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GREAT BRITISH RAILWAYS TRANSITION TEAM
Rufus Boyd, who leads the Great British Railways Transition Team (GBRTT), writes about the short-term challenges and long-term opportunities of integrating rail with other modes
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The backbone of a more integrated transport system
n integrated transport system is the right aspiration. For local communities, for the prosperity of towns and cities up and down the country, as well as for our planet. It aligns with the strategic objectives that the Government has given rail. Rail has often been described as the ‘backbone’ of that transport system. Fixed infrastructure with fixed timetables that do the heavy lifting, and with which more flexible modes can ‘dock in’. In a geographical sense, other modes must come to rail. This reality can easily breed complacency, which is why all of us who work in rail must actively work towards making rail more accessible and easy to do business with.
Short-term challenges Colleagues at GBRTT have spent the past two years working to bring together a single, detailed view of industry finances – with profit and loss across track and train from the highest to the most granular levels – for the first time in a generation. The fact we’ve not had this simple business tool as an industry speaks to how much work there is to do. Rail’s operating subsidy last year was £4.4 billion materially larger than pre-COVID. This is the Department for Transport (DfT) procured train operating companies and Network Rail – enhancements. Our financial position today as an industry is not sustainable and it is my belief that this is true of any government of any colour – given other public priorities. We need to get more people taking the train, more often, and we need to do that at an efficient cost. Rail’s revenue was decimated when the country paused to stop the spread of COVID-19, and when you adjust for inflation and the opening of the Elizabeth line we’re only at 74 per cent of prepandemic passenger revenue. Now, habits have changed with people travelling, relatively, far more for leisure than they were prepandemic, and with changed working arrangements they’re travelling far less for business. Rail needs to adapt and across the sector, we’re trying to do just that.
Image: GBRTT
Businesses have two options – drive costs down, or you work to increase revenue. Our evidence base, which we have bolstered substantially over the past two years, suggests that there are millions of journeys to go at, through mode shift. We just need to chase the right horses.
April 2024
Rail’s mode share today is low. The rail industry can only go so far towards addressing some of these barriers respondents cited in isolation, such as simplifying the complex mass of rail fares, for example. Rail is a fragmented industry, and the large