ORR plays an important role in supporting investment and growth in Britain’s railway. We hold Network Rail and others to account for their efficiency and productivity in how the railway is run, ensuring value for money for users and funders; and we are working with our regulated companies to reduce the burden of regulation to support growth. 

A priority area of work this year will be on Network Rail’s asset resilience. We will continue our work on Network Rail’s structures examination and assessment backlog, and continue to hold Network Rail to account for the stewardship of its assets, with a focus on how it is renewing and maintaining them to secure a sustainable asset base for the future. 

This year, we will continue our focus on monitoring and reporting on the productivity and efficiency of the rail industry. We will publish our annual efficiency and finance assessment of Network Rail, followed by our annual rail industry productivity report. 

We will continue to hold Network Rail to account on train service performance, having reset the company’s targets last year, and will focus on monitoring its preparedness for the transition to Great British Railways (GBR). We intend to take a close look at the improvements that Network Rail’s Wales & Western region has made in train performance, two years after the company was found in breach of its licence. In July we will publish our annual assessment of Network Rail’s performance during the second year of Control Period 7. 

We will publish our annual assessment of London St Pancras High Speed (HS1 Ltd), looking at the service’s performance during the first year of Control Period 4 (CP4). 

Fair and effective competition is an important driver of value for money. Having completed our review of the remedies on rolling stock leasing, we will launch a new market review early in the business year and continue to engage with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as they progress their review of civil engineering in rail and road sectors. We will also monitor implementation of recommendations from our previous market studies on signalling and railway station catering. 

We will consider any complaints arising about anti-competitive behaviour, opening new cases under our competition enforcement powers where appropriate. 

We will continue to publish official rail statistics throughout the year, providing transparency for the public and industry by gathering and reporting information on safety, industry finance, passenger usage and performance.