Respondent Information Form and Questions Please Note this form must be returned with your response to ensure that we handle your response appropriately 1. Name/Organisation Organisation Name Member of Scottish Parliament for South of Scotland Title Mr Ms Mrs Miss Dr Please tick as appropriate Surname Wheelhouse Forename Paul 2. Postal Address Room M4.17 Scottish Parliament Edinburgh Scotland Phone Postcode Email 0131 348 EH99 1SP [email protected] 6891 3. Permissions - I am responding as… / Individual Group/Organisation Please tick as appropriate (a) Do you agree to your response being made (c) The name and address of your organisation available to the public (in Scottish will be made available to the public (in the Government library and/or on the Scottish Scottish Government library and/or on the Government web site)? Scottish Government web site). Please tick as appropriate Yes No (b) Where confidentiality is not requested, we Are you content for your response to be will make your responses available to the made available? public on the following basis Please tick ONE of the following boxes Please tick as appropriate Yes No Yes, make my response, name and address all available or Yes, make my response available, but not my name and address or Yes, make my response and name available, but not my address (d) We will share your response internally with other Scottish Government policy teams who may be addressing the issues you discuss. They may wish to contact you again in the future, but we require your permission to do so. Are you content for Scottish Government to contact you again in relation to this consultation exercise? Please tick as appropriate Yes No Consultation Questions The answer boxes will expand as you type. Procuring rail passenger services 1. What are the merits of offering the ScotRail franchise as a dual focus franchise and what services should be covered by the economic rail element, and what by the social rail element? Q1 comments: No comment 2. What should be the length of the contract for future franchises, and what factors lead you to this view? Q2 comments: Contracts should be structured to allow sufficient scope to allow franchise holder to invest for the longer term, but should allow scope for modification of services, e.g. provision of additional services to meet emerging demand or addition of new stations. 3. What risk support mechanism should be reflected within the franchise? Q3 comments: no comment 4. What, if any, profit share mechanism should apply within the franchise? Q4 comments: no comment 5. Under what terms should third parties be involved in the operation of passenger rail services? Q5 comments: no comment 6. What is the best way to structure and incentivise the achievement of outcome measures whilst ensuring value for money? Q6 comments: no comment 7. What level of performance bond and/or parent company guarantees are appropriate? Q7 comments: no comment 8. What sanctions should be used to ensure the franchisee fulfils its franchise commitments? Q8 comments: no comment Achieving reliability, performance and service quality 9. Under the franchise, should we incentivise good performance or only penalise poor performance? Q9 comments: no comment 10. Should the performance regime be aligned with actual routes or service groups, or should there be one system for the whole of Scotland? Q10 comments: no comment 11. How can we make the performance regime more aligned with passenger issues? Q11 comments: no comment 12. What should the balance be between journey times and performance? Q12 comments: no comment 13. Is a Service Quality Incentive Regime required? And if so should it cover all aspects of stations and service delivery, or just those being managed through the franchise? Q13 comments: no comment 14. What other mechanisms could be used for assessing train and station quality? Q14 comments: no comment Scottish train services 15. Can better use be made of existing train capacity, such as increasing the permitted standing time beyond the limit of 10 minutes or increasing the capacity limit? What is an acceptable limit for standing times on rail services? Q15 comments: no comment 16. Should the number of services making use of interchange stations (both rail to rail and rail to other modes) be increased to reduce the number of direct services? What would be the opportunities and challenges of this? Q16 comments: no comment 17. Should Government direct aspects of service provision such as frequency and journey time, or would these be better determined by the franchisee based on customer demand? Q17 comments: no comment 18. What level of contract specification should we use the for the next ScotRail franchise? Q18 comments: no comment 19. How should the contract incentivise the franchisee to be innovative in the provision of services? Q19 comments: no comment Scottish rail fares 20. What should be the rationale for, and purpose of, our fares policy? Q20 comments: no detailed comment other than these should take account of increased pressure on household incomes at this time, should be designed to persuade modal shift from car to rail and should provide options for cost conscious customers. 21. What fares should be regulated by government and what should be set on a commercial basis? Do your recommendations change by geographic area (the Strathclyde area example), or by type of journey (for example suburban or intercity)? Q21 comments: no comment 22. How should we achieve a balance between the taxpayer subsidy and passenger revenue contributions in funding the Scottish rail network? At what rate should fares be increased, and how feasible would it be to apply higher increases to Sections of the network which have recently been enhanced? Q22 comments: Subsidy should be prioritised and allocated to ensure that Government objectives for cohesion and solidarity (characteristics of growth sought in delivery of the economic strategy overall purpose and targets) are delivered. Some regions of Scotland, such as the Berwickshire area of the Scottish Borders, have received very little support for development of rail and on equity grounds deserve a fairer deal, when compared with council areas such as Glasgow (60 stations) and Highland (58 stations) – not a call for reductions there, but rather for a levelling up of areas such as the Borders. 23. What should the difference be between peak and off-peak fares? Will this help encourage people to switch to travelling in the off-peak? Q23 comments: These should not discourage commuters making the modal shift desired to achieve climate change and economic growth targets. Scottish stations 24. How should we determine what rail stations are required and where, including whether a station should be closed? Q24 comments: I believe that a review of station locations on the network and a possible reconfiguration may be beneficial. I agree with Scottish Borders Council and East Lothian Council that in some cases there will be a historical and social dimension to the positioning of existing stations on the network and without being aware of all the relevant details, the number of stations in Scotland that currently serve less than 20 passengers is a concern and the relevance of these stations needs to be tested. Stations in close proximity to each other, offering similar services also need to be tested. In the Scottish Borders we have no stopping services at present, although I am strongly supportive of the Borders rail project and strongly welcome this investment and will look to examine how those services may in future be integrated with bus services to communities such as Selkirk and Hawick and, in the longer term, extended to include Hawick on the route. Another key development in our area is the proposed local rail service between Edinburgh and Berwick-upon-Tweed utilising latent capacity on the ECML. There have been various studies undertaken in conjunction with East Lothian Council and SEStran and the case for a local service, along with potential new stations at East Linton (East Lothian) and Reston (Eastern Berwickshire) is positive and attracts widespread local and political support from across the SNP, Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour parties. A stopping service for Reston (for Eyemouth, St Abbs, Ayton, Coldingham, Duns, Burnmouth and Chirnside in Scottish Borders) and the East Linton area of East Lothian would offer substantial socio-economic benefits for this part of the country and would offer a sustainable alternative for commuters accessing the Edinburgh job market. It would have a potentially significant transformational impact for the East Berwickshire area in particular. As part of this submission I concur with the two Councils that the following supports the development of this proposal: Social Aspects • The population of East Lothian is projected to grow by 33% between 2008 and 2032; • The population of Scottish Borders is projected to grow by 16% over a similar timescale; • The social impacts of improving local services to Dunbar and Berwick with new stations at East Linton and Reston improves accessibility to Queen Margaret University, colleges in Edinburgh, and indeed would increase connectivity within the Council areas and beyond; • The provision of a new local service will help to address elements of industry decline, rurality and the marginalisation of parts of East Lothian and the Eastern Borders, with Eyemouth in particular having been highlighted as being the most vulnerable town, of 44 examined by Scottish