“There can be no place, I believe, for deniers who are unable to acknowledge that the industry’s reputation, built over many years, was of rising costs, deadlines inevitably moving to the right and estimates wrong by orders of magnitude.” With this statement, Network Rail’s CEO, Andrew Haines, set the scene at a recent online Project SPEED conference. This was hosted by the Railway Industry Association and had 2,400 participants, half of whom were suppliers.
Andrew acknowledged that this is not always a fair picture but that “there are too many examples we can all think of which have defined us in the eyes of those we serve and those who fund us.” The Great Western Electrification Programme (GWEP) was £2 billion overspent; a decade before that, the final £12 billion cost – at today’s prices – of the West Coast Main Line upgrade in 2006 compares unfavourably with its original £1.4 billion estimate from 1994.
Hence, despite many successful recent projects, the legacy of others so high-profile and over-budget has been deeply harmful to the industry, creating doubt about its ability to deliver projects, whilst GWEP caused the Westminster government to lose faith in electrification.
He felt that rail is well placed to be a key part of the recovery from the Covid crisis and to decarbonise transport, but stressed that the required investment cannot be taken for granted. At a time of scarce funding, the industry has to reduce both the time and cost of project delivery. This needs a quantum change in the way projects are delivered if the industry is to win back the trust of decision makers.
SPEEDing up delivery
Project SPEED (Swift, Pragmatic and Efficient Enhancement Delivery) is a joint initiative between the Department for Transport and Network Rail. For the past 12 months, this has been considering new ways of delivering projects and trying these out on pilot schemes. Its aim is to secure rail investment by demonstrating that the industry can become more competitive by significantly reducing costs and halving the time it takes to complete projects.
There was widespread concern that the eight-stage GRIP (Governance for Railway Investment Projects) process had become a straitjacket which required project teams to focus on its deliverables. This created unnecessary bureaucracy and distraction. Furthermore, its linear process was too inflexible.