2012.docx
   Shirley McCarthay: letrail270312.docx
   alan_clarke
   eddy_watts
   james_woods
   janet_davies
   jenny_rust
   john_roberts
As well as these 14 responses, we were told of (but not copied) on many more inputs.

c) Recent Technical data and reports 

   Business / Economic case study by MVA Consultancy: mva_2011_03_07.pdf
   Operational case study by Network Rail: nr_2011_03_04.pdf
   Business and public surveys by Wessex Chambers of Commercce: rt_full.pdf
   Report on trial service run on summer Sundays 2011: rt_summer.pdf

   Presentation to Melksham Area Board, showing how important local transport issue is: mab.pdf

d) An Alternative study by Robert Bagnall (University Project, well based on data):
   Getting Wiltshire Back on Track.doc
   Appendix CBA 1.doc
   Appendix CBA 2.doc

e) TransWilts Community Rail Partnership:
   Draft constitution: rt_constit.pdf
   Letter of support / background / what we can do: rt_support.pdf

--
Graham Ellis - graham@atrebatia.info
Press and publicity, TransWilts Community Rail Partnership
TransWilts CRP, 48, Spa Road, Melksham, Wilts, SN12 7NY
http://atrebatia.info - 0845 459 0153

[grahame]

Meeting with First - provisionally set for 5th July

Arriva - met already (and will follow up once ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender) is out)

Stagecoach - requested written response just sent (see below)

National Express - we know they have met with Duncan, but as yet no response from our initial approach letter.  Will Chase.

To Phil Dominey at Stagecoach:

Dear Phil,

Thank you for your letters to "Save the Train" and the Melksham Railway Development Group, seeking user group inputs with regards to the forthcoming Great Western Franchise.  I'm following up on behalf of the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, informally set up early last year to bring a number of user groups, local government and the rail industry together.  "Save the Train" has been subsumed into the TransWilts CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership), which is very much more of a co-operative working group rather than a campaigning group, and the Melksham Railway Development Group is a member of the CRP.   I'm writing as the Press and Relations officer for the CRP, and as vice chairman of MRDG^» (Melksham Railway Development Group - about).

To the subject at hand.  I enclose the following .pdf files:
   a) The TransWilts CRP's response to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)'s consultation on what we would like to see
   b) A set of presentation slides covering the key points we wish to make to bidders such as Stagecoach
And I will add a summary of "case" just below, which we believe to one of the best researched and one of the strongest cases for an immediate service improvement to a minimum interval of 2 hours between trains in each direction, all day and every day.

We would love to meet up with your team, and listen to your thoughts so that perhaps we can make comment from a local perspective for our mutual benefit. We would also very much like to take you through our presentation in person (or with other members of the Stagecoach team) to explain deeper.  However, we are aware that you have a very large area to cover and you may not be able to take up such offers.

We also have around a dozen further consultation responses on file (from individuals through to MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) and large companies) which we are happy to share, three business case reports for the line (BCR^▸ (Benefit Cost Ratio) of the preferred option running upwards from 1.7, even after optimism factor has been applied), Operation report on a suggested timetable from Network Rail, Chamber of Commerce business and public survey reports, and a report on the trial service, loadings and other journey data from 8 sundays last summer.  A very large amount of data indeed - I don't want to flood you out, so we've put together a follow-up package. You can download this - your choice of two different formats (.tar.gz and .zip). 
   http://atrebatia.info/downloads/gw.tgz?20132028
   http://atrebatia.info/downloads/gw.zip?20132028
The extra code on the end of the URL is an extra security element - a sort of password. Although all of the documents and letters were copied to us for our ongoing use, we do not have permission to generally publish some of the material.  A presentation is included within the pack, and is also online directly at
   http://atrebatia.info/gw/ppset.html
(links on underscores to left of bullet points).  Finally, I've added - below the "case summary" an index of the bundle to help you easily extract any parts you wish.

Please can you (as a minimum) confirm that you've received this email.  We hope you'll be able to do much more - that we can continue a dialogue which helps inform you thoroughly on local TransWilts issues prior to your bid submission, and beyond there should you be chosen to run the franchise to ensure that the service and support is appropriate, and that we (the community) can work together through the 15 years to maximise the benefits it can bring for everyone.

