Delivering a Sustainable Railway July 2007 Delivering a Sustainable Railway Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Transport, by Command of Her Majesty July 2007 Cm 7176 £25.00 The Department for Transport has actively considered the needs of the partially sighted in accessing this document. The text will be made available in full on the web site in accordance with the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative’s criteria. The text may be freely downloaded and translated by individuals or organisations for conversion into other accessible formats. If you have other needs in this regard, or you are a carer for someone who has, please contact the Department. With certain exceptions, such as safety, rail policy is a devolved matter in Scotland, so the geographical scope of the strategy is primarily limited to England and Wales, recognising the powers of the Welsh Assembly Government in relation to Welsh and cross-border services. 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Cover photo acknowledgements Top left Rail Images; top centre Photofusion Picture Library / Alamy; top right Rail Images; bottom left Paul Rapson/Alamy; bottom centre Elmtree Images/Alamy; bottom right Alvey & Towers Picture Library/Alamy Contents Foreword 5 Executive summary 7 1. Context 14 2. Safety and security 22 3. Reliability 30 4. The capacity challenge 38 5. Services for urban areas 45 6. Inter-urban services 58 7. Regional and rural services 68 8. International 75 9. Freight 81 10. Delivering for passengers 92 11. Improving environmental performance 110 12. Costs and funding 122 13. Implementation 130 Appendices A. Railways Act 2005 Statement 140 B. Glossary of terms 154 Foreword Foreword This is a White Paper that plans for the growth and development of our railways. For too much of the past decade, policy on rail has been about repairing the problems of a flawed privatisation. The Government rightly focused on reversing decades of under-investment and putting the industry on a stable footing. Challenges remain, but fundamentally this White Paper is optimistic about the future. More passengers than ever are using the railways – 40 per cent more over the last decade. More freight is being shipped by rail. And while we recognise that there is more to do, safety has improved and passengers are giving the railway credit for better reliability. Our challenge now is to build on this success – to develop a modern, sustainable railway system that is accessible and easy for passengers to use. That is why our proposals in this White Paper are measured against the key tests of capacity, quality of service, value for money and the environment. And it is passengers, and their priorities, which are at the heart of this White Paper. Increasing capacity, particularly in those places suffering from the worst overcrowding, is central. But greater reliability and increased capacity are not passengers’ only concerns. They also want safer, more modern stations, simpler and easier-to-use ticketing information and sales. The White Paper delivers these and sets these plans in the context of a long-term strategy for the next 30 years. Our ambitions are for a reliable network capable of handling double the number of passengers we have today; that can cater for a more diverse population that demands still more from its public services; and that delivers its environmental potential. A rail industry that is flexible in its planning to adapt and deliver in a changing world. For the first time in a long time, we have a railway that is getting the basics right. It is delivering growth. This White Paper now seeks to unlock its potential. Rt Hon. Ruth Kelly MP Secretary of State for Transport July 2007 5 Executive summary Executive summary Present achievement, future challenge Britain now has a railway which carries more people and more freight than it has in over 50 years. It is safer than ever before. Reliability, which declined sharply after the appalling accident at Hatfield is now good and improving on most lines. And the finances of the industry are stable and improving. Network Rail is on course to improve efficiency by nearly one-third in five years, and strong growth in demand means that passenger services require less subsidy. These are substantial achievements. The story of the railway used to be about managing decline. Now it is about enabling growth. Passengers want a railway that is reliable, value for money, comfortable, accessible and easy to use. The public as a whole wants a railway that contributes to economic growth and helps Britain meet the environmental challenges ahead. The railway can only meet these goals if it has the capacity to carry the passengers who want to use it. Rail has seen record levels of growth – over 40 per cent in the last decade – and in response the railway is running more services than before, and has provided more trains. But capacity has not kept pace with record demand across the network, and crowding on some of the busiest services has got worse. The priority for this White Paper is to tackle these trends. It is the first plan for major growth since the 1950s. The Government is committing significant investment now. And the long-term ambition is for a railway that: • Can handle double today’s level of freight and passenger traffic; • Is even safer, more reliable and more efficient than now; • Can cater for a more diverse, affluent and demanding population; and • Has reduced its own carbon footprint and improved its broader environmental performance. Over £10 billion will be invested in enhancing capacity between 2009 and 2014, with overall Government support for the railway totalling over £15 billion. This represents a higher level of investment than in 2004–09 with a lower level of public expenditure. This improvement reflects growing passenger demand and improved efficiency, especially by Network Rail. Such trends allow more of the money invested by Government to be directed towards increases in carrying capacity. Fares policy remains as today at RPI + 1 per cent, allowing more money to be invested to improve the service for passengers. The Government believes this strikes a fair balance between taxpayers and passengers; between the cost imposed, and the ability to fund the improvements passengers and the public say they want to see. And this White Paper will deliver substantial investment. In the wake of Railtrack’s collapse it was taxpayers who stepped in to provide the additional funding necessary to support the railway and put it back on course. It is right that subsidy levels should now start to return to closer to the 7 Department for Transport | Delivering a Sustainable Railway historic norm. At the same time, the Government is delivering improvements without imposing new burdens on passengers, about 80 per cent of whom travel on regulated or discounted tickets. Tackling the legacy, delivering stability Today it is possible to frame an ambitious and deliverable strategy for growth. It was not possible to do so even three years ago, at the time of the last Government spending review. The challenge in 2004 was to deal with the legacy of a privatisation that had brought many benefits to rail users, but also had serious flaws. Railtrack had lost control of costs. In 2003, the then regulator presented the 1 Government with the bill – a £1 /4 billion a year increase in funding until 2009. This led to the creation of Network Rail and the delivery of efficiency gains that will bring infrastructure costs back closer to an acceptable level by 2009. The regulator has indicated that further improvement should be secured by 2014. This creates the headroom for investment to increase the capacity of the railway. In 2004, after the last review of Network Rail funding, the Government had to increase expenditure on the railway but freeze new investment. Network Rail’s renewals programme was protected, targeting the backlog of neglect of basic infrastructure (such as replacement of rails) that had occurred in the last years of British Rail and the first years of Railtrack. Also protected were committed projects, such as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, West Coast Route Modernisation and the implementation of the Train Protection and Warning System. These are all worthwhile investments, but they do not of themselves deliver a significant increase in capacity. The architects of privatisation made no provision for any single body to define the railway’s strategic priorities and the level of public expenditure required. In this White Paper, the Government discharges the statutory duty it gave itself in 2005 to set out a strategy and budget for delivering an environmentally and financially sustainable railway. The formal specification and long-term strategy The formal communication to the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) appended to this White Paper sets out: • The High Level Output Specification (HLOS) for the improvements in safety, reliability and capacity the Government wants to buy to 2014; • Specific programmes of investment to be undertaken between now and 2014, which deliver benefits in the slightly longer term, or benefits (such as station improvements) that cannot be captured in the HLOS; and • The funding available to secure these improvements.