Network Rail is one of the largest asset management organisations in Britain, with a diverse portfolio of assets, including: 40,000 bridges and tunnels, around 2,500 stations and around 30,000 km of track. The effective management of these assets is pivotal to enabling us to meet our service commitments to customers and funders. This requires a robust understanding of the behaviour of these assets and the most appropriate actions to mitigate degradation or failure in a sustainable manner – minimising our consumption and wastage of natural resources as far as reasonably and economically practicable. This understanding must be supported by reliable information, effective processes and delivered by competent people. Our approach to this challenge is set out in our Asset Management Policy and Asset Management Strategy, published on our website.
The policy defines the core set of principles that underpin the delivery of this challenge, and reflects our overall company objectives and values. It include commitments to safety, the environment and delivering value for money. The framework we have adopted to support the implementation of these principles is based on that set out in BSI PAS 55, developed by the Institute of Asset Management.
By almost any measure, the condition and performance of the infrastructure improved significantly in the five year regulatory control period between 2004 and 2009 (CP3). The targets for the current regulatory control period (to 2019) are equally challenging, and our aim is to continue to develop and enhance our capability and meet our asset management obligations in a manner that is demonstrably world class. We have set ourselves some challenging targets. By the end of the current control period (March 2014) our commitment is to have developed capabilities in asset management that are demonstrably comparable with best practice elsewhere in Britain. Over the following five years we are committed to improving these capabilities further, so that we provide the benchmark against which organisations throughout the world assess their own asset management capabilities.
To achieve these aims we have developed an Asset Management Improvement Programme, and this is detailed in our asset management strategy. It has been developed in conjunction with the independent reporter for asset manager and follows extensive consultation with other large asset management organisations. This improvement programme comprises a number of key workstreams, including a commitment to the development of the competency of our people involved in this important activity.