Graham

--
Graham Ellis - graham@atrebatia.info
Press and publicity, TransWilts Community Rail Partnership
TransWilts CRP, 48, Spa Road, Melksham, Wilts, SN12 7NY
http://atrebatia.info - 0845 459 0153

----------------

Summary of case prepared for Stagecoach (Phil Dominey)

*** TransWilts - 2013 to 2028 Franchise.

** The line

- Links Swindon and Chippenham via Melksham to Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury
- Ongoing connections to other destinations at both ends of the line; two way flows; non-seasonal; link major urban centres.

** Work on the case

- One of the most thoroughly analysed cases for the service level that should be in the next franchise.
   MVA (Business / Financial) case and others
   Network Rail operational case
   Chambers of Commerce business survey results
   Chambers of Commerce public survey results
   Report on successful trial service on Summer Sundays 2011

** For the next franchise

- We have asked the Department for Transport to support a two-hourly service, hourly in the peak

This is a well researched case, high BCR (2.74), and is sufficient to bring an attitude change. By which we mean that people will naturally take to moving their journeys forward of backward by up to 60 minutes, rather than only considering the train if a particular service happens to suit them. 

- Price, speed, comfort and timekeeping are NOT critical elements for this service on the TransWilts
- Frequency (every 2 hours requested), times (IF service is more limited), reliability and information ARE critical elements.

The service option requested has an excellent business and operational case and is fully supported locally.  Support is "joined up" with the Swindon and Wiltshire LEP^» (Local Enterprise Partnership - about), and Wiltshire Council fully on board.  It is part of the Wiltshire Council Local Transport Plan, and forms part of the Local Sustainable Transport Fund bid, to which Wiltshire Council has pledged a financial support contribution to cover the initial period as traffic build up.

- The service can co-exist with an open access operation we have seen proposed, and indeed they would mutually benefit; a combined hourly service would have each train busier due to the extra business attracted; only a service that was more frequent than hourly would lead to a drop.

- The improvements will do a huge amount for Melksham - a town with the size & character of Frome is a good comparison
- The improvements will provide a dramatic improvement for journeys from Salisbury and West Wilts to Chippenham / Swindon
Part of that improvement will mean that passengers from Trowbridge to Swindon can be removed from overcrowded Trowbridge to Bath trains, thus providing capacity relief. Up to 50 passengers from West Wilts to Chippenham / Swindon currently change at Bath on certain peak trains.
- Opportunity to sort out a good service for Dilton Marsh (now urban area) and other occasional services south of Westbury
- All of these items taken together, on the same trains, make for an exceptionally good business case.

- Community Rail Support already in place and waiting to support an appropriate service; much proven work already, much more ready to go.

** Some specific comments and thoughts - "just ideas"

Although the Community Rail Partnership prefers a through service from Swindon to Salisbury, cross-platform / same platform interchange at Westbury is acceptable if it does not increase journey times significantly.

There are currently occasional extra trains in addition to the Cardiff - Portsmouth service running south of Westbury.  Some appear to be provided to meet the current franchise specification, and the reason for them may have been overtaken by other services added since they were specified, such as the "Romsey 6" and other direct trains from Fareham to Havant.   There may be scope for rationalising and combining these services, which is especially prctical for Stagecoach running from the Salisbury depot, and already terminating 2 diesel unit trains at the East of Salisbury per hour; should one every 2 hours continue to Swindon, getting back there just over 2 hours later to resume the diagram of the train that left for Swindon around 20 minutes earlier?

Bristol to Waterloo services wait for some 20 minutes in total between Westbury and Swindon.  Should they stop at Dilton Marsh?  Much more useful than Westbury to Warminster short workings that fail to provide southbound connections.

