2013/14

Sustainability update
Contents
Delivering a railway fit for the future 04
Chief executive and directors statement 06
Environment
Natural resources 08
Environmental protection 12
Land 14
Energy and carbon 18
Weather resilience and
climate change adaptation 22
Communities
Communities 24
Accessibility and inclusion 28
Passenger and public safety 32
Workplace
Employee health, safety and wellbeing 36
Employee engagement and development 40
Diversity and inclusion 44
Customers
Value 48
Performance, passenger satisfaction
and communication 52
Ethics and transparency 56
Integration
Integrating sustainable development 60
Independent Assurance Statement 64
4
Case study
Kings Cross station
The new Kings Cross Square in London opened in September 2013.
This 75,000 sq ft public space is the final part of the redevelopment
of Kings Cross station to be completed and follows the renovation
of the original station building and its platforms and the
construction of the spectacular new western concourse, which
opened to passengers in March 2012. The demolition of the 1970s
concourse and the creation of Kings Cross Square in its place
means the Grade 1 listed stations full historic faade can be
seen in all its glory for the first time for 150 years.
I have been travelling to and from my Derbyshire constituency
for years and I remember when Kings Cross and St Pancras
were not places you would hang around. Now it is a
destination in its own right.
With more platforms, a redesigned concourse and improved
facilities, work at this iconic station has transformed the
experience of thousands of rail passengers travelling into
London for the better.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin
The transformation of Kings Cross is not only beautiful
but it has also triggered all sorts of regeneration, with
new jobs, huge numbers of homes being built and
businesses relocating here. What has emerged is a
fantastic open space which has led to the creation of
a whole new vibrant district. It is the perfect example
of a point I have always made, if you support good
transport links the jobs and growth will follow.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson
A better railway for
a better Britain, with
sustainability at the
heart of everything
we do
Delivering a railway fit for the future
5
Progress
In May 2013 we published our first ever Sustainable
development strategy. This Sustainability update explains
our progress in delivering the priorities and objectives of that
strategy, grouped into five sustainability themes:
Environment: how we are reducing our environmental impact
Communities: how we are improving the safety and
accessibility of our network and contributing to the
communities within which we operate
Workplace: how we are making our business a safer,
healthier and more inclusive place to work and engaging
and developing our people
Customers: how we are delivering value, improved
performance and a safer network to our passengers
and the public and taxpayer
Integration: how we are working across our business and
with our supply chain and industry partners to deliver our
sustainable development objectives.
The demand for rail travel is high and numbers are increasing
quickly. Every day four million people use our network and today
we carry 50 per cent more passengers than ten years ago.
Weve enabled around 120,000 more trains to run a year than
we did in 2009 and the amount of freight transported has
increased by 13 per cent.
Our annual investment in the rail network has grown
from around 3.5bn per year to around 5bn since 2009.
Improvements to infrastructure, modernisation and smarter
ways of working have delivered more frequent, more reliable,
safer services and brighter and better stations. Projects delivered
in 2013/14 are mentioned throughout this Sustainability update.
Rail travel is a
cornerstone of
economic growth.
Rail travel
contributes to a
greener economy.
Rail travel improves
social and economic
opportunities.
Sustained community
support recognising
the importance of rail.
Network Rail as
a great place to
work.
Why it matters
Our role is to improve, maintain and operate the rail infrastructure
across Britain, in partnership with our customers, suppliers and
other stakeholders. People and businesses rely on us.
We are seeking to deliver a safer, more reliable railway, with
greater transparency, capacity and efficiency, that contributes
towards a thriving, low-carbon economy with better connections
between people and jobs. Sustainable development is at the
heart of enabling us to achieve this.
Targets
Within each section of this Sustainability update, we describe
the sustainable development targets and our performance
against them. In many cases these targets relate back to our
business plan when we entered our regulatory Control Period 4
on 1 April 2009.
We also provide information on performance measured by
other sustainability metrics that were collected in 2013/14.
Sustainable development objectives
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Embedding core plans and processes to enable us to
achieve our sustainable development objectives
Engaging with our internal and external stakeholders to
develop a shared understanding of priorities and a clear
responsibility for delivering them
Working to meet the targets and commitments within
our Delivery Plan for Control Period 5 (2014 to 2019)
and which are explained at betterrailway.co.uk.
6
Our sustainable development vision is to deliver
a railway fit for the future, and we aim to achieve
asafer, more reliable and better value railway
We will do that by working more effectively and continuing
to improve how we engage our industry partners, our supply
chain and the people living in the communities close to where
we operate.
The rail network is experiencing significant investment. Over the
coming five years, we will spend 38 Bln enhancing, renewing
and running the infrastructure. This level of investment reflects
the growth in the demand for rail travel and the economic
significance of the railway to this country.
We will deliver better stations and greater capacity for more
trains. Alongside this, we are committed to becoming a more
efficient business and will reduce costs by 20% from 2014
to 2019.
Sustainable Development is one of Network Rails ten strategic
themes. Last year we published Network Rails first ever
Sustainable Development Strategy.
To deliver this strategy, we are:
Continuing to reduce safety risk to the public, our passengers
and our workforce. For example we will reduce risk at level
crossings by 25%. We are also committed to developing a
positive safety culture throughout the organisation.
Implementing an ambitious and collaborative 10-year strategy
to improve the health and wellbeing of our people, supported
by data and evidence-based decisions and interventions.
Taking action to mitigate the impact of extreme weather on
our infrastructure and addressing other issues which impact
on rail industry performance and passenger satisfaction.
Using resources responsibly and disposing of them carefully.
This includes reducing the amount of energy and water we
use and the carbon embedded in the materials we buy.
Acting to prevent pollution to land, air and water.
Investing in the communities in which we operate and in
our people.
Creating an organisational culture that embraces accessibility,
diversity, inclusivity, transparency and a high standard of
business ethics.
Chief executive and directors statement
7
This Sustainability Update summarises our progress in
implementing our sustainable development strategy during
the financial year 2013/14 and sets out how we are laying
the foundations to perform even better in future years.
We thank you for your interest in our approach to sustainable
development and we look forward to working together to create
a Better Railway for a Better Britain.
Mark Carne, chief executive
Gareth Llewellyn, director safety and sustainable development
8
Natural resources
We will use our natural resources
in a responsible and sustainable
manner, minimising the amount
of material we use and reusing
and recycling as much of our
waste as possible
To design and build
low embodied carbon
infrastructure and buildings.
To implement the
waste hierarchy to
minimise waste.
To minimise the environmental,
social and health impacts of the
goods and services we procure
through responsible sourcing.
To minimise potable
water consumption
through efficiency
and substitution.
Objectives
Why it matters
Managing and operating the rail network is resource intensive.
We can deliver enhanced value by procuring more sustainable
materials and producing less waste. Most of the resources we
use are finite and consequently volatile in price.
9
Waste data
2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
Waste
generated
(tonnes)
Waste diverted
from landfill
(%)
Waste
generated
(tonnes)
Waste diverted
from landfill
(%)
Waste
generated
(tonnes)
Waste diverted
from landfill
(%)
Target waste
diverted from
landfill (%)
Construction waste
managed by contractors
786,536 86% 634,000 84% 1,847,710 81% 80%
Construction, track
maintenance and renewals
managed by our National
Delivery Service
1,465,057 86% 1,524,812 86% 1,341,039 95% 97%
Waste from our stations 22,657 55% 13,885 65% 20,515 61% 60%
Waste from our offices and
training centres
1,918 54% 1,438 63% 3,027 97% 60%
Waste from depots,
signalling locations,
operations and
maintenance sites
20,887 41% 16,472 48% 19,400 52% 60%
Performance against targets
Other metrics
Waste disposal Status of the timber forest products that we purchase:
sleepers, fencing and timber procured through builders
merchants framework agreements
Waste sent to landll
Waste diverted from landll
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
2013/14 2012/13 2011/12
341,169 331,345
432,704
1,955,886
Total
2,297,055
M
i
l
l
i
o
n

