Are the franchising reforms being seen as too much of a magic bullet?

Yes, they make sense and will improve some aspects of the industry works at the moment, but is the DfT deceiving us or itself with the emphasis on the investment in capacity and service quality that will inevitably result?

Train operators are businesses, not charities, and despite the regulators and franchise conditions, they will always be more concerned with the bottom line than ensuring every passenger has a seat.

They will invest for various reasons, and will have more of an incentive to invest if they hold longer franchises; but longer franchises in and of themselves will not be enough of an incentive on their own. Rail minister Theresa Villiers has promised strict conditions on service levels; but we’ve heard that all before, and not everyone wants DfT and ORR mandarins micro-managing every aspect of the industry.

There’s no easy solution, partly because of the bizarre rail system we now operate under in this country, with more central control and state money swishing around than ever existed under an actually nationalised operator. There’s a fairly solid consensus on longer franchises being A Good Thing – but they’re only one step towards improvement, not the final piece of the puzzle.