Network Rail's performance and challenges in Great Britain's railway reform

Our assessments of Great Britain's railway, published today, show Network Rail is delivering efficiently, but cost pressures remain and industry must keep focus on safety throughout rail reform.   Key findings: 🔸 Industry must retain relentless focus on safety throughout rail reform 🔸 Financial constraints on Network Rail require careful management 🔸 Network Rail taking action where train performance needs to improve 🔸 Passenger train punctuality is largely stable, but cancellations have reached record highs, with train operator cancellations the dominant factor.   As the industry undergoes rail reform, our Chief Executive John Larkinson emphasises that, "the mainline rail network is at a turning point" and stresses the need for relentless focus on planning and delivery.   Read our full annual reports: orr.gov.uk/yearinrail

  • The mainline rail network is at a turning point. Rail reform presents an opportunity to do things differently, working better together to improve the experience of all rail users, but its full implementation is some years away and the issues we have raised will not be solved by rail reform alone.

Overall Network Rail has performed well in a tight financial environment, but it will need to focus relentlessly on every aspect of how it plans and delivers, because there is little margin for error in its regulatory settlement
John Larkinson, Chief Executive
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orr.gov.uk

To summarise then: Jam tomorrow, but no strawberries today...

Dr. Nathan Darroch MA PhD SFHEA

Senior Lecturer | Rail & Rail Systems Apprenticeships @ London South Bank University

3mo

The best way to achieve safety is much more efficient Quality Management, to deliver customer and commercial value, employing the principles of ISO9001. Afterall safety is only an output of effective management and leadership, not a staring point.

Martin Smith

Construction manager/Drone Operator

3mo

Clearing out the wrong end of the business is going to show that it will not save anything and safety will eventually fail, NR have a habit of getting rid of the safety net and replacing with higher management that end up costing more but is not counted in the overall cost structure and do very little but self promotion!

Tatjana Dusinska

Project Coordinator at Avanti West Coast | Assistant PM with Financial Services Background | MSc Financial Analysis | ENTP | Thrive Under Pressure | APM PMQ | Certified Open Water Diver

3mo

Insightful

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