Media centre

Monday 18 Sep 2017

Passengers get more say in the running of the railway

Region & Route:

National

Passenger representatives, Transport Focus, now sit on supervisory Boards overseeing the running of both track and train across large swathes of the country.

 

The Western route out of London Paddington, the East Coast main line out of London King's Cross and Wales are parts of the railway where Network Rail and the train operators have now formed joint Boards and additionally introduced an independently chaired supervisory Board, with passenger representation, holding the rail industry to account and ensuring the different elements work together to drive improvements.

By spring 2018, all of Network Rail's nine devolved routes will be operating the railway in their regions in this way or with equivalent structures in place.

Publishing Network Rail's latest update on its transformation and change programme, Mark Carne, chief executive said: "The transformation of Network Rail into a responsive, customer focussed group of companies is gathering pace. Working as one railway, we and the train operators are working ever closer together to deliver real tangible improvements and benefits for passengers across the country.

"There is still much to do and change to implement, but change is happening and the railway improving as a result.

"But it’s not just our company that’s transforming. Over the next 18 months passengers will see a transformation as thousands of improvement projects across the country are finished and thousands of new services and new fleets of trains are introduced increasing rail capacity into many of our major cities by 20-30%."

Network Rail's September 'Transformation Update' features a timeline for the company's continued devolution and transformation charting our progress since 2015 and looking ahead to 2024.