Open access rail services have demonstrated that they can grow the market for rail without requiring subsidy. What’s not to like?
Lumo’s open access services begun in October 2021
It was less than a month ago that Rail Partners shut up shop, but I for one am already feeling their loss. The organisation that served as a trade body for the private sector – TOCs and freight companies – did not simply argue for their narrow interests. The excellent Andy Bagnall and his team also embraced a wider agenda, producing solid research and advocating policies that would grow the railway.
As a rail minister in the coalition government, I was acutely conscious that there was no overarching voice for rail, as there clearly was for both road and air, which was a distinct disadvantage to rail, with government, parliamentarians, the media, and the wider public. Network Rail might have stepped up, and should have, but they didn’t. The only generic pro-rail stuff I saw came from Virgin.
That absence of an industry-wide voice had existed since the demise of British Rail which had run a series of successful television adverts in the 1980s. My favourite was one for sleeper services when a steward is asked by a passenger: “When are we off?” to which the steward replies “We are off,” no doubt implying a silent night could be had on the train. Poetic licence or what?
Perhaps the best was the one using the effective slogan “this is the age of the train”, but that was pulled when BR was given information about the highly unsavoury activities in the mortuary of Stoke Mandeville hospital of their face for the advert, one Jimmy Savile, It was to be another 25 years or so before his crimes became public in an ITV programme (which had been rejected by the BBC). Lots of people knew, but nobody said anything.
Anyhow, although it was a relatively small body, Rail Partners did fill the gap to a degree, particularly with ministers and in Westminster, but now the vacuum has returned. I don’t think we can expect much in the way of generic promotion from the government, unless you count the promotion of renationalisation which as a tactic will have a limited shelf life in popularity terms, given budget constraints and above inflation fare rises. Not to mention the carbon-crazy expansion of airports everywhere up and down the country. At what point does Ed Miliband stop sucking it up and throw the towel in?
Great British Railways should in theory fill the gap, and indeed I put this to them a couple of years back. They did not demur but I have yet to see any results, but then in general terms they have been employing a good number of people for a good number of years with frankly very little to show for it in any aspect.
One of the areas that Rail Partners championed well was open access. There have always been conflicting views about the merits of this. Traditionally, the Treasury took the view that it was a bad idea, worrying about income being abstracted from, at the time, premium franchises, thereby diminishing their value.
The DfT tended to be more sympathetic, seeing the potential value to the passenger of competition. I sense that the tables have turned, with the Treasury now more positive than the DfT
The DfT tended to be more sympathetic, seeing the potential value to the passenger of competition. I sense that the tables have turned, with the Treasury now more positive than the DfT.
On January 6 this year, the transport secretary wrote to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to clarify her thinking on open access. As her ministerial colleague Peter Hendy put it in a parliamentary answer to the Lib Dem peer Caroline Pidgeon about the letter: “She [Heidi Alexander] was clear on the benefits that open access can bring, but equally that balance must be struck between passenger benefits and impacts upon taxpayers and network performance.”
These last two criteria, she told the ORR, need to be given extra weight. In other words, the transport secretary thinks more open access means less money from the services the government will be running on the same lines. I do not think this necessarily follows.
My view is perhaps coloured by my time in the music business when I managed 11 Our Price record shops in a tight West End area, some so close you could see one from the next. We even had three in Charing Cross Road alone.
You might think superficially that they were competing with, and taking business away from each other, but in practice, the sheer number meant that customers were drawn from an unusually wide catchment area, confident that if they couldn’t find the record they wanted in one shop, there was another less than five minutes away.
The same was true for hi-fi equipment, if you have ever wondered why there were so many shops selling such goods in a narrow run of Tottenham Court Road.
It used to be taken for granted that people travelling from London to Scotland would fly … But in 2022 for the first time in decades, that changed
And so it is with rail. It used to be taken for granted that people travelling from London to Scotland would fly. Only train buffs and those who hate flying would take the train. But in 2022 for the first time in decades, that changed. Between April and August that year, 57% of passengers took the train between London and Edinburgh. The last time I checked it was 63%. Pre-pandemic, the figure was just 35%.
The figures for the west coast London-Glasgow route lag some way behind the east coast route, with just under 50% taking the train, although the journey time is about the same.
Why the sudden surge in passenger numbers on the east coast? And why much less of a surge on the west coast? The primary reason has to be that in October 2021, Lumo open access services between Edinburgh, Newcastle and London began operation.
Those who feared this would damage LNER, the franchised operator as was, found their fears to be groundless. An examination of the passenger usage figures as we emerged from Covid showed at one point that the only franchised operation that now had more passengers than before the pandemic was LNER. In fact, in the last quarter of 2022, LNER topped the franchised operators table for growth in passenger numbers for the seventh consecutive quarter.
LNER had responded as the market demanded. It sharpened its act, reduced some fares and competed. It has also subsequently introduced new rolling stock which passengers seem to like.
