The Department monitors Southwestern Railway’s performance through a range of operational measures covering punctuality, cancellations, passenger experience and service quality. The principal operational performance metrics are:

• Punctuality (Time to 3), measuring the percentage of recorded station stops made within three minutes of the planned time.

• Reliability (All Stations Cancellations), measuring the percentage of planned station stops cancelled; and

• Passenger experience, including overall customer satisfaction and satisfaction with disruption handling.

Customer satisfaction metrics are:

• Service Quality Regime (SQR) measuring the condition, performance, and availability of a range of assets at stations and on trains.

• Overall Satisfaction and Satisfaction with Disruption Handling using the Voice of Customer survey.

In the latest reporting period, Southwestern Railway did not meet its punctuality or cancellations targets. It also did not meet its customer experience targets for overall satisfaction and satisfaction during disruption. Whilst a number of Service Quality station measures remained below benchmark, performance in all train areas exceeded the benchmark.

Whilst SWR’s performance before and after public ownership has been below standard passengers deserve, particularly with rolling stock issues and driver shortages inherited from the previous owning group, progress is being made under public ownership. Since their transfer to public ownership, SWR have unlocked their Arterio programme, with fifty-two daily service diagrams compared to just six when SWR entered public ownership.

To improve performance, Southwestern Railway and Network Rail's integrated Wessex team are focused on reducing delays and cancellations caused by infrastructure, fleet and operational issues. This includes investment in more reliable infrastructure, deployment of technologies to improve monitoring of track conditions, improvements to service recovery and disruption management through the Major Disruption Taskforce, and delivery of customer information improvements. The Department monitors progress through regular performance reviews and engagement.

Information on punctuality and reliability and improvement activity can be found on the SWR website.

The Class 810 Aurora fleet is being delivered and maintained under contractual arrangements involving East Midlands Railway (EMR), Hitachi Rail and Rock Rail. Those agreements include contractual obligations relating to train availability and performance, together with associated performance and remedy mechanisms where contractual requirements are not met. The detailed terms of those arrangements, including any compensation or liquidated damages provisions, are commercially confidential and are not publicly disclosed.

The Department has been clear to Hitachi Rail that its management of the Class 810 fleet programme has been unacceptable. Delivery of the new Aurora trains to EMR has been significantly delayed, with the first train entering passenger service around three years later than originally planned. The Department expects Hitachi Rail to improve both the rate of fleet introduction and the operational performance of the trains already in service.

Hitachi Rail is also responsible for the day-to-day maintenance of EMR’s existing Class 222 Meridian trains, which have experienced significant performance issues this summer. The Department expects Hitachi and EMR to work together to rapidly improve the reliability of these trains.

Alex Hynes, Chief Executive Officer of Department for Transport Operator, meets Hitachi Rail regularly and is pressing the company for urgent improvements to both the delivery pipeline and fleet performance so that EMR can realise the full benefits of the new Aurora fleet. The Department continues to monitor EMR's delivery of services and performance obligations under its National Rail Contract.

The Highways (Financing) Bill will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows. This House will have full opportunity to scrutinise this legislation in the usual way at that time. The Bill will be concerned with a new financing model for our largest road projects, not with utilities more generally.

National Highways routinely reviews the management of major incidents to identify lessons learned and opportunities for improvement. In relation to the closure of the M25 on 16 July 2026, National Highways will undertake both an internal debrief and contribute to multi-agency review processes involving the emergency services and other partners.

Major incidents on the Strategic Road Network (SRN) are managed through a multi-agency response led by the police. National Highways works in accordance with the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP) and the Collision, Lead, Evaluate, Act, Reopen (CLEAR) process and supports partners in delivering a coordinated response.

As part of the review process, National Highways will consider the tactical options available and deployed during the incident, including arrangements for traffic management, the release of trapped traffic where appropriate, and support for driver welfare. The review will identify what worked well and any areas where improvements can be made.

National Highways will share relevant lessons learned with operational partners and incorporate any agreed actions into future incident management arrangements. The Government is also supporting work to review local arrangements for driver welfare during major incidents.

There are no current plans to review either the CLEAR or JESIP processes which National Highway works in accordance with to clear incidents on the SRN.

Although there is no obligation to report all animal deaths on roads, drivers should, if possible, make enquiries to ascertain the owner of domestic animals, such as cats, and advise them of the situation.

There are, however, no plans to introduce a legal duty for drivers to report collisions with cats. Cats are much smaller than other specified animals, and often most active at dawn or dusk. In many cases drivers, especially those of larger vehicles, may not be aware they have hit them. As such, it would be difficult to prosecute drivers if the law was changed.

The Government is committed to improving accessibility across the rail network and recognises that level boarding is an essential ingredient of this. We are developing a long-term integrated rolling stock and infrastructure strategy for the first time in over 30 years. The strategy will place the needs of passengers at its heart and set out Great British Railways' expected future rolling stock requirements and how they can best be met and delivered. We anticipate the strategy will set out how we move forward with level boarding. It will then be for Great British Railways to determine the specific design and engineering solutions to deliver this.

