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We’ ve recently marked our second-year anniversary,” Chris Jackson, Managing Director shares.“ On the 28th of May 2023, TransPennine Express came into public ownership and I assumed my current position as Managing Director of the business. It’ s no secret that TransPennine has had a bit of a turbulent past, which is why the previous government made the difficult decision to move us into public ownership. As a business, we directly employ approximately 1900 people and that extends to around 2500 when you consider our wider supply chain partners. We run around 320 train services a day and are expected to deliver 30.6 million passenger journeys this year. As it stands, we are the fastest growing train operating company in the UK, which shows what you can do when you stabilize performance.”
TransPennine now has plans in place to deliver a more reliable, punctual and dependable service across the towns and cities it connects. After a challenging few years, the plan sets out the steps the company’ s taking to make journeys better for all its customers. To deliver this, the plan focuses on three phases: stabilizing operations to deliver better reliability and punctuality, re-engaging with passengers, and transforming the network. Through each of these, TransPennine will be making changes to simplify its business to ensure trains run on time, providing the best possible journey experience in its stations and on its trains.
“ We’ ve made great tracks over the past couple of years,” Chris continues.“ We’ re critical to the northern economy and cover train services across the North and into Scotland through three distinct routes: the Anglo-Scottish services, which cover
TransPennine is a great engine for economic growth in the North of England and Scotland
Manchester or Liverpool to Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow, as well as Edinburgh for the Manchester line; the North Route services, which cover Manchester or Liverpool through to Huddersfield, Leeds, York, Hull, Scarborough, Saltburn, Newcastle and on to Edinburgh; and the third route is the South Route service which covers Manchester or Liverpool to Stockport, Sheffield and Cleethorpes.
“ We inherited a business that had been through quite a lot of turbulence. Evidently, colleague engagement was quite low, so, it was important to get across the issues that the business was facing, develop a plan, stabilize it and re-engage our customers, colleagues and importantly, our trade union partners. Our aim was to develop a plan to fix the business in the long term, and we’ ve done that. We temporarily stepped back the timetable in December 2023 and cleared a significant backlog of driver training. From December 2024, we reinstated our services and introduced new routes across the network, notably Castleford into York. This is the first time since 1970 that those towns have been connected directly with a new hourly service. That’ s meant a 13 percent increase in the number of daily available seats. It’ s boosted capacity and overall, cancellations have been reduced by 75 percent. We’ ve seen a 42 percent growth in customer journeys and a 54 percent growth in revenue. Additionally, an important point to make is that we are a good value investment. For every £ 1 of public subsidy, £ 8 is generated in a wider economic return. When we get it right, and we’ re increasingly getting it right, TransPennine is a great engine for economic growth in the North of England and Scotland.”
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