TRANSPORT: Lack of staff causes troubled firm's problem

BELEAGUERED rail firm Connex will not introduce its "football style" fine system next week because it does not have the staff.

The French-owned operator says plans to blitz fare dodgers from January 1 by replacing the £10 on-the-spot penalty with a "yellow and red card" scheme will have to be put back until April.

The company buckled under the threat of legal action from passengers who could not buy a ticket because stations were not manned or did not have a ticket machine.

In a separate blow, it was reported there was outrage over the company's plan to charge up to £50 as an "administration fee" with the first warning.

A Connex spokesman insisted no decision had been made as yet but admitted the fee could be as much as £50.

She added: "The amount will depend on our performance. If performance is very low it will be reflected in how much we charge."

The news comes days after Connex South Eastern was slapped with a £10.5m fine by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) for under-achieving.

Most of the fine, double the amount it had to pay out last year, was for late trains.

The company, which lost the South Central franchise because of poor performance, was the second worst London operator. Only South West Trains, which has suffered industrial action over pay, fared worse.

A Connex spokesman said: "This is a great deal of money and clearly reflects the poor performance in very difficult circumstances. It is not up to what our customers expect and we continuing to strive for improvements."

Connex says it will focus on maintaining the trains and infrastructure and will be working with Railtrack to secure more trains for its service.

Rail regulators SRA revealed in a recently-published report, On Track, fines for the country's 25 rail operators would be a record £136m compared with £40m last year.

December 20, 2001 10:23

Richard Simcox