Almost half as many again!

In just four years, TransPennine Express has increased the number of
passenger journeys by almost 50%, Managing Director Vernon Barker told the
Modern Railways Fourth Friday Club

TransPennine Express is widely seen as a success story. That is often put
down to the new trains ­ and while it is true that we have benefited from
the smooth introduction of a fleet of new Class 185 Desiro DMUs, that is far
from the whole story.

We have seen growth from the start of the new franchise on 1 February 2004,
before the new trains arrived. A rigid focus on improving performance and a
welcoming attitude on the part of our staff have complemented the new trains
to make this a successful franchise. Patronage has grown from 13.4million
passenger journeys in fiscal year 2003-04 to 20.6million in 2007-08. Part of
that is down to the Manchester-Scotland route that we took over in December
2007, but the bulk of the increase has come from organic growth.

Marketing initiatives have helped to push up passenger numbers. For example,
we have 350,000 students in the towns and cities on our routes. We have
targeted them with the Student Getaway ticket, which has generated a 30%
year-on-year increase in student travel on TPE.

Our try-the-train-for-free promotion saw 10,000 free tickets given away
through our website. Tracking suggests that most people who took up this
offer came back for a second journey.

We have improved our services to Manchester International Airport, a major
traffic generator. As a result, rail¹s share of the surface access market at
the airport has risen from 6.5% four years ago to 10% today.

Our three main routes have all shared in the growth. On the North
TransPennine route, where we connect Manchester and Leeds with a four trains
per hour turn-up-and-go service, passenger numbers have increased by 32%
since the start of the franchise. The South route has a less frequent
service, with one train an hour linking Manchester and Sheffield, but
nevertheless there has been a 35% increase in patronage on this route. The
North West route has seen Scotland added to the Lakes as a destination, and
has seen a 47% jump in passenger numbers.

New trains

The fleet of 51x3-car Desiro DMUs arrived in the second year of our
franchise and resulted in an immediate increase in customer satisfaction
levels. Owned by HSBC and constructed by Siemens under a build-and-maintain
contract, the Desiros are the most reliable long-distance DMU in the
country, with an MAA of over 18,000 miles between service-affecting
casualties.
In conjunction with Siemens we have introduced ŒEco-mode¹ operation. As our
main routes cross the Pennines, we can save money on fuel and do our bit for
the environment by shutting off engines to coast on downhill sections (p97,
this month).
In addition to the Class 185s, we have a fleet of nine Class 170 Turbostar
DMUs which have been refurbished by Transys Projects at Clacton to an
interior standard similar to that of the Desiros.
We have complemented the investment in trains by spending £12million on
improving our stations. We are particularly proud of our restoration of
Grange-over-Sands, which won a National Railway Heritage award.
All this has resulted in our rating in the annual National Passenger Surveys
climbing from 74% when we took over to 86% satisfied today. We intend to
seek further improvements. For example, we currently run seven trains each
way daily on our Scottish route ­ we would like to see that increase by a
further two each way.
Our next challenge will be to ensure we increase capacity to keep up with
the rising patronage. Parts of our network suffered from severe overcrowding
when we took over in 2004, which was relieved by reorganising services and
introducing the new trains. However, current projections suggest that if
nothing is done those levels of crowding will be back with us by 2010.
The Government¹s rolling stock strategy allocated 42 extra vehicles to TPE,
which would allow us to increase most of our fleet of Class 185s to four-car
length. We hope to have a go-ahead to order these cars soon.

TPE in numbers

p   284 services per day
p   1,000 staff
p   60 trains
p   30 stations (plus more managed by other franchises)
p   20.6million passenger journeys annually on TransPennine Express

 

Attendees:

