c2c Passenger Panel
Notes of Meeting held on Wednesday 24th September 2014
1.
Present:
Martin Smith (Chairman)
Ian Wilson
Rich Whittaker
Alan Newing
Carol Chaplin
Jeanette Martin
Daniel Pepper
Barking
Grays
Southend East
Pitsea
Thorpe Bay
Upminster
Laindon
Julian Drury (Managing Director)
Kevin Frazer (Operations Director)
Hugh Jennings (Head of Retail)
Steve Knights (Commercial Lead)
Chris Johnson (Franchise Manager)
Tunde Olatunji (Head of Customer Experience)
c2c
c2c
c2c
NX Rail Bid Team
c2c
c2c
Apologies:
Polly Mansfield
Paul McKew
Samuel Williams
Stephen Duffy
Hayley Drew
Benfleet
Benfleet
SE College/Basildon
Leigh & Chalkwell
S E College
Welcome, apologies and introductions.
Apologies – were noted.
Panel Membership
 No updates.
2.
Minutes of the last meeting on 18th July.
The minutes were approved.
3.
Actions and Matters Arising
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4.
HJ confirmed that the Limehouse Ticket Office was now open and the works
mainly completed apart from the Main entrance and lifts. NR were unhappy with
the contractors finished work and so the hoardings were returned. Full
completion was however expected within a week. The lifts would be available
once the power issues were fixed. MS said the station looked smart.
Rolling Incident review of train service performance 17th July – 18th September
No summary report was available but KF explained the reasons and extent of the
disruption incidents.
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The most significant disruption during the previous two months was an incident
that occurred on Tuesday the 8th September which continued to affect services
until Thursday10 Sept. A signal failure occurred resulting from excessive side
rail wear affecting the alignment on the curve of the track due to insufficient
lubrication. The fault was triggered by a sliver of metal shorting the circuit which
was very hard to detect as it was not visible. HJ noted the frustration that had
been caused to customers.
c2c was working in partnership with NR to enhance the track between London
and Barking as a ‘Golden asset’ to minimise the risk of infrastructure in this very
critical 8 miles as failures caused severe disruption. Some of the proposed
actions included improving the CCTV to help detect trespass and vandalism.
Since the incident, all the insulating block junctions had been checked.
Also existing arrangements to have a Person in Charge (PIC) stationed at
Fenchurch station during peak services were continuing, with additional support
available from a Duty Manager and a senior person on-call. An all stations
stopping pattern was also introduced to ensure that as many customers could
board the first available trains departing from Fenchurch station.
DP was not impressed with how he felt the disruption was handled at
Fenchurch station. DP said that calling the mounted police to maintain order
was heavy handed. The information to customers was repetitive and not very
helpful. HJ said that the mounted police were not called by c2c but it had been
necessary to put crowd control measures in place.
DP said that the message saying the upper concourse platforms were full did
not bear out and the one member of staff who he saw at the Tower exit was not
enough. DP also asked why the drivers could not drive the trains under
signalers instruction to keep the services running. JD confirmed that c2c
implemented a Contingency Plan for the next day. KF added that this included
plans to reduce overall services so that block working (trains talked past red
signals, section by section) could be used to keep trains running. KF also
confirmed that c2c HQ staff were also at Fenchurch station to help. JD
explained that the rules for block working were quite restrictive but were
permitted where there is a clear line of sight from signal to signal.
CC also travelled at around 1800 everyday of the incident but was not delayed
by more than 30 minutes. She wasn’t impressed with the confusion and
observed many other customers were dissatisfied. JD explained that the special
codes for the trains used in the Contingency timetable were not recognized by
the Customer Information systems. As this was resulting in wrong information
we decided to no longer use them during the rest of the incident.
TO advised that one issue that had been resolved was the problem of ensuring
the Tilbury Line always had services provided during disruption. He confirmed
that an operational protocol had been agreed which meant that a service would
always be earmarked for the Tilbury Line during disruption as long as services
could run on the route.
DP gave further feedback that he and other customers had been asked to
disembark of 3 separate trains around 18.45. He said he heard gateline staff
saying the driver would decide were the train was going too. HJ said this was
due to a train door failure on the 1700 and then the 16.50 being sent to the
depot as an empty train. The PIC had the responsibility for deciding where the
trains should go unless a contingency timetable was already agreed.
CC gave feedback of another incident on the 1st of September. CC was on the
train at Limehouse which had failed because of a power dip which caused the
train computers to shut down and resulted in 2 other trains being blocked. Our
investigation showed that the voltage dip also affected 26 other trains but only
one train failed. However this was at 1630 during the evening peak. KF said the
train was reset and taken out of service. We resumed services with a
contingency timetable. The power supply issue affected signals, our trains but
also other businesses. JD confirmed that we are working with UK Powere
suppliers to find a fix and with our train suppliers Bombardier.
ACTION – KF agreed to provide an update to the Panel on progress with
the various operational and infrastructure actions.
5.
c2c Customer Experience update
Essex Thameside – TO confirmed that the customer promises were being written
into a new Passenger Charter document. MS said he would like a schedule of the
franchise deliverables so that these could be explained at subsequent panel
meetings.
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Action – TO to share a copy with the Panel and provide the schedule of
customer deliverables. For the November meeting the priorities were
Passenger Benefits; December 2015 timetable, Fleet and Smartcard
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DP asked if the toilets were being retained and the c2c said they were.
CC had asked about Smart and was told that these were not yet available for
journeys from Thorpe Bay. HJ took CC’s details as a potential early adopter.
