Welcome to our March newsletter
Benchmarking is one of the most useful tools that we have in our role overseeing the performance and efficiency of Network Rail and Highways England.
The ability to compare different regions of these companies provides useful insights into the drivers of good performance, helping to identify best practice and contributing to better outcomes for users and taxpayers. And publishing this information helps to provide a reputational incentive, encouraging the regions to improve.
Last month we published our latest benchmarking report on Highways England. This provides additional colour to our annual assessment last July, which reported that the company had made good overall progress in its first five years. As well as showing regional improvements consistent with this overall national performance, the benchmarking report showed some significant variations across the company’s six regions, including in respect of user satisfaction and average traffic delays. For further detail, please see the report here.
Looking ahead, we will be working with the company to ensure that it provides better cost and spending data at regional level, which will improve transparency and provide greater insight on efficiency.
Finally, on a personal note, I would like to thank all those who have been in touch with congratulations following my appointment as permanent CEO of ORR. I look forward to continuing to work with both the rail and road industries, ensuring that the ORR delivers its role to protect the public interest.
John Larkinson,
Chief Executive
Top Stories
ORR’s annual audit of Network Rail land disposals
Network Rail requires ORR’s consent to dispose of any of its land. This is to ensure that land that may be important to the future development of the network is not sold off or lost to the railway.
We carry out annual audits to ensure that Network Rail is complying with any conditions we have imposed and that it is using our general consent appropriately (this allows it to dispose of land without obtaining our specific consent, provided certain criteria are met).
We recently completed our audit for the previous year. Overall, this raised no significant concerns, although we identified some improvements Network Rail could make. This included increasing the consistency and rigour of its sign-off processes, and considering slightly more conservative proposals for disposals around stations where this could give valuable flexibility to railway operations in the future.
In our next audit, we will look for evidence that Network Rail has implemented these improvements.
Update on the SWR Improvement Notice
In October 2020, ORR issued an Improvement Notice instructing South Western Railway (SWR) to comply with its legal duty to ensure that people using wheelchairs can board and alight from trains at Liphook station.
We are pleased to report that SWR has provided evidence that it has put arrangements in place for the provision of boarding aids for passengers well before the May 2021 deadline. Compliance was achieved by a straightforward change at the station, relocating bicycle storage hoops that had previously been installed in the area required for deployment of a conventional ramp.
ORR’s new enforcement role
In January, the UK Government introduced new travel regulations for England, placing new obligations on travel operators. This included Eurostar and Eurotunnel, who are now required to ensure that, where necessary, passengers possess a notification of a negative Covid test within 72 hours prior to travel and have completed a Passenger Locator Form. The regulations were amended in February to introduce new requirements on ports of entry, quarantining and taking additional Covid tests.
The regulations make ORR responsible for enforcing the obligations on Eurostar and Eurotunnel, with ORR having the power to issue a fixed penalty notice on the operator of £2,000 for each offence. The legislation also applies to aviation and maritime and we have engaged extensively with DfT, Home Office, Border Force, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to develop our approach, in particular regarding standardising information collected and developing new processes for data transfer and security.
We will continue to work with operators, the UK Government and affected regulators on the enforcement of these regulations.
Blogs
Benchmarking Highways England’s Regional Performance
Feras Alshaker, Deputy Director Highways, explains how greater transparency and improved data will help drive better outcomes for road users following the annual progress report.
20 Years on: Recalling the Great Heck rail disaster
Nigel Bunce, National Mainline Operators Team Manager, reflects on the Great Heck disaster on its 20 year anniversary.
Podcasts
The Rail and Road Podcast: Episode 3: Access and Capacity
In our latest podcast, ORR’s Deputy Director for Access and International, Martin Jones, and Head of Access and Licensing, Gareth Clancy, discuss how decisions to allocate access rights to train operators are made, the balancing act between passenger and freight services and what happens when disagreements arise between industry parties.
Statistical releases
This month we have published:
- On 18th February we published our Passenger Rail Performance statistics for quarter three of 2020-21 and signals passed at danger.
- On 25th February we published the regional rail usage statistics for quarter three of 2020-21.