t
o
n
n
e
s
1,821,625
Total
2,152,970
2,798,987
Total
3,231,691
2013/14
Credibly certied (i.e. FSC purchased with chain of custody)
Sourced veried (i.e. PEFC purchased with chain of custody
or in the process if becoming credibly certied)
Sourced assessed (i.e. legal origin veried)
Limited knowledge of source
10
Case study 1
Low carbon
concrete sleepers
Weve developed a low embodied carbon concrete sleeper. We
replaced 25 per cent of conventional concrete mix with pulverised
fuel ash (PFA). PFA is the ash left over from generating energy
in coal-fired power stations and has a carbon footprint far
lower than that of cement. Independent sustainability experts
calculated that the carbon footprint of the sleepers has been
reduced by more than 11 per cent by using PFA.
We will use over 800,000 of these sleepers a year, saving
around 26,700 tonnes of CO
2
each year. The new mix also
protects the sleepers from risk of corrosion. They will last
longer and are cheaper to produce than conventional
concrete sleepers.
Progress
Water consumption
Water is a vital resource to our business and is used for cleaning,
track and lineside treatment, sanitary and other purposes. In
2013/14 we consumed around 1.5 million m
3
of water, costing us
around 2.9m (down from around 3.2m in 2012/13). Our reduction
in water consumption is due to infrastructure works such as the
upgrade of signalling boxes.
Sustainable timber
We have a long standing commitment to procure legal and
sustainable timber. In 2013/14 we developed a Responsible
Timber Sourcing Policy to reinforce our requirements. There has
been a drop in the proportion of credibly certified timber compared
to previous years. This is partly due to widening our scope of
reporting to incorporate timber data from our fencing and builders
merchants; we previously only reported sleepers consumption.
Furthermore, following a recent third party audit, irregularities
in categorising timber certification status have been identified.
Consequently the data released in previous sustainability updates
are incorrect. We are working actively with our procurement team
and our supply chain to provide adequate training and ensure a
robust assurance process is put in place.
Embodied carbon tool
We are committed to measuring and reducing embodied
carbon in the materials we use. In 2013/14 we scoped an
embodied carbon calculation pilot involving three major
infrastructure projects. The pilot takes place between April
and September 2014 and will inform how we identify
opportunities to reduce embodied carbon and embed
measurement and reduction across our project process.
Responsible sourcing
Our Thameslink programme is implementing a responsible
sourcing policy and supply chain partners such as Costain
are using it to inform their sourcing of materials.
The sustainability charter signed by Infrastructure Projects
commercial directors forum (see Integration section)
commits major supply chain partners to source materials to
be sourced from recognised responsible sourcing schemes.
11
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Rolling out a toolkit to enable measurement and reduction
of embodied carbon on our infrastructure projects
Minimising our waste production and improving our reuse
and recycling rate
Working with our supply chain to achieve greater assurance
around the sustainability of materials and products used
across our business, including timber.
Case study 2
Reducing use of resources
through good design
Our Thameslink programme facilitated workshops with design teams and
contractors, to make better use of resources by addressing sustainability
at design stage. Achievements include:
During the design of our Bermondsey dive under infrastructure,
contractor Skanska identified and implemented major opportunities
to reduce costs, time, material use, and environmental impacts in
the development of the GRIP 5 design. Benefits include a reduction
in the number of piles required from approximately 1,600 to 1,000
Siemens and Balfour Beatty Rail are reducing the use of concrete
at REBs (housing units for signalling). The concrete base size has
been reduced by incorporating the access steps into the REB
unit thus removing the requirement for in-situ construction of
a concrete step post installation. The resultant reduction in
concrete use is approximately 46 tonnes
Balfour Beatty Rail has redesigned gantries, so that they
require less materials, less time to install and create less
waste, as existing posts are reused.
Case study 3
End-of-life vehicle
specification
The end-of-life vehicle directive requires the safe
and sustainable disposal of road vehicles when
they reach the end of their lives. Rail-related
vehicles are exempt. We are going beyond legal
compliance by including end-of-life requirements
in the contract specifications for the design,
build and supply of a new stone-blower train. In
defining the requirements weve worked closely
with the supply chain to design out waste and
identify an end-of-life disassembly plan that
will maximise recovery of recyclable and
reusable materials and safely capture and
dispose of hazardous components.
12
Environmental protection
We will protect land,
air and water from
pollution and other
negative impacts
To avoid pollution and reduce the
amount of potential hazardous
substances we use.
To ensure we have the right processes
to mitigate impacts that do occur.
To reduce important nuisance
elements such as environmental
noise.
Objectives
Why it matters
Our interaction with the natural environment is
considerable. Protecting the environment is both
a legal obligation and a sign of a responsible business.
Preventing pollution and environmental damage will
also make us more efficient.
Other metrics
We are improving processes for collecting information
on all environmental incidents. In 2013/14 we identified:
29 notable spills
(spills of between 200 and 999 litres)
102 minor reportable spills
(spills of between 20 and 199 litres).
Performance against targets
A significant pollution incident is defined as a spill of more than
1,000 litres or contamination getting into a watercourse or a Site
of Special Scientific Interest.
Seven of the significant incidents in 2013/14 related to spillages of
silt, which has a relatively low environmental impact but requires
remediation. The other four significant incidents were due to
spillages of fuels and oils.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 2010/11 2009/10
Target number not to exceed
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13
Progress
Close calls monitoring and reporting
All organisations have situations of near misses when a harmful
incident almost occurs, but doesnt. We call these close calls. We
seek to investigate and understand why these happened and
put measures in place to ensure that the situation is less likely to
happen again.
Most close calls are to do with health and safety issues (see
Employee safety and wellbeing section), but environmental issues
account for around five to 10 per cent of them.
Weve developed a system for logging and acting on close calls.
We log around 2,000 close calls each month and a further 2,000
or so are submitted by contractors working on major infrastructure
projects. They result from issues such as a near miss that could have
resulted in pollution (e.g. spills of liquid or releases of dust). We are
closing out around 25 per cent of all new calls within one month of
them being logged.
To enable staff in the field to use the close call system easily, we
have introduced an app. Almost half of all close call events are now
reported through the app and the rest are reported through email
and phone.
Memorandum of understanding with the
Environment Agency
The Environment Agency is a key regulator in England and Wales.
In 2013/14 we prepared a memorandum of understanding that
sets out how will work together on issues such as flood defence
and legislative compliance in a safe and efficient manner.
Monitoring and reporting
We have begun a project to improve the way we capture,
assess and report on environmental incidents. We will complete
this over the coming year to enable significant improvements
