Southeastern Railways have asked the Sevenoaks Rail Travellers Association and their other stakeholders what improvements we would like to see in the “Direct Award” franchise period (November 2014 to June 2018). The Committee will be discussing this on 10 September, and responses have to be made by 4 October. We would welcome suggestions and priorities from our members.
The DfT is responsible for specifying what services will operate; but to help with DfT’s planning, Southeastern will submit a proposal for service, access, station quality, ticketing and other improvements and they have asked stakeholders what they would wish to see in the coming four years.
Southeastern say that they are particularly interested in ideas and suggestions on:
- Customer service
- Ticketing including fares, promotions and the use of “smart cards”
- Community and passenger engagement
- How best to manage crowding on peak services
- Transport integration – how might SER work better with bus companies and cyclists?
- Station car parking
- Accessibility – how can SER make it easier for the elderly and mobility impaired to use services?
- Managing disruption, during both weather-related infrastructure problems in autumn and winter and Network Rail major projects such as Thameslink, the London Bridge re-build and Crossrail.
- Passenger information during disruption
The SRTA Committee would welcome suggestions and priorities from our members; to respond you can comment (publicly) on this post or email secretary [at] srta [dot] org [dot] uk