Written evidence from Virgin Trains (WRT 008)

INTRODUCTION

Virgin Trains operates services on the West Coast Mainline, serving London England’s West Midlands and North West, Scotland and North Wales. In 2012-13 we carried 30 million passengers.

SUMMARY

Our core aim is to maintain services as close to the advertised services as possible, rather than making an early switch to emergency timetables. This may have an adverse impact on our performance statistics. However, we firmly believe our approach gives our customers confidence about making journeys and reduces conflicting information appearing in different channels. 

Virgin Trains is a learning organisation, and our plans for snow and icy conditions are re-visited regularly to take account of experience. Our winterisation plan for trains and stations is reviewed annually and re briefed to front line teams (usually in late summer as we start to stock up on our de icing supplies).

Social media plays an increasing part in keeping customers up-to-date during disruption and we will shortly be able to provide social media coverage for the entire period of train operation.

VIRGIN TRAINS APPROACH DURING SEVERE WEATHER

Maintaining the advertised timetable

As a long-distance operator we have a distinct customer profile, with over half in possession of a seat reservation for a specific train for their journey. These reservations are either made automatically though purchase of an Advance ticket or through making a seat reservation to accompany a flexible ticket.

The high proportion of reservations is a key factor on operational decisions taken during periods of severe weather. Our approach is to maintain as far as possible our advertised services so that customers know that their reservations will remain in place. Maintaining advertised services is also important as many local services run by TransPennine Express, Northern, London Midland and ScotRail  and are planned around our timetable.

The industry standard judges punctuality against an emergency timetable once it is introduced rather then the standard timetable it replaces. There is therefore an incentive to introduce emergency timetables earlier than operational conditions would demand. For the reasons outlined above we remain committed to only introducing an emergency timetable if there is no alternative, despite the negative effect this may have on the Public Performance Measures released each period to much media scrutiny.

Current preparations

As a result of learning from previous years’ experience we have made a number of changes to our preparations, including:

• Our Pendolinos use regenerative braking which returns power to the grid when the brakes are applied. Software has been revised to allow this to be switched off if the temperature drops below 5C. This has the effect of providing more warming to brake parts, preventing the build of ice and snow.
• Concerns about supplies of diesel at Polmadie depot for our Super Voyagers have been addressed by the installation of larger fuel tanks.
• To ensure that on-board toilets remain in use we have a minimum of one portable discharge tank at each depot, capable of operating at extreme low temperatures.
• A thorough analysis of parts usage during bad weather (such as windows, which may become cracked by ballast thrown up in track-side ice and snow) has led to increased stock being held to ensure continuity of service.

Social media       

Virgin Trains has a combined Facebook and Twitter following of 160,000. Twitter tends to be the favoured option for customers to receive updates during disruption. As well as providing factual journey information Twitter can have a profound effect on customer insight into the underlying problems causing disruption to their journeys. A single photograph of a lightning strike in Manchester - which caused signal failure and extensive disruption – reduced the level of irritation felt by customers on twitter.

>>>>INSERT EXTENT OF TWITTER USE DURING DISRUPTION

Our Twitter feed is maintained by information controllers located within our operational control centre. These roles were specifically created to improve the provision of passenger information during disruption through a variety of channels. Immediate access to current information on performance allows them to provide a key link with customers.

At the moment we offer a Twitter service from 0800 to 2000. We plan to move to full first train-last train coverage within a matter of weeks.

October 2013