People began to realise there were now more trains offering better value up the east coast and switched from air. There are currently no open access operators on the west coast.
I travelled on a Lumo train the other day from Edinburgh to London. It was my first experience with the operator. My Sunday train was packed to the gunnels with barely a seat free anywhere. The luggage racks about the seats were rammed as well. The “buffet car” I assumed would be there was in fact a tiny trolley shoved into an equally tiny space between two carriages.
If none of that sounds very enticing, its plus points most certainly were. It was quick with only a couple of stops, it was punctual, and most of all it was cheap. Don’t get me wrong. I think LNER is well run and its services are good, but I am in absolutely no doubt that a lot of my fellow passengers would have defaulted to a low cost airline if Lumo had not existed.
Lumo has grown the market and I suggest LNER would have fewer passengers, not more, if Lumo were not on the tracks
Lumo has grown the market and I suggest LNER would have fewer passengers, not more, if Lumo were not on the tracks.
Open access operators grow the market in other ways too, notably by offering better services to less well connected settlements. My Lumo train stopped at only two stations to pick up passengers: Newcastle and before that Morpeth. There are now five direct trains a day from Morpeth to London. When was that last time Morpeth had that good a service?
The same point can be made for Grand Central services giving direct trains from Sunderland to London, or Hull Trains from Hull to the capital.
In recent times, the ORR has approved two new open access operators. One will provide a new service from Stirling to London. The other, and I really like the innovation here, is a co-operative called GoOp that will massively improve local services between Swindon and Taunton or Weston Super Mare.
The lessons from mainland Europe point in the same direction. In Italy, competition between Trenitalia and Italo has seen passenger numbers between Rome and Milan grow by 90%.
In Spain, the competition between Iryo and Ouigo has led to a position where fares are now 50% cheaper than on routes without competition. There the infrastructure manager ADIF has embraced open access and itself put forward plans for expansion. It is an example Network Rail and the somnolent GBR would do well to follow.
In the meantime, the ORR has several other open access applications before it, from tweaks to existing operations, such as Grand Central wanting to serve Bradford, through to Virgin Group wanting to run 35 services a day up the west coast line to a variety of destinations. Given the existing heavy use of that line, that latter application may be one step too far for the ORR.
Of course the ORR needs to take into account the capacity of the railway, including freight use, but the default position should be to say yes unless there is a reason to say no. And Heidi Alexander should not take fright about the impact on the income of services she will shortly be running. open access can grow income for her, and of course, these private services require no subsidy from the taxpayer. What’s not to like?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
Keep an open mind about open access
by Passenger Transport on Apr 17, 2025 • 6:56 pm No CommentsOpen access rail services have demonstrated that they can grow the market for rail without requiring subsidy. What’s not to like?
It was less than a month ago that Rail Partners shut up shop, but I for one am already feeling their loss. The organisation that served as a trade body for the private sector – TOCs and freight companies – did not simply argue for their narrow interests. The excellent Andy Bagnall and his team also embraced a wider agenda, producing solid research and advocating policies that would grow the railway.
As a rail minister in the coalition government, I was acutely conscious that there was no overarching voice for rail, as there clearly was for both road and air, which was a distinct disadvantage to rail, with government, parliamentarians, the media, and the wider public. Network Rail might have stepped up, and should have, but they didn’t. The only generic pro-rail stuff I saw came from Virgin.
That absence of an industry-wide voice had existed since the demise of British Rail which had run a series of successful television adverts in the 1980s. My favourite was one for sleeper services when a steward is asked by a passenger: “When are we off?” to which the steward replies “We are off,” no doubt implying a silent night could be had on the train. Poetic licence or what?
Perhaps the best was the one using the effective slogan “this is the age of the train”, but that was pulled when BR was given information about the highly unsavoury activities in the mortuary of Stoke Mandeville hospital of their face for the advert, one Jimmy Savile, It was to be another 25 years or so before his crimes became public in an ITV programme (which had been rejected by the BBC). Lots of people knew, but nobody said anything.
Anyhow, although it was a relatively small body, Rail Partners did fill the gap to a degree, particularly with ministers and in Westminster, but now the vacuum has returned. I don’t think we can expect much in the way of generic promotion from the government, unless you count the promotion of renationalisation which as a tactic will have a limited shelf life in popularity terms, given budget constraints and above inflation fare rises. Not to mention the carbon-crazy expansion of airports everywhere up and down the country. At what point does Ed Miliband stop sucking it up and throw the towel in?
Great British Railways should in theory fill the gap, and indeed I put this to them a couple of years back. They did not demur but I have yet to see any results, but then in general terms they have been employing a good number of people for a good number of years with frankly very little to show for it in any aspect.
One of the areas that Rail Partners championed well was open access. There have always been conflicting views about the merits of this. Traditionally, the Treasury took the view that it was a bad idea, worrying about income being abstracted from, at the time, premium franchises, thereby diminishing their value.
