Officials from the Department for Transport (DfT) have had discussions with Transport for London (TfL) regarding the LRC over the last two years. These discussions have covered a number of issues including the arrangements for transferring the franchising of these services from DfT to TfL.
Services operated by the LRC will continue to be part of the national rail network and will, therefore, have the same relationship with other national rail services (such as ticket-purchasing ability and through fares) through the requirements of the passenger licence—although given planned extensions some changes will occur at specific locations.
The relationship between these services and open access operators is a matter for the ORR.
To date, the only open access operators in the areas served by the Integrated Kent franchise and the South Western franchise have been the operators of occasional special trains, and freight operators. Accordingly, open access was not specifically raised with bidders during the preparation of their bids for these two franchises.
The Office of Rail Regulation is currently engaged in a consultation exercise with potential open access operators, and with Network Rail, to establish whether the aspirations of those operators can be accommodated on the network alongside the services to be operated by the three new franchises.
At present, it is anticipated that the new franchisees will be able to obtain track access rights sufficient to enable them to fulfil the Service Level Commitments described in the Invitations to Tender.
ORR will grant rights to open access operators where the new services are primarily intended to create new journey opportunities rather than to abstract revenue from franchised operators.
ORR is currently consulting freight and passenger operators and others it considers might be directly affected by the track access option application recently submitted by TfL and Network Rail in relation to access rights for the new East London Line.
No application has yet been received for additional access rights for that part of TfL’s concession that will take over the Silverlink Metro services. ORR will consult in accordance with its published policies on any such application that it receives.
The Department has not held any meetings with either TfL or ORR specifically on the issue of track access rights in relation to the London Rail Concession.
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I have given today to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), UIN 102449.
Since the launch of the Secure Stations Scheme in 1998 a total of 434 rail stations, including 78 London underground stations, have been accredited under the scheme. Of these a total of 42 rail stations, including 19 London underground stations, have lapsed and have not, so far, sought re-accreditation. No stations have had their secure status withdrawn since the scheme’s launch.
A list of accredited stations has been placed in the Libraries of the House.
These are operational matters for Network Rail, the owner and operator of the national rail network. The hon. Member is advised to contact Network Rail’s Chief Executive at the following address for a response to his questions:
John Armitt
Chief Executive
Network Rail
40 Melton Street
London
NW1 2EE
I refer my hon. Friend to the written statement the then Secretary of State for Transport made to the House on 19 July 2005, Official Report, columns 71-73WS setting out the Government’s policy towards rail freight.
In the next five years, the following light rail projects are due for completion, subject to satisfying funding approvals:
Extension of the docklands light railway to Woolwich Arsenal—2.5 kms due to complete in 2009
Extension of the docklands light railway to Stratford International—6 kms due to complete in 2010
Extension of the Manchester Metro link to Chorlton and Droylsden—9 kms due to complete in 2011
A further extension of the Manchester Metro link to Rochdale—providing an additional 22.5 kms of light rail, is being taken forward with the Chorlton and Droylsden extensions and is due to complete in 2012.
First Great Western has undertaken recent passenger counts for its own management purposes. This information is held by FGW. At the request of the Department for Transport, FGW carried out counts in July of the numbers of passengers on the FGW 1718 Swansea services on departure from Cardiff Central. These showed an average load of 179 passengers on this service.