ScotRail: public ownership is not enough

 The Herald has been running a series of articles on ScotRail since it was taken into partial public ownership as the ‘operator of last resort’. As is often the case, the headlines don’t always reflect the content, which is generally good, and the usual suspects have claimed it shows public ownership doesn’t work.

Last September, I wrote a briefing for the Reid Foundation, All Change on the Railways, which looked at ScotRail and the UK Government reforms. This was a warm-up for Mick Lynch's lecture at the Jimmy Reid Memorial Lecture in October 2024. It is worth remembering that under the Tories, only 85.5% of trains ran on time, and many more failed to run at all, not least because industrial disputes were deliberately left unresolved, wasting £1.25bn of taxpayers' money. This was also the case with Abellio in Scotland. Fragmentation, waste and bureaucracy beset privatised rail. While welcoming the decision to bring ScotRail into public ownership, I highlighted several challenges. These included driver shortages, ageing rolling stock, retiring engineering staff, passenger safety, and the need for an integrated transport and ticketing system. These all reflect years of mismanagement, which cannot be fixed in under three years of partial public ownership. ScotRail still operates under the failed franchise model, which has additional costs baked in.

The usual suspects have focused on increased costs, pointing to the grant increase from £446m pre-pandemic (2019/20) to £737m. However, we also know that Abellio was running at a loss above £100m, which they, or another operator, would insist on to keep the franchise running. Then, there is the need to settle the pay disputes, record inflation rates, and other costs associated with the mess Abellio’s desperate cost-cutting caused. Some of us can remember the shambles of the 2018 winter timetable, with months of cancellations and service disruption. So, while it is right to question any cost increases, they must be contextualised.

There is a lot of confusing data in the articles about passenger satisfaction based on different surveys over varying timelines, with some highly subjective questions. For example, what is the difference between 'sometimes' and 'rarely' in relation to delays and cancellations? However, overall performance and passenger satisfaction continue to be better than the GB average and trains in Scotland are more likely to arrive on time. As someone who regularly uses the train, I have to agree. Much was made of cancellation costs (still better since public ownership), but these are anyway mainly outwith the control of ScotRail, either due to the weather or Network Rail issues. A public service operator should ensure that passengers get home, which often means expensive taxis because coaches are not always available. I can recall several lengthy disputes with Abellio, who fiercely resisted paying the actual cost of their service failures - no MSP to complain to then!

ScotRail is also running 75% more services, and while that is slightly down on the pre-pandemic figures, other rail companies have not achieved similar pandemic recovery numbers. There has been a significant shift to home working, which has been encouraged in Scotland, with no Jacob Rees-Mogg leaving cards in civil service offices!

It is no surprise that passengers think rail fares are too high – they are. The peak rail fares pilot scheme boosted demand for ScotRail services by around 6.8%, short of the 10% target. However, this criterion ignores the policy's wider benefits, including two million car journeys taken off our roads. 

So, in three years of partial public ownership, services have improved marginally as the Abellio shambles have been patched up. However, that is only part of the story; as Transform Scotland says, a clear, coordinated strategy and long-term investment are needed to ensure railways are a “national success story rather than a symbol of missed opportunity". They criticise the ending of the peak fares scheme and point to the need to adapt services to evolving work and leisure patterns, with greater cohesion between improving rail services and facilitating traffic reduction. The Scottish Government has committed to spending over £6 billion on new road capacity on the corridors from Perth and Aberdeen to Inverness. Yet no similar ambition exists for the parallel rail routes. We have an ageing rail infrastructure and one of the oldest train fleets in Britain. If this sounds familiar to ferry users, it should. Transform argues that the strategy should include simplifying fares, prioritising user experience, improving service reliability, and investing strategically.

As I argued last September, the key to the future of our railways and climate change is to get us out of our cars and onto the train. Rail is in a unique position to accommodate transfer away from the car. To achieve that, we need a radical policy shift and investment. Public ownership is an essential step on that journey but not enough.

