by Iain Coucher, Network Rail Chief Executive
November 2007

Network Rail has made significant progress over the last five years. Five years ago performance was bad. The public had lost confidence in the safety of the railway and costs were spiralling out of control. What a difference five years can make.
Today performance is good – running at an average of almost 90%. That's 54% fewer late and cancelled trains compared to five years ago. Rail is now the safest form of travel having pushed air into second place and costs have been slashed with over £1.7bn taken out of the cost of running the rail network over the past three years.
Five years ago the industry was tasked with sorting out the problems and we rose to the challenge. We have all but fixed them and I think we have fixed them faster than anyone thought possible at the time. This has brought great success but success has brought us new challenges – dealing with a growing railway and an expanding railway.
The UK has Europe's fastest growing railway. Last year over 1.147 billion passenger journeys were made – the highest on record since demobilisation in 1946. Over the last decade we have grown passenger numbers by almost 45% and freight by over 50%. We have seen a modal shift from car and plane into trains and we expect more, at least 30% across the board, over the coming 10 years.
Network Rail recently published its strategic business plan (1st November 2007) in which the industry set out its plan to respond to this growth and meet the challenges that success has brought.
Network Rail will continue to focus on the basics everyday – making trains run on time and making them run safely and, of course, driving value for money – but more focus is needed on growing and expanding the network to deliver more trains, more seats, more capacity.
The plan includes many major investment schemes. The industry now has a good track record delivering big projects on time and on budget. We sorted out the West Coast project, way out of control, with key milestones already delivered to time and to budget and the same for the project to upgrade the entire electrical power supply across Southern England ready for the introduction of new trains. Five years ago there was limited investment in the railways. Today it’s expanding across the entire country. We have some huge schemes coming that include projects that will help to transform train travel across London. Schemes like the £5.5bn Thameslink upgrade project and Crossrail which together will help revolutionise the way people travel around London.
There are big station schemes at Birmingham New Street, King's Cross, Euston and at Victoria and we’ll finally sort out the bottleneck at Reading station which has dogged travellers for many years. But importantly, it's not just about the big schemes. We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of smaller schemes, designed to improve the lives of travellers on the railway every single day. Schemes that look to deliver longer platforms that enable us to run longer trains, removing bottlenecks allowing more trains can get through. There will be better stations and we will of course expand the railway for freight. The plan includes some £10bn of investment – of taxpayers’ money – and we have a responsibility for investing that carefully and wisely.
We must also focus on the environment. Rail is a green product – the greenest form of mechanised transport but we can be greener still. We must do more and we can do more. Making the railway greener makes sound business sense but also has to be delivered for ethical reasons. Ethically, I think we have a duty to look after the future generations of this country and of the planet, to look at the issues of climate change and the consumption of natural resources. Network Rail will do its part.

The business reasons are also compelling; rail competes well, but the competition in aviation and in automobiles are investing heavily in making their product more efficient reducing their harmful emissions. Our competitive edge is eroding. We must do more to avoid losing our advantage. An investment in the environment does not add cost to the operation. Look at our plans to produce new lightweight trains. They are good for the environment, they produce less damage to
the track and they, of course, perform better. We are introducing a range of new 'modular' stations across the entire network. By 2014 we will have a couple of hundred of these out there. These are high quality, low cost and they have a very small carbon footprint. Our plans are very exciting. We are dealing with a successful and growing railway but there is a note of caution. Our plans for saving costs are realistic but they are challenging. Over ten years we will have almost halved the cost of running the railways.
To set the industry an even greater challenge risks us not being able to deliver this exciting vision. A vision borne out of success where people are voting with their feet, they are rejecting the car, they are rejecting the plane and they are switching to train.
People used to say that railways are the technology of the 19th century but railways are proving themselves as the technology of the 21st century. The public and the politicians want a vision for our railways, and the plan that we have launched – the Strategic Business Plan – sets out a very clear vision.
A vision that will see train punctuality comparable with the very best in the world and a very safe railway that builds on our excellent safety record.
Where there are more trains, more seats, more often and passengers travel in modern, comfortable green trains. Where people use stations that are some of the best in the world and, of course, on a railway that is open for business longer – later a night and runs a near normal service at weekends and on bank holidays.
The Strategic Business Plan is a collaborative plan that reflects an industry view on what is needed to respond to growth in the years ahead. It presents a clear vision of growth, expansion and investment in Britain's railways that will add enormously to health and wealth of our country.
At long last we have political consensus about the value of investing in rail for passengers. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform the rail experience for millions and millions of people who depend upon rail. Network Rail, and the industry as a whole, has fixed the problems of the past. Rail has a great future and we are fully focused on delivering a bigger, better railway for all who use it.