Oral evidence: Rail technology: signalling and traffic management, HC 67Monday 4 July 2016
Oral evidence, 4 July 2016.
Witnesses
Andy Course, Chief Operating Officer, Eversholt Rail, Malcolm Brown, Chief Executive, Angel Trains, and Tim Gilbert, Engineering Director, Porterbrook Leasing, gave evidence.
Chair
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Transport Select Committee. Could you give us your name and organisation, please?
Andy Course
I am Andy Course, the chief operating officer of Eversholt Rail Group.
Malcolm Brown
I am Malcolm Brown, chief executive officer of Angel Trains.
Tim Gilbert
I am Tim Gilbert, the engineering director for Porterbrook Leasing.
Chair
Could you tell us where the rolling stock owning companies fit in the overall rail technology improvement strategy?
Malcolm Brown
Of course. First of all, thank you very much for the opportunity to give the Committee our evidence. Overall, we support the industry’s plans for the digital railway and obviously the benefits that will come from ETCS for passengers, taxpayers and the UK supply chain. Over the last few months and years, we have welcomed the engagement we have had from Network Rail in drawing us into the development of a holistic overall plan and bringing in the ROSCOs. To try to drive the fitment of ETCS on to the trains, of which we own circa 13,500 in the UK—we are the largest owners of passenger vehicles in the UK—we have joined together in a national joint ROSCO project, the objective of which is for the three of us to work together to ensure that we reduce initial cost and whole-life cost, and to try to gain simplicity and avoid duplication of both cost and technical development. We are working together to look to develop first-in-class roll-out across different types of fleets, and to look at the overall plan for the long-term roll-out of ERTMS and consequently for us ETCS.
Chair
Who has final control of when technology upgrades will be fitted to rolling stock? Who decides that?
Malcolm Brown
Ultimately, we are part of a holistic plan right across the railway, and quite rightly so. We believe that Network Rail is at the centre of the plan to develop system-wide answers, so ultimately it should be Network Rail.
Chair
Does anybody want to add anything?
Tim Gilbert
This really is an industry plan, and it must be all the industry players coming together. It is not for Network Rail on their own, or for us on our own, to say, “This is when this will be fitted.” It must be an industry decision as to when the most appropriate time is for fitting ETCS to the trains.
Chair
What is the cost of your investment and your involvement to the Government or indeed to the public?
Malcolm Brown
We estimate that to fit ETCS over the next 10 years is circa £500 million. That is for the 10 years that we can see at this point and at this stage of the plan. Of course, with the plan changing and developing, that is obviously subject to change.
Chair
RMT told us that train maintainers experienced deskilling in their work when ETCS was introduced. Do you agree with that?
Malcolm Brown
That is clearly a question directly for the train maintainers. However, sitting here as a train owner, and owning the asset, I struggle to see how that could be. ETCS is an additional system on the train rather than a replacement system. De facto it must mean actually upskilling, because we are now going to have a new system on the train that we need to maintain and develop. It is not replacing any other system, so without knowing the detail I struggle to see how that deskills.
Chair
Are there any other views on that?
Andy Course
I completely agree with Malcolm. I can only see it as additive. If anything, if all the benefits of ETCS and ERTMS come about, trains will be doing more, and therefore the need to maintain them will be greater. I struggle with deskilling. I think the capacity of maintenance will be matched by growing demand.
Chair
Will the current rate of cab fitment achieve Network Rail’s proposed 25-year timeframe?
Tim Gilbert
It depends on the plan. At the moment we do not have an agreed industry plan. Network Rail has put forward a national deployment plan called version 20 that would give us a 25-year plan for rolling out ETCS, but it is still going through consultation. Until we understand whether it is a feasible and deliverable plan, it is difficult to say whether that is the case or not. However, we anticipate from what we have done so far that we would be able to keep ahead of the curve, as it were, and would be able to fit the trains prior to the infrastructure, and not delay things.
Iain Stewart
Does the installation of ETCS equipment on trains make a material difference to the likely replacement cycle of rolling stock? Would it make more economic sense to bring forward the introduction of new stock rather than invest in retrofitting old stock?
Andy Course
The answer is that it depends. Timing is a big factor. Clearly the earlier the better. There is also a sequencing point. When we take trains apart for all sorts of other reasons—such as fitting passenger information systems or passenger counting systems—it might be sensible at the same time to fit ETCS equipment. There are clearly challenges in putting it on to a normal train. There are challenges in terms of finding the space envelope—where can we put the equipment—as there might be on a new train, but there are also challenges in interfacing to the old train equipment. If you can think about all those things earlier and fit them, clearly the commercial equation weighs off better in the longer term. What we certainly do not want to do as a collective is to fit the kit unnecessarily. It goes back to the point about a clear and credible plan. We can be agile enough to fit the train equipment in time for the lineside equipment, as long as there is a degree of certainty. It takes some lead time to get the kit on board.
Iain Stewart
As a supplementary, are you confident that Network Rail is developing its strategy, due for application in the autumn, and is factoring the rolling stock cycle into that plan? Does it make a difference, as I asked the last panel, whether it is level 2 or level 3?
Andy Course
We are certainly feeding in what our planning assumptions might be. We need sensible procurement timelines, sensible design timelines and sensible first fitting. There is certainly a challenge in terms of fleet fit to make the trains available for the equipment to be fitted and to run an operational railway at the same time. Those assumptions are shared from the national joint ROSCO project team to Network Rail to help them form that plan.
