TIMETABLING - A THREAD ON WHY ITS COMPLEX

You have to go back to BR Sectorisation - every line was allocated to a Route Owner [RO] being one of the 3 Passenger Sectors or 4 Freight sub-sectors.

Each RO produced a Route Compendium [RC] which set out the maintenance strategy /1

governing first and last trains, times of 2-track running over multi-track sections and weekend closed periods for renewals etc. Although timetabling was a Regional Ops activity the ROs devised their RCs such that they got first 'Dibs' usually by IC operators controlling /2

clock-face departures from key locations. Even then, this caused friction between differing operators. As an example, those running Scotrail hated having their North Berwick service determined by ICEC! /3

Fast forward to 1/4/94 and the RCs are now responsibility of Railtrack Zones [RZ] in their first timetable (May 1995) followed very much the way BR had previously complied the timetable. BR Regional timetable teams had morphed into Railtrack and BR still ran all the trains. /4

As franchising got underway the Rail Regulator (John Swift QC) was under some pressure from the Franchising Director (Roger Salmon) to ensure certainty of timetabling.

A cross-industry steering group was established, meeting in the GN Hotel at Peterborough, they came up /5

with the "Peterborough Process". This determined, inter-alia that F/TOCs should have 3 levels of right: Firm Rights to run their existing Timetable; Contingent Rights to operate occasional services (eg Sea-Side specials or to maintain Route Knowledge) /6

and finally all other rights generally known as "Spot Bids".

Railtrack only got two sets of rights: Firm Rights which were derived from the former RCs which became Rules of the Route and Rules of the Plan and their own 'Spot Bid' Rights they could agree with any affected TOC /7

In the early years this didn't cause much of a problem. TOCs declared each year (at T-39 weeks) what Level 1 and L2 Rights they intended to exercise.

Over time as TOCs became expansive, they still had to declare all these anticipated new Rights at T-39 /8

which was beginning to put the ORR under pressure to formally agree these new Rights perhaps without any detailed cross-industry examination. This lead to much friction between TOCs themselves and between them and Railtrack. /9

Railtrack's answer was to seek a change to the Peterborough Process where by there was advanced consultation over each annual timetable (December to December with a Subsidiary change each May). This resulted in an annual Timetable Conference, much the same way that IATA /10

organised international airline slots, the last day of the Conference was T-39 weeks. /11

As TOCs became increasingly under the influence of the DfT the scope to Bid for more and different slots moved from the Annual Timetable Bid to the Franchise Bid - I could wax lyrical about this but most of you know/can guess where this got us. /12

So to May 2018. The Franchise Bidders had produced Bids as determined by DfT and not the industry at large well after the T-39 deadline. The rest, they say, is history.

/13 End