in our number and management of such incidents.
Case study
Anti-icing
Throughout the winter there is a risk that ballast being delivered to work
sites will freeze in rail wagons and cant be unloaded. To address this,
and to continue to maintain the railway during the colder months, we
sometimes use an anti-icing fluid to release the ballast. Anti-icing products
can pose a risk to the local environment, if not used properly.
We chose a de-icing product that it is effective but doesnt pose an unacceptable
risk to the environment; it is non-hazardous and biodegradable. To manage
the risk of unrestricted use causing harm to the environment, weve developed
a procedure document that restricts the use of the anti-icer to times when
freezing is forecast and to sites where it wont pose an environmental threat.
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Reviewing processes around our management of
environmental permits
Working with the Rail Safety and Standards Board
to develop an industry-wide approach to close-call reporting
and investigation
Investigating opportunities for memorandum of
understandings with Natural Resources Wales and
the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency.
14
Land
Case study 1
The Tree Council
partnership
We partner with The Tree Council so that we can collaborate
with independent experts and nd the right solutions
for managing our lineside land and vegetation.
This independent input is important to our lineside
neighbours and other stakeholders.
The Tree Council is providing advice on estates
management on a trial basis, with a view to extending
this across the business. This has generated cost savings
and enhanced stakeholder relationships. On our London
North Eastern and East Midlands route the independent
and expert advice of The Tree Council was well received
by the community.
We will manage our land
sustainably and engage
with our neighbours to
our mutual benefit
15
To reduce operational
risk associated with the
contamination of land.
To enhance
ecological value.
Objectives
Case study 2
Net gain in biodiversity
on the Thameslink
programme
Thameslink is our first project to set a net gain target for
biodiversity through a biodiversity policy. By doing so,
we hope to set a precedent not just for rail projects but
for all construction projects.
To achieve a net gain we follow a mitigation hierarchy of
avoidance of biodiversity loss, mitigation and then compensation
as last resort. We have undertaken on-site planting wherever
possible and trained our staff in biodiversity protection and
enhancement measures. We use Defras new metric for calculating
biodiversity loss and the associated level of compensation needed.
Weve been named by Defra as a UK demonstration project.
To achieve the net gain, we are working with Parsons Brinckerhoff,
the London Wildlife Trust and Lambeth Council to plant trees on
Streatham Common in South London. This site was carefully selected
to generate many benefits for wildlife and the local communities. On
17 December 2013, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson joined us on
Streatham Common to launch Defras national biodiversity offset and to
help us plant trees.
The creation of new woodland on Streatham Common will provide a rich
wildlife environment and improve the park for local residents and visitors.
We welcome Thameslinks commitment to sustainable development.
Carlo Laurenzi OBE, Chief Executive of London Wildlife Trust
Why it matters
How we manage our land estate of 400,000 hectares impacts
on the people who use our network, the 5 million people who
are our lineside neighbours and the one third of Britains
population who live within 0.5km of a railway line. We
must manage our lineside environment so that we enhance
biodiversity and increase its economic and social value.
Metrics
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra) and its strategy Biodiversity 2020 recommends that
at least 50 per cent of the Sites of Special Scientific Interest
that we manage are in a favourable condition, and at least
95 per cent are in a favourable or recovering condition by 2020.
We have achieved this.
We have developed site management statements at route level,
in partnership with Natural England, for 162 of all 181 Sites of
Special Scientific Interests that we manage in England.
16
Progress
Trees and the railway
Storm, rain and wind events resulted in approximately 1,500
incidents in 2013/14 where trees caused disruption to the network.
This is a four fold increase on the previous year and indicates the
severe impact of the adverse weather of winter 2013/14. All
events were resolved with lines back up and running again as
soon as possible.
We are putting further mitigating measures in place to manage
our lineside land and the vegetation on it to reduce the frequency
and risk of these kinds of events happening in the coming years.
We will also be clearing up the railway to improve overall safety of
our network. And were not doing this in isolation; were actively
engaging with local community groups and other stakeholders to
ensure we get the best solution for everyone.
Sustainable vegetation management strategy
With KDA Design and Peter Neal Consulting, weve developed a
strategy that establishes a set of new principles and techniques to
create a more productive, attractive and cost-effective lineside estate.
This helps us to view the lineside estate as an asset with value,
rather than cost liability and to look for opportunities to enhance its
value to us, our lineside communities and to ecological habitats.
NEWP32 Programme
The NEWP32 Programme is working with the Highways Agency
and Natural England on nature improvements areas at
Morecambe Bay and Humberhead Levels. Were identifying
opportunities to manage transport infrastructure to the benefit
of the community and local biodiversity, for example by joining
up flood alleviation schemes, restoring natural habitats and
linking areas of high biodiversity value. We plan to widen the
trial out to other parts of the network, undertake specific
monitoring of species to see how they react and take the
process nationwide.
Case study 3
Kent House
embankment project
Urgent maintenance work was required to stabilise the embankment
close to Kent House station in the London Borough of Bromley.
The biodiversity of the area was assessed as being of low ecological
value due to non-native trees and scrubland. We set ourselves a
target to leave a legacy of improved ecological value. We planted
wildflower meadow grasses along the top of the embankment to
provide a wildlife corridor for the Jersey Tiger Moth, which was
known to be living in the area, and used trees felled on the site
to build homes for reptiles and invertebrates.
We also engaged closely with residents and local schools to
minimise disruption and to educate children of the benefits
and dangers of the railway environment.
Awards
We won Landscape Institutes 2013 Strategic
Landscape Planning Award for our sustainable
vegetation management strategy.
17
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Implementing a biodiversity action plan
Embedding requirements for land and biodiversity
management into asset policy and standards
Better understanding the long term management
of our contaminated land risk.
Case study 4
Habitat management
at Whitemoor
When we were redeveloping our marshalling yard at
Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire, an ecological survey
identified that the site consists of acid grassland,
which is a unique habitat for the Anglian region.
We were permitted to develop the site, but worked
closely with Cambridgeshire County Council, the
Wildlife Trust and Natural England to maintain
the habitat and support protected species.
We maintained a number of rare and newly
recorded plant species on site, identified a good
number of key invertebrate species and new
uncommon species and have supported the
population of Great Crested Newts to increase
in number since 2011.
18
Case study 2
Smart metering
We started a programme to install
smart electricity meters into our
estate in 2012/13. We continued this
