Adrian Shooter, Chairman ATOC
Last year was a good one for the railway, with the government plans published in July based on growth and supported by funding to provide more trains and more capacity.
It was also a good year in which we again broke records on passenger travel and on trains run. The numbers of passengers carried by the end of 2007 could reach a new peak, and almost as high as the previous record sixty years ago in 1946.
Meanwhile, the number of trains has been increasing, too, and now exceeds 20,000 a day for the first time. Britain now runs more trains each day, and carries more passengers, than any other country in Europe, apart from Germany, and remains the fastest growing railway in Europe.
The work Atoc has done during last year has demonstrated that rail travel is performing better in environmental terms, too, and has reduced its carbon footprint by a quarter over the last ten years. This means that emissions are half those of car, and a quarter of those of domestic aviation. They are even better for Eurostar, which is now a carbon neutral railway.
That is why, together with Iain Coucher, the chief executive of Network Rail, I wrote to the Department for Transport last November to press the case for an early look at extending electrification. We believe that both the financial and environmental cases for electrification are strong enough to mean that we should now start planning to fill in some of the gaps in the electrified network and then to extend it to cover new routes as well.
We need to make the case strongly that electrification is not an alternative to investment in new capacity; it is part of the way of meeting growth through providing trains with higher acceleration, that make better use of track capacity. Of course, electric trains also offer lower operating and maintenance costs and the capability of sourcing energy supplies from non-fossil fuels.
At present, passenger growth is around double that forecast in the White Paper, so we believe we should now start to plan for the next stage in capacity growth – building new lines. Press and pundits talk of high speed lines, but the real need is for capacity rather than speed.
The important thing is to start planning them now, so that key corridors can be safeguarded and capacity built into the existing network for future connections. Crossrail is going to be an important addition to the National Rail network, work on new lines in Scotland is well advanced, and in Wales the first phase of the Ebbw Vale line is almost complete. However, much more remains to be done in England, and the congestion points are not limited to London but spread throughout the country.
The White Paper also gave a welcome commitment to providing 1,300 additional coaches in the period 2009-14. We will need all of these, and perhaps more, if growth continues higher than forecast.
I believe that the present arrangements for managing franchises are too prescriptive and that this may risk extending timescales for delivery of the new trains. We need a better arrangement, and one where the focus is on the train operator, who is closest to passengers.
Meanwhile, we have got to continue to deliver for our customers. Eurostar has set the benchmark with its new line and new terminal at St Pancras, but that also means that public expectation has risen accordingly. Train operators will continue to be demanding customers of Network Rail to secure further improvements in performance, but it has been good to note improving co-operation and a determination to deliver for the customer.
The Government has decided that more of the cost of the railway should in future be met by passengers, and less by tax-payers. That is a political decision, but one consequence is that passenger expectations are even higher and so the standards of performance and customer care will need to continue to rise.
Passengers rightly ask for simpler fares and better information and we are committed to giving them this with a new fares structure to be set out in 2008, and even better information through National Rail Enquiries.
Supporting this have been developments in ticketing and information, where Atoc takes the lead. Further development of TrainTracker and the National Rail website have hugely increased access to information on train services and fares. Plans for 2008 include adding connecting links on local transport information, which will secure rail as the backbone of integrated public transport.
2007 saw the last of the old BR Aptis machines being given to the National Railway Museum, while new ticket machines have been introduced and further progress made with online booking – including the ability to print tickets at home – and the extension of ‘ticket to mobile’.
In the interests of the environment, the Government’s New Year’s resolution must be to encourage more people to use rail, and the rail industry’s resolution must be to look after those people and give them value for money.
Adrian Shooter is also chairman of Chiltern Railways.
Views expressed in our 'guest opinion' column are those of the author and not necessarily shared by Railnews.