Welcome to our special edition December newsletter
Hello,
Outside of our usual schedule of monthly newsletters, I wanted to alert you to the three letters we’ve sent to Network Rail over the last fortnight.
As part of our ongoing monitoring of Network Rail, the letters set out our mid-year assessments of how the company is doing in three key areas:
- The System Operator - (press notice)
- Network Rail’s response to Covid-19 - (press notice)
- Train service performance - (press notice)
In addition, we’ve published an update on our investigation into performance issues in the North West & Central (NW&C) region, which we carried out earlier this year.
Overall, Network Rail has made very good progress at a difficult time. Despite the huge challenges of the pandemic, it has continued to deliver maintenance and renewals works and is on course to deliver its efficiency plans for this year. And while reduced service levels have been a factor in improving punctuality, it is clear that Network Rail has also focused on strengthening its performance management capability.
The way in which Network Rail has delivered four emergency timetables, and its overall approach to the Covid situation, has also been impressive.
We have however raised concerns regarding Network Rail’s plans to deliver its 2021 timetables in a significantly more condensed timeframe than the industry’s established timescales. These concerns link back to the lessons from the Inquiry into the May 2018 timetable change, which caused major disruption and inconvenience to users. We have therefore challenged Network Rail to provide greater assurance that it has fully considered the risks of its condensed approach and that passengers will still be able to plan their journeys with confidence as they return to the railway in greater numbers next year.
We have also raised the need for the company to improve the promptness, accuracy and transparency of its capacity analysis, so that operators and ORR can make informed decisions about potential new services for passengers and freight.
Alongside our letter on performance, our update on our NW&C investigation sets out our view on Network Rail’s progress against the improvements required to address our earlier findings. Recognising the impact of the pandemic, we consider that the region has made reasonably good progress against the majority of the recommendations. However, further work is required – including on asset management and contingency arrangements relating to the introduction of new trains.
Our next planned newsletter will come out at the start of January. In the meantime, I wish you all a healthy and happy Christmas.