ScotRail - the start of a new journey

Today is a special day for rail campaigners who have been making a case for bringing Scotland's railways back into public ownership for the 25 years since privatisation. ScotRail is back as a public service. While this has been a long journey, with every Scottish Government since devolution, it is not the final destination. Public ownership is not enough on its own. What matters is what we do with it. And let's not forget that ScotRail is only part of Scotland's railway system; privatisation is still with us. Anglo-Scottish high-speed rail is still a pipe dream.

There have been the predictable doomsayers who claim ScotRail will "turn out to be CalMac on wheels". The ferry fiasco certainly hasn’t enhanced the Scottish Government’s reputation for running anything. However, those who argue that there is some magic formula for success that only applies to the private sector clearly haven't been following the P&O debacle or the costly absurdities of rail privatisation over the past 25 years. Even the Tories have called time on their privatisation model, although typically, their new model just tinkers around the edges.

If we are to avoid another CalMac, the First Minister needs to get serious about the promised 'national conversation for the future vision of the service. We also need some immediate action, not another long grass strategy. Fortunately, there are already some good contributions to get us started. For example, the rail unions have published their vision for Scotland's railways with help from Unity Consulting. These proposals include expanding the service, introducing proper staffing levels, and improving industrial relations.

Railfuture Scotland has suggested a pretty good mission statement for ScotRail, ‘The trains need to go where people want, when people want and at a reasonable price’. Unfortunately, this will not be achieved through cuts in rail services and ticket office closures. Electronic ticketing is still unreliable, and many prefer or have no option but to use a paper ticket. I regretted using an electronic ticket last year when I had a long battle with Avanti, only resolved by going to the Rail Ombudsman. A closed ticket office is also a closed waiting room and toilets.

The key to the future of our railways and climate change is to get us out of our cars and onto the train. It has been estimated that we need to double pre-covid passenger numbers to achieve net-zero. Quite a challenge when commuting numbers are likely to fall with greater use of flexible working. There will be more focus on leisure travel and ensuring rail is the first choice for long-distance journeys. As there were twice as many seats provided each day as passengers travelling pre-Covid, rail is in a unique position to accommodate transfer away from the car without further increases in cost to the taxpayer.  

Railfuture has also produced a list of 50 new stations for reopening on existing lines that would generate significant numbers of new passengers. The same applies to rail freight. I recently did a paper for a European think tank on this issue, highlighting how far behind we are. In countries like Switzerland and Austria bus and rail use has been rising every year. Several bids for freeports or greenports don’t even have a rail link, suggesting they will be served by even more lorries on our roads. While all this will require significant investment, the costs of not doing it could be considerably more.

The railways also need to be part of an integrated transport system, which policymakers have discussed for many years and some cities have delivered. Sadly, not in Scotland, where it took the Scottish Government years just to establish a forum. We need a coherent network of interconnecting bus and rail services across the country. One break in that service and the car becomes the default means of travel for many. For example, I am flying from Edinburgh Airport on Monday and I would have preferred to go by rail and tram. However, my recent experience of cancelled trains means I will probably have to drive to be sure of catching my early morning flight. I will not be alone in that, looking at airport car parks.

Today is a cause for celebration, but it's just the start of the journey. The end destination must be ensuring the Scottish Government delivers a model of public ownership for ScotRail that is genuinely world-class. 

The 'poor relation' in railway policy

I was speaking at a European symposium on rail policy this week, providing an update on developments in the UK. It was interesting to hear what other countries were doing post-pandemic. Most are facing similar challenges as passenger volumes, if not freight, struggle to return to pre-pandemic levels. The concerns over the new Omicron variant is adding to those challenges.

In the UK, I explained the immediate UK Government reaction has been a predictable outbreak of short-termism. The Treasury spent an additional £6.5bn on running the railway in 2020-21 to cover lost fare revenue during the pandemic, but that was a drop in the ocean compared with other pandemic costs and should be significantly less this year. Train operators have been told to find savings of 10% while somehow protecting services. With large fixed costs in rolling stock and rail access, cutting staff or reducing terms and conditions is all that is left. As rail historian, Christian Wolmar says, “In the short-term, they are being completely squeezed. It’s incoherent. And it’s going to have a real impact.”

