Since publishing the 2007 Strategic Business Plan (SBP) – our framework for addressing the challenges facing the railway in the coming years – Network Rail has been in discussions with the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), our industry partners and internal stakeholders to identify areas requiring further work.
Following these discussions, the company has issued its April 2008 Strategic Business Plan Update. This document aims to address issues that have become apparent since the plan was published, and provides further justification and evidence to support the projections in our original Strategic Business Plan.
The document is not intended to be a full refresh of the 2007 Strategic Business Plan. Instead, it should be read in conjunction with the original plan and the supporting material that was provided with it.
Over the coming months the plan will continue to be revised in consultation with our industry partners, and in March 2009 Network Rail will publish our final plan for the next five years.
This will set out what needs to be delivered to allow the railway to grow and thrive, and will outline plans to deal with some of the most pressing challenges for the period 2009 to 2014.
The Strategic Business Plan was published against a background of strong growth, improving safety and sustained improvements across the whole industry. Since publishing the Strategic Business Plan, the industry has continued to make progress on a number of fronts. Demand growth has remained strong and punctuality is now approaching 90 per cent across Britain on a moving annual average basis for the first time for a decade. The Strategic Business Plan update sets out our plans to:
- deliver substantial, further improvements in efficiency
- reach levels of punctuality which have never been seen before with more people and improved journey times
- deliver several billion pounds of investment every year while continuing to operate an increasingly congested railway
- operate an increasingly seven-day railway to create additional industry revenue and better services to users and
- become more flexible in meeting the aspirations of our industry partners.
Strategic Business Plan Update
Route Plans
The route plans below are those referred to in the 2008 Strategic Business Plan Update. For the latest route plans click here.
Supporting Documents