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Government unveils train congestion plans

24/07/2007

The government is today unveiling plans to tackle the growing issue of congestion on many of Britain's railway lines.

Transport secretary Ruth Kelly will announce the details of the government's white paper, which is expected to include plans to upgrade stations, build longer platforms and add more carriages in a bid to alleviate overcrowding and improve punctuality.

Billions of pounds are to be spent on the effort to remove bottlenecks on the UK's rail network and the move has been broadly welcomed by the industry.

The director general of the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc), George Muir, says he has "a lot of confidence" that what is announced by the government will be delivered as promised.

He added that his members will pay for a lot of the upgrades out of passenger revenue, which has been growing substantially in recent years.

"One of the reasons why the government is able to come forward with this announcement for growing the railway is that passenger revenue is strong," he told the Today programme

"It went up from £4.5 billion two years ago to £5 billion last year. Next year we're expecting £5.5 billion.

"So we're putting on each year about half a billion of extra passenger revenue, and that goes a long way to paying for the investment."

The chief executive of the rail passenger watchdog Passenger Focus added on the same programme that there were three main areas of concern for passengers.

"They want to see more money put into getting trains arriving on time, they want to be able to get a seat more often, and they want their ticket to be better value for money," he said. "So clear messages coming from passengers about what they want to see."

"We hope to see plans for longer trains, we hope to see plans for more trains and very importantly some money to bust some of the bottlenecks that are strangling development of the network."

He agreed, however, that all this would be very costly but he stressed that fare increases was not the only way to achieve the improvements.

"There are going to be more passengers for a start so there's more money coming in full stop," he said.

"Secondly, the industry's got to get better at controlling its own costs so that the costs don't keep spiralling.

"Thirdly, yes passengers do have to pay something towards improving the railway, everyone accepts that, but it's the amount and the message that sends out about rail travel and about how affordable it is that needs to be watched very carefully."

The Thameslink project, re-signalling at Reading station and work to reduce congestion at Birmingham New Street are expected to be among the main focuses of the white paper.

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