Since June, Unions have been in talks over plans to reduce costs in the industry. Voluntary redundancy schemes have been introduced, but the current agreement to rule out forced job cuts ends on 31 December. The rail unions are understandably expecting the worse and preparing for industrial action. The RMT said: “We’re very clear on the direction of travel, that a massive jobs cull at train operators and Network Rail are coming, as well as an attack on pay and pensions. We’re getting our tanks on the lawn right now.”

In Scotland, ASLEF has shown the way with its call to end “rip-off peak fares” and new investment. Scottish organiser Kevin Lindsay described the Budget as “the first big test” of the Scottish Government’s commitment to meeting its climate targets by “Investing in rail by making fares more affordable, ruling out service cuts, improving accessibility and growing freight infrastructure is of huge importance if we are to take the climate action we need to”. But, sadly, his call fell on deaf ears in the Scottish Government’s somewhat less than ‘bold and ambitious’ budget. The transport section is also pretty opaque when it comes to detail.

Other speakers and I argued that a new funding approach is required until rail use recovers. The UK and devolved governments should invest in rail services or see long-term increased car use, increased carbon emissions and more congestion. The new German government coalition plans to invest more in rail than road, and the Austrian government has introduced a “climate ticket”, giving access to all public transport. While the EU Single European Railway Area was broadly welcomed, the focus should be on breaking down barriers rather than promoting competition, which was likely to lead to the same shambles as energy networks. Despite some criticism of the railways, consumer satisfaction across the EU is quite high at almost 75%. Some £86 billion of EU funds has been allocated to rail investment, reflecting 2021 as the European Year of Rail. Although the pandemic has understandably overshadowed this initiative.

My previous paper had outlined the UK Government’s long-term plans for the railways. The Williams-Shapps plan includes a new “Great British Railways” contracting companies to run services, manage the infrastructure and conduct long-term planning. Since then, the UK Government has decided to slash the plan for more high-speed rail in the north of England, abandoning one leg of the HS2 high-speed rail link. Even the promised £96bn investment is subject to Treasury approval at key stages. With rail fares going up above the inflation rate and fuel duty and air passenger duty held or cut, climate change policy is going in the wrong direction.

We also had the Union Connectivity Review report that seeks to improve transport links between England and Scotland. Predictably, this collapsed into a constitutional bun fight, with the Scottish Government accusing UK ministers of a ‘power grab’. Others at the symposium used to more mature federal systems looked bemused! It has to be said the report was pretty underwhelming. Strong on rhetoric, but little in the way of firm plans.

Integrated transport also came up at the event. A single travel card is pretty standard in European cities, even those with less well-developed economies, as the Herald’s Catriona Stewart found in her trip to Tbilisi and Istanbul. Not to mention London. However, despite many promises, we have barely got past establishing a group to investigate the idea in Scotland. I explained that process is usually more important than action in Scotland.

For the seriously radical, there are free travel schemes. There were mixed views on these. Those countries that tried it argued that while public transport use increased, there was only a modest drop off in-car use. Increasing the cost of parking, congestion charging, or increasing fuel taxes needs to be combined with free fares to lower car demand. Others argued that it was a progressive social policy in its own right, improving access to travel for those who would otherwise be unable to get around.

Not for the first time at a European event, I felt like the poor relation. Our Anglo-Saxon love affair with the market again results in a transport policy that is second-class at best. While public ownership on its own isn’t the complete solution, it would make joined-up solutions that much easier and remove the waste and inefficiency of the profit-driven model.

The future is railfreight

In July, I was asked to write an overview of rail policy in the UK for a European think tank. An absolute pleasure for a rail buff like me after working for a union with no railway members. They recently asked me to follow up on railfreight, which is even better, as that is where the real railway is!

Few parts of the railway have changed as much as the freight sector. When I was young, wagonload freights could be seen across the network, even if I am not quite old enough to remember the station goods yards that are now more likely to be car parks. In recent years, the failure of industrial strategy across the UK has seen a decline in the chemicals, metals and manufacturing goods that were routinely carried by rail. And, of course, the massive reduction in coal traffic. One of my favourite work trips was to represent workers at Longannet Power Station, which always involved a look at the fantastic merry-go-round trains coming in from Hunterston.