----------------

The enclosures within the bundle (if you wish to refer to them):

a) The presentation we made last week:
   gw_bidders_presentation.pdf

b) Responses to the DfT Consultation:
   Duncan Hames MP: 20120329 GW^▸ (Great Western) Franchise Consultation.docx
   Melksham Railway Development group: MRDG_GW_subsmission_120330.pdf
   TransWilts Community Rail Partnership: DfT_GWconsultation_TransWilts.pdf (.txt file is covering letter)
   Melksham Chamber of Commerce and Industry: dftcoc.pdf
   Well House Consultants: dft_gwconsult2012.pdf (.txt file is covering letter)
   Knorr Bremse (Major employer in Melksham): paul_goodhand
   Lee Fletcher: GW Franchise Consultation Response 2012.docx
   Shirley McCarthay: letrail270312.docx
   alan_clarke
   eddy_watts
   james_woods
   janet_davies
   jenny_rust
   john_roberts
As well as these 14 responses, we were told of (but not copied) on many more inputs.

c) Recent Technical data and reports 

   Business / Economic case study by MVA Consultancy: mva_2011_03_07.pdf
   Operational case study by Network Rail: nr_2011_03_04.pdf
   Business and public surveys by Wessex Chambers of Commercce: rt_full.pdf
   Report on trial service run on summer Sundays 2011: rt_summer.pdf

   Presentation to Melksham Area Board, showing how important local transport issue is: mab.pdf

d) An Alternative study by Robert Bagnall (University Project, well based on data):
   Getting Wiltshire Back on Track.doc
   Appendix CBA 1.doc
   Appendix CBA 2.doc

e) TransWilts Community Rail Partnership:
   Draft constitution: rt_constit.pdf
   Letter of support / background / what we can do: rt_support.pdf

[grahame]

To Anthony Vigor, Stagecoach

Dear Anthony,

From ...  Graham Ellis, volunteer press and relations officer for the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, writing on behalf of the CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership).

The TransWilts line runs from Swindon, via Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge to Westbury, then onwards to Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury. Swindon, Salisbury, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Melksham are the five largest towns in Wiltshire [postal county, and Swindon and Wiltshire LEP^» (Local Enterprise Partnership - about) area]. 

The line was previously part of National Express's "Wessex Trains" franchise, so you may have some experience of the area, but much has changed in the last few years. All of the towns are growing fast. They're tied closer together economically too, with Wiltshire being a Unitary county, and rail ridership has grown by 81% since 2001, most of that growth in the last four or five years.  Current services linking the northern and southern sections of the line are just two trains per day in marginal time, even though the Jacobs report for the current (2006 - 2013) franchise recommended a peak service, and service every 2 hours through the day based on 1% per annum compound traffic growth.

The TransWilts Community Rail Partnership is currently an informal organisation - a CRP that's ready-to-go once the winning bidder is selected and the level of service becomes clearer. Draft constitution, etc, are in place and we work closely with many parties already.   We're holding off the final adoption of the constitution until it's clear what we need - it will be a very different "animal" if an appropriate service (in fact the two-hourly + peak) is specified, or if the specification and operator produce a "parliamentary" service of a weekly train.

I enclose the following .pdf files:
   a) The TransWilts CRP's response to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)'s consultation on what we would like to see
   b) A set of presentation slides covering the key points we wish to make to bidders such as National Express
And I will add a summary of "case" just below.

We would love to meet up with your team, and listen to your thoughts so that perhaps we can make comment from a local perspective for our mutual benefit. We would also very much like to take you through our presentation in person (or with other members of the Stagecoach team) to explain deeper.  However, we are aware that you have a very large area to cover and may not be able to take up such offers.  And we're aware that National Express have already spoken with our MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) (Duncan Hames) on this matter;  Duncan is very well informed, and his views align with ours, and the community, and with other political parties too.

We also have around a dozen further consultation responses on file (from individuals through to MP and large companies) which we are happy to share, three business case reports for the line (BCR^▸ (Benefit Cost Ratio) of the preferred option running upwards from 1.7, even after optimism factor has been applied), Operation report on a suggested timetable from Network Rail, Chamber of Commerce business and public survey reports, and a report on the trial service, loadings and other journey data from 8 sundays last summer.  A very large amount of data indeed - I don't want to flood you out; please let me know if you would like copies.

