Owner of Southern Rail to spend £13.4m on improving services

Go-Ahead said the Department for Transport would allocate the money to improvements that will directly benefit passengers, but campaigners say it is too little, too late

Go-Ahead employs around 29,000 people across the UK and over one billion passenger journeys are undertaken on their services every year (PA)

Go-Ahead, which runs the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern rail franchise, has agreed with the Department for Transport to spend £13.4m on improving services.

The company has been marred by industrial action over the last year as well as fierce criticism from customers who have faced cancellations, disruptions and severe delays.

On Thursday, Go-Ahead said £7m of the sum would be put into a fund for the DfT to allocate to projects and improvements that will directly benefit passengers.

A further £4m will fund 50 on-board supervisors over the next two years, starting in January 2018, “to improve access to staff for passengers on trains”. The remaining £2.4m will target general performance improvements.

But campaigners called the move "too little, too late". Lianna Etkind, public transport campaigner for the Campaign for Better Transport, said:

“The southern fiasco is estimated to have cost the economy over £300m, and the Government has already covered millions of pounds in delay repay on behalf of Southern as well as handing GTR £20m of public money last year as part of an emergency package.

“Passengers have endured many months of miserable disruption, with poor performance predating the industrial action by many months. The Government should take control of this failing franchise, with a new start and a set up that passengers can have confidence in, and start the process of splitting it up and devolving key London sections of it to Transport for London.“

Go-Ahead employs around 29,000 people across the UK and over one billion passenger journeys are undertaken on their services every year.

The company’s customers include the DfT as well as Transport for London and a number of local authorities.

Southern has been in dispute with the RMT union and the drivers’ union, ASLEF, for over a year over plans to extend driver-only operations.

The rail operators say that drivers and guards should accept proposals for fewer guards, pointing out that many train services already run without them.

Go-Ahead stated at its half year results in February that the range of uncertainty around profitability of its rail division for the year that ended 1 July was plus or minus £15m. It said that this range related to the outcome of discussions with the DfT regarding the impact of industrial action on train performance, and other contractual variations.

On Thursday it said that those contractual discussions had now been resolved. The remaining range of uncertainty is plus or minus £5m, “reflecting a number of other ongoing contractual variations; including rolling stock cascades and timetable specifications, which remain under discussion with the DfT”.