A comparison of train operator performance on the East and West Coast Mainlines
Public East vs Private West
The East Coast Mainline is run in the public sector by LNER, a subsidiary of the Operator of Last Resort, the DfT’s public sector operator.
The West Coast Mainline is run by Avanti West Coast, a joint venture between FirstGroup and Trenitalia, in the private sector.
Any profits made by LNER are reinvested into the DfT. In 2019/20, LNER made a £40 million dividend payment to the DfT.
Any profits made by Avanti West Coast can be turned into dividends for its owning groups and ultimately their shareholders. Last year, Avanti declared that it paid a dividend of £13.5 million to FirstGroup in 2022.
Comparing passenger outcomes on the Coastal Mainlines
The latest ORR performance data show very different stories for the two coastal mainline services.
• Publicly owned LNER is planning 4% more trains than they did before the pandemic.
• Its cancellation rate, according to the ORR is currently 3.8%.
• LNER’s passenger usage is 10% higher than it was before the pandemic, up to 23.4 million for the last year.
• FirstGroup owned private sector Avanti West Coast, by contrast, has been running down its services.
• Avanti West Coast are planning 23% fewer trains than before the pandemic.
• Their cancellation rate last year, was 6.8% last year. So Avanti are planning almost a third fewer trains than they were before the pandemic and cancelling twice as many of them as publicly owned LNER.
• Passenger usage at Avanti West Coast has fallen by almost a third (29%).
As the ORR note last year, those operators who run close to pre-pandemic levels of trains have seen a stronger return in passenger numbers.1 And as the CEO of the OLR put it at
1 https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/2124/passenger-rail-usage-apr-jun-2022.pdf
the Transport Select Committee this week, “if you run trains on time, the passengers come back’ .
Avanti West Coast receive 55% more passenger complaints per 100,000 passenger journeys than LNER.2
De-staffing at Avanti
One reason why Avanti’s service has been so appalling in the years since the pandemic has been its approach toward staffing. Avanti has sought to minimise staffing costs by not filling vacancies among station and on-board staff, relying on overtime and rest day working and cutting its catering staff.
Avanti West Coast have 427 fewer FTE staff than when they took over the franchise in December 2019 . That’s a cut of 11.4% of their workforce.
By contrast, LNER have recruited more staff. They employ around 230 more FTE staff (7.5%) than they did at the time Avanti took over the West Coast franchise.
Avanti West Coast have reduced their headcount of catering staff by 150 since they took on the franchise and ended at-seat catering from May this year. LNER are still operating a buffet.
Source: https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/passenger-rail-usage/table-1223passenger-journeys-by-operator/
Table 2: Trains planned and cancelled
Source: https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/performance/passenger-railperformance/table-3124-trains-planned-and-cancellations-by-operator-and-cause-periodic/
Table 3: Full time equivalent staff
Source: https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/2224/table-2233-fte-employees-byoperator.ods