Hunterston coal in 1989 (Author)

The numbers are pretty staggering. In 1974, over 7800 freight trains ran every day, falling to 1100 by 2003. I was cycling past a local freight siding this week. They have reduced from 3,000 to less than 300 over the same time period. The number of wagons has also been reduced by 90%. That doesn’t mean that freight has disappeared from our railway. It still shifts some 75 million tons a day in 600 freight trains. The average wagonload has more than quadrupled and wagons are used more intensively. 

 

Factory sidings near Irvine (Author)

The shortage of HGV drivers has rarely been out of the news recently, another post-Brexit warning the UK Government ignored. However, the railway has stepped up to help, something that has been given less coverage. The Office of Road and Rail has published figures that showed a 36.5% increase in railfreight between April and June, compared to the same period in 2020. One in four containers moving to and from our ports are now carried by rail. Phase 1 of the £260m Mossend International Railfreight Park has been given planning approval in Scotland, and this includes sidings capable of handling 775-metre trains. Work has been delayed by the pandemic, but it is scheduled to open in early 2023, handling 16 trains a day, creating 2,700 FT jobs and 2,200 construction jobs. In India, they have just run a 176-wagon freight train; three trains operated as one!

This also matters for tackling climate change. A typical freight train carries the equivalent of 76 HGV’s. Some 7 million lorry loads of freight are moved by rail each year, helping cut traffic jams and pollution. 16% of domestic greenhouse gas emissions came from HGVs in 2019. As Andy Bagnall of the Rail Delivery Group said: “Whether it’s goods or people, to build back better and to create a fair, clean economy for tomorrow, the country relies on a thriving railway. To realise its commitment to net zero by 2050 and support economic growth, government should set an ambitious target to encourage the shifting of goods from road to rail.” Don’t hold your breath, Andy!

Despite the demise of coal, bulk freight is still a vital rail customer. From china clay slurry used in paper whitening just up the road from me in Ayrshire to the five million tons of aggregates and 600,000 tons of cement used in construction. Without railfreight these bulk goods would put a staggering number of heavy lorries onto our roads. Other heavy loads include waste and spoil, oil (including airports), alumina, and rail infrastructure operations like ballast.

Prestwick Airport oil siding receives a delivery (Author)

Arguably the most significant potential growth in railfreight should be inter/multimodal, moving goods by container, mostly from ports to rail terminals. This sector is helping the most with the HGV driver shortage, which points the way to a better and greener future for transport operations in the UK and elsewhere. Felixstowe Docks alone manages more than four million TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) annually.

To move forward, the rail system needs investment in rolling stock and technology, particularly ways of moving and offloading goods. More could be done in supporting businesses to move freight transport from road to rail through the Mode Shift Revenue Support grant scheme, which is very small. Although it still removes a million lorry journeys per year. There are challenges for railfreight, not least the removal of diesel locomotives by 2040. Electric power will not be extended to all freight routes by then, if ever. There are technology solutions, including electro-diesel and potentially hydrogen, but that will require more investment. Some also think that autonomous trucks are the future, but I think that requires a degree of public acceptance that is a long way off.

Research for the Rail Delivery Group shows that a modal shift towards rail freight is essential in decarbonising the freight and logistics sector and wider society. Reductions in carbon emissions can be achieved by facilitating the growth in existing flows, like intermodal and construction materials, and the development of new flows such as parcels and light logistics. The future is rail; it’s now up to the industry and governments to act.

UK rail policy in transition

One of the many things I enjoyed about working for UNISON was the range of issues we covered. While some days I wished I worked for a single industry union, it was rarely dull! However, I have always loved railways, and that was an industry we didn't cover. So, when a European think tank asked me to write an overview of UK rail policy as part of a Europe wide paper, I jumped at the chance.