Chair
Does the programme of cab fitment create an opportunity to replace older rolling stock?
Malcolm Brown
As with the question we had before, it very much depends on whether there is an economic case to retrofit in existing rolling stock. There has to be a balance between the cost of new rolling stock and the retrofitting of old rolling stock. There is a timing issue and then there is a route issue. As both Tim and Andy said, this is very much a holistic project across the whole of the industry. We are now starting to see the whole of the industry acting as one and feeding in. There is an iterative process in this, because what may suit one part may not suit another. It has to go through that process to strike a balance.
Chair
Does the control period structure create disincentives for long-term investment in ETCS technology?
Malcolm Brown
ETCS is a long-term project right across the industry. As such, a control period that is about our budget profile, which is for five years, does not naturally sit within something that is going to have a 25-year life. That is quite clear, and you can see it. However, having listened to previous evidence, we must take cognisance of what is going on within that control period, because we have such an inter-relationship with the hard infrastructure, as we have with fitting ETCS. We cannot go off in splendid isolation and try to deploy ERTMS across the whole network without taking some cognisance of what is going on in the day-to-day railway. At the end of the day, we are there to serve the passengers. We are there to carry passengers and get them where they need to be, not just simply to fit a system.
Chair
What is the lead time to fit ETCS equipment?
Malcolm Brown
It varies at this point in time. We are just doing our first in class. The objective of our first in class is to gauge how long it takes. I do not know whether Tim has anything to add.
Tim Gilbert
We have to build up a sequence. We have to do a procurement exercise first, which can take anything up to a year. Then there will be a contract for a first in class fitment, which is a design and then fitting to the first in class of the train. That could be a period of 18 months or so. Then there will be a period of mobilisation and then a period of fleet fit. Of course, we would like some contingency before the signals are taken away. As you can see, it is quite a long period.
Chair
How long are we talking about?
Tim Gilbert
Three and a half to four years, or something like that. It is that sort of timescale.
Andy Course
That is from the very first get-go. We are a third of the way through the fitting of the class 365, an Eversholt fleet, which is the first of the programme. We are six months into an 18-month piece of work. You would certainly anticipate it not taking as long for the second and third class. The idea is to try to standardise it as much as we can to make it easier in the slightly longer term. The big risk is being able to test it within UK infrastructure at the right time to then give confidence that we can roll out that standard approach across all the other fleets. It will take longer earlier, but only to spend less time doing it later.
Malcolm Brown
That is the point of the three of us working together—that we learn from one another and reduce the lead times, the costs and the complexity. That is the whole objective.
Mary Glindon
Will the result of the EU referendum have implications for the ability of rolling stock owning companies to upgrade their fleets?
Malcolm Brown
There is obviously movement in the exchange rate, which we have seen recently. However, other than that, we have looked at this and considered it, and we do not see any immediate material risk just now.
Martin Vickers
Could you clarify something for me? Listening to your evidence and that of the previous witnesses, I am not entirely sure that you are satisfied that there is an overall comprehensive plan that both Network Rail and DFT are signed up to and working on in collaboration with the industry, both in terms of the finance and whether or not this is just one part of a whole that is not coming together.
Malcolm Brown
Network Rail has put out to consultation an accelerated plan. As you said, they are expecting to publish it in September. We are contributing to that plan. We have the initial step, which is the east coast, and we expect the long-term overall plan to be out in September.
Tim Gilbert
The plan is still under development.
Martin Vickers
You do not sound particularly confident that it is coming together, though, and that once the consultation is finished there will be both adequate resources and skills.
Malcolm Brown
Your challenge is fair. The point we are trying to make is that we are now inputting to that plan. I do not think any of us feel that we have not had the opportunity frankly to get in and give our view and push that across, but, of course, we can only see our part of it. Until we actually see the whole plan coalescing with everybody’s point of view—manufacturers, supply base, train operators and so on—it is very hard for us, and would be inappropriate for us, to give you a view on that at this point. Certainly we feel engaged. We are involved. We have Network Rail engaged in the first in class and various other items. I can only say that from our perspective we are getting a high level of engagement.
Andy Course
Forgive me, I have only been in this for three years, but certainly comparing three years ago with today, there is a much bigger picture and a much bigger play now. With my optimistic eyes, I have a great deal of sympathy for those who are trying to bring a big plan together, but I think a bigger prize is now recognised. It is not just about replacing old signals. We have suffered in the past from a changing plan, where we had old signal refurbishment or replacement. The plan has changed a lot, and of course we react to that, to get ETCS fitted. I think there is a bigger prize to be had, and with a proper top-down plan and a bit more confidence I remain optimistic as compared with three years ago.
Chair
There has been significant reduction in the ETCS cab fitment fund. What impact has that had on passenger rolling stock?
Tim Gilbert
Prior to that reduction we had a sum of money and we were intending to do 10 first-in-class fitments with that sum of money. That would have been fine for all the rolling stock fleets on the east coast main line south of Doncaster, which would then have been the first main line to be fitted. With the reduction, we can only do five first-in-class fleets, and that will take us to south of Peterborough, but that is okay in terms of the timescale for the east coast main line. However, the gentleman over there mentioned the plan, and there is not sufficient funding in CP5 to deliver the 25-year plan that is currently being consulted on by Network Rail.
Chair
Does anyone have anything to add on that?
Malcolm Brown
Only to say that we have raised that issue with Network Rail directly.
Chair
Thank you very much, gentlemen, for coming along. Oral evidence: Rail technology: signalling and traffic management, HC 67 16