Hi there, we know how important it is to give out clear concise information.

We have developed an app for staff to receive information that is station specific to them. The messages are updated within service delivery centres and pushed out through the app this has been rolled out and we are in the process of embedding this.

When we go in to major service disruption, which is normally when services are delayed over 20 minutes ore more, an industry standard called Customer Service Level 2 kicks in. When this happens (and all other operators know we have go into CSL2 disruption because they receive an automated message to say that we have) ticket acceptance on other Train Operating Companies comes into play.

East Midlands trains should accept passengers for Luton and Bedford stations during severe service disruption (we will look at why they didn’t)

We are also looking at developing SMS messages for customers we do have an idea open about this.

If you have any other ideas please feel free to leave them on this site.

Hi there and thanks for your suggestion. We expect all of our drivers to make regular announcements when we are in service disruption. I will say that when the train is moving the drivers will only make an announcement when they feel it is safe to do so.

It’s a bit of a hard one for us to police to be honest, as we have to be on a train at the right time during disruption to listen to what a driver is or isn’t saying. T

the other thing i will say is it’s very hard sometimes for the drivers to get the information from Network Rail signal box, as the box are so busy fielding calls to trains that are caught up in disruption, sometimes that can be unto 20 or 30 trains they have to call one by one. So sometimes it does take a while for info to get through to the driver.

We do have a service quality team who access, but again they have to be on the right train at the right time. I know you are one of our very valued Twitter followers, can i ask that you keep us informed if you don’t hear announcements during disruption and we can deal with it accordingly.

We do have a Customer Relations Department for general complaints, which your posting does seem to be as we do expect drivers to keep you informed, even if they don’t know how long or what the delay is. Or contact us on twitter to let us know when this doesn’t happen

For any tangible Ideas you might have that we can implement please leave suggestions on this site.

Hi there,

Thanks for your suggestion; I can assure you we’re not hiding anything

It’s a balance between detail and readability with having a single route-wide poster. We publish some statistics at a route level and cancellations at a company level to make the poster more readable. Adding more information is likely to make it harder to understand for some customers.

We do record and monitor performance for both the Thameslink and Great Northern routes. We are always happy to provide this information for ad-hoc request. The last two period percentages are 3.31% and 4.26% respectively.

We are currently looking at a project to publish more detailed performance information on our website.

The 5 minute threshold is an industry standard defined by the Department for Transport and reported on across the industry.

The Thameslink route is an industry exception in that Public Performance Measure for punctuality is measured twice for cross-London services: once at the mid-point of either Blackfriars or Farringdon (as you suggest) and then again at destination. This is done, to capture the journey experience of people only travelling into London.

For example a train 6mins late at Blackfriars and 2mins late at Brighton will have one PPM success and one PPM failure so the train will have a PPM of 50% despite reaching its destination within the PPM threshold.

Cancellation figures are also reported in a similar manner with the train effectively considered in two parts.

Consideration is being made of a tighter threshold in future, but this change needs to be standardised across the industry, The Department for Transport and Office of the Rail Regulator define and manage the performance measures.

In recognition of the McNulty report into Rail standards, First Group are committed to releasing additional performance data, and this will be available on all First Train Operating Companies websites in the very near future.

Again thanks for your suggestion if you have any further ideas, please feel free to leave them on this site.

Hi there,

Thanks for your suggestion.

We aim to run all of our train services on time. I can see where you’re coming from on many of your points raised. Train heating has become a real issue, many of the trains we have inherited in our franchise are very old, the heating fails and it’s hard to get replacement parts. Our Engineering team are working to get this fixed.

Just let us know when staff are not being courteous to you, there is no excuse for rudeness and we will address that.

We are really committed to giving you all the information you need when things go wrong. But we do have a period of between 30-60 minutes when we go into major service disruption where our Service Delivery Centres are dealing with the mammoth task of rebuilding the train service, inputting all the details in the Customer Information Systems and talking and liaising with Network Rail about the service we can run, depending on what the infrastructure problems are.

I agree about the truth of delays, sometimes we get a bit lost in train jargon, which is no good to you guys, and we are working with our industry partners about which wording to use across the whole rail network.

We don’t lie to you we tell you what’s wrong, but no everyone understands what signalling problems, overhead line problems etc are.

We don’t want trains delayed at all. It’s not good for our customers, or our staff. It’s causes a headache and misery to everyone.

Thanks you for your very valid points and if you have any other ideas please feel free to leave them on this site.

Hi there.

Thank you for your suggestion.

The reason why there is a delay in what the live updates tell you is because the information is being input from our Service Delivery Centres, all the information they input about the train service feeds all of our Customer Information Systems.

When we have major service disruption, decisions are being made about what services we can run, train calling patterns and frequency of the services, this is a really lot of data they have to input, which is why is does take a while to get the information out to our customers. We don’t want to give you wrong information (which we know we do sometimes).

I know it’s frustrating, but we do need a bit of time to get the details right and then feed this to all of our customers. But we are always working on how we can make this quicker,

If you have any further ideas, please feel free to leave them on this site.

Hi there

The Department for Transport has made no decision about whether services on the Wimbledon and Sutton loop will terminate at Blackfriars and will not take a decision until it has completed consultation this May/June on the new Thameslink Franchise and future service patterns. So for the moment it is just a proposal which we have clearly publicised on the Thameslink Programme website. The website has also made it clear that there cannot be 12-carriage trains on the Wimbledon/Sutton loop:

http://www.thameslinkprogramme.co.uk/faqs/faqs_categories/public_index#question_27
http://www.thameslinkprogramme.co.uk/cms/pages/view/30

Our publicity about the Thameslink Programme has been focused on helping people through the disruption caused by the three and a half years of engineering work in central London.

People on the Wimbledon and Sutton loop will benefit considerably from the programme.

Already there is a new entrance on the south bank at Blackfriars which knocks 10 minutes off the walk to this side of the river where there is close access to places such as the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern and South Bank. The Tube at Blackfriars has now reopened and has lifts and escalators to the platforms. The National Rail station above will also have lifts and escalators to all levels.

There is a spacious new ticket hall and wider platforms at Farringdon station where, from 2018, National Rail passengers will be able to interchange with Crossrail, creating connections with places such as Heathrow.

If interchanging at West Hampstead we have a new station and platform footbridge with lifts. And in the future, London Bridge will be entirely rebuilt with far better facilities and far less congestion.

The rationale behind the proposal for terminating services at Blackfriars is not because more money is generated from London services – it is to remove pathing conflicts to provide a more reliable service. This is possibly key to ensuring 24 trains per hour can operate in each direction

If you have any further ideas, please feel free to leave them on this site.