Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department for Transport
Question 32 (Jon Trickett): Station enhancement
at Northern franchise stations
The Northern franchise (which runs until 18
September 2011, with a provision to extend to 15 September 2013
subject to the franchisee satisfying various criteria in the Franchise
Agreement) imposes no specific requirements for station enhancements.
It does, however, require the franchise holder to devise a programme
for station maintenance and stipulates that stations must be returned
at the end of the franchise period in at least as good a state
as they were at the start.
There are separate provisions relating to disabled
access. The franchise holder is required to allocate £250,000
per franchise year on a minor works programme comprising alterations
or additions designed to improve accessibility at stations. There
is a further requirement that the programme must be developed
in consultation with representatives of disabled travellers, the
Rail Passengers Council and other appropriate stakeholders.
There are a number of small schemes to upgrade
station facilities including Modern Facilities at Stations (MFAS)
work. There are also some major developments which are being funded
entirely by third parties. These include:
— Limited upgrade to Bolton station,
including refurbishment of the overbridge/lifts and some painting.
— Horwich Parkway—an upgrade
to the booking office and a new waiting shelter. There is also
a planned upgrade to the concourse and toilets.
— Burscough Bridge—virtual rebuild
of the station now nearing completion. All funded by Lancashire
County Council.
— St Helens station rebuild—major
project now going out to tender. To be funded by Greater Manchester
PTE.
Question 39 (Jon Trickett): Spending related to
the Disability Discrimination Act
We do not hold information in this format. This
is partly because accessibility improvements may be funded in
a variety of different ways (for example, as part of a more general
station upgrade or through a specific franchise commitment); partly
because the funding may come from any one of a number of different
sources (the franchise holder, Network Rail; private developers,
local authorities or combinations of any or all of them); and
partly because improved access for disabled people often results
from works which benefit passengers in general so that it is not
possible to identify what proportion of the cost relates to disabled
access.
You may wish to know nevertheless that the SRA's
consultation on Access for All recognised that simply allocating
the £370 million to the stations serving the greatest number
of passengers would mean that a very large proportion of it would
be spent in London and the South East. The consultation therefore
proposed that at least 25% of the total should be reserved for
use outside this area. This, together with a number of other issues
arising from the consultation, is now under discussion with Ministers.
Question 56 (Mr Richard Bacon): Train information
at stations
Existing systems for providing information to
passengers on how trains are running rely on information screens
at the station linked to a central operator. Information is passed
to the operator who relays it to the passenger information screens.
Each installation is site specific; costs will usually be limited
to those of the TV monitors and their mountings which are fixed,
and those of the associated cabling which will vary widely according
to the location.
A more sophisticated system involving satellite
technology has been considered as part of the European Rail Traffic
Management System (ERTMS). A progress report on ERTMS published
by the Strategic Rail Authority in June 2005 quoted a cost of
the order of £2.5 billion, though this was for a more basic
version of the system which did not use satellite technology.
There are counterbalancing savings and benefits but the safety
and business case has yet to be demonstrated.
Passenger information systems which use satellite
technology to track the position of vehicles have been in use
for some time in the bus industry and elsewhere. These systems
are free standing and so do not rely on the prior installation
of a signalling system like ERTMS. We have asked Network Rail
to investigate the cost of a system of this sort for rail use
and to consider whether there is a business case for its adoption.
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