--
Graham Ellis - graham@atrebatia.info
Press and publicity, TransWilts Community Rail Partnership
TransWilts CRP, 48, Spa Road, Melksham, Wilts, SN12 7NY
http://atrebatia.info - 0845 459 0153

cc:
Sion Bretton, Chair
Peter Blackburn, Vice Chair
Phil McMullen, Secretary
Chris Hankin, Treasurer

----------------

*** TransWilts - 2013 to 2028 Franchise.

** The line

- Links Swindon and Chippenham via Melksham to Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury
- Ongoing connections to other destinations at both ends of the line; two way flows; non-seasonal; link major urban centres.

** Work on the case

- One of the most thoroughly analysed cases for the service level that should be in the next franchise.
   MVA (Business / Financial) case and others
   Network Rail operational case
   Chambers of Commerce business survey results
   Chambers of Commerce public survey results
   Report on successful trial service on Summer Sundays 2011

** For the next franchise

- We have asked the Department for Transport to support a two-hourly service, hourly in the peak

This is a well researched case, high BCR (2.74), and is sufficient to bring an attitude change. By which we mean that people will naturally take to moving their journeys forward of backward by up to 60 minutes, rather than only considering the train if a particular service happens to suit them. 

- Price, speed, comfort and timekeeping are NOT critical elements for this service on the TransWilts
- Frequency (every 2 hours requested), times IF service is very limited, reliability and information ARE critical elements.

The service option requested has an excellent business and operational case and is fully supported locally.  Support is "joined up" with the Swindon and Wiltshire LEP, and Wiltshire Council fully on board.  It is part of the Wiltshire Council Local Transport Plan, and forms part of the Local Sustainable Transport Fund bid, to which Wiltshire Council has pledged a financial support contribution to cover the initial period as traffic build up.

- The service can co-exist with an open access operation we have seen proposed, and indeed they would mutually benefit; a combined hourly service would have each train busier due to the extra business attracted; only a service that was more frequent than hourly would lead to a drop.

- The improvements will do a huge amount for Melksham - a town with the size & character of Frome is a good comparison
- The improvements will provide a dramatic improvement for journeys from Salisbury and West Wilts to Chippenham / Swindon
Part of that improvement will man that passengers from Trowbridge to Swindon can be removed from overcrowded Trowbridge to Bath trains, thus providing capaity relief. Up to 50 passengers from West Wilts to Chippenham / Swindon currently change at Bath on certain peak trains.
- Opportunity to sort out a good service for Dilton Marsh (now urban area) and other occasional services south of Westbury
- All of these items taken together, on the same trains, make for an exceptionally good business case.

- Community Rail Support already in place and waiting to support an appropriate service; much proven work already, much more ready to go.

** Some specific comments and thoughts - "just ideas"

Although the Community Rail Partnership prefers a through service from Swindon to Salisbury, cross-platform / same platform interchange at Westbury is acceptable if it does not increase journey times significantly.

There are currently occasional extra trains in addition to the Cardiff - Portsmouth service running south of Westbury.  Some appear to be provided to meet the current franchise specification, and the reason for them may have been overtaken by other services added since they were specified, such as the "Romsey 6" and other direct trains from Fareham to Havant.    There would seem to be a logical sense in combining the resources used by these occasional workings south of Westbury into providing a two-hourly TransWilts service, and transferring other workings south of Salisbury to the South West franchise.  In most cases, these occasional workings are within 12 minutes of another train on the same line, and sometimes they're even closer.

[grahame]

First Great Western / Sue Evans

Hi, Sue

I've been liaising with other members of the CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) group, and we would love to take you up on the offer for 18:00 on 5th July.   Probably 3 of us - myself, and two others.  We have a very strong executive officer team these days; provisionally, the other two are Phil McMullen and Chris Hankin (secretary,  and treasurer). 

Phil and I live in Melksham, Chris in the greater Bristol area.  I can offer a venue in Melksham and we would be delighted if you came to see us, but we're all able to get to travel to Swindon.   If you have a room suitable for us to project from a laptop, that would be great.

Graham

--
Graham Ellis - graham@wellho.net
Well House Consultants, 404, The Spa, Melksham, SN12 6QL
Well House Manor, 48 Spa Road, Melksham, SN12 7NY
http://www.wellho.net  http://www.wellhousemanor.co.uk
I teach & often can't take calls. It's best to email me - I'll get back to you.