The DfT tended to be more sympathetic, seeing the potential value to the passenger of competition. I sense that the tables have turned, with the Treasury now more positive than the DfT.
On January 6 this year, the transport secretary wrote to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to clarify her thinking on open access. As her ministerial colleague Peter Hendy put it in a parliamentary answer to the Lib Dem peer Caroline Pidgeon about the letter: “She [Heidi Alexander] was clear on the benefits that open access can bring, but equally that balance must be struck between passenger benefits and impacts upon taxpayers and network performance.”
These last two criteria, she told the ORR, need to be given extra weight. In other words, the transport secretary thinks more open access means less money from the services the government will be running on the same lines. I do not think this necessarily follows.
My view is perhaps coloured by my time in the music business when I managed 11 Our Price record shops in a tight West End area, some so close you could see one from the next. We even had three in Charing Cross Road alone.
You might think superficially that they were competing with, and taking business away from each other, but in practice, the sheer number meant that customers were drawn from an unusually wide catchment area, confident that if they couldn’t find the record they wanted in one shop, there was another less than five minutes away.
The same was true for hi-fi equipment, if you have ever wondered why there were so many shops selling such goods in a narrow run of Tottenham Court Road.
And so it is with rail. It used to be taken for granted that people travelling from London to Scotland would fly. Only train buffs and those who hate flying would take the train. But in 2022 for the first time in decades, that changed. Between April and August that year, 57% of passengers took the train between London and Edinburgh. The last time I checked it was 63%. Pre-pandemic, the figure was just 35%.
The figures for the west coast London-Glasgow route lag some way behind the east coast route, with just under 50% taking the train, although the journey time is about the same.
Why the sudden surge in passenger numbers on the east coast? And why much less of a surge on the west coast? The primary reason has to be that in October 2021, Lumo open access services between Edinburgh, Newcastle and London began operation.
Those who feared this would damage LNER, the franchised operator as was, found their fears to be groundless. An examination of the passenger usage figures as we emerged from Covid showed at one point that the only franchised operation that now had more passengers than before the pandemic was LNER. In fact, in the last quarter of 2022, LNER topped the franchised operators table for growth in passenger numbers for the seventh consecutive quarter.
LNER had responded as the market demanded. It sharpened its act, reduced some fares and competed. It has also subsequently introduced new rolling stock which passengers seem to like.
People began to realise there were now more trains offering better value up the east coast and switched from air. There are currently no open access operators on the west coast.
I travelled on a Lumo train the other day from Edinburgh to London. It was my first experience with the operator. My Sunday train was packed to the gunnels with barely a seat free anywhere. The luggage racks about the seats were rammed as well. The “buffet car” I assumed would be there was in fact a tiny trolley shoved into an equally tiny space between two carriages.
If none of that sounds very enticing, its plus points most certainly were. It was quick with only a couple of stops, it was punctual, and most of all it was cheap. Don’t get me wrong. I think LNER is well run and its services are good, but I am in absolutely no doubt that a lot of my fellow passengers would have defaulted to a low cost airline if Lumo had not existed.
Lumo has grown the market and I suggest LNER would have fewer passengers, not more, if Lumo were not on the tracks.
Open access operators grow the market in other ways too, notably by offering better services to less well connected settlements. My Lumo train stopped at only two stations to pick up passengers: Newcastle and before that Morpeth. There are now five direct trains a day from Morpeth to London. When was that last time Morpeth had that good a service?
The same point can be made for Grand Central services giving direct trains from Sunderland to London, or Hull Trains from Hull to the capital.
In recent times, the ORR has approved two new open access operators. One will provide a new service from Stirling to London. The other, and I really like the innovation here, is a co-operative called GoOp that will massively improve local services between Swindon and Taunton or Weston Super Mare.
The lessons from mainland Europe point in the same direction. In Italy, competition between Trenitalia and Italo has seen passenger numbers between Rome and Milan grow by 90%.
In Spain, the competition between Iryo and Ouigo has led to a position where fares are now 50% cheaper than on routes without competition. There the infrastructure manager ADIF has embraced open access and itself put forward plans for expansion. It is an example Network Rail and the somnolent GBR would do well to follow.
In the meantime, the ORR has several other open access applications before it, from tweaks to existing operations, such as Grand Central wanting to serve Bradford, through to Virgin Group wanting to run 35 services a day up the west coast line to a variety of destinations. Given the existing heavy use of that line, that latter application may be one step too far for the ORR.
Of course the ORR needs to take into account the capacity of the railway, including freight use, but the default position should be to say yes unless there is a reason to say no. And Heidi Alexander should not take fright about the impact on the income of services she will shortly be running. open access can grow income for her, and of course, these private services require no subsidy from the taxpayer. What’s not to like?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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