20 June 2003
Train services on some busy routes are likely to be cut after the Strategic Rail Authority adopted a new strategy to co-ordinate information 'that was missing at privatisation'.
The network utilisation strategy, launched on June 16, will allow SRA planners to bring together train lengths, stopping patterns, rolling stock use and service types to create 'significant increases' in capacity.
But an index that models the trade-off between the number of trains run and their punctuality has shown that, when usage rises above 75% of capacity, the benefits of extra services are outweighed by declining punctuality.
This means that on busy lines the SRA will seek to reduce services.
A seven-point process for a 'route utilisation strategy' will be used to get the best use of congested stretches of track. The first, for the Midland Mainline, will be published soon.
Anthony Smith, national director of the Rail Passengers Council, complained: 'Passengers are still suffering the side-effects of topsy-turvy growth of rail services.
'The logic of what is proposed makes sense for the network overall but some passengers will inevitably lose out. Timetable adjustments may well mean fewer trains on some routes, [and] performance continues to be indifferent.'
New quarterly performance figures – to March 2003 – from the SRA showed that 80.5% of trains were on time, compared with 80.9% a year earlier. The number of complaints per 100,000 journeys rose by 8% over the same period.
Although 12 operators showed an improvement in performance, another 12 were worse and the other two unchanged.
The SRA this week also set out plans for the troubled West Coast main line upgrade, and imposed a £9.9bn cost cap on the project.
Enhancements will cost £2.3bn but the other £7.6bn is needed to meet a backlog of repairs and improvements needed after what the SRA called 'several decades of indecision and neglect'.
PFjun2003
