Lately the Britons learned half of their journeys will be soon handled by services owned by foreign countries. The Hong Kong-based MTR will start helping from this August run the South West Trains franchise and this will continue for the next seven years.
Recently the c2c franchise was awarded to Italian state operator Trenitalia for the route from City of London to Essex.
Trips equivalent of 863 million were made in 2016 and this figure is about half of the total journeys. Below is the breakdown of services owned by foreign countries:
Germany – 391 million
Netherlands – 197 million
France – 143 million
Hong Kong – 86 million
Italy – 46 million
Labour’s shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald has lately called for renationalization of British railways claiming the foreign government-owned firms need run in their own interests.
McDonald added the British state will not be doing so, promising upgrades to features like cancelled, delayed and punctuality, which have been the worst for past several years and since 2010 the fares have been hiked by 27 percent.
Over the period of past twenty years the number of journeys has been doubled. In 1997/8 it was 846 million and in 2015/6 it rose to 172 billion.
An analysis by Rail Delivery Group (RDG) estimates 6,400 more train services will run each week by 2021 as further investment of ongoing 50 billion pound is being pumped in to the sector.
According to RDG chief executive Paul Plummer, the franchising has benefited passengers and taxpayers as foreign companies have brought in innovation and new ideas to the country from across the world.