Wales and Borders the franchise

What is happening now?

The franchise currently operated by Arriva Trains Wales is to run until October 2018.

Background

Welsh Government currently has joint responsibility for managing the franchise alongside the UK Government. Rail franchising will be fully devolved to the Welsh Government from 2017.

The timetable for the award of the new franchise will start when the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) notice is published in March 2017. This will be followed by consultation, invitations to prospective bidders to complete a pre-qualification questionnaire, leading to a list of shortlisted bidders, before the Invitation to Tender (ITT) is issued in August 2017. The announcement of the award of the new franchise is expected in June 2018.

Our role in the franchising process

We meet and hold detailed discussions with both Department for Transport and Transport for Wales to identify key passenger issues and determine our input to the process.

In August we submitted evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the Wales and Borders rail franchise.

Early in 2016 the Welsh Government consulted on its proposals for the future operation of the franchise. Our response to the consultation sets out what we consider to be the issues and priorities for the next franchise to address.

In 2014 we provided input into the scope of a rail franchise inquiry held by National Assembly Enterprise & Business committee.

To view our National Rail Passenger Survey reports or to access these and our appeal complaints data through our Open Data tool, please click on the links below:

NRPS Open data

Transport Focus reports and publications

April 2016	Wales and Borders rail franchise – consultation response
March 2015	Commission on devolution in Wales – our submission
March 2015	Wales national transport plan – our submission