4.2 While franchises are, on the whole, designed to serve discrete parts of the rail network, some franchises run services on the same sections of track and serve the same stations. If the tender specifications for these are not aligned, they could result in franchises that do not fit together in a way that benefits the passenger, inefficient management of infrastructure improvements and avoidable costly changes during the life of franchises.
4.3 The Department is running the Northern and TransPennine Express competitions concurrently. The invitations to tender, issued in February 2015, emphasised the importance of joint working between successful franchisees, and specified that the successful bidder for TransPennine Express will be required to represent both franchises in the facilitation of Network Rail's infrastructure improvement programme. The Department had intended to develop the specifications for the InterCity West Coast and West Midlands franchises together. However, in November 2015 the Department decided to push back the InterCity West Coast competition by six months (paragraph 2.6). The Department will now run the two competitions at different times, but will look to align the specifications as much as possible; for example, it plans to publish an overview and vision for the InterCity West Coast franchise to complement the prospectus for the West Midlands franchise in December 2015.