zz
Strategy
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Time toinvest in transport If you ask anyone on a train today what they think of Britain’s railway network, you should expect to hear some ill-informed nonsense, asserts Arnab Dutt
A
s a public member of Network Rail, I am perhaps more up to speed than the average rail traveller, but it still surprises me how little people know about ongoing investment in the rail network. People know about HS2, of course, but they don’t realise that investment in existing lines and stations is going on at just as large a scale. Look at stations. Investment is having a hugely positive effect on commuter experience. You only have to spend time at two of the busiest stations in the country, namely King’s Cross and Birmingham New Street, to see how such physical transformations influence daily commutes. Investment in stations, including lengthening platforms, means fewer delays, increasing capacity throughout the timetable, and of course providing a more pleasant journey. It is done with passengers in mind. This is all great, but we need much more, and not just in the rail sector but in airports and the whole joined up business of transport infrastructure. There are massive benefits for the economy. Major projects that increase capacity lead to demand for more materials and support services, and create jobs because improved efficiency benefits businesses.
So what’s holding us back? Ignorance, selfishness and fear. Look at HS2. Instead of admiration and excitement, that project mainly attracts negativity either
12
www.railwaystrategies.co.uk
from sceptics, who can’t believe Britain can do anything on this scale, or NIMBYs, who it seems would prefer everyone to travel by horse and cart. When Network Rail announced a £37 billion upgrade of 28,000 signal boxes, what it got instead of praise for tackling this major project, was criticism for doing away with quaint Victoriana. The will-they-won’t-they saga around HS2 is played out in a similar story of politics and infrastructure when it comes to air travel. Britain is losing business to Germany, France, and Holland, who have a joined up transport network, and have invested in airports. This is having a detrimental long-term effect on the UK economy. As a nation, we do not offer enough flights to emerging economies – a situation that was foreseen 20 years ago. However, because of political sensitivities, no governments have made the decision to tackle this – a huge failure for the UK economy. The current debate about where to site an extra runway is typical. Why is the Government waiting 18 months to make a decision on how to expand? With marginal constituencies around Heathrow, the government would rather pander to the NIMBYs than invest in a joined up transport strategy that encompasses all modes of travel, including rail. Lack of investment has another, darker consequence. The public and private sectors have been under immense pressure to cut costs ever since the banking crisis plunged us into recession, and the fallout in lost jobs and failed firms has been well reported. There is a less well-documented effect, one that even as the recovery arrives has yet to be felt, and when it does come, the results could
be literally catastrophic. I am talking about decisions that have been made to cut corners to save money. In many organisations, public and private, purchasing departments have been given unprecedented buying power, even the ability to overrule engineers and specify inferior components. Under pressure to make savings, managers have delayed vital upgrades. These decisions store up costly refits and put systems at risk, in some cases with disastrous consequences. We all know what can happen when money talks and priorities get skewed. l A decade after the Potters Bar crash when seven people died after their train was derailed by faulty points, unions were still lambasting the Government about cuts and their potential for fatal consequences. l Just this summer, the cargo ship Swanland sank off Wales with the loss of six crew. Money saving played a major part with insufficient maintenance and a lack of repairs resulting in a vessel severely weakened by corrosion to the point of structural failure. l Similarly, a report into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that killed 11 men concluded that cost cutting greatly contributed to the accident with managers making “decisions that reduced costs and increased risk”. So while there are no indicators about corner cutting to appear on the nightly news alongside the latest unemployment figures, we know it is happening, and when the results come to light in the worst-case scenarios, it is all over the newscasts. Like other businesses, we at Texane have had to cope with these incredibly tough past few years, and I do not for a minute underestimate the pressure on businesses large and small, or the public sector, to cut