Speaker:
Vernon Barker, Managing Director, First TransPennine Express


Richard Harvey, Accelerator Solutions

Bill Brown, Alcatel Lucent

Piers Wood, Alstom

Haydn Abbott, Angel Trains

Iain Mobbs, Arup

Ed Funnell, Association of Train Operating Companies

Hassard Stacpoole, Association of Train Operating Companies

Mark Driscoll, Atkins

Revd Jonathan Barker, Chaplain to St Pancras & King¹s Cross stations

David S. Berman, Berman Associates International

Marc Meryon, Bircham Dyson Bell

Peter Barber, Blake Lapthorn Tarlo Lyons

Charles Burch 

David Watts, CCD Design & Ergonomics

Trevor Whelan, Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport

Chris Gallagher, Chris Gallagher & Associates

Robin Foreshew, Chrome Angel Solutions

Nicholas Comfort

Paul Mansbridge, Delta Rail

Martin Watt, Denton Wilde Sapte

Charles Erb, Dext Online

Andrew Jones, DLA Piper

Simon Houchell, E. C. Harris

Dan Flifel, Ellis Fairbank

Graham Roberts, Enroute Media Ventures Ltd

Steve Clarke, Entech

Andrew Grainger, Environmental Resources Management

John Beeston, EPTUG

Mike Etwell

Dorcas Ariyo Francis, Excellent Dorcas Consulting

Jeremy Gardner, Faber Maunsell

Mike Horne, Fifth Dimension Associates

Lisa Mota Pinto, First Class Partnerships

John Ellis, First GBRailfreight

Vernon Barker, First TransPennine Express

Ray Mays, Fitzpatrick

Jonathan Walley, Fitzpatrick

John Meredith, Funkwerk Information Technologies

Mel Gardner

Adam Street, GE Transportation

Tim Holmes, Gifford

John Holly, Glide Holdings

Jonathan Roberts, Grayling Political Strategy

Michael Jamieson, Halcrow

David Watters, Halcrow

Tim Hartley, Harvey Nash

Hirofumi Ojima, Hitachi

Richard Carrington, HSBC

Tony Teague, Human Systems

David Lane, Ian Allan Publishing

Robin Hirsch, Imperial College ­ member

Steve Broadley, Infor

Mark Hughes, Interfleet Technology

Peter Tomlinson, Iosis

Derek Byrne, Irish Rail

Chris McMorrow, Irish Rail

John Baggs, JAB Services

Matt Gardiner, Jobs-in-Rail

Garry Dunlop, Keolis

Peter Johnson, Knorr-Bremse Rail Systems

Paul Mansbridge, Lend Lease Projects

Steve Hayter, Mace

Caitlin Marnell, Marketforce

Jessica Patterson, Marketforce

Charlie Matheson, May Gurney Ltd

Chris Meakin

David Pepper, MM Partnership ­ member

James Abbott, Modern Railways

Ken Cordner, Modern Railways

Paul Edwards, Modern Railways

Roger Ford, Modern Railways

Tony Miles, Modern Railways

John Sully, Modern Railways

Alan Williams, Modern Railways

Keith Pullan, Mott MacDonald

Andy Norris, Mouchel

David Taylor, Mouchel

John Segal, MVA Consultancy

Richard Talbot, National Car Parks

Julian Drury, National Express

Bill McElroy, Nichols Group

David N. Bradley, Northwood Railway Engineering Ltd

John Roberts, Office of Rail Regulation

John Orchard, Orchard Consulting

Mike Cocks, Osborne

Chris Rowe, Osborne

Mike Lamport, Olympics Delivery Authority

Mitch Parker

Duncan Murray, Parsons Brinckerhoff

Jonathan Tyler, Passenger Transport Networks

Ben Blackwall, Praxis HIS

Piers Connor, PRC Rail Consulting

Stan Price

Charles Paterson, Proceco

Nikki Webb, Rail Gourmet

Rupert Brennan Brown, Rail Positive Relations

Michael Woods, Rail Safety & Standards Board

Mark James, Railway Forum

Graham Coombs, Railway Industry Association

Peter Staveley, Railway Operations Consultant

Richard Malins, Railway Study Association

Ken Wells, Ridge & Partners

Michael Hedley, Saft Batteries

Alastair Morrison, Scott Wilson

John Self OBE

John Ellard, Shearman & Sterling

Hans Benker, Siemens


Sean Denington, Siemens

Ian Polson, Siemens

Erol Baduna, Southern Railway

Ian O¹Connell, Specialist Engineering Services

Luke Causten, SSDM

Martin Fleetwood, Stephenson Harwood

Andrew Boagey, Systra

Rakesh Dawar, Tata Consultancy Services

David Taylor, Thales

Chris Shilling, The Modern Railway

Kevin Lane, Transys Projects

Amy Shaw, Travelers Insurance Co Ltd

Jim Manning, Turner & Townsend

Andrew Rayner, Vincent & Gorbing

Rhys Jarvis, Voith

Iain Court, White Young Green = 120