programme through 2013/14 and by
November 2014 we will have installed a
further 2,400 smart electricity meters.
We will have installed 580 electricity
submeters by the end of September 2014
and 380 smart gas meters by July 2014.
Once the programme is complete, these
meters will cover some 98 per cent of our
estate and save us carbon and around
6m per year in energy costs.
Energy and carbon
We will become more
energy efficient and
reduce our carbon
emissions through the
operation of our business
To improve the energy efficiency of
our activities, including better demand
management.
To reduce the carbon intensity of
our energy supply.
To achieve an efficient level of spend
on energy and mitigate price risk.
Objectives
Case study 1
Battery-powered trains
It would be costly to electrify the many short stretches of track between
major routes on our network (branchlines). We are therefore undertaking
a project to test the feasibility of using battery-powered trains on such
routes. In collaboration with Valence we are undertaking a trial to fit a
Class 379 electric train with a lithium battery. These modified electric
trains are known as independently powered electrical multiple units
and should run for up to 50km on non-electrified track under their
own battery power. If the tests prove successful, this technology has
the potential to deliver the benefits of electrification to branchlines
without the significant infrastructure cost.
19
Why it matters
We need a secure supply of energy to run our network reliably, safely
and efficiently. This includes energy created through self-generation
from renewables. We need to control energy costs to save money. Our
annual energy spend is approximately 330m, of which 70m is on
energy consumed within our own operations and 260m on the traction
electricity we supply to train operators. Through better management of
our energy we will play our part in delivering the UKs carbon emission
reduction targets and mitigate climate change.
Overall carbon footprint
Carbon emissions
Carbon emissions
generated (tonnes CO
2
e)
2010/11
Carbon emissions
generated (tonnes CO
2
e)
2011/12
Carbon emissions
generated (tonnes CO
2
e)
2012/13
Carbon emissions
generated (tonnes CO
2
e)
2013/14
Scope 1
Natural gas 15,457 10,965 13,028 10,293
Road vehicle fuel use 55,274 53,311 50,794 52,504
Gas oil 1,541 1,623 1,603 1,557
Calor gas 151 106 134 111
Scope 2
Electricity (non-traction) 232,931 240,929 237,248 194,247
Scope 3
Electricity transmission and
distribution
N/A N/A N/A 16,609
Business travel by domestic rail 3,149 2,220 2,022 1,896
Business travel by London taxi 3 2 2 4
Business travel by air 969 1,079 946 1,936
Aviation fuel for helicopters 459 435 405 726
Total for scope 1, 2 and 3 309,933 310,670 306,182 279,883
TOTAL excluding business travel
and calor gas - for comparison
with 2006/7 baseline
305,661 307,263 303,078 275,936
We have achieved a nine per cent reduction in our carbon footprint in 2013/14 compared to 2012/13.
Performance against our Control Period 4 targets
CO
2
emissions relating to managed stations, offices and depots against our 2006/07 baseline
Whilst we missed our internal CP4
target we have achieved an 18 per
cent reduction in scope 1 and 2 and
business travel emissions during
Control Period 4. This was achieved
through the use of more energy
efficient equipment, the closure of
older, less-efficient buildings, and the
move to our new, BREEAM excellent
HQ in Milton Keynes.
-20
-15
-5
0
-10
2009/10
Target
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
20
Progress
Energy policy
In 2013/14 we developed an energy policy which requires
consideration of price, security of supply and CO
2
emissions.
Electrification
Our programme of electrification of the network is reducing traction
carbon emissions. Our programme of electrification, combined with
decarbonisation of grid supplied electricity and other operational
improvements, has the potential to reduce the CO
2
emissions by
37 per cent per passenger kilometre and by 11 per cent per freight-
tonne kilometre and to achieve operating cost savings of around 40
per cent (see Value section).
In conjunction with industry partners we are looking at ways to
reduce traction electricity transmission losses. This includes a pilot
project to consider the case for converting third rail to overhead line
electrification between Southampton and Basingstoke, the latter is
much more efficient in terms of transmission losses.
Road vehicle fleet
We continue to work to reduce the carbon emissions from our road
vehicle fleet by replacing older vehicles with more efficient and
cleaner models and by specifying that they must meet the Euro V
emissions limits. We have reduced CO
2
emissions by 5 per cent over
the last three years.
Awards
British Renewable Energy Awards 2013: for Blackfriars
Station. Solar Century won the Project Award.
Case study 3
Light emitting diode
lighting (LED)
LED lighting is more energy efficient and has a
longer lifespan than conventional fluorescent
lighting, It also has a lower lifetime cost and emits
less CO
2
. We have developed and embedded
guidance on how we and our partners (train and
fright operating companies and our contractors)
can choose and install energy efficient LED
lighting.
Our Thameslink programme has taken the
decision to make London Bridge the first
station at which LED lighting will be used
throughout and LED lighting is being used
on our stabling site in Brighton following a
whole life cost analysis by Carillion.
21
Case study 5
Installing
solar panels at
Blackfriars station
Commuters arriving at London Blackfriars
station on 22 January 2014 were treated to a
free cuppa drawn from Britains biggest tea cup
to celebrate the launch of the worlds largest
solar bridge. The station, which crosses the
Thames, hosts the largest solar photo-voltaic roof
array in the UK.
More than 4,400 panels, covering an area of more
than 6,000m are generating electricity from the
suns light. The electricity generated could account for
up to 50 per cent of the stations energy demand and
will reduce the stations carbon dioxide emissions by an
estimated 511 tonnes each year. Any excess energy is
exported to the national grid.
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Implementing actions to deliver our Control Period 5
(2014 2019) targets to achieve an 11 per cent reduction
in specific CO
2
emissions
Continuing Project Edisons pipeline of energy projects
Progressing approaches to low carbon self-generation.
Case study 4
Project Edison
In autumn 2013 we commenced Project Edison to mitigate risk in the
following three areas:
Security of supply: to make sure we have sufficient energy now and in
the future to support the electrification programme and to operate
our buildings
Managing demand: making sure we use our electricity efficiently
Managing the price we pay for our electricity: to ensure we get
a good deal on the energy we buy on behalf of our customers,
the train operating trains and the travelling public.
These areas have a direct effect on how we operate the rail
infrastructure cost-effectively and sustainably. For example,
the installation of photo-voltaic cells at Rugby provides greater
security of supply and reduces CO
2
. We can also gain value
through feed in tariffs through the energy we export back to
the grid.
22
Weather resilience and
climate change adaptation
We are working to make
our network resilient to
weather impacts and
future changes in the
climate
Increase current weather resilience to
enhance climate change adaptation
capability.
Embed adaptation in asset policies,
design standards and investment
processes.
Understand the role of rail
infrastructure in national weather
and climate change resilience.
Objectives
Why it matters
The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is
anticipated to increase in future years and this could impact on the
performance of our network. As a key infrastructure manager in
Great Britain, we need to make our assets resilient to the weather
and maintain the provision of rail services.
Performance against targets
The impact of weather on our service is reported as part of
