Rail industry renews call for visibility on enhancement projects following Future of Rail Conference

The Railway Industry Association (RIA) has renewed its call for the Government to publish its list of planned rail improvements, following the New Civil Engineer’s Future of Rail conference.
 
Peter Loosley, Policy Director at the Railway Industry Association, said: “The Government has yet to publish a full list of rail improvement projects – known as enhancements – over the coming five years (Control Period 6). At the New Civil Engineer Future of Rail Conference, Network Rail confirmed that a list of planned projects was available, but had yet to be announced. 
 
“We set out in an open letter to the Minister in March how important visibility of upcoming infrastructure projects is to businesses to enable them to plan and to establish appropriate resource levels.  We are in regular dialogue with the Department for Transport over this  issue and we are promised the list - but this needs to arrive soon. Otherwise rail businesses will continue to be left in the dark and unable to properly plan for the future infrastructure work that is so crucial to our rail network - a situation that benefits no-one.”

1. The New Civil Engineer article on the Future of Rail Conference can be found here.
2. The Open Letter from the Railway Industry Association to the Rail Minister can be found here.
3. About RIA: The Railway Industry Association (RIA) is the voice of the UK rail supply community. We help to grow a sustainable, high-performing, railway supply industry, and to export UK rail expertise and products. We promote and represent our members’ interests to policy makers, clients and other stakeholders in the UK and overseas. RIA has 280+ companies in membership in a sector that contributes £36 billion in economic growth and £11 billion in tax revenue each year, as well as employing 600,000 people—more than the workforce of Birmingham. It is also a growing industry with the number of rail journeys expected to double over the next 25 years and freight set to grow significantly too. RIA’s membership is active across the whole of railway supply, covering a diverse range of products and services and including both multi-national companies and SMEs (60% by number). RIA works to promote the importance of the rail system to UK plc, to help export UK expertise around the globe and to share best practice and innovation across the industry.