I maintain regular engagement with Great Western Railway on operational performance matters, including service reliability, disruption management and passenger experience. The Department holds the operator to account for meeting its contractual obligations, including addressing reliability issues and managing passenger crowding where services are disrupted or demand is high. Great Western Railway’s transfer into public ownership on 13 December 2026 will further enable improvements in reliability, performance, accountability, and the overall customer experience.

Hull Trains’ previous application to operate services between London and Sheffield was rejected by the Office or Rail and Road (ORR) in July 2025 due to concerns over capacity, performance and financial impacts. We respect the ORR’s decision on this.

Any Open Access operator may apply to operate new services, but this would be a commercial decision for the operator to take. Under the current system, any new application would be subject to full and independent review by the ORR. In the future, Great British Railways will be able to decide the best use of network capacity and take decisions as a directing mind.

Potential estimates will not be published in advance of the launch and completion of the procurement process, as these are commercially sensitive.

We have recently communicated to the supplier market our target of launching the procurement process in late Summer/early Autumn.

In their annual report on rail industry finance in the UK, the Office of Rail and Road set out a total government support figure of £21.6 billion in financial year 2024-25.

The Department is closely monitoring South Western Railway’s (SWR’s) performance following its transfer into public ownership on 25 May 2025 through a range of measures, including punctuality, cancellations, and passenger experience.

When SWR entered public ownership, eighty-four out of ninety of the new Arterio trains had not entered service. The new Arterio fleet is being rolled out and will support more reliable services over time, providing modern, higher capacity trains with improved performance and reduced maintenance requirements.

SWR also inherited a shortage of train drivers when it moved into public ownership, which contributed to high levels of driver-related cancellations.

South Western Railway is subject to bespoke and rigorous performance standards, and the Department continues to work with the operator to improve reliability, capacity, and service quality for passengers.

Data supplied by Network Rail indicates that the volume of trespass incidents increased from 6,415 in 2014/15 to 13,921 in 2025/26 (an increase of 117 per cent).

Over the same time, when adjusted for inflation, the estimated cost of delays associated with trespass incidents rose from £46.7 million to £85.5 million (an increase of 83 per cent).

When adjusted for inflation, the average estimated cost per trespass incident has reduced over time, from approximately £7,300 in 2014/15 to around £6,100 in 2025/26.

Volume of trespass related incidents and estimated costs of associated delays, annual, Great Britain, 2014/15 to 2025/26

Notes:

1. Incidents are delay causing incidents attributed to XA,VA reason codes

2. An incident can appear in more than one rail period if delay was suffered in more than one period

3. Costs are an internal Network Rail estimate of the long-term revenue loss due to those incidents (based on the economics behind the Schedule 8 performance regime)

Source: Network Rail

4. Delay & Cancellation metric dashboard

5. Process for Performance Improvement (PfPI) Costs are from the Performance System database Business Objects attribution universe

Network Rail holds data on the estimated Schedule 8 costs arising from rail trespass incidents from 1 April 2014 onwards. The total value of the payments during this time can be found in the following table:

Volume of trespass related incidents and estimated costs of associated delays, annual, Great Britain, 2014/15 to 2025/26

Notes:

1. Incidents are delay causing incidents attributed to XA,VA reason codes

2. An incident can appear in more than one rail period if delay was suffered in more than one period

3. Costs are an internal Network Rail estimate of the long-term revenue loss due to those incidents (based on the economics behind the Schedule 8 performance regime)

Source: Network Rail

4. Delay & Cancellation metric dashboard

5. Process for Performance Improvement (PfPI) Costs are from the Performance System database Business Objects attribution universe

The Department monitors South Western Railway’s (SWR) performance and fleet availability through its regular contractual and operational oversight arrangements, including services on the Salisbury to Exeter route. SWR plans its West of England services on the basis that some Class 158 and 159 trains will be unavailable for maintenance, overhaul or faults, with availability also affected by unplanned repairs and the availability of replacement parts. SWR seeks to mitigate any resulting impact on passengers through train formation changes where possible and continues to work with suppliers and maintenance teams to improve fleet availability and reliability.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) is the independent body responsible for investigating rail accidents and determining their causes. In its report on the collision between two passenger trains near Talerddig, Powys, RAIB did not identify dynamic passing, dynamic loops or their absence as a cause of the accident, nor as a factor that worsened its consequences.

As of 30th June 2026, there are: 1) 1,261 desks; and, 2) 2,180 civil servants assigned to the Department for Transport office at 33 Horseferry Road.

The Northern Growth Strategy set out the Government’s long-term intention to build a new line between Birmingham and Manchester, following the delivery of HS2 Phase One and Northern Powerhouse Rail. In the meantime, we are learning lessons from HS2 and undertaking feasibility work with local partners before decisions on specification and delivery timescales are made.

The Office of Rail and Road sets out Network Rail's expenditure for the financial year 2024-25. Network Rail does not invest capital in train operating companies.