Economic regulation

The Office of Rail and Road's monitoring of Highways England roads continued to show large differences in regional performance in 2019-20.

In the third and final part of its mid-year report on Network Rail, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) praises the company for making a positive contribution to keeping the railway open for business and running punctually, despite the challenges of the pandemic.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has praised Network Rail’s response to Covid-19 but raised concerns over how Network Rail plans rail timetables for next year and in the longer term, and is requiring improvement by Network Rail on how rail capacity is allocated and access to the network is granted.

Blog by Graham Richards, Director of Planning & Performance.

Highways England has delivered the majority of its commitments and made good progress over the first road period but the programme set out for major improvements was too optimistic.

More needs to be done to tackle the impacts of climate change on the railway, which has seen risks increase over the last year, according to a new report published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) today.

This year the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has identified and responded to almost 40 cases where the conduct of a train company in Great Britain was potentially harming the interests of passengers.

Network Rail Scotland has saved more than £46 million in the first year of the new control period 6 (CP6) as it looks to deliver £347 million efficiency savings over five years. Meanwhile passenger train performance was below target, according to the 2019-20 annual assessment of Network Rail published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) today (2 July).

Network Rail has saved more than £385 million in the first year of the new control period 6 (CP6) as it looks to deliver £3.5 billion of efficiency savings over the next five years, however passenger and freight performance varied by region, according to figures contained in the 2019-20 annual assessment of Network Rail published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) today (2 July).