22.11.12
‘Strong traffic growth’ for Network Rail
Network Rail has published its half-year financial results for 2012/13, showing an increase in revenue, but a big rise in debt.
Net borrowing at March 31 was just over £28bn, up from £27.2bn. This was “as anticipated”, Network Rail stated.
Revenue was £3.17bn compared to just under £3bn for the same period the year before, operating profit fell slightly from £1.227bn to £1.226bn, but profit after taxation was £573m compared to £136m.
The value of the rail network has increased from £43,112,000,000 to £45,342,000,000.
Capital expenditure stayed roughly the same as last year – just over £2bn.
Patrick Butcher, Network Rail’s group finance director said: “The railway continues to see strong traffic growth which provides us with the challenge of getting the balance right between capacity, reliability and efficiency. We have seen growth on the network of 5% a year for a decade and this is set to continue. That means we continue to become more efficient so we can continue to invest to meet this growth.
“This, combined with the traffic growth, allows us to sustain high levels of capital investment, delivering £2.1bn of worth of capital work in the six months.
“Network Rail continues to evolve. Last year we completed devolving authority to all ten of our routes and now we can make progress to moving to a group structure that reflects this. We have already set up our infrastructure projects division as a standalone business unit, launched Network Rail Consulting as our international business and we have plans to run our energy, telecoms and recycling operations each with their own profit and loss account. We believe this will generate greater efficiencies and unlock greater value to the business.
“Our daily focus remains on running safe, reliable and efficient railway service for passengers and freight users alike. Whilst train punctuality is at high, historical levels Network Rail recognises that on parts of network performance is not as good as it should be. As we have before, we will continue to take any appropriate action to improve services.”
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