Transport for Wales bosses grilled over trains, buses and its …

Transport for Wales has paid £1.8m in compensation for delayed or cancelled trains in the last year. James Price, the boss of the train operator, said that while there is an argument customers who are not getting what they pay for should get compensation but the idea fining companies as a punishment is not relevant to Transport for Wales.

Transport for Wales offers compensation when services are delayed by 15 minutes, a time Mr Price admitted there was “no science” behind. Mr Price said their compensation policy was “at the more generous end” of the spectrum and told Senedd members that as a nationalised operator, “you can make a compelling argument that incentive doesn’t work with us”.

“It’s probably a policy conversation we should take away and have with the Welsh Government about what the right balance is, and as we run better services, the figure will go down anyway,” Mr Price said.

In the Welsh Government’s emergency budget announced earlier in November ^[1], Transport for Wales had to be given an extra £125m to plug a gap because the company is making less money than expected from ticket sales as fewer commuters have returned to services post-pandemic.

Transport for Wales’ boss has told politicians he hopes that by next summer they will be running electric Metro trains on all Treherbert, Aberdare and Merthyr services. James Price said he wanted to move away from announcing “big targets we then fail” but that hope is an “aspirational target”.

Mr Price also said he hopes that in years to come, it will be the case that station staff will have the necessary licence and a local vehicle to be able to offer rail replacement services quicker, without relying on a coach vehicle and driver being sourced from hours away.

The annual scrutiny session of Transport for Wales is ongoing and will last for two hours.

Witnesses in front of the Senedd’s infrastructure committee are:

James Price, chief executive, Transport for Wales
Geoff Ogden, chief transport planning and development officer, Transport for Wales
Jan Chaudry-Van Der Velde, chief operations officer, Transport for Wales

Live updates below:

References

^{^} announced earlier in November (www.walesonline.co.uk)