On 8 Jun 2012, at 08:00, Sue.evans@firstgroup.com wrote:


Hello Graham

Matthew Golton is our Bid Director for the Great Western franchise and
Russell Evans is currently working with him.  The three of us would like to
come and meet you one evening if possible to discuss your ideas.

Where is home for you?

How are you fixed for Swindon or somewhere not too far from there at 1800
on 28 June or 1800 on 5 July? We do have a car to get to you if that helps?


I'm pleased to have been able to clarify our position and we look forward
to hopefully seeing you soon,

Best wishes
Sue

On 7 Jun 2012, at 13:06, "Graham Ellis" <graham@wellho.net> wrote:

Sue, Many thanks.  That leaves me much better equipped to talk in a
positive, forward looking light.

It's water under the bridge now, but there does appear to have been some
disjoint in communications; I was involved in the funding last year, but
wasn't even asked this year, and we knew we would need to miss the Olympic
dates from the beginning.  But we're planning / hoping at our end to learn
from that, and it has to be quietly admitted that in our view too,
supporting a high summer Sunday 2012 service needs to take second place to
getting the whole thing right, monday to Sunday, for the next 15 years.

I (and I know I can speak for the rest of the group) welcome your
confirmation that you have supported our proposal, and to hearing what's in
the ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender), and what the outcome is.  We're looking forward to working with
whoever is operating the TransWilts services for the next 15 years, for the
mutual benefit of the existing and new customers of the line, and of the
rail industry companies involved in providing them too.

Please do pass copy this email on to your bid team (I have the name Hugh
Clancy - is that right);  we're more than happy to help Hugh and the team
working with him by providing information to help fine-tune your bid.
Whilst you'll know much more about the current operation and situation on
the line, we do have a few "left field" ideas we would like to share in at
least a brief conversation.

Graham

--
Graham Ellis - graham@atrebatia.info
Press and publicity, TransWilts Community Rail Partnership
TransWilts CRP, 48, Spa Road, Melksham, Wilts, SN12 7NY
http://atrebatia.info - 0845 459 0153

On 7 Jun 2012, at 11:18, Sue.Evans@FirstGroup.com wrote:

Graham,

Many thanks for your email to Dan and Julian - they are both on leave
this week.

Let me first apologise for the delay in responding to you; a number of
key individuals are seconded to franchise bid work, but this should not
have caused such a delay in replying.

As you are aware, we did offer an additional morning service through
Melksham during the high summer last year, funded by Wiltshire Council on a
trial basis. However, as you will know, that funding has not been made
available this year. While First Great Western would like to run additional
services for passengers, there are some lines where it is not commercially
viable to do so without local support.

Furthermore, and more importantly, this year's timetabling provision of
that service partly coincides with the Olympic sailing events at Weymouth
and the need to provide additional capacity for that route.

You will be aware the Department for Transport (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) will specify
future services for the new Great Western franchise from 2013 and beyond.
We know that many groups and individuals responded to the DfT's
consultation for the new franchise and made the case for additional
Westbury to Swindon via Melksham services.

I know that we have supported your TransWilts proposal to the DfT and
we look forward to hearing the outcome as part of the Invitation to Tender
process for the new Great Western franchise.

I hope that helps clarify the situation.

Best wishes
Sue

[grahame]

Stagecoach:   Email to Phil Dominey gave me an "out of office" - he's back Thursday and I'm waiting on that

National Express:  Email to Anthony Vigor gave me an "out of office" until 25th June. It include an "if urgent" other contact of Nikki Houghton, and I resent to her with "not sure on your timescales - IF urgent please forward".  Email reply to say "yes, I have forwarded, you should hear soon" followed by phone call from Elaine Holt, bid director.  Good discussion; follow up package sent by email.

Of note:
Can't tell us [too much] about their bid or ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender), but want to listen.  Particularly interested in demand forecast research.  Have member of the Jacobs reporting team from 2004 on their team.  "Nice to know we're remembered for something good" in area when we mentioned 2001 to 2006 service. Extra data sent though; she'll be reading over weekend and getting back early next week. Possibly conference call to fill her in more (but takes attititude that "we're pretty well informed already" - far more than Arriva did, although they are well informed) OR meeting with her team at our place or possibly with her.   She commented that she had discussed with "one of the MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament)".  We know that's Duncan but she couldn't remember the name.  Also commented that the TransWilts had been a specifically raised subject in discussions she had had at the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) (no hint I could see of any positive / negative slant on that, but clear indication it's not 'under the radar').  She was surprised at our own business stats of just how serious rail use from was at December 2006, which is why I confirmed those in cover letter - would not normally have gone so personally specific, but it's probably the example with the most detailed research data I have.

