Peer review: Chris MacRae
Manager – Rail Freight Policy, Freight Transport Association
We all know that Government’s response to a crisis is to commission a review. But there are genuine issues in how infrastructure enhancement schemes - both passenger and freight - are (or in cases are not) being delivered, both physically and in respect of budget.
So we currently have three reviews into the railways: Sir Peter Hendy reviewing NR’s delivery of Control Period 5 infrastructure enhancements; Dame Colette Bowe’s review of Network Rail’s planning and costing of enhancement projects; and Nicola Shaw’s review of the longer-term future shape and financing of Network Rail.
The FTA fundamentally supports the aims and objectives of the Strategic Freight Network Fund to enhance Britain’s mixed traffic railway network for the needs of freight, so as to improve economic competitiveness and connectivity.
Projects delivered under this fund in previous Control Periods have helped to release some of the constraints on rail freight and Britain’s supply chains. It is clearly important that this Fund (and the management of the delivery of the projects authorised in it) continues to deliver the economic and societal benefits that have already been witnessed in earlier Control Periods, such as gauge clearance on main and diversionary routes into and out of the major haven gateway ports.
A key challenge currently is for Network Rail to manage within time and within budget the delivery of increasingly complex multi-disciplinary network enhancement projects dealing with capacity, train lengthening and train journey time improvements on an end-to-end corridor basis for freight, interacting with other route-wide schemes where scheme output interdependencies exist. It is vital that these projects are seen to deliver optimal outcomes for the public expenditure that they represent, and in doing so deliver benefits for the British economy and trade connectivity.
Therefore, FTA supports a review of the current projects with regard to their deliverability and costs and timelines, in order to ensure tangible deliverables within the project timelines and continuing support from public funders for the enhancement of the rail network for freight.
In a review of the shape and financing of the infrastructure provider and its roles, a key issue for FTA is the implications for rail freight, given that it operates across existing Network Rail geographical route boundaries. It is therefore important that any consultation on the system operator role within any Network Rail restructuring recognises that there are issues regarding how that would tie up with disruptive engineering possession planning and diversionary routing and contingency planning across route borders - for example, Southampton to Hull or Southampton to Coatbridge Intermodal trains.
FTA is engaged in developing the ‘Agenda for More Freight by Rail’, which sets out the industry challenges set by major shippers for rail to win more freight market share from other modes of transport. A copy can be found on the website at http://www.fta.co.uk/export/sites/fta/_galleries/downloads/rail_freight/14094_agenda_for_more_guide.pdf
At the same time, the Office of Rail and Road has published a consultation: System operation – making better use of the rail network. System operation is about how Network Rail operates the rail network and how decisions by both NR and others are made about the use of this network and its expansion over time.
The consultation states that the trend towards regional devolution of railway investment funding decisions (including the possibility of greater roles for local transport authorities and devolved administrations), as well as the possibility of having more rail infrastructure (for example, HS2), increases the importance of co-ordination between routes and of investment decisions. Increased transparency and a better understanding of the effects of decisions can help support this. In parallel, Network Rail is consulting on an initial system operation “dashboard” to improve the information available about how the rail network is operated. The consultations closed on October 16.
Clearly there are issues for freight in how this is done. Certainly greater devolution is the route of travel (for example, the development of Transport for the North, West Midlands Connect, Transport for London and the politically most devolved of all - Transport Scotland), and deeper devolution means the need for a more crucial role of the system operator, completely independent of train operators.
The Shaw Review makes further devolution inevitable, with partial or full privatisation of NR openly being discussed, potentially in a concession format. This means there is a need for a network system operator role to carry out central capacity and timetable management work - this is especially important for freight, which operates across the boundaries of the routes that are likely to become more devolved (sea ports are on the coast and cities are mostly inland !)
The system operator has to be independent of train operating companies (a requirement of EU Directives), independent of devolved route infrastructure managers, and with contingency empowerment such as how to deal with the operational consequences of a key route closure - following a landslip, for example. The system operator must not, however, be a proxy for an independent regulator (that is also required in EU Directives).
While infrastructure maintenance may be a core activity for a devolved route infrastructure manager, long-term planning is clearly a system operator function. But with the idea of infrastructure concessions and Alliances (such as ScotRail/Network Rail Scotland) things become less clear. There will be a need for statutory duties and guidance to be given to both devolved route infrastructure managers and the system
operator. From a freight perspective this should include a duty to promote rail freight. This affects such practical issues as gauging standards for freight wagons/containers, timetabling rules, customer rail freight facility connection agreements, and enhancement projects that go across route borders (such as the Felixstowe to Nuneaton freight upgrade project). It must be remembered that the McNulty Report into the value for money of Britain’s railways did want devolution of all but the most high-level functions of Network Rail, such as high-level co-ordination and capacity allocation.
This all comes at a time of change in the railways, with the Hendy Review, the Bowe Review, and the Treasury-led Shaw Review, plus an ORR Interim Review of the fiscal settlement for Network Rail for CP5 is likely as an outcome of the Hendy Review. In its responses to these consultations and reviews, FTA is pressing that both the organisational structures put in place and the measurements of their outputs take proper cognisance of the needs of freight.
