THE announcement of the departure of Phil Verster as managing director of Scotland’s train operator gave those involved in the ScotRail Alliance an opportunity to draw breath and take stock.
ScotRail had become a political pawn, beset with complaints of delays and overcrowding while the national network undergoes the biggest modernisation since the Victorian era.
Mr Verster’s successor Alex Hynes is an opportunity for ScotRail to refocus. With nearly 20 years’ experience in the industry, the last three-and-a-half of which have been as managing director of the Northern franchise, Mr Hynes is credited with having delivered their best-ever customer satisfaction scores and record levels of positive employee engagement.
From the Train Operating Company side of the industry rather than the infrastructure end of Network Rail, Mr Hynes, as one source told The Herald, “is about passengers not rivets”.
Given claims of a fractious relationship between ScotRail Alliance and the Scottish Government and internally between Network Rail and franchise holder Abellio over where the blame lies for delays, these would appear to be beneficial skills for his new role.
He will also have the foundations his predecessor laid to build upon. The Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme engineering is more or less finished and the incoming MD can now focus on the implementation of new services and delivering passenger growth.
One of Mr Hynes’ last responsibilities at Northern was the electrification of the routes from Preston and Bolton into Manchester, a scheme he said which was “about getting people out of their BMWs”. Stung by the politics of Scotland, one wonders if the man he succeeds will warn him that delivering passenger growth and satisfaction might be the easy bit.
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