MS also said he’d be interested to trial the Smartcard.
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Panel Focus Group – on c2c proposals for new fares – Steve Knights
The Panel members took part in a customer focus group session hosted by Steve
Knight, Commercial Lead for NX Rail Bid. The Panel was invited to provide
customers into a new proposal to introduce advance fares for travelling on the c2c
route.
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The panel was overwhelmingly in favour of advance tickets which currently
were not available for travel on the c2c route.
They did not want the tickets restricted to a single train.
The Panel members suggested it wasn’t logical to tie leisure customers to a
single train.
They agreed leisure customers would not expect to travel in the peak on a
discounted ticket.
There was no consensus on what was an appropriate level of discount or the
length of time to book in advance.
The discount would be more attractive if were expressed as a percentage
rather than as a fixed cash saving amount.
The ability to purchase advance tickets on-line with free post or collection from
a Ticket Vending Machine (TVM) collection were considered to be added
benefits.
The ease of navigating the ticketing vending machines to find advance tickets
was a potential issue for customers unfamiliar with the options.
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The question was asked whether Season ticket could get a discount if
purchased in advance but it was noted that this ticket type was already heavily
discounted.
The Panel expressed the need for fare simplicity to remove the confusion
customers face trying to work out the nuances of multiple fare types to the
same destination.
A member said that the Plus Bus offer of a discount helped influence her
decision to buy the rail/bus ticket.
The Panel queried the benefit of c2c having advance knowledge of their
customers travel intentions and suggested that an alternative would be to do
Special Events Advance Tickets – for e.g. for the Southend Airshow.
The Panel asked the difference between the current Group Save fare and c2c
advised that the Advance ticket was aimed individual customers.
MS – welcomed plans to order new trains but asked if that was enough. JD
said that 17 of the existing trains would be given a metro style refit and the
Metro frequency would also increase.
HJ confirmed that all station staffing would also include plans for West Ham.
IW said the commitments feel like they are all about the customer. He
expressed his confidence that the current management team had the capability
to deliver a new completely customer centric railway.
IW – said customers would prefer more seats. c2c Live if delivered successfully
would make a big difference for c2c customers.
TO said delivering these plans required co-creation with customers and
Passengers Panels continued involvement is required.
IW asked if there was a risk from NR to the delivery of the 90% Right time
performance target. KF said that a joint partnership was crucial to the
successful delivery of our performance commitments and a hearts and mind
approach to build up the relationship was planned.
National Rail Passenger Survey Results SPRING 2014
TO shared the report on Passenger Focus’s most recent passenger satisfaction
scores showing the comparison from the previous Autumn 2013 (A13) result and the
previous Spring 2013 (S14). The report also compared c2c’s best in class results with
other London and the Southeast train companies. Satisfaction declined compared to
previous results.
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Overall satisfaction declined to 89% (A13 - 92%)
Overall satisfaction with Stations declined to 81% (A13 - 85%)
Overall satisfaction with the train declined to 88% (A13 -92%)
Satisfaction with the value for money for the price of your ticket declined to
44% (47% in A13)
IW asked whether there was further risk of declining satisfaction during the delivery of
the new commitments. JD said this was possible but the new organisation structure
and delivery plans would mitigate any risks.
6.
Review of Panel emails May – July 2014
Only 4 emails were submitted by other customers for the panel’s attention. The
issues were discussed and panel comments and c2c’s replies included in the email
spreadsheet – summarized as follows -
Insufficient Oyster top-up machines/reliability issues
 MS supported the issue raised citing Barking station which only has 2 Oyster
top-up machines versus the many customers wishing to top-up cash
transactions. JD replied that the next batch of ticket machines will be enabled
for Oyster; C-pay and c2c Smartcard.
 On C-Pay, c2c said the go-live launch by TfL hinged on the resolution of the
outstanding functionality issues including the ability of hand held readers to
read c2c Smartcards.
Quiet carriage – A customer suggested additional signs on the back of the seat
headrests.
 c2c said that the current signage was prominent. However the suggestion
would be reviewed as part of future marketing and train development plans
Tight connection time – Request to increase the connection dwell time on the 0631
 MS – supported the request and c2c agreed to include this consideration into
the planning for the December 2015 major time-table change.
Barking Station – Barking and Gospel Oak Rail User Group copied the Panel in on
ongoing discussions with c2c Group Station Manager. Noted.
7.
Panel members general feedback on journey experiences (general service observations)
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8.
MS said he had still not seen any improvements in the dot matrix Customer
Information Systems.
MS – gave feedback of the 0818 train from Barking which was loaded to the
point where customers were simply unable to board and sometimes the
following trains were equally difficult to board. JD acknowledged that some
inner London services were very busy but said that improvements are
scheduled as part of the major timetable change in December 2015.
JD confirmed that of the 20 items to be fixed only 4 were now outstanding and
the previous supply chain issues were being resolved. Whilst there were still
some faulty on train Passenger Information Systems, this had noticeably
reduced and complaints were now rare.
IW – said he had not observed anything off note.
Panel Visits
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9.
Q Train – MS advised that he had had a very educational journey on board c2c
and NR’s Q train.
Any Other Business
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HJ – advised the Panel that Limehouse station was opening by the end of July.
Julian Drury – expressed his personal gratitude to the Panel for all their input and
ideas. He said the Panel served as good critical friends and welcomed the continued
feedback on their journey experiences and c2c’s service delivery.
10.
Date and Venue of Next Meeting - Thursday 24th July 2014 @ Cutlers Court [Post
meeting – changed from the 18th of July at c2c’s request]