I've posted separately a thread that introduces the "TransWilts Rail" initiative that's curruntly under way - bringing together the parties from all quarters to link communities and businesses across Wiltshire and beyond. It's
here under the TransWilts board, but I thought I'm also adding a post in the 'campaign' area because it IS also a quest - or campaign if you like - for an improved service.
Campaigns move on over time - that's not to confuse "objective creep" with the natural progression through stages, and I've been involved with the TransWilts for quite a while. Nothing like as long as some others, but I'm probably well placed to give an update as where we were at the change of Franchise from National Express / Wessex Trains to First, through to today. Here's a piece written for the "Save the Train" website, which was where my personal involvement started.
The first objective when "Save the Train" was set up was to put this line onto the map - to ensure that the people who were the decision influencers and makers, many of whom live and work a long way from Wiltshire, were aware that there was a case to be looked at. And that objective, to some extent, had to be something of an adversarial one. We had to be a bit of a squeaky wheel. We had to say to people who had little interest in Wiltshire "please consider our case" and we had to say it quite often and loudly to ensure it didn't get drowned out by other far grander things. "Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves" is something I was brought up on, and we had to - at times - irritate people so they would look at the pennies.
Being a bit of an irritant like that doesn't necessarily stand you in the best of steads with people, and neither does questioning prior decisions made by their friends and colleagues in the same organisation, but we rapidly came to realise that the majority of people that we approached and worked with and through were very much on side (although a few had, and perhaps still have, a different agenda and priorities), and that if we learned much more about the system, how to look for goals that were realisitic, and how to push on doors that could be pushed open (preferably on well oiled hinges) we could put the need to be purely adversarial behind us. We could - and we now have - move on to working with all the parties towards a solution that suites everyone.
The second objective is / was to get a proper evaluation together of an appropriate service. Was one return trip starting out at 06:15 from Swindon to Westbury, and another one starting out at 18:44, with nothing else, appropriate for the traffic flows of the area and the communities served? Was just two evening trains - at 17:00 and 19:35 - from Westbury to Swindon, and nothing from Swindon to Westbury, really the best option for Sunday? We guessed not, we hoped not, but we didn't know. We quickly learned (through FOI▸ ) that Jacobs / 2004 had recommended a commuter service into Swindon in the morning, one back in the evening, and a two-hourly service in between ... and that in a report which across the South West as a whole was distinctly spartan in what it suggested be run.
A very great deal has been done towards the second objective. Wiltshire Council and Network Rail have both looked at the case in various ways, and come up with suggestions / initial views that a service every 2 hours in the short term, or every hour in the quite near future, has a significantly positive benefit to cost. The higher level of service than suggested by Jacobs is partly based on the continued rapid growth of rail passengers (8 to 10 % per annum, versus less than 1% that Jacobs took as the basis for calculations), partly by the high growth of the communities along the TransWilts corridor which not only gives more potential travellers, but also brings increased congestion to the road network of the area, and partly by environmental and limited fossil fuel concerns which - whether you personally agree with them or not - are encouraging more and more people to opt for public transport options if they possibly can. Our own work - asking people n the area for their views and intents and correlating them, making comparisons with other lines and communities elsewhere in the UK▸ , and more, has also produced results that point in a similar direction.
But, having pointed to a body of evidence that all shows in a similar direction, we still don't have proof. I'm personally reluctant to call anything short of actually trying out a service as proof of what it will do. Howevers, others (more genlty than me, perhaps) will accept the outputs from various industry standard models, on top of the evidence so far, as sufficient proof. At the very least, they allow the TransWilts to be evaluated with the same formulae as other services to provide a comparator. Alas, even with industry standard models there is some 'special case' working needed for the formulae; it's quite one thing to calculate an expected traccif level based on increasing a service from every 120 minutes to every 60 minutes, but a far longer (and more dubious) exrapollation to look at increasing a service from every 720 minutes to every 60.
Anyway, to put one of the last big jigsaw pieces into the end of evaulations, we need the industry standard modelling - systems that have marvellous names such as MOIRA and LENON which use ticketing databases and all sorts of other commercial data that only a limited number of expert consultants may access - and therefore, there's a need to fund this work. Actually, it's rather a good idea having independent experts with a good reputation doing the work, as it will truely confirm their independence. And they can also look at a number of alternative scenarios and give their inputs as to which is best. It's a very tough call indeed for us to know whether a single train would be best used to provide a train every 3 hours or so between Salisbury and Swindon, or one every 2 hours between Westbury and Swindon , or an hourly Melksham to Swindon service. We're pretty sure that running south of Melksham is vital and that hourly should come when a second train is available, but do you run to Salisbury every 3 hours, or can you provide an excellent connection at Westbury into an onward service that gives you a two-houly ALL statins service along the whole route?
The third element of the campaign is to (re)gain an appropriate service. And that requires much more that a good case. It requires political goodwill and everyone working to make it happen. By this stage, the old "squeaky wheel" antagonism needs to be just a distant memory, with trust (re)built bewteen all parties. And it required a far wider constitution or players - not only the rail campaigers, but the local businesses, the education establishments who need to move their pupils, the rail companies, the track operators, teh community and the government too. We're moving - rapidly - from phase 2 to phase 3 at the moment; have a look at the TransWilts Rail website that was launched - no more that a flash page, but already with two surverys to draw in views and opinions. And "watch this space" there.
Finally - the fourth element is to retain the service. There is little point in doing a huge amount of work, winning a service, only to find that it's lost again. That could happen politically, it could happen because the service was provided but not marketed, it could happen because it came back with inappropriate timings / a lack of reliability / expensive pricing. And it's up to the communities all along the route to make sure that it works. To feedback information to get the right offering, to feedback the right offering to the people who live along the way and want to use it, and to have a real sense of ownership from everyone. The community element of the third element, and of the fourth element too, is a Community Rail Partnership. We've already done a great deal of preliminary work on that over the last year, and worked with other groups too. I can point you to timetable leaflets, to station adoptions being worked on, and to a number of other exciting schemes we have in the melting pot. Many of the elements of a Community Rail Partnership depend on there being a saleable train service - and at present there are only limited opportunities there - but weve worked on things like the Santa special, a day our walking beside the Thames, and other events in the last year and there's much more planned. You'll see a lot more from the CRP▸ in the next years and - I hope - a lot less need to see fireworks from "Save the Train". The "Save the Train" name has become somewhat historic, and let's make sure the need for it, in it's negative form, rapidly becomes historic too.
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