08.09.16
Network Rail should ‘behave like a business’ with private funding – Carne
The rail industry cannot rely entirely on public funding to continue to drive regeneration, Network Rail boss Mark Carne has said, as he called on businesses to play a “much bigger role” in funding projects and laid down his vision for the infrastructure owner to “behave like a private sector business”.
Speaking at a London First event on Tuesday, he outlined the importance of business investment in the railways as a source of funding to ensure investment can continue to transform the industry – echoing the opinions of other rail heavyweights, such as Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy and Crossrail 2 boss Lord Adonis.
“We know that rail can unlock housing supply to bring communities that have traditionally been cut off within reach of major urban conurbations,” he said. “Just yesterday we announced that we have identified almost 200 sites across the country which will deliver almost 12,000 new homes, and we are continuing to review our land assets to see what more we can do.
“All over the country, we have seen the impact of rail improvements, new stations, new lines. When railways are introduced or upgraded, investment in housing inevitably follows as businesses choose to move or set up in or near those areas.
“We know that rail investment, such as transforming stations, can drive regeneration. But we cannot continue to rely on public funding to do so. It is clear that we need to increasingly source funding from those people, authorities and businesses that directly benefit from better railways.”
Although Network Rail is a public sector organisation, Carne argued his vision is that “we behave like a private sector business – relentlessly customer focused, cost-competitive, commercial and with a high-performance culture and a plan to deliver a railway fit for the future”.
“Transformation is not a choice, it is a necessity,” he added.
Digital railway as a priority
The infrastructure owner boss did acknowledge, however, that running more services as a direct result of growing demand led to “serious congestion” on key routes in the country, particularly at peak times, which in turn impacts on punctuality and reliability.
But looking to the future, he said Network Rail plans to be able to run “many more trains” on the current infrastructure without actually building more tracks – instead focusing on digital technology, similarly to that used to transform the Victoria and Jubilee lines in the capital.
Carne made similar remarks during a Transport Committee hearing earlier this year, where he argued delivering a digital railway will be the cheapest option for increasing capacity by up to 40%. While he had accepted that new-build projects like Crossrail 2 and HS2 would still be necessary in the overall rail vision, he made clear that digitising signalling would ultimately be responsible for transforming the way the network is handled.
But the Digital Railway programme is expected to be led at a cautious pace after its managing director David Waboso said it should be introduced in stages to allow time to learn from mistakes and avoid an “over-heroic” approach. More recently, he told RTM that Network Rail will revise the Digital Railway’s Norwich – Yarmouth – Lowestoft (NYL) pilot which was being designed to showcase the full deployment of digital technology by the end of CP5.
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