Arriva:  Met, see meeting notes and previous posts. Impressive team of Ed Thomas and David Jones.  "Diary note" to catch up once the ITT is published.   Follow up data with their team.

First: Meeting set for 5th July, now in Melksham; they had Swindon or Melksham options and - slightly to my surprise - tok up the Melksham one.   I'm still sore as to the very poor deal that the TransWilts has received in the current franshise and the mechanisms that First have used to save themselves some money, even going against the intent of SLC2 to the detriment of the area, of deliberate fillibustering at times, ever rising prices quoted in a game to get more subsidy.  I can probably deal with those / come around, but I remain seriously concerned at their pure rudeness and / or lack of resource in terms of not even letting us know that the "trial service" to Weymouth could not run this year.  Under Andrew Haines, they improved IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion); Mark Hopwood's reign, as far as our more local service is concerned, is again treated as a nuisance as it was in Alison Forster's day.  Personal view, by the way, and Sue Evans trying to be very attentive, but has been dealt a poor hand by her colleagues faiing to even get back time after time and has a lot of covering to do for them. Must move forward positively, but we must also learn from history and consider the question "what if their interest is not genuine?".

[grahame]

National Express:

Wow - thanks - that will keep me busy!

-----Original Message-----
From: Graham Ellis [mailto:graham@wellho.net]
Sent: 12 June 2012 19:19
To: Elaine Holt
Cc: Sion Bretton; Phil McMullen; Chris Hankin; Peter Blackburn
Subject: TransWilts - the extra package

Dear Elaine,

Good to speak with you on the phone today.

I mentioned a further bundle of data I could flood your email account with ...including around a dozen further consultation responses on file (from individuals through to MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) and large companies) which we are happy to share, three business case reports for the line (BCR^▸ (Benefit Cost Ratio) of the preferred option running upwards from 1.7, even after optimism factor has been applied), Operation report on a suggested timetable from Network Rail, Chamber of Commerce business and public survey reports, and a report on the trial service, loadings and other journey data from 8 sundays last summer. You can download this - your choice of two different formats (.tar.gz and .zip).
       http://atrebatia.info/downloads/gw.tgz?20132028
       http://atrebatia.info/downloads/gw.zip?20132028
The extra code on the end of the URL is an extra security element - a sort of password. Although all of the documents and letters were copied to us for our ongoing use, we do not have permission to generally publish some of the material.  The presentation is included within the pack, and is also online directly at
       http://atrebatia.info/gw/ppset.html
(links on underscores to left of bullet points).

You asked me specifically about demand forecasts.   It's difficult to do this by the 'easy' method of extrapollating current usage figures, as the current service is so very limited, and poorly timed, that we're frankly guessing and the model data results would be unreliable.   What I will point you to are the results of the Wessex Associations of Chambers of Commerce surveys from March 2011.  The association is based in Trowbridge and covers Wiltshire from Salisbury to Chippenham, as well as Frome.  160 businesses and 1600 individuals answer these (online) surveys.    The results are in appendixes of the TransWilts web site - all the figures have been graphed on the end of this page:
       http://atrebatia.info/report.html
I think we also have the raw data available to us, where we can look at every individual reply.  The graphs are automatic from Survey Monkey, by the way;  some of the numerical extractions such as anticipate journeys and loadings based on purely the respondents applied a more pessimistic interprettation to some of the data to ensure that the case wasn't weakened by being overstated.  Happy to go through the logic behind that with you / your team.

Further approaches  have been taken on demand forecasting that we've looked at are comparisons with similar towns / population centres with different service levels.  Frome, very near to us, has a similar population and is also a more minor station (having about the service level now that we're asking for in the future for Melksham) that's also near to a much more widely served station (Westbury in their case). We've also compared to Dronfield, again of a very similar population, where there is recent experience of traffic grown on an increased service.