 

I wrote the paper at a time when the industry is potentially entering a period of significant change. The UK Government has published the Williams/Shapps plan for rail, ‘Great British Railways’.  The Scottish government has followed the Welsh government lead and announced the Dutch firm Abellio would stop running the ScotRail franchise at the end of March 2021. After this, an "arms-length" Scottish government company will take over the running of services. This highlights the different approaches devolved governments can take, although non-ScotRail services in Scotland, the sleeper and main lines to England will still come under the UK plan.

The UK plan concedes that the privatised railway wasn’t working before the pandemic. Not a small concession from a Tory government, but difficult to avoid given the timetable shambles and the East Coast franchise debacle. The pandemic is the primary driver for change. As commuters made up 47% of all rail passengers, a further 10% travelled for business meetings, and 5% were shopping. In other words, around two-thirds of passengers were using the railways for purposes that now face potentially permanent change. The plan makes further commitments, including “a modern, improved experience for both freight customers and passengers and zero carbon trains. We are growing the network, not shrinking it.” However, they also say the current sums being paid to operate and maintain the railways are not sustainable. So, change has to be done on the cheap, as many of the costly aspects of privatisation remain unchanged. They anticipate that system simplification alone will save around £1.5 billion a year, equivalent to 15% of the network’s pre-pandemic fares income.

 

A new public body, Great British Railways, will own the infrastructure, receive the fare revenue, run and plan the network and set most fares and timetables. Great British Railways aims to simplify the current confusing mass of tickets, but it will contract with private companies to operate trains to the timetable and fares it specifies. This is similar to the system used by Transport for London (TfL) on its successful Overground and bus networks.

 

It remains to be seen if this plan ushers in a “new golden era for the railways”. Industry groups gave the ambition a cautious welcome but highlighted the lack of detail. The rail unions were more scathing. ASLEF’s Mick Whelan said: 'Under these plans the private companies will still pocket a profit, but all the risk – the revenue risk – is being dumped back on the public purse. The government is changing the model but protecting the privateers, and privatising any profit. We believe in a great British railway – in the public ownership of a public service – where the wheels and steel – the locomotives, carriages, and the rails on which they run – are brought back together in a vertically-integrated operation to benefit businesses and passengers.”. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said, “If the government were serious about recognising ‎the impact of failed rail policy down nearly three decades, they would cut out the middleman, strip away the dead weight of the private companies and work with their staff on building a transport system fit for the future where investment in the workforce and infrastructure comes first.”

 

The unions were much more welcoming of the devolved administrations' approach. TSSA's Manuel Cortes said, “The COVID-19 pandemic made it abundantly clear that our railways are a public service, not a piggy bank for fat cat shareholders. And Welsh Labour showed the way when they nationalised the railways earlier this year.”

 

Significant though these changes are, many other issues need to be addressed. I covered many of these in my paper, including:

• The pandemic has not gone away. I write this blog post on a train to London with two different sets of rules on the wearing of masks. No longer compulsory once we reached Carlisle, although patchily observed in Scotland. The failure of rail operators to publish research on COVID risks is not encouraging.

•  Delivering rail on the cheap also brings other safety concerns. The 30^th anniversary of the Newton rail disaster reminds us of the consequences. As ASLEF’s Kevin Lindsay said, “It is vitally important that we work, every day, to improve the safety of our railway and do nothing to compromise the safety of passengers and staff."

• The UK’s transport emissions have hardly changed for three decades, despite fuel efficiency improvements and the recent rise of electric vehicles. Transport accounts for 28% of the UK’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions. The UK transport decarbonisation plan is again strong on rhetoric but weak on implementation detail. Full electrification of the railways is some way off and probably unachievable for rural lines. So, more work is needed on carbon capture of diesel engines and other solutions like battery trains. Sadly, this includes my beloved steam engines, which at least are now being built in Scotland. This is after all Love Your Railways week, which aims to raise awareness of every heritage railway across the country.

• The financial consequences of the pandemic have been highlighted in the Public Accounts Committee report on the English rail system. The need to deliver affordable rail fares will be critical in getting passengers back onto the railways. For example, Scots travellers can pay up to 70% more to travel by train than the plane, particularly on cross-country journeys.

