UK rail passengers to double in 25 years

[John Ashworth]

Twice as many passengers by train predicted

DAMIEN HENDERSON, Transport Correspondent
The Herald (Scotland)

14 Aug 2010

The number of rail passengers in Britain could double over the next quarter-of-a-century as demand for train travel grows and road congestion increases, an industry report has predicted.

Glasgow and Edinburgh could see passenger levels increase by more than 100% in order to service the needs of a growing population and provide an environmentally-friendly alternative to car travel, according to Network Rail.

Shrugging off fears of impending deep cuts to the UK’s £5 billion rail subsidy, the company that runs Britain’s railways claimed train travel would rebound in the long-term as the economy improved, delivering faster and more frequent services.

More than 40,000 passengers currently arrive by train in Glasgow every morning, twice the level of rail use for any UK city outside London, with around a quarter of that number travelling to Edinburgh. Despite a dip caused by the recession last year, passenger numbers have grown overall by 59% since privatisation in 1993 to 1.3 billion a year.

But transport experts cautioned yesterday that further substantial growth would require multi-billion-pound investments to provide enhanced capacity on routes that are already becoming congested.

An earlier study by Network Rail predicted that the west coast main line connecting London to Edinburgh and Glasgow would be unable to keep up with demand before the end of this decade, calculating the cost of building a new high-speed railway at £34bn.

Despite recent investments and a planned £1bn upgrade of the rail network in central Scotland, the country’s two biggest stations – Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley – both face constraints on expansion due to their bottle-neck approaches.

Network Rail’s latest forecast also assumes the company will be able to make substantial savings in operating costs.

Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said there was “no easy way” of accommodating more passengers.

“The big problem for the railways is that on top of the cost of adding new capacity, a large subsidy for use is likely to be needed,” he said.

“The taxpayer currently stumps up an average of 21p for each passenger mile travelled. A doubling of the rail network could mean huge ongoing obligations for the taxpayer.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “It is vital that we challenge the industry’s current cost base and find ways of delivering outputs more cheaply. This is why we have asked Sir Roy McNulty to examine the cost structure of all areas of the UK rail industry and identify options for improving value for money.”

Network Rail planning and development director Paul Plummer said: “The railway is presently too expensive and must reduce its costs to ensure that the money it does invest delivers best value for Britain.”

The report was welcomed by Transport Scotland, the Government agency response for rail services.

A spokeswoman said: “We welcome the publication of the Planning Ahead 2010 document that sets out the rail industry’s ambition over the next 25 years to increase rail’s contribution to the country’s economic, social and environmental welfare.”