Customers at core of NR Transformation Plan

Network Rail is promising to put its customers at the heart of what it does in the future.

The key areas of NR’s Transformation Plan, published on July 29, are customer focus, costs, commercial capability, culture and capacity. But in his foreword to the plan, NR Chief Executive Mark Carne acknowledges there are problems.

“Many of our customers, the people who we are here to serve, believe we have lost focus on them,” he writes.

“They have told us that too often we behave like a regulated monopoly - giving people what we think is best for them rather than what they actually want. That is why we must transform. Network Rail may be a public sector organisation, but my vision is that we behave like a private sector business.”

Devolution forms a major thrust of NR’s plans to improve customer focus, and the company plans to “significantly increase” the delegation of authorities to route leaders by the end of the year. 

• For more on this, read RAIL 807, published on August 17.