• We also need to link railways to an industrial strategy. The Welsh Government developed an industrial strategy for building at least half of all new trains in Wales, but Scotland or the rest of the UK has no equivalent. The risk is that we repeat the shambles of failed procurement policies in the renewable energy sector. Rail freight also needs to be able to operate on a level playing field with passenger services.

Policy responses to the pandemic put some vital sticking plasters in place, but there are some real 'where next?' questions to answer. These will have significant implications for the balance between public transport, cycling, walking and the car - and how we achieve a rapid transition to a zero-carbon transport system. For railways, the solution is best summed up by ASLEF, “The only sensible way to run our railway is with wheels and steel together, with public ownership and operation.”

Keir Hardie understood this more than a century ago!

Air Traffic Control in the Highlands and Islands.

The public procurement of cutting edge technology is risky at the best of times. For a small public sector airport company to embark on such a programme during a pandemic, which is devastating the airline industry, is very risky.

Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) are planning to radically change their Air Traffic Management System (ATMS), removing Air Traffic Control operations from several airports in the Highlands and Islands and centralising them in Inverness. Instead of having air traffic controllers on-site, they will be based in Inverness relying on communications technology to manage aeroplane movements.

I was commissioned by the trade union Prospect to undertake a procurement analysis of the proposal, which they have recently published. 

In this report, I draw attention to the many technology procurement failures in Scotland and the lessons that should be learned. These include sufficient capacity and capability, early stakeholder engagement, over-reliance on suppliers, avoiding optimism bias and cost creep. These are all identifiable concerns in the ATMS programme. 

While there is significant interest worldwide in the use of Remote Towers to deliver air traffic control services, there is limited practical experience using multiple Remote Towers in the way proposed here. A range of concerns have been identified with the operation of Remote Towers including, the breakdown of data transmission systems, cyber-security, weather assessment, impact on human performance and managing the need for ratings for more than one tower in a single shift.

While the proposal will cost more, it will shift employment from fragile island communities, something that was supposed to be addressed by the Islands (S) Act. The programme will take at least £18m of economic benefit from island economies – a proportionate loss to the Glasgow economy would equate to the loss of some 800 jobs. HIAL has only recently appointed consultants to draft an islands assessment, a process which should be undertaken before decisions are made.

All the island local authorities oppose the ATMS programme. As they put it, “HIAL are putting their own priorities and dogma way above the needs of their customers and partners. Taxpayers money is being spent on a needless vanity project. It is utterly unacceptable in this day and age for a publicly funded body to behave in this high handed way’.

The ATMS programme was developed before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a massive impact on air travel with a 97% reduction in flights and an estimated £20 billion in lost revenue. Industry analysts all agree that a global recovery in air travel will take many years, if at all given behaviour changes. At the very least, such a significant difference in the operating environment needs to be the subject of a full, transparent, programme review. The Scottish Government should be rethinking their support for the project.

Let's make this the last major anniversary of rail privatisation

This week marks the 25^th anniversary of the legislation that privatised British Rail into a complex series of franchise arrangements. 

This is not an anniversary to celebrate. As Aslef’s Scottish Organiser Kevin Lindsay said; 

“Today is the 25th Anniversary of the great railway rip off, when John Majors Tory government rushed through the unnecessary, unwanted and plainly unworkable rail privatisation. It’s time for the UK and Scottish governments to take action and to return the railway to public ownership.”

Sadly, neither government appears to be heeding that call, which is supported by the other rail unions. A call that comes from the people who represent the workers who really understand the railway. The editorial in this month’s ‘Modern Railways’ paraphrases the Joni Mitchell song to say that the government has:

Looked at the railways from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It’s life’s illusions they recall

They really don’t know railways at all.

The Scottish Government has the power to end this franchise early by using the break clause in 2020 which would see the franchise end in 2022. However, in a recent letter to the public sector bid stakeholder reference group, Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said he “fully expects the current franchise to continue to its planned expiry date of 2025”. 

The UK Government has commissioned the Williams Review - the Transport Secretary’s response to the fiasco of the May timetable changes. As the interim Glaister report concluded, ‘Nobody took charge’ – a clear recognition of the damage fragmentation has caused. The review will look at the ‘most appropriate organisational and commercial framework for the sector’.  

