Examination of Witnesses (Questions 10280
- 10299)
10280. And I think we have established in the
last few days that the ORR could still change the basis of his
determination by assuming other infrastructure, more or less,
and the resulting new timetable, but I think would you agree that
if he did that he would have to start his consultation process
from scratch and it would be a long-winded process?
10281. MR ELVIN: Lord Berkeley ought
to remember that, as we established before lunch, that can only
be done with the agreement of the industry or the independent
position of the ORR.
10282. LORD BERKELEY: I entirely agree.
(Mr Berryman) I was going to say exactly the same.
10283. LORD BERKELEY: Can I invite you
to look at the hypothetical situation where, for some reason,
the ORR suggested or assumed—"assumed" is a better
word—that an extra piece of infrastructure was required
as part of his determination for which you did not have planning
permission?
(Mr Berryman) Yes. That is conceivable.
10284. And the ORR, by saying that, would not
give you permission to build that works, would it?
(Mr Berryman) No, that is correct.
10285. So you would have to go for either a
change to this Bill, which I would hate us even to suggest, Lord
Chairman, or the Transport and Works Act or preferably not do
it and think of a different way out?
(Mr Berryman) There are three possible solutions that I can
think of off the top of my head. One is to use the permitted development
rights of Network Rail, because obviously they would be a party
to this as the infrastructure manager and, as you are aware, they
have fairly extensive rights to do things to their network and
to be given deemed planning consent to do that; the second is
a Transport and Works Order; and the third is some rearrangement
of the services or proposed services that are being called for.
10286. I accept that and that is fine. What
I would, therefore, like to ask you is why you and the Promoters
are seeking to suggest to the Committee that a request for the
Committee to require the Promoters to construct certain works
somehow invalidates the Petitioners' wish to see industry processes
followed?
10287. MR ELVIN: Mr Berryman, just wait
a moment. I do not think that is a question; that is a submission,
and I am going to deal with that by legal submission. Mr Berryman
is giving engineering evidence.
10288. LORD BERKELEY: Can I now move
on to the question of timetabling, please? When you were cross-examined
by Mr George on Tuesday at paragraph 8190 you confirmed that no
timetabling work had been done to see the effect of adding Crossrail
trains to the existing network without additional works being
undertaken, and there is no evidence, and this is to do with a
PPM of 92 per cent or whatever, that this could be achieved without
doing the works which you have outlined, is that correct?
(Mr Berryman) That is absolutely correct, and I could go
a bit further than that and say some works would be definitely
required to achieve that level of reliability.
10289. Is the Promoter committed to accepting
the ORR decision, because I understand at a timetabling meeting
yesterday that your people who were there said that they would
wish to continue with the eight trains an hour offpeak rather
than the six that the ORR put in his determination? What is the
process, going forward?
(Mr Berryman) We would be still interested in running the
eight trains per hour offpeak, but the Regulator has made it quite
clear that if we do that we have to compete with other potential
users of those paths to do so at the time, so this is not something
that would be happening now. However, the modelling that we are
doing is still including those eight paths because we are obviously
anxious, if we can, still to have them.
10290. Would it not be reasonable also to do
a model round with six offpeak trains an hour, as the ORR has
put in his determination?
(Mr Berryman) Indeed it would, although you will recall that
the ORR's determination also suggested that we should continue
to model with eight trains an hour.
10291. Yes, but that was not an exclusive suggestion.
(Mr Berryman) No. Quite so.
10292. Looking at other things in the model,
you have heard evidence from Network Rail yesterday and there
is still debate going on as to who should be the infrastructure
manager in the tunnel. What is your view of the problems that
might happen with the timetable if there were a different infrastructure
manager in the tunnel --
10293. MR ELVIN: We are going off Petition
now, I am afraid, my Lords. This is just opportunistic questioning
by Lord Berkeley because Network Rail made some points yesterday.
This is not a part of RFG's Petition. It certainly was not part
of the case presented two days ago.
10294. LORD BERKELEY: I thought I mentioned
it.
10295. CHAIRMAN: Lord Berkeley, we may
be interested in this, but not in this context.
10296. LORD BERKELEY: Thank you, Lord
Chairman. Can I raise one or two other issues which would have
to be taken into account in raising the PPM from 72 to 92. You
stated two days ago that you felt that the 92 per cent measure,
the PPM method of measurement, was not necessarily appropriate
for Crossrail. What did you mean exactly?
(Mr Berryman) Well, the PPM measurement is actually based
on a train which arrives at a destination and it depends on the
lateness of the train when it arrives, so a suburban train which
is up to five minutes late is classed as being on time and a long-distance
train which arrives within ten minutes of its book time is regarded
as being on time. When we talk about the 92 per cent, what we
mean is that 92 per cent of trains are arriving on time. Now,
the difficulty with Crossrail is that it actually links two networks
together, it links the Great Eastern and the Great Western, and
the train does not run into London and terminate as happens with
most normal train services, but it goes on through London, comes
out the other side and uses the tracks on the other side of London,
so it is not necessarily the best way of measuring the kind of
timetable performance that we need for that kind of service. It
is the only measure at the moment which exists, but my colleagues
are looking again to see if there is a better, more appropriate
measure for us. I would have thought that one of the things which
we are interested in is the accuracy of presentation at the tunnel
mouth because we need to run a very high-frequency service through
the tunnel. We need to make sure that the trains actually arrive
at the tunnel mouth on time rather than what time they arrive
at their final destination because, to some extent, once the train
comes out of the tunnel at the other end, it does not really matter
how well it keeps to time or it is less crucial how well it keeps
to time.
10297. So would it be unfair to suggest that,
because the ORR has specified not only the 92 minimum but also
the methodology by which that is to be achieved, then, if you
do not like it, you are going to try and rewrite the rules?
(Mr Berryman) For one thing, we would not be allowed to rewrite
the rules. I do not think the ORR works that way, though it would
be lovely if they did! I think you perhaps can understand the
point I am trying to make, that, although the PPM is the industry
standard and is the only method we have got at the moment, we
would seek to improve on it rather than making it less—
10298. Finally, Mr Berryman, several members
of the Committee have asked about how you are going to achieve
this change from 72 per cent performance on the Great Western
at the moment to 92 in the future by adding more trains, hopefully
by adding the infrastructure, by seeing the installation by Network
Rail of a completely untried and untested signalling system called
ERTMS. How are you going to achieve this?
(Mr Berryman) Well, it is my fervent hope that we do not
have any untried and untested systems anywhere on the railway
and certainly, if decisions are left to us and not imposed on
us by outside parties—
10299. I am sorry, Mr Berryman, but can I just
stop you there. Network Rail have said in public that they are
committed to introducing this signalling system around Slough
anyway because the existing system does not work anymore, it has
passed its sell-by date, so to speak.
(Mr Berryman) It certainly has. I would not like to speak
for Network Rail, but my understanding is that they are currently
trialling this system in Wales on the Cambrian line.
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