Chamber and committees

The timetable for the renewal of the Scottish rail passenger franchise is as follows:

• the Scottish Executive's Directions and Guidance to the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) will be issued this summer;
• the SRA will subsequently invite bids later in 2002;
• initial bids will then be evaluated and short-listed;
• short listed bidders will be invited to submit a Best and Final Offer before a preferred bidder is selected, with whom to negotiate a new franchise agreement, and

the new franchise will begin on 1 April 2004.

European and international railway services are a reserved matter under the devolution settlement. Under the UK Transport Act 2000, the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) is required to prepare a strategy relating to services in various parts of Great Britain for facilitating the carriage of passengers or goods by rail via the Channel Tunnel. Publication of this strategy is scheduled for later this year.The SRA has also indicated that it will be carrying out consultation as part of this work. This will allow further consideration of the issues concerning regional access to Channel Tunnel passenger services.

The Scottish Executive will present to the Transport and Environment Committee of the Scottish Parliament its draft Directions and Guidance to the Strategic Rail Authority in June 2002.The Executive launched an extensive public consultation in November 2000 with its paper Strategic Priorities for Scotland's Passenger Railway. The Executive published a summary of responses received in June 2001.

Passengers to and from Glasgow Prestwick International Airport are able to benefit from lower cost rail and bus travel through the airport's partnership arrangements with Strathclyde Passenger Transport and Scotrail, and with Stagecoach and Scottish Citylink. The Scottish Executive has no plans to enhance those arrangements. Completion of the proposed M77 between Newton Mearns and Fenwick will benefit passengers travelling to and from the airport by road.

The effects would result in a positive impact but the evidence suggests that this would not be to any significant or quantifiable extent. The existing rail service is already faster and more reliable than the car for journeys between the city centres. Further improvements in the service will benefit the existing public transport users but are unlikely to lead to a significant shift in the number of travellers from car to public transport.

This is one of a wide range of issues that will be considered during the evaluation of bids received for the Scottish rail passenger franchise.

A steering group, which includes representatives from the Scottish Executive, Strategic Rail Authority, Railtrack and City of Edinburgh Council, has been established to take the re-development of Waverley Station forward. This will provide increased train capacity. It is too early to be certain about the timetable, but the steering group aims to begin construction after preparatory work and site investigations are completed in 2004, with a target date for full redevelopment of the station by 2008.

A wide range of publicly available research into the determinants of rail demand has been undertaken by academic and other interests. In addition, the rail industry has undertaken a large amount of commercial-in-confidence research.

Dunbartonshire already has some links to Edinburgh by direct rail services, with several of the weekday Glasgow to Edinburgh Shuttle services stopping at Lenzie in both directions, and at least one train per day from Edinburgh calling at Bishopbriggs.In addition, a number of major studies are currently looking at transport in the central belt, including options to increase capacity on the rail network and the feasibility of introducing entirely new services, along with their associated infrastructure requirements. Proposals for enhancements to the current level of services will also be considered as part of the process for reletting the Scottish passenger rail franchise.

The Scottish Executive's report demonstrated that in the short term the priority should be strengthening partnership working amongst the local authorities in the Highlands and Islands. Consequently, joint working between the partners in the region has been strengthened. This is illustrated by the move from a forum to a Strategic Partnership; the implementation of the partnership's successful bid to the Public Transport Fund in 2001; the creation of HITRANS and the recent formalisation of its constitution and funding arrangements. This has been aided by a commitment from the Scottish Executive to match fund HITRANS' constituent councils' contributions to the development of a Joint Transport Strategy for the area, on which work is substantially under way.