the Public Performance Measure (PPM). Our performance
against PPM target is detailed in the Passenger satisfaction
and communication section.
Case study 1
Dawlish, Devon
The extreme winter weather of 2013/14 caused particular difficulties on our
line through Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. The line had washed away entirely
at Dawlish and this emergency was widely reported in the British media.
Communities and businesses rely on this line for their livelihoods and so it
was vital to reopen it as quickly as possible. We and our partners mobilised
immediately to assess the damage and started the process of repairing the line.
Our teams and a wide range of contractors spent some 300,000 hours on site,
working around the clock for two months to rebuild the line. The line was reopened
by Prime Minister David Cameron on 4 April 2014, thereby providing access to the
South West in time for the economically important Easter Bank Holiday.
23
Progress
Route weather resilience and climate change
adaptation plans
Our first route climate change adaptation plan has been
developed for the Western route. This assesses the vulnerability
of the route to weather impacts and regional climate change and
details actions to be taken over Control Period 5 (2014 to 2019)
and beyond to increase the resilience of the route.
All of our routes will produce weather resilience and climate
change adaptation plans by the end of September 2014. These
plans are being informed by the detailed information that we
collect and store about the minutes of delay caused by specific
weather impacts.
Weather resilience and climate change
adaptation programme
Following the severe weather impacts we experienced on our
routes this winter, we enhanced our weather resilience and
climate change programme. We reviewed all our existing projects
and identified the need for any additional projects in order to
support and develop enhance sustained long term resilience. The
WRCC programme takes a long-term view of the infrastructure
works we need to put in place to mitigate the risk of disruption
from extreme weather and maintain an efficient service.
National Infrastructure Owners Adaptation
Forum
We continue to engage in the National Infrastructure Owners
Adaptation Forum, sharing best practice with other key
infrastructure managers such as National Grid, Transport for
London and the Highways Agency.
Strategic crisis management team
The strategic crisis management team was formed to provide a
strategic and co-ordinated response to the disruption caused by
the very wet and windy weather of winter 2013/14 and to take
action to manage future risk from extreme weather. The team
brought together experts from across our business with different
perspectives on how we can best manage impacts on our routes
and assets and keep trains moving. Lessons learnt by the team
have been passed onto routes for integration into route weather
resilience and climate change adaptation plans and our weather
resilience and climate change adaptation programme.
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the
Environment Agency
Our MoU with the Environment Agency, described in the Environmental
protection section, is particularly important in defining how we will
work together to manage risks associated with extreme weather.
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Developing our route weather resilience and climate change
adaptation plans by September 2014 and continuing
implementation of our weather resilience and climate
change adaptation programme
Working with the Environment Agency, Scottish Environment
Protection Agency and Natural Resources Wales to improve
flood risk management
Taking our second adaptation report to Government, explaining
progress to increase our knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the
network and actions being taken to increase weather resilience.
Case study 2
Preventing flooding in
Scotland
Our Scotland route takes part in quarterly meeting of the
SCOTS Flood Group, which comprises representatives
from Scottish Government, SEPA, Scottish Water
and Flood Risk Managers from each of the 32 Local
Authorities in Scotland. The group shares details of
and discusses the Flood Risk Assessments under the
Flood Prevention Scotland Act 2009, climate change
impacts and drainage maintenance in order to
plan actions to mitigate and reduce flooding. We
take part in the annual Flood Forum conference in
Edinburgh to provide key input to this process.
Case Study 3
Tomorrows railway and
climate change adaptation
We are contributing to the Tomorrows Railway and
Climate Change Adaptation programme. Led by the Rail
Safety and Standards Board, its purpose is to coordinate
a programme of climate change research for the whole
rail industry. The programme is assessing the economics
of resilience, evaluating appropriate metrics for monitoring
resilience, and reviewing geographical information system
based decision support tools. The programme is also
undertaking an overseas study to assess how rail organisations
in countries with climates that the UK is projected to experience
manage weather impact on their rail networks.
24
Communities
We contribute
to our local
communities
and neighbours
To contribute time and money to good
causes through the charitable giving
and actions of employees.
To address key social issues through
strategic national social programmes
and partnerships.
To invest in the local communities
within which we operate.
Objectives
Why it matters
Many people use and are impacted by the railways.
We are committed to work in a conscientious way so that
we maximise the wider social benefits of our network.
We want to be a national example of best practice in
community investment and to share the socio-economic
opportunities created by the way we do business.
We receive over 200,000 public enquiries per year and
most are resolved at point of contact. We are seeking to
improve our resolution times for lineside issues such as
litter, fly tipping, graffiti and vegetation. These currently
stand at 40 days and we are looking to reduce this to 20.
25
Performance against targets
Target: year on year increases in take-up for employee schemes such as volunteer leave, payroll giving and matched giving.
Payroll giving
Per cent of employees taking
part in payroll giving
Other metrics
Partnership with Charity of Choice, Action for Children
10%
2012/13
11%
2013/14
0
200
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
2010/11
Number of employee volunteers
Number of days given
2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
Employee volunteer leave
2
0
1
0
/
1
1
2
0
1
1
/
1
2
2
0
1
2
/
1
3
2
0
1
3
/
1
4
2
0
0
9
/
1
0
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
Annual matched giving
Gifts in kind
Matched funding
Workplace funding
Other initiatives
2013/14
2012/13
0 300,000 600,000 900,000 1,200,000 1,500,000
Total
767,138
Total
1,251,110.16
26
Progress
Charity panels
Over 50 charities applied to be our Charity of Choice for 2014/15
and 2015/16. Our central charities panel shortlisted these and
a staff vote across our business in January 2014 selected CLIC
Sargent.
Our central charities panel continues to meet six times a year
to lead and monitor our charitable activities. The panel involves
people from across our business, particularly our 80 or so charity
ambassadors. The panel chose to support eight additional
charities in 2013/14.
Nine route charity panels supported 34 charities local to them
who meet our overall charitable objectives.
Our people
Our people and supply chain partners continue to organise their
own charity fundraising and volunteering activities. For example:
11 staff from signalling Scotland and North East cycled over
170 miles coast-to-coast from Morecambe to Scarborough
and raised 4,829.02 for Macmillan Cancer Support
Infrastructure Projects signalling Southern region, Waterloo
station and South West Trains organised for 60 children from
Waterloo to have a tour around the station and a train ride, to
support curriculum activities and to educate them about safety
Through the Southwark Education Business Alliance volunteers
