Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail – 5 things you need to know

There will be a new 30 year strategy and a 30 year environmental plan for the rail network. Long term vision has been limited in recent years and this should give confidence to get some big electrification and capacity enhancement projects up and running: needed if the rail industry is to meet its net zero target. Five yearly Control Periods will still continue allowing a level of funding certainty for multi-year projects.

GBR will be split into five regions, mirroring Network Rail's current regional routes. These regions will partner with local leaders in some areas to shape and draw up contracts. This is an area we will be watching closely as it's not clear from the Plan exactly how the regional and national aspects of GBR will work together, particularly with respect to cross regional services; nor how much say local and regional transport bodies will get (an important aspect when looking to integrate different local transport modes).

It is good to see freight's contribution to the economy and to decarbonisation being recognised in the Plan. GBR will have a statutory duty to promote freight and will set a growth target for freight, like in Scotland. A national freight coordination team in GBR will help to embed freight into decision making. It's not clear how the regionalisation mentioned above will work alongside national freight routes and where priority of services will lie. Freight is an open access service and GBR's remit to let passenger concessions may lead to tension with this.

The role of freight fits well with the long term environmental commitments of the Plan. What will be of interest is the extent to which GBR is involved in supporting intermodal freight interchanges and infrastructure enhancements which primarily benefit freight flows.

The passenger (and freight user) is at the heart of these reforms. The railway needs to be more attractive than the car. Journeys need to be seamless. That needs an 'open by default' approach to data. This opens up new opportunities for passenger-facing apps to provide new, personalised services to passengers, and to give an unprecedented understanding of individual travel needs. As an example, Transport for London's open data is now used by over 600 apps. Imagine the uses for national travel data!