As part of the wider
privatisation of the state owned railway operator
British Rail in the 1990s,
Connex South Central was awarded the
Network SouthCentral franchise by the
Director of Passenger Rail Franchising. Operations commenced on 26 May 1996. In March 2000, the Shadow
Strategic Rail Authority (SSRA) announced its intention to relet the franchise from May 2003; both
Connex and
Govia were shortlisted. In October 2000, the SSRA announced that Govia had been awarded the franchise and would operate it from May 2003. Govia negotiated a deal with Connex to buy out the remainder of its franchise, this was completed in August 2001. Govia trading as SouthCentral took over operations on 26 August 2001. The franchise was originally to run for twenty years but, in 2002, the Strategic Rail Authority changed the way it handled financing agreements and therefore Govia was re-awarded with a seven-and-a-half-year franchise until December 2009. In May 2003, the franchise was rebranded as Southern in a recall of the pre-nationalisation
Southern Railway, using a green roundel logo with
Southern in yellow in a green bar. During April 2007, the
Department for Transport (DfT) announced that the
Gatwick Express franchise was to be incorporated into the main South Central franchise. This reorganisation was part of a wider plan to increase capacity on the
Brighton Main Line, involving the extension of peak-hour services from Gatwick to
Brighton and
Eastbourne from December 2008. This change doubled the number of London to Brighton express trains during those periods. In December 2008, Southern took over the services on the
Redhill to Tonbridge Line from
Southeastern. The South Central franchise end date was brought forward to September 2009 upon the integration of the Gatwick Express service, to allow the new operator to be in place during major changes to the timetable in and around South London in December 2009. In the run-up to the bidding process for the franchise, reports emerged suggesting that
Transport for London, the operator of the
London Overground service, wished to take control of all overground services in South London, including the 'Metro' area of the South Central franchise. However, such a transfer never took place and the DfT put out the entire franchise for tender. In August 2008, the DfT shortlisted Govia,
National Express,
NedRail and
Stagecoach for the new South Central franchise. In June 2009, the DfT announced that Govia had retained the franchise, to start on 20 September 2009. In March 2012, the Department for Transport announced that
Abellio,
FirstGroup,
Govia,
MTR and
Stagecoach had been shortlisted for the new Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise. The Invitation to Tender was to be issued in October 2012, with the successful bidder announced in spring 2013. However, in the wake of the collapse of the
InterCity West Coast refranchising process, the government announced in October 2012 that the process would be put on hold pending the results of a review. In December 2012, Southern's to via service ceased, being partially replaced by
London Overground's new to service. At the conclusion of the Southern franchise in July 2015, the South Central franchise was merged into the
Govia Thameslink Railway franchise, which is run as a
management contract rather than a traditional franchise. However, the Southern brand was retained.
2007 and 2008 timetables Southern was criticised for major changes to its timetables in December 2007 and December 2008. In December 2007, Southern changed the arrangement for the splitting of services to and from London Victoria on the
Arun Valley Line, opting to split trains at
Horsham rather than
Barnham, as well as run the portion to Portsmouth or Southampton non-stop to Barnham. Some passengers criticised this change as it increased the journey time to and from London by up to 10 minutes from certain stations, while in the event of services running behind schedule, trains were sometimes not split at Horsham, and proceeded non-stop to Barnham, leaving Arun Valley commuters at Horsham with the prospect of no onward trains. During December 2008, further timetable changes included the introduction of the extended Gatwick Express services. However, reliability and timekeeping on some of the new services were considered poor, leading to several public meetings being held. On 22 January 2009, Southern responded to some of these criticisms. During 2009, these services have recorded improved timekeeping and criticisms have since subsided. The new timetable also led to unhappiness due to the difference in speed and frequency of service between East Coastway services and those on the Brighton Main Line.
December 2010 timetable Further changes to the timetable were made in December 2010; the first timetable change to include many of the requirements of the new franchise. Additional services were included at evenings and weekends. In the London area a 'metro' frequency of service was introduced on most routes with the extension of the weekday daytime four-trains-per-hour norm to late evenings (up to around midnight), Saturdays and Sundays. In addition, new late-night services were introduced from London on Friday and Saturday nights with last trains leaving central London at around 00:30. Outside London, a new later-evening service was introduced to Uckfield from London Bridge, new late-night services from Brighton along the West Coastway line and direct services between Southampton and Brighton on Sundays. Later in May 2015 it was revealed that Southern had fined passengers for standing in first class on an overcrowded train. Only 20% of Southern trains arrived on time in the year from April 2015 to March 2016, and there was an ongoing industrial dispute over driver-only operated trains. In late 2016, the
Transport Select Committee told ministers to "get a grip" on railway franchises, with their report asking if the train operator was in breach of their contractual obligations due to the large number of cancelled trains, and went on to say, "in normal circumstances, this would be grounds for termination of the contract".
2016 amended timetable In 2016, the company introduced an "amended timetable [that] would be a temporary measure until staffing returned to normal" to be announced on 5 July. The
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)
trade union said that 350 services would be cancelled every day (the company ran 2,242 weekday services in the previous timetable). The company said it had insufficient personnel, and too many were taking
sick leave; the union denied that high levels of sickness were the cause of cancellations, while agreeing that there were an insufficient number of guards and drivers. The
London Evening Standard mentioned Southern in an article in June 2016 "Southern rail suggests commuter goes on 100 mile detour to Clapham instead of her normal six minute journey". In June 2016, amongst criticism of the performance of its services, Go-Ahead warned of lower than anticipated profits on its
Govia Thameslink Railway franchises, leading to an 18% drop in the Go-Ahead share price. From 31 October 2016, Southern restored the full weekday timetable.
Control of doors and strikes In 2016, Southern altered its method of door operation, with control of the doors moving from the conductor to the driver. Southern said this would allow the conductor to concentrate on the passengers, but the
RMT and
Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) unions said that it was an attempt to make conductors unnecessary and would be unsafe. The rail safety regulator, the Rail Standards and Safety Board has said that "We have 30 years of data which we have analysed. We have found that the driver performing the task does not increase the risk to passengers at all." During 2016, the RMT and ASLEF unions went on strike over the changes, causing severe disruption to Southern services. The strikes continued into 2017. The BBC suggested that the RMT union are particularly worried about the new method of operation because if drivers (rather than conductors) control the doors then trains could run without conductors and thus any strike by conductors would not have the power to cancel trains. In December 2016, it was announced that the government would pay £50million to Southern to cover the costs of the disruption caused by the strikes, due to a deal between the government and Southern. This deal means that the government pays £38million for lost revenue and £15million in compensation to passengers. This deal also means that Govia Thameslink Railway will save around £1.1million in pay for striking workers. Commentators argued that the government gave a management contract rather than a normal franchise to GTR in order to push through DOO. The management contract meant that GTR did not have the incentive to resolve strikes as a normal franchisee would have, as the government lost money from strikes rather than GTR. On 2 February 2017, the TUC announced that talks between Southern and ASLEF had reached an agreement meaning that the dispute with ASLEF had been resolved. However, the RMT union said it was 'betrayed' by Southern and that strikes by the RMT would continue. On 29 June 2017, ASLEF implemented an overtime ban with the aim of highlighting a claimed failure by Southern to recruit adequate staff. ==Services==