from the London Bridge station redevelopment have dedicated
an hour a week to Snowsfield Primary School as reading partners,
helping students with reading and literacy skills. A group of 11
year olds from the school have also visited the site
Our people from Reading station and the Great Western
electrification project worked with the Construction Youth
Trust and Bath University on a Budding Brunels programme,
which provided accredited engineering skills training to 22
young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
National safety programme
We continue an important programme with the Samaritans
to address the problem of attempted suicide on our network
(see Passenger and public safety section).
Community Rail
Our Community Rail initiative rallied the support of over 300
volunteers to undertake environmental improvement works to
over 90 sites around our routes. The years biggest scheme was
at Snodland in Kent, where we worked with housing association
Moat to construct a food-growing area for local residents.
Other initiatives around Britain involved clearing invasive
buddleia, cutting back undergrowth, litter collection, and the
production of a mural in Stockport.
Heritage
We work hard to maintain the many heritage assets on the
railways, as we know that they are enjoyed by the communities
in which they are located. Where the assets are technologically
redundant and have to be removed, we try to find new homes for
them where they will remain accessible to the public. In 2013/14,
for example:
Billinghust signal box, which dates from 1876, was relocated to
Amberley Museum
Signal boxes from Brereton and Hednesford have been
donated to Chasewater Railway and Cannock Chase Council
At London Bridge station, archaeological finds are being
carefully preserved for future public display. 10 of the upright
columns and 10 of the foliate spandrels (decorative angle
pieces) are being retained to form the cornerstone of a new
locomotive museum near Aberystwyth.
Jobs, apprenticeships and skills
The creation of jobs, apprenticeships and skills is an absolute
priority to stakeholders such as local authorities, and individuals in
the communities within which we operate.
In 2013/14 we recruited over 240 new apprentices to On Track,
our national, advanced apprenticeship programme. This provides
apprenticeships in track, signalling, electrification and plant,
telecoms, and overhead line and equips successful candidates
with the skills they need to transform our vast rail network. Our
graduate recruitment scheme seeks applicants for opportunities
related to electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical
engineering, business services, supply chain and property. We
offer industrial placements and our STAR scheme, delivered in
partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, trains and develops
track design engineers.
Where our infrastructure projects are impacted by section 106
planning agreements, our teams and supply chain partners
make particular efforts to create and report the skills, jobs and
apprenticeships they are providing to local people, including
young people and those previously unemployed. Significant
benefits are being delivered to communities from the
redevelopment of New Street station at Birmingham Gateway
(see Value section) and Thameslinks redevelopment of London
Bridge station. We are delivering the overground works for
Crossrail and so we are supporting delivery of Crossrails
objectives around targeted recruitment and training.
Community contact
We explain how we communicate with communities in the
Performance, passenger satisfaction and communication section.
27
Case study 1
Engineering Development
Trust (EDT)
We work with EDT to deliver a range of educational programmes that link
students with people working in science, technology, engineering and
maths, to boost skills and aspiration.
In 2013/14, together with our supply chain partners in London, the
Midlands, South East and South West regions we have delivered EDTs
Go4Set programmes to year 8 and 9 students in 17 different schools
and academies. In Southwark and Lewisham, the groups explored the
theme of energy in your school and took part in follow-up site visits.
In Swindon, year 12 students are undertaking a six month flood
prevention monitoring programme with three of our engineers as
part of the Engineering Education Scheme.
Case study 2
London Bridge
Skills Academy
The redevelopment of London Bridge
station requires workforce skills that we
have found difficult to access. Thameslink
and contractor Costain have, therefore,
established a virtual Skills Academy, to
provide training and apprenticeships in a
range of construction trades.
The Skills Academy was formally launched on
27 September 2013 and our first apprentices
and are being trained as formworkers, steel
fixers and brick layers. We will be able to change
the training we provide as the programme of
works progress and different skills are needed.
As the Skills Academy is virtual, we will be able to
move it onto another project as London Bridge
works approach their 2018 completion date.
Participants in the Skills Academy are amongst the
100 or so local people who have benefited from
skills, apprenticeship and job opportunities at London
Bridge to date. We have successfully recruited to roles
as diverse as cleaning, procurement and commercial,
traffic marshalling and traditional construction trades.
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Better defining our process for work placements and
work experience to engage people from as wide a
range of backgrounds as possible
Providing input as an employer partner to the new
Sir Simon Milton Westminster University Technical
College. This is opening in Victoria, London in
September 2016 and will educate and train
young 14 to 18 year old Londoners for jobs in the
transport and construction industries
Addressing how to train and develop the British
resource pool to deliver our electrification
programme (see Value section).
Awards / accolades
The National Payroll Giving Excellence Awards;
we won Best Large Employer Campaign.
Gold Quality Mark from Payroll Giving;
weve moved from bronze to gold in three years.
28
Accessibility and inclusion
Enabling everyone to
travel for work and leisure,
so that they can play their
role in an inclusive and
diverse society
Case study:
Perth station
On 20 September 2013, John Swinney MSP for Perthshire
North and the Scottish Governments Cabinet Secretary
for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth ofcially
opened Perth stations new, fully-accessible passenger
footbridge.
The 2.4m bridge provides step-free access via lifts
to platforms one to ve. Mr Swinney, said: Its very
welcome that Perth is the latest station to benet
from the Access for All scheme. These enhancements
have protected the historic appearance of the station
while also providing a huge increase in amenity for
those travelling to or from Perth.
This is a very signicant investment in our
station which underscores both the necessity
of maximising access to rail travel for all in our
communities, and the importance of Perth on
Scotlands national rail network.
During the opening attended by local councillors
and partners, Mr Swinney made a point of
praising the way we and ScotRail are working
in an increasingly collaboratively way for the
benet of passengers and to deliver investment
efciently. Perth is the twelfth station in Scot-
land to benet from Access for All.
29
To deliver a more inclusive and accessible railway, that
serves existing and potential customers, and connects,
people, communities, markets and jobs.
Objective Why it matters
The rail network plays a vital socio-economic role.
The accessibility of the railway can determine the
extent to which people who face challenges when
travelling can be part of the community, workforce,
economy and wider society. We need to understand
and respond to population and demographic changes
that make issues of accessibility and inclusion more
important than ever.
Metrics
Projects under the Access for All programme completed
2011 2012 2013 2014 2010
0
20
40
60
80
120
100
C
u
m
u
l
a
t
i
v
e

