R A I LT R AC K - The Railways Archive

freight
We can accommodate
all forecast demand
for at least the next
five years
86
7.3 continued 7.4
This forecast would represent a tripling of rail freight activity
by 2009 from the base level in 1996,against a background of
sustained decline since the war.
Of the forecast:
• international traffic is expected to more than triple and
become 10% of all rail freight activity.
• deep-sea intermodal is set to increase by 150% to 20%
of the total market.
• new business yet to be won to rail needs to increase
fivefold and become 40% of the total.
• about 10% of the increase would result from an
improvement in the network’s capability with three-
quarters of that due to improvements in the loading
gauge.
However, achieving this growth will require a reappraisal of
the economics of operating and investing in rail freight.We
do not expect customers to be able to commit to using
current or new capacity well in advance of them securing
additional traffic. It would meet the Government’s policy
objectives if we could keep our track access charges low, to
encourage more freight by rail.This was the essence of the
track access contract that we developed with EWS in 1997.
Since then, rail freight volumes have increased by 12% a year
while our income has grown at 2% and,in line with the
policy set by the Rail Regulator in 1996,our freight business
has recovered its avoidable costs in aggregate.
Committing large sums of money to capacity which is
needed a long time in the future, based on high-growth
forecasts,is imprudent,particularly when the economics are
unattractive to the investor.
We are discussing this major issue with the industry’s
stakeholders,especially in the light of the proposals outlined
in the Sustainable Distribution policy document (see Section
1.6).For planning purposes, we have assumed that current
track-access rates will continue.
7.4 Routeing strategy
Together with our customers, we have analysed their
expected increase in demand by source and destination,
route section,speed band and time of day, including the
benefits of improvements in the network’s capability. We
have then compared this demand with the current capacity
and capability of individual routes and the anticipated growth
in passenger traffic.
We have confirmed that we can accommodate this
forecast demand for at least the next five years across the
network.Looking ahead ten years, we have committed to
our customers that we can carry their forecast volumes of
freight together with all declared passenger requirements
within our existing capacity and planned investments on 38
of our 45 routes.In total,these cover 60% of current and
half of future traffic volume .We are now developing detailed
timetabling solutions to confirm this conclusion.
The remaining seven routes carry significant existing
freight, and the majority of the growth.So, we have looked in
more detail at:
• growth on the key, longer-distance routes which handle
the majority of traffic.These are the West Coast Main
Line (WCML) including its connecting branches,the East
Coast Main Line (ECML),the Great Western Main Line
(GWML),the North London Line, the Glasgow and
South Western Line (G&SW),the Midland Main Line
(MML),routes between London and the Channel Tunnel,
connections between Southampton and the WCML and
routes via Birmingham connecting Derby to Reading and
Bristol.
• a number of key multiroute flows which account for
around 40% of current volume, 60% of the forecast
increase and,therefore, more than half of the volume
expected in 2009.These flows include Scotland to East
Midlands coal,traffic via the Channel Tunnel,the
development of the Enterprise network,the Royal Mail
business,deep-sea container traffic, domestic intermodal
business,and steel traffic within and to and from South
Wales and the North East.