Govia is pleased to have been shortlisted to bid for the South Central franchise by the Department for Transport.

Govia has a strong and experienced bid team and intends to put in a robust bid to retain the franchise, which it currently operates as Southern.

The new South Central franchise is due to begin on September 20, 2009 and will combine the existing operations of Southern, Gatwick Express and services on the Tonbridge to Redhill route currently operated by Southeastern.

The Department will issue the Invitation to Tender this Autumn. In the mean time, Govia would be please to hear understand stakeholders' aspirations for the new franchise. You can submit views via this website by clicking on Find Out More and Contact Us.

The Department's objectives for the franchise are:

• Serve and develop suburban, main line and Coastway services; accommodate current and anticipated growth in demand and potentially reduce crowding levels;
• Achieve sustainable value for money for the tax payer;
• Facilitate implementation of and realise benefits to passengers from the Brighton Main Line and South London Route Utilisation Strategies; the Thameslink programme; East London Line extension; output metrics specified in the High Level Output Strategy ; and effectively manager the process of change that all these projects will involve, including communications to passengers;
• Maintain and improve the operational performance of the South Central franchise to contribute towards national performance targets (including the significant lateness targets); To seek to benchmark and improve overall environmental performance of the franchise;
• Improve alignment of services and service quality with aspirations of all stakeholders, to improve overall customer satisfaction, specifically in the areas of: service quality (on trains and stations); ticket buying and retailing (including smartcards) and information (before and during the journey);
• To seek to improve accessibility to all services and stations, including car parking and access to stations, as well as access for disabled passengers;
• Facilitate locally sponsored increments and decrements and specifically implement enhanced role of Transport for London in the franchise specification process;
• Work with other train operations, including First Capital Connect and London Overground.