And so, it's goodbye to National Express East Anglia, and welkom to Nederlandse Spoorwegen, who have won the new Greater Anglia franchise. The only catch is, the franchise is for... twenty-nine months, starting from 5 February 2012 (yes, only 101 days of NXEA to go!).
In their bid, a series of improvements for passengers during the franchise period has been promised, including better station and ticket facilities and measures to improve passenger information. There will be a text messaging service to keep passengers informed if service disruption occurs will be introduced, and new information desks will be provided at major stations including London Liverpool Street, Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich and Stansted Airport.
For commuters, the new franchise will make it easier for passengers to buy tickets, including:
- extending Oyster Pay As You Go between London Liverpool Street and all stations to Shenfield, and stations to Hertford East
- improvements to ticket vending machines, and
- introducing mobile phone and print-at-home ticketing facilities.
They are also committed to provide an additional 600 car park spaces (subject to planning approvals), more cycle storage facilities and deliver a number of other measures to improve the service to customers including deep cleaning of stations and trains.
Like me, Bob Russell thinks this is a good thing, noting as he does that we now have a railway system privatised by a Conservative government, run by one government (Netherlands) and powered by electricity produced by another (France). It isn't exactly a glorious endorsement of the private sector, is it?...
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