The timetable for the review is as slow as our privatised railway – steam trains were quicker on some routes! (an excellent solution in my personal view 😊  – with CCS of course!). A white paper next autumn and an unlikely implementation ‘from 2020’, which points to a few cosmetic changes. There have been 30 such railway reviews since 2007. 

So how are our railways doing?

There was a small 3% increase in freight traffic last quarter, but that was mostly down to an increase in coal traffic caused by a spike in gas prices. Hardly a sustainable future for freight. Some innovative work is being done on promoting rail for log transport in Scotland and sidings for timber boards and mineral water, but overall there are few signs of a significant shift to rail freight. For example, the lack of long crossover loops on the Inverness line makes rail 30% less efficient than it should be. We should remember that rail generates around 30% of C02 emissions of road haulage per equivalent journey, nearly 90% less small particulate matter (PM10) and up to fifteen times less nitrogen oxide (NOx). 

Passenger demand for rail remains strong. 23.9m journeys were made on ScotRail in the last reported quarter, up 1.5%. Passenger journeys increased 3.1% nationally last quarter, despite the timetable issues, possibly driven by a 15% increase in the price of car fuel.

Scotrail’s poor performance is rarely out of the news with punctuality reaching breach level for the last two reporting periods and significant fines. Their management of rolling stock has been equally shambolic, with the new Hitachi trains delivered 10 months late and their new refurbished High Speed Trains expected to be introduced without Controlled Emissions Tanks, meaning effluence will be discharged directly on to the tracks. While services have plummeted, fares have spiralled. As of next year, commuters will be paying 10% more for their ticket than they did at the start of the franchise. 

In parts of the industry, Scotland’s attempts at integrating trains and track through the ScotRail Alliance is seen as a move in the right direction, if not quite a template. However, all is not well at senior levels as reported in today’s Scotsman. They report one industry source saying: “There is a lot of discomfort about how much control of the railway has been handed to the train operator [ScotRail].”

It does at least highlight one of the benefits of devolution and the Scottish Government is calling for the devolution of Network Rail. There is certainly a case for that, although integration requires more than just trains and track and this focus on powers avoids the bigger issues.

Which leaves us with the question of ownership. 

Many industry figures argue that only when you have created a working railway network should you consider ownership. I don’t dispute the importance of structure, but the idea that this can be done without addressing ownership and accountability is fanciful. We have the ludicrous situation where the majority of our railways are in foreign state ownership, sending profits back to support their domestic rail operations. We should also recognise the impact the short-term profit motive has on the management of any service. Management culture and accountability is an important issue that the ‘structure before ownership’ lobby ignores.

The TSSA/Common Weal report is a useful starting point for a debate on the merits and methodology of creating a publicly run railway in Scotland. There are some legislative barriers that could be circumvented to avoid a franchise bidding process, although that would be complex and legally challenging. Labour’s commitment to bringing railways into public ownership across the UK, provides the best platform to take this forward and that should include a discussion about further devolution. A policy that the polls show has widespread public support.

And then, inevitably, there is Brexit. Current EU rules would not allow a future Labour government to reinstate a national rail monopoly. The EU Commission’s Fourth Railway Package would astonishingly foist the UK model on the rest of the EU. There are also problems with EU Single Market rules on procurement and State Aid, which Mick Whelan of Aslef has outlined in the Scotsman and Scottish Left Review. 

Others argue that there are ways of introducing greater public ownership within EU rules as is done in Spain, Netherlands, Germany and Italy – using separate state-owned companies. Although even this retains the market framework. 

While more work is needed on the detailed structure and Brexit implications, the direction of travel towards an integrated railway under public ownership should be clear. Mick Whelan sums up the case this anniversary week when he said; 

“Privatisation has, demonstrably, failed to deliver. Fares have soared, rolling stock got older, and our trains are more crowded. Private companies talk about investment and risk. But there is no private investment – the money for investment comes from the taxpayer – and there is no risk because the companies hand back the keys when they can’t make the profits they want.”