n
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

p
r
o
j
e
c
t
s

c
o
m
p
l
e
t
e
d
150
stations will gain step-free
routes in 20062015
1,100
stations will benefit from smaller-scale
accessibility improvements in 20062015
30
Progress
Access for All
Access for All is part of the Department for Transports Railways
for All Strategy. It was designed to address the issues faced
by disabled passengers using railway stations in Great Britain.
Central to Access for All is 350m of ring-fenced funds per year to
deliver obstacle free, accessible routes to and between platforms
at priority stations. This includes the provision of lifts or ramps, as
associated works and refurbishment along the defined route; the
redevelopment of stations to provide step-free access and a range
of other facilities, such as improved lighting, hearing induction
loops and passenger information screens. We are tasked with
delivering this programme of improvements, working closely with
train operating companies and other relevant stakeholders to
ensure a co-ordinated approach to works at stations.
Inclusive design
We follow an industry-wide accessible train station design code
of practice to improve the accessibility and inclusive design of
stations for everyone. This code also describes our duties to meet
European standards of accessibility.
We are taking a new, cost effective approach to inclusive
design which considers accessibility for everyone and considers
sustainable design in stations, offices, depots and training centres.
Built environment accessibility panel
We are embedding inclusive design into our built environment
processes and have created a new built environment accessibility
panel to help us achieve this. The panel has 12 members, 75
per cent of whom are disabled. All members are rail users and
technical experts in inclusion and access. They assist us to deliver
inclusive and accessible buildings and infrastructure. Membership
will be renewed every three years.
Training
Following on from the successful disability training delivered
to our customer-facing staff for the London 2012 Olympic and
Paralympic Games, we updated the training. It has now become
the Inclusive Service Training and is being delivered across
our managed stations. This improved training makes a firm
connection between disability awareness and the delivery of
a high quality service for everyone whilst directing people and
companies working on our managed stations to take a holistic
approach to inclusion. This course is co-presented by disabled
trainers, offering a more passenger-centred and inclusive learning
experience using a discussion-based learning process. This work
was commended by the Accessible Transport Select Committee.
We are developing refresher training for staff who have been with
us for a long time so that they have access to current inclusive
service advice and approaches.
Working with rail industry partners
We work closely with our industry partners, including the
Department for Transport, Transport Scotland and the Office of
Rail Regulation (ORR), to improve journey experiences for every
passenger, including disabled and older travellers or those who
are travelling with young children, buggies or luggage. Along
with considering the physical needs of our passengers and staff,
we also make provisions for people with sensory or cognitive
impairments and people who have mental health issues. For
example, we are members of the Office for Rail Regulation ramps
and wheelchair users project group and scooter access project
group and we are working with Passenger Focus to review the
accessibility of our services.
Influencing policy
We attend quarterly meetings on access with the Department
for Transport, we are part of the Rail Safety and Standards Board
project team on disability and we are feeding into discussions
around diversity and inclusion approaches at High Speed 2.
Using our staff networks
Twenty members of our disabled staff network, CAN DO, met
senior leaders to discuss access to the railways. Their first hand
experience is proving invaluable in shaping our priorities and
future activity.
31
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Completing delivery of the Access for All programme in 2015.
Well then improve a further 42 stations identified in Access
for Alls additional 105m, of funding
Continue to train our staff to deliver a high quality service to
people who have specific needs, because improving access
to, from and through stations is about more than physical
enhancements alone
Developing inclusive design guidance and build inclusive
design competence through training and support.
32
Case study 1
Moors Gorse crossing,
Cannock Chase
Moors Gorse level crossing was a user worked, public
bridleway and cycleway crossing being used by up to
3,000 cyclists every weekend, after new mountain bike
trails were created in the adjoining woodland.
A number of near miss incidents had occurred at the
site. We replaced the level crossing by investing 1.5m
in a new bridge suitable for equestrians and cyclists.
We had to buy the private rights attached to the user
worked element of the crossing but we later resold the
property and recouped the initial outlay.
The closure of this crossing was the 700th of our
Control Period 4 programme and was seen as a
welcome improvement by former crossing users.
Passenger and public safety
By putting safety at the heart
of how we design, manage
and maintain our railway we
will reduce safety risks for
passengers and the public
To eliminate fatalities and serious injury,
reduce minor injury and eliminate
repeat-cause accidents.
Objective Why it matters
Our railway is one of the safest in Europe. But continuing to
improve the safety of people who use or come into contact with our
railway is important because accidents, trespass, acts of vandalism
and cable theft can lead to injury, damage and delay.
33
Case study 2
Track tests
In September 2013, UK rapper Wretch 32 and spoken word performer
George the Poet put their hearing to the test in a unique experiment as
part of our new safety campaign aimed at young men called Track Tests.
In the previous year 41 people had lost their lives after trespassing on the
railway - a total of 270 in five years - with 16-24 year old males making
up four out of 10 fatalities. Incidents occurred both at stations and
along the railway. A survey for Track Tests reveals that despite most
agreeing its dangerous to trespass on the tracks, a third of people
think they would hear a train in time to move out of the way.
This increases to more than half of 1624 years old males.
The Track Tests video (available on YouTube youtube.com/user/
networkrail) shows how Wretch 32 and George the Poet battle to
make a split second decision, relying only on their hearing to work
out which direction a train is coming from as it travels towards
them at 80mph in the dark. In this instance its not a real train
but a mocked-up railway in a warehouse, but the impact is
very realistic.
Ive got 97 per cent hearing, so should have a good idea of
where sound is coming from. As soon as I stepped into the
Track Test simulator and the normal sounds youd expect
to hear when youre on the tracks, like traffic noise, are
added, I didnt make it across in time. No matter how much
confidence youve got in your hearing and speed, when
youre in the dark and a train is coming towards you at
80mph, confidence is not enough to get you across safely.
Performance against targets
Passenger safety
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
Target 0.24
2009/10
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
P
a
s
s
e
n
g
e
r

s
a
f
e
t
y

i
n
d
i
c
a
t
o
r

m
o
v
i
n
g

a
n
n
u
a
l

a
v
e
r
a
g
e
34
Slips, trips and falls are the largest
primary causes of accidents at our
managed stations.
Other metrics
Passenger safety
0
Fatalities
at Network Rail
managed stations
2013/14
54
Major accidents
at Network Rail
managed stations
2013/14
2012/13 2013/14 2010/11 2009/10 2011/12
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Total number of Category A signals passed at danger
2012/13 2013/14
0
5
10
15
20
30
35
25
Total number of
potentially high risk
train accidents
Potentially high risk
train accidents due to factors
within Network Rails control
0
50
100
150
200
300
250
2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
T
o
t
a
l

