REGULATOR'S TARGETS BEATEN

Friday 31 Jul 2009

REGULATOR'S TARGETS BEATEN

Region & Route:: National

Network Rail reported today that it had beaten almost all the main regulatory targets set for the company for the past five years.

Issuing its annual return today, a regulatory document charting the company's progress over the past 12 months and also reporting on achievements over the last five years, the company summarised its performance against the main regulatory targets.

The targets were set for the five years 1 April 2004 to 31 March 2009, with the ORR target below being the target expected to be reached by the end of the five year period. Network Rail met 15 of the 18 targets:

Description; ORR target, Actual, Target met?
Reduce delays attributed to Network Rail; 9.1m mins, 8.84, Yes
Reduce train delays per 100 train km; 1.65 mins, 1.59, Yes
Reduce broken rails; 300, 164, Yes
Improve track geometry; 0.9, 0.5, Yes
Reduce temporary speed restrictions; 1,199, 438, Yes
Network capability - keeping the network open; 2001 levels, 2001+, Yes
Reduce the instances of earthwork failures; 47, 61, No
Reduce signalling failures; 28,098, 19,622, Yes
Improve the condition of signalling; 2.5, 2.4, Yes
Reduce overhead power line incidents; 107, 66, Yes
Reduce third rail power failure incidents; 30, 14, Yes
Improve the condition of the overhead line system; 1.8, 1.6, Yes
Improve the condition of the third rail system; 1.8, 1.9, No
Improve the condition of stations; 2.25, 2.08, Yes
Improve the condition of depots; 2.7, 2.5, Yes
Improve the condition of infrastructure assets; 0.9, 0.6, Yes
Reduce costs; 31%, 27%, No
Keep debt to less than 85% of asset value; 85%, 70%, Yes

Despite missing the ORR target for reducing costs, as a result of the company outperforming on so many other fronts that attracted more income, the net financial result was a £1.2bn excess over the five years, most of which was re-invested into the rail network.

Paul Plummer, director of planning and regulation, said: "The company has accomplished a lot over the last five years and has beaten almost every target set for it with passengers and freight users as the primary beneficiaries.

"Our focus now turns to the five years ahead as we work to wisely invest billions of pounds in improving and growing Britain's thriving railway."

Notes to editors

1. Reasons for just missing targets; • Cost cutting: o Efficiencies were well ahead of target in many areas but renewals, in particular track renewals, fell short at just 24%. Network Rail has taken positive action to make up the ground in this area and is awaiting the delivery of some new high output track laying equipment that will significantly reduce costs in this area • Third rail system: o The target was missed by a very small margin and new technologies are being developed to better understand the needs of this asset type • Earthworks: o The measure is particularly affected by the frequency of extreme local weather events as evidenced by the fluctuation across our routes from year to year and the large numbers that followed the exceptional weather events of 2006/07 and 2007/08. The base year, 2003/04, was the first year the measure was reported and did not comprise a long term average. Hazard scoring of slope failures shows that the severity of hazard scores have been decreasing over CP3 indicating that appropriate prioritisation of investment work is taking place

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