The value of Northern 

Northern is the largest train  operator in the country, connecting people with jobs, education and leisure facilities across the north of England. We provide 2,500 local and regional train services every day, with over 88 million journeys being made on our services each year.

Through a combination of hard work, innovation and a strong ethos of partnership, we have achieved a great deal over the last seven years for the benefit of our customers. Serco and Abellio, the owners of Northern, have invested more than £30 million and our partners more than £100 million to deliver more trains, better stations and new services.

That investment has been delivered as a result of the strong, effective partnerships we have built with Network Rail, the five Passenger Transport Executives in the north of England, many local authorities and dozens of community organisations.

The investment delivered by those partnerships, combined with dramatic improvements in punctuality and reliability, has helped us to attract 38 per cent more passengers since the start of the franchise — a staggering achievement for a franchise which was awarded on a ‘no growth’ assumption.

From day one, we have focussed on delivering consistently good local train services for our customers. However, we have always been aware that our services have also brought considerable economic, social and environmental benefits to the regions. To help us quantify these benefits, we recently commissioned Arup, an independent firm of consultants, to investigate.

Drawing on a range of data and research, Arup explored a number of subjects ranging from the role that our services play in supporting economic growth, through to the environmental benefits that our services deliver. Perhaps most importantly in this challenging economic climate, Arup found that, each year, our services generate over £650 million of economic and other benefits for the north of England. This figure is based on a range of factors such as journey time benefits, tourism impacts and direct employment benefits.

Clearly, this is a substantial figure. Even before wider impacts such as tourism are considered, the standard transport benefits created by our services are enough to cover the subsidy we receive from regional and central government to operate our  network of services. The research indicates that the overall benefit cost ratio of the subsidy is approximately 2:1.     

The research highlighted the role that our services play in a challenging economic environment, connecting major employment centres and strengthening links to regeneration areas. Our role as a local employer of over 4,800 people, and as a focus for wider service sector employment, also contributes directly to the economy.

The research also demonstrated the role that our services play in reducing the carbon footprint from travel. Arup found that our average passengers generate 69g of CO2 per passenger kilometre, compared with 129g of CO2 if the same journey was made by car. This substantial reduction in carbon emissions can only help the north to achieve a low carbon economy.

Following the publication of Sir Roy McNulty’s Rail Value for Money Study, it is clear that significant cost savings need to be made across the industry so that we can afford to invest to meet future demand. At Northern, we know how to make a little investment go a long way and we are talking to our partners, including Network Rail, about how to do things more effectively and achieve even better value for money.

There will be changes in what we do and how we do it to reflect improvements in technology and changes in society, but we must always remember this is a public service that is growing and could grow even more with further investment.

Over the coming years, we will continue to work with all of our partners to improve the railway in the north and make the case for further investment into the network.

Ian Bevan is Managing Director of Northern Rail.  For a free copy of ‘The Value of Northern’, please contact Colette Fowler, Public Affairs Manager, on 01904 568 642.