- Environment: How does rail want to position itself in relation to carbon and local pollution?
Shifting away from diesel will certainly help in relation to the latter, and the car and lorry alternative is likely to struggle with this in the short term. But as I discuss below, electrification of the road and rail fleets may well affect rail’s relative carbon performance, particularly for rural routes.
- Integration and delivery: Government will clearly want the industry’s commitment to deliver against what it is funding.
Part of this picture is being comfortable that we have the skills in place across the UK to deliver a number of major infrastructure projects over the period to 2030 - including HS2, the digital railway, the major road investment programme in England, and a new runway.
- Who pays? One area on which rail needs to take a view is the balance of funding between taxpayer and user.
In recent years there has been a lack of clarity on this issue. The Coalition had a specific user/taxpayer balance target, while the previous Initial Industry Plan foresaw rail requiring zero net subsidy by the early 2020s.
The consensus now seems to be that taxpayer spending of £4 billion a year (to be pushed through passenger operators) is about right (the user/taxpayer target having been abandoned, and any talk of zero net subsidy being back in the land of the thought piece as soon as the PR2013 Strategic Business Plan emerged). Nevertheless, a clear statement of policy in this area would be appreciated, even if that required agreement on different levels of investment associated with different levels of funding.
You don’t need me to tell you that the future is uncertain. What I find really helpful for getting a handle on uncertainty is using a set of scenarios, and considering whether the infrastructure development we’re considering is robust to those scenarios.
Last year, for example, Oxera and PA Consulting examined four potential scenarios for the global aviation industry, considering the global trends that affect the industry, and developing a set of scenarios that reflect different ways in which those trends might play out. A similar exercise for UK rail might consider, for example, the speed at which automation is delivered in the car fleet (allowing business drivers to be productive at the wheel of their vehicle for the first time, eroding rail’s competitive edge), and the acceptability of diesel engines in towns and cities (and the rate at which electric or hybrid alternatives can be introduced for freight and passenger applications).
As for integration with other sectors, despite rail offering a rich seam of issues that could provide endless discussion, it does not exist in a vacuum. I would expect a long-term infrastructure development plan to include an entire section on interactions with other sectors.
Taking transport, for example, what is happening elsewhere in transport over the next 25 years? Will there be a new runway in southeast England? What rail development does this require? However (or whether) this issue is resolved, most UK airports are expecting rail increasingly to take the strain in carrying passengers to and from their flights, in order to meet environmental obligations.
That’s on the collaborative side of things, but how does rail perceive its role in relation to intra-GB aviation? The European Commission expects rail to increase its market share for short-distance air routes, so how does UK rail respond?
On the roads, Highways England plans to resurface a high proportion of motorways and all-purpose trunk roads in England over the next five years, and is using the smart motorways concept to increase capacity extensively in busy locations. While rail will benefit from the increased road congestion in the short term, in the early 2020s it is likely that rail will be competing against cheaper (hybrid/electric) cars and lorries running on less congested major roads. How does rail respond to this challenge?
And in the longer term, if the road fleets are also electrified, then where does rail’s environmental advantage come from?
Depending on the speed of the electrification programme, the majority of rail journeys will take place under electric power in the next couple of decades.
Already a major energy user, rail will become increasingly dependent on the price of electricity, with a diminished ability also to draw power from diesel. While the costs of the two are not unrelated, rail’s overall exposure to each individual fuel source has historically been diminished by not having to rely solely on just one.
How does rail tackle this dependency? A long-term infrastructure development plan will seek to diminish risks by reducing rail’s energy use over time via technology (for example, regenerative braking), self-supply (renewables incentives on train operators - wind turbines and solar panels on stations, anyone?) and close inter-working with DECC and the power companies. Other vital inputs such as skills will also have to be modelled, dependencies understood, and the balance of risk tackled in the plan.
In summary, the Long-Term Planning Process in which the industry is engaged, and funders’ response to its outputs, has the potential to deliver many of the outcomes I describe above, especially if they take place against the backdrop of a coherent set of criteria, and reflect a number of potential future scenarios.
But such a process requires both of you to believe in what is being created, and for the Government to be brave enough to respond in full (and transparently) regarding the choices it is taking.
I hope you find my suggestions useful.
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