We have also looked at the number of journeys per head of population for the station catchment areas nearby, and figures come in around 25 journeys per person (Trowbridge), 40 journeys per person (Bradford-on-Avon) and 45 journeys per person (Chippenham).  Frome is lower at around 8 journeys per person, and Melksham is less that half a journey per person.

There is a big danger with some of these figures that it's easy to quote Melksham / Melksham traffic as it's the most easily separated out, whereas our more general research / data points to a TransWilts traffic which into the future would see more journeys made  through  the Chippenham to Trowbridge section end to end than leaving or joining trains at the intermediate station at Melksham.   Much more, too, in the MVA report which is included in the download package.

To confirm (and expand) the comment I made on the phone.   Prior to December 2006, some 50% to 55% of the customers at my business in Melksham arrived in the town by train, and left the same way. That figure dropped to just over 3% the following year;  the favourite arrival train at 09:12, which had a London connection was withdrawn and the only train with a London connection now arrives at 19:11, which is not an acceptable time for arrival for business meetings / training courses.  The 17:05 return train was also withdrawn, replaced by trains at 07:17 and 19:48 - too early and too late for most clients.  Rail use has grown again to just under 5% last year.  How do people travel now?  A lot drive all the way; long distance visitors (Scotland) tend to fly and get a taxi; quite a few use rail to Westbury or Chippenham and then take a taxi or we collect them.  Very few will transfer to the bus, which in any case connects very poorly. Our experience is far from unique in the town - if you look at the attachment from Paul Goodhand in the submission, for example, you'll see he makes similar comments.   Paul is MD of a company employing just under 400 in the town.

I'm copying the four officers of the CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) on this email to keep them in the look - we would love to highlight certain elements in a discussion with you or your team to help ensure that you're best informed to make the most appropriate proposal for the line as part of your wider bid, and in such a way that we can work together to make a much more appropriate service succeed.  Most of us have fond memories of the National Express / Wessex Trains time - simply having a decent service does so much for this area; it was working before,lost on a  knife edge decision based on growth estimates that turned out to be fearfully pessimistic.

We're happy to meet up, to provide more data where we have it, to take part in conference calls.  I'll leave it with you for about a week so that you have a chance to digest what I've sent already, and perhaps to delve a little into the new stuff that's available in the downloads.


Graham

[JayMac]

Most interesting to note the correspondence with Elaine Holt.

I get the impression National Express are really gunning for this franchise. It would appear that there are some very positive noises coming from them.....

As merely an interested bystander with regard to TransWilts it is of some concern that First Group are not making similar promising noises...

[grahame]

Most interesting to note the correspondence with Elaine Holt.

I get the impression National Express are really gunning for this franchise. It would appear that there are some very positive noises coming from them.....

As merely an interested bystander with regard to TransWilts it is of some concern that First Group are not making similar promising noises...

I'm certainly forming an opinion as to each of the bidders; I could give a ranking, but I'm not doing so yet, as it's biased to do so until we've been through the current process of meeting up with those who want to meet to help them understand and bid better. We're trying to ensure that at least Phil and I are at all such meetings so that there are two of us to bounce things off.

First have both the benefit and the curse of being the current TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company), and so we can evaluate them not only on their words, but also on their past actions.  And over the last couple of weeks, they've scored a real "own goal" - not by failing to be able to run the Weymouths (which actually gives us more time to do important long term things like talk with bidders), but by failing to inform anyone of that inability, and then looking to stick the blame on the Olympics (laughable, as we specifically suggested that the train did not need to run those Sundays) and Wiltshire Council (who have got pretty steamed up about it).   And these events back are added to the events (good and bad) of the last seven years, rather than being an isolated occurrence.

Actually, there *are* promising noises from First: "I know that we have supported your TransWilts proposal to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) and we look forward to hearing the outcome as part of the Invitation to Tender process for the new Great Western franchise." but whether deeds match words, and whether that can be read at face value we have learned (through experiences) to question.

As an update, we're in the process of setting up a Stagecoach meeting too.

[Chris from Nailsea]

My erstwhile unreserved support for First Great Western is now starting to splutter somewhat ...