TransPennine Express: Mayors call for 'fresh start under new management'

The operator, owned by First Group, has forced passengers to endure months of severe disruption, as it has cancelled thousands of services at short notice.

Ministers are examining the operator’s improvement plan, before they decide whether its contract to run services across the North should be renewed on May 28 or the Government’s operator of last resort should take over.

West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin said the operator of last resort, which took charge of Northern services three years ago, should also assume control of TransPennine Express (TPE) services and amalgamate them.

“The woeful TransPennine Express has reached its final destination. What is now required is a fresh start under new management to deliver services that passengers can rely on,” she said.

“A merger with Northern creates an opportunity to do exactly that – resetting how the company is managed and securing a better deal for passengers.

“The clock is ticking and ministers have just eight weeks to decide whether they are going to reward failure.”

Her proposal was backed by South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotherham and North of the Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll, during a Transport for the North board meeting.

The latest figures show TPE axed almost a quarter (1,048) of its services due to a shortage of train crew, in the four weeks to February 4. That was far more than any other operator in the country, including Northern (182).

TPE also recorded one of the worst punctuality rates in the country between October and December last year, as less than half (46.5 per cent) of its services ran on time.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper has said the operator’s performance is “unacceptable” but nationalising services would not be a simple solution, as a trade union dispute also needs to be resolved.

TPE has claimed there would be an immediate improvement if the train drivers’ union ASLEF agreed to a new rest-day working agreement, so drivers can once again cover for absent colleagues and help train new recruits.

The operator and the Department for Transport have been urging ASLEF to accept a new agreement since November, but negotiations stalled after the latest offer, which would guarantee drivers around £480 for a 10-hour overtime shift, was refused.

A source working with ASLEF said that if TPE offered the same pay and conditions set out in the previous rest-day working agreement, which expired in December 2021, there “would be no reason to decline that”.

Northern is also trying to secure a new rest-day working agreement with the train drivers’ union.

A spokeswoman for TransPennine Express said: “Since December 2021 TPE’s service delivery has fallen short of what our customers expect and demand and we are sorry for that.

“We are working flat out to address the combination of issues we face.

"We currently have an unprecedented programme of driver training, greater than any other operator in the North, with engineering schemes on our network that require several diversions across our routes which, in turn, increases the burden of required driver training.

“It’s because of this that we have continued to recruit and now have more drivers than ever before – more than 580 – enough to run a full timetable, seven days a week, were it not for the extensive training requirement."