Ken Livingstone has accused the operators of the Croydon Tramlink of letting down Londoners by failing to improve capacity on the system in the wake of growing passenger numbers.
A statement issued by the Mayor’s office says Tramtrack Croydon Ltd have shown “no initiative and willingness to improve capacity”. The company operates Croydon Tramlink under a 99 year PFI contract which was awarded in 1996.
Mr Livingstone said the scheme had been “a great benefit” to local transport provision with more than 24 million passengers using the service each year however he claimed this was “despite of, rather than because of” Tramtrack Croydon Ltd.
Tramtrack Croydon Ltd dispute many of the Mayor’s charges. A spokesman for the company told MayorWatch they had made proposals to TfL to change both the Sunday service and evening service to Beckenham but “have not had a response.”
Although it disputes the charges of a lack of capacity the company accepts there are “some issues” with evening rush hour services but says part of that is due to “TfL signals needing reconfiguring in the town centre around Centrale which we requested TfL to do over a year ago.”
The Mayor says he has asked TfL to increase the provision of bus services in
the area to “give shorter distance passengers an alternative, so making
space for New Addington residents to get to and from work and leisure
in Central Croydon.”
Additional buses will serve route 130 to and from New Addington
from May and there will be extra buses going east from Croydon later in
the year.
However Tramtrack Croydon there are “25% more bus services operating in Croydon
than at the time we signed the Concession and these have taken
passengers off the trams – for which TfL compensate us. ”
The spokesman points out that the concession to operate the scheme was signed in 1996 when “we had rather different government in London” adding that “I don’t think either side believe the current agreement meets the current need”.