We need a radical Transport Bill, not another market dabble

The Transport Bill is an opportunity to take a radical look at integrated transport in Scotland. Sadly, the Bill as introduced falls somewhat short of this aim.

The Scottish Government has introduced a Transport Bill to the Scottish Parliament. The main provisions are summarise in the UNISON Scotland briefing.

Tackling the appalling air quality in our cities should be a government priority, given it could be contributing to around 15,000 early deaths in Scotland every year. The Bill puts the regulatory structure in place to introduce low emission zones. This is welcome, but the key challenge is to put in place real action to cut emissions. We don't need more plans about plans.

Other provisions on integrated ticketing, ending (some) double parking and another go at regulating road works are worthy measures, but they are unlikely to make a significant difference.

A key issue in the Bill will be the regulation and delivery of bus services. The Bill extends the powers of local authorities to run buses and develop bus partnership plans. The aim is to allow councils to act more flexibility to improve services, either by working with bus companies or by stepping in and running services themselves.

Local buses are the most frequently used mode of public transport in Scotland. With 393 million passengers on local bus services, more journeys are made by local bus than by rail. However, there has been a dramatic fall in the number of journeys, down from 487 million in 2007. There has been a 10% reduction in past five years, which is double the reduction in Great Britain as a whole. Part of the reason has to be that bus travel is 65% more expensive in 2018 than in 2008, at a time when real household incomes have been falling. There has also been a 16% reduction in the number of buses in operation.

So something is going seriously wrong in Scotland.

While bus passengers are losing out the companies are not. They have just raised prices to cope with the decline in services and in any case 43% of bus company revenue comes directly from local or central government through grants and concessionary travel reimbursement.

Bus companies argue that they offer competition. However, the Competition Commission’s 2011 report into local bus services said, “head to head competition between bus operators is uncommon", because of “customer conduct”. The worst, most irrational thing these difficult customers did was to ignore the choice of operators the free market had to offer, opting instead “to board the first bus to their destination that arrives at their bus stop" - there's a shock!

While the Bill talks about the role of local authorities, the companies view it as an opportunity. That's because the Bill will allow private operators to cherry pick the profitable routes, leaving councils to pick up the bill for the rest. Ironically, the Scottish Government is following the English Tory policy in the Bus Services Act last year.

In contrast, the public want government to go in the opposite direction. A recent poll shows clear public support for buses to be run by public operators - only 15% of Scots believe they should be run by private companies. Interestingly, almost half of Tory voters support public ownership.

So, we don't need local partnerships, we need local public ownership. Publicly owned Lothian Buses is the best operator in Scotland, even getting the middle classes onto the bus. Levels of customer satisfaction for Lothian Buses are the highest in the industry and the publicly owned company recently returned £5.5 million to the public purse.

This is one of the models we could adopt in Scotland, together with other non-profit initiatives like co-operatives. As the Co-operative Party's 'People's Bus' campaign shows, across the UK, co-operative, social enterprise and other forms of not-for-profit bus operators are proving that it’s possible to run bus services that are affordable and responsive to the needs of local people. Most recently in David Cameron's constituency of Whitney.

If we are really serious about cutting vehicle emissions, how about free transit? This is an idea being piloted in Germany by “the end of this year at the latest”. Five cities across western Germany are involved, including former capital Bonn and industrial cities Essen and Mannheim. It won't be easy, but has some links to a new industrial strategy given the demand it would create for electric or hydrogen buses.

It is difficult to accurately cost free local transit because a key element would be funding increased demand. Based on current funding and demand, it could be somewhere between £200m and £300m per annum and that doesn't take account of the savings from not having to pay for dividends and expensive borrowing. Not an impossible ask by any means and we should account for the preventative spending benefits from the emission reductions.

Scotland needs a more integrated public transport system that results in a meaningful shift away from car use. Re-regulating buses and more public and community ownership would be helpful in doing this. In addition, we need green travel plans at work, with incentives for lower energy transport, cycling, car-share, public transport, walking and the use of lower emissions vehicles.

We need a radical transport policy, not another dabble with market mechanisms.