Transport Select Committee report

Commenting on the Transport Select Committee’s Report, Charles Horton, chief executive of GTR, said:

“Clearly this a long and complex report, which we’ve only just received and we now need time to study its detailed contents.

“At first reading, our initial view is that the report covers many of the issues and challenges already in the public domain. We recognise and fully accept that our service on parts of the GTR franchise has not been good enough and we are sincerely sorry to our passengers for that.

“Clearly, we’ve not got everything right in the past two years, but we’ve committed to making things better and our passengers have already seen 400 new vehicles on our network in the past two years across the GTR franchise, extended smart card technology across our network and delivered nearly 250 of our obligations under our franchise agreement. While performance is still way below where we want it to be, it’s good that the constraints of the redevelopment of London Bridge have been acknowledged and, also, the fact that performance was beginning to improve before the start of the dispute with the RMT.

“GTR has submitted claims for force majeure to the DfT caused by the unprecedented industrial action and we have co-operated fully with what’s been asked of us at all times. We have been in discussions with the DfT to agree what they wanted to allow them to assess and evaluate our claims. It’s an extremely detailed process which the report accepts is “complex and painstaking”. These claims are currently being reviewed by the Department.

“We will now fully review the report in detail and consider its contents. We remain committed and determined to modernise the railway and deliver a better service for everyone”.

Ends