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Thursday 11 Jun 2015

Network Rail response to ORR 2014/15 annual assessment

Region & Route:

National

Commenting on the publication of the Office of Rail and Road’s latest monitor of Network Rail’s performance, a Network Rail spokesman said: “Network Rail has recognised the scale of the challenge and has been openly reporting performance data regularly.

“There are clearly opportunities to improve following decades of under investment in the rail network.  However, it is worth highlighting that we operate the safest passenger network in Europe and the railway asset reliability is the best it has ever been.  The increase in passengers means that more people are getting to their destination on time than ever before.  

“Network Rail’s new leadership team, under CEO Mark Carne, is committed to deliver the pace of change required to build a better, more modern network that passengers and businesses can rely on.”

Over the past 12 months (2014/15) Network Rail has:

• Made Europe’s safest major railway even safer – a 4% improvement on 2013/14
• Accommodated 67.3m more passenger journeys, reaching a new record high of 1.65bn – a 4.2% increase (40% above CP5 forecasts) and over double the number of just 20 years ago
• Invested £3.4bn in growing and expanding the network, over 40% higher than the average for the past five years and double the rate of 2009/10 – the equivalent of building an Olympic Stadium every month
• Renewed £3bn of the base assets of the railway, 6% higher than the average for the past five years
• Delivered eight of the top ten project milestones on time
• Continued cutting the cost of running the railway, reducing total cost by 40% in the past decade and saving taxpayers and fare payers £5.2bn 
• Run almost 20,000 more trains than last year – a new record level and more than a million more trains per year than in 2004/05
• Improved the reliability of our assets to record levels and 5% better than last year
• Removed some 7.6m lorry journeys from Britain's roads by increasing the strategic freight network
• Generated £9bn of wealth for the UK economy
• Trained and gave careers to over 300 apprentices and graduates
• Closed 120 level crossings, adding to the 804 closed over the last five years and reducing risk by 30%
• Strengthened key executive positions with the arrival of Phil Hufton from London Underground, Francis Paonessa from Bombardier and Graham Hopkins from Rolls Royce

ENDS