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Bosses responsible for upgrading and modernising Britain’s railway with digital technology have today (20/7) revealed plans how they could incorporate next generation tech from new suppliers, non-railway sectors, and businesses with specialist tech-sector knowledge, while making it easier for these organisations – not usually associated with the railway – to get involved and become partners to the railway network.

• Record £3.9bn spend on enhancements
• Exceptional safety record continues
• Reliability and performance of infrastructure assets now best on record
• Cost efficiencies remain challenging
• Train performance below industry expectations owing to increased congestion, severe weather and industrial action

New figures from Network Rail¹ reveal that young people are more likely to have a near miss at a level crossing during the summer.  Light nights, coupled with the summer holidays, spell danger for Britain’s youth with August and early September seeing near misses at level crossings rise significantly¹.

A new delay-busting Traffic Management system on the Great Western Railway will boost performance on train journeys between London Paddington and Bristol Parkway. Thanks to a two year contract agreed between Network Rail and the British signalling & train control specialists, Resonate, a one year trial of ‘Luminate’ Traffic Management System could see reactionary delays reduced by up to 15%.

• Significant passenger benefits to be realised in the months ahead as Network Rail’s mega-projects start to draw to a close
• More than £133m to be invested in the biggest August bank holiday railway investment programme ever undertaken
• Come 2019, passengers travelling into central London from as far away as Swansea, will see: an extra 170,000 seats; more frequent services on 16 lines serving the capital; longer north-south trains every 2-3 minutes as part of the Thameslink programme and an extra 1.5m people within 45 minutes of the capital once the Crossrail project is complete
• Routes to UK airports unaffected over the bank holiday weekend

• The seven-year contract is worth £125m
• Single biggest roadside advertising contract in the UK
• Primesight will build 20 new digital billboards on Network Rail land by year end
• Primesight to take over advertising rights on Network Rail bridges from April 2018

• Ground-breaking collaboration between Network Rail and biofuels start-up, bio-bean, is highly commended at leading environmental awards
• Scheme gives new meaning to daily grind, with grounds from 38m cups of coffee from stations across Britain converted into biofuel
• Initiative prevented an estimated 5,000 tonnes of CO2 from entering atmosphere

Suicide prevention measures put in place as part of the partnership between Samaritans, Network Rail, British Transport Police (BTP) and the wider rail industry are continuing to reduce deaths on the railway.