s
u
i
c
i
d
e
s

a
n
d

s
u
s
p
e
c
t
e
d

s
u
i
c
i
d
e
s
Suicides and suspected suicides
Number of infrastructure wrong side failures
Track failure
Structure failure
Signalling failure
Other
2012/13
Total failures: 74
2013/14
Total failures: 115
9 368
28.31
7 351
27.00
Accidental trespasser fatalities
(excluding incidents at level crossings)
43
2012/13
18
2013/14
Safety at level crossings
Fatalities at
level crossings
Number of
significant incidents
Rate of significant
level crossing events
Level crossing closures
Number of level crossing closures in 2013/14
Actual
146
Target
110
Total
number of
level crossing
closures
in CP4
804
All fatalities at level crossings during the year involved adults. The rate
of significant level crossing events is at its lowest rate for the whole of
Control Period 4 (2009 to 2014).
2
0
1
2
/
1
3
2
0
1
3
/
1
4
35
Progress
Trends in public safety
Throughout Control Period 4 (2009 2014) the average number
of trespasser fatalities has remained relatively consistent. There
has been a general reduction in the number of malicious acts
(route crime) in 2013/14 and through Control Period 4.
Reducing route crime
Crime on the route includes issues such as obstruction on the line,
interference with equipment, vandalism, missiles thrown or fired,
and theft (e.g. of cable). We are addressing these issues by:
Preventing unauthorised access to the network, for example
by improving the security of our construction sites
Working with the British Transport Police and other industry
partners to target and co-ordinate approaches to reduce
crime against our infrastructure and the people who use it.
Partnership with Samaritans
Every incident of suicide and attempted suicide on the railways is
devastating to families. Such incidents also impact negatively on
train performance and the travelling public. There are 26 locations
on our network that are of particular concern in relation to acts of
self-harm. We are introducing physical or psychological barriers at
these and other places. The number of incidents at these locations
has reduced in 2013/14.
Weve extended our contract with the Samaritans until 2020,
so that we can continue to improve our capabilities to deal with
suicides and attempted suicides. Together we are undertaking
activity such as training staff to identify, approach and help a
person who might be at risk. Were offering post incident support
to the staff involved in traumatic events.
Safety at level crossings
Weve achieved a 30 per cent risk reduction in Control Period 4
(2009 2014) by closing over 800 level crossings.
The House of Commons Transport Select Committee made
twenty six recommendations to improve the safety of level
crossings and eleven of these are specific to us. In response, our
chief executive Mark Carne made a full and unreserved apology
for past failings.
Mark committed to continue implementation of our level crossing
programme. This has exceeded internal targets in 2013/14 and is
achieving whole life operational benefits of over 200m in return
for 25m investment.
Internal developments
To continue to prioritise the safety of our passengers and the
public, in 2013/14, we have:
Undertaken deep dive risk reviews for our track assets,
earthworks, structures, level crossings, workforce safety and
irregular working. These reviews enable us to understand the
causes and mitigations of safety incidents
Brought our health and safety management system into
conformance with the OHSAS18001 standard
Started to roll out the business critical rules programme to
improve the management of competency of those working
on our infrastructure
Continued to train our workforce and promote change to
behaviour and culture that supports safer working and the
reporting of close calls.
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Continuing to progress level crossing safety through closures
and other risk reduction using the 99m allocated for Control
Period 5
Raising public awareness, particularly amongst young people,
of the dangers of railway trespass
Reducing train accident risk through improvements to our
asset management and operational controls.
Awards
Management Consultancies Association (MCA) Awards
2014; our national level crossing team and partners Atkins
Management Consultants won Change Management in
the Public Sector award.
National Rail Awards 2013; partnership between
Samaritans, Network Rail, East Midland Trains, ASLEF
and British Transport Police won The Safety Award.
36
Case study 1
Health kiosks
We are using machines allow people to measure weight, body mass
index, body fat, blood pressure and heart rate. The health kiosk is
quick and self service and no occupational nurse is required. Results
can be printed instantly or emailed to the user. Results come with
bespoke recommendations on what changes the user might want to
make to improve their health. The user can use the kiosk as many
times as they wish to measure progress.
Three health kiosks were trialled in London North Western and
Kent, and in the first month alone over 1,000 users registered and
more than 2,500 tests were completed on the kiosks. We found
that 35 per cent of people had raised blood pressure, 69 per cent
had elevated body fat levels and 68 per cent had an elevated
body mass index. 13 health kiosks are now circulating across our
business visiting over 60 buildings during the six-month period.
Infrastructure Projects Scotland and North Eastern team, for
example, are promoting the kiosks widely to their teams.
Employee health, safety and wellbeing
We are committed to the
health, safety and wellbeing of
our people and our visions of
everyone home safe every day
and everyone fit for the future
Objectives Why it matters
Working in the safest manner possible, every day, drives
performance and makes us a success. We can lower the
financial cost of ill-health to our business through investment
in health and wellbeing interventions, leading to improved
workplace attendance and productivity.
To manage a safe and
healthy workplace, with
opportunities to promote
wellbeing and a supportive
culture to do so.
To eliminate fatalities
and serious injury,
reduce minor injury and
eliminate repeat-case
accidents.
37
Performance against targets
Lost time injury frequency rate
Other metrics
Close calls

2013/14
37,284
Target
20,000
or more
Target
8 or less
2013/14
7
Health and safety
enforcement notices
This significant number of close-calls
indicates how our people are becoming
more confident in reporting them.
The workforce safety indicator continues
to remain around 0.15 fatalities and
weighted injuries per million hours worked.
The accident frequency rate and lost time
injury frequency rate have also remained
constant over the past 18 months.
The annual ratio of working time lost
against number of RIDDOR major injuries
is 2.48 to 1. This is below the benchmark
(as recommended by the Rail Safety and
Standards Board) of 3 to 1. The ratio
for Infrastructure Projects and Asset
Management contractors is 1.42 to 1,
which is below the construction industry
average of 2 to 1.
0
2
4
6
10
8
2009/10
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

d
a
y
s
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
Average sick days per employee
0
0.5
1.0
2.0
1.5
%

o
f

e
m
p
l
o
y
e
e
s

o
n

l
o
n
g
-
t
e
r
m

s
i
c
k

l
e
a
v
e
2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
Per centage of employees
on long-term sick leave
Most common referrals (%)
2012/13 2013/14 2010/11 2009/10 2011/12
0
10
20
30
40
Musculoskeletal issues Psychological conditions
Use of health surveillance and occupational health services
2012/13
2013/14
2011/12
Noise
surveillance
Hand arm
vibration
syndrome
Musculoskeletal
disorder
referrals
Psychological
referrals
Exposure
to lead
Exposure
to asbestos
0
2,000
1,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
2012/13
2013/14
2011/12
Noise
surveillance
Hand arm
vibration
syndrome
Musculoskeletal
disorder
referrals
Psychological
referrals
Exposure
to lead
Exposure
to asbestos
0
2,000
1,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
M
o
v
i
n
g

a
n
n
u
a
l

a
v
e
r
a
g
e

o
f

t
h
e

n
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

f
a
t
a
l

a
n
d

l
o
s
t

t
i
m
e

i
n
j
u
r
i
e
s

p
e
r

1
0
0
,
0
0
0

h
o
u
r
s

w
o
r
k
e
d
38
Progress
Prioritising safety
Immediately upon his appointment as our new chief executive on
24 February 2104, Mark Carne emphasised the importance of our
safety vision of everyone home safe every day and the role that
every one of our people has in its achievement.
Our safety vision, the belief that safety and business performance
go hand in hand, and our requirement that commitments around
safety be integrated into personal performance objectives
have been rolled out from the executive committee across our
organisation during the latter part of March 2014.
Culture
We continue to embed our Lifesaving Rules and we have used
the bow-tie method to identify key risks in our business. We
are integrating the rules into our asset management risks and
associated implementation programmes.
We have been working hard to change behaviour and culture to
create a safer network:
Weve agreed principles of a fair culture with trades unions
and launched them across our business
Weve involved around 1,000 staff, whose roles include
investigators, line managers, human resources representatives
and Trades Union representatives, in Fair Culture workshops.
Safety conversation training has been delivered to our 400
most senior leaders
We have developed a Big Picture toolkit, which helps staff
understand what a safety culture looks like and what it means
for them.
A higher per centage of our people now agree with safety
statements such as where I work, we always apply our learning
from mistakes and accidents than they did in a survey than a
year ago.
Safe working
We have been rolling out our workforce safety 10 point plan,
which is intended to create momentum around improving
workforce and contractor safety. We are accelerating two
particular elements of the plan:
Roles and responsibilities: establishing clearer accountability
for safety on site
Control of work: delivering an electronic permit to work that
gives the safe work leader risk information and the tools to
brief the site team effectively.
Safety stand downs
In response to the death of a colleague in January 2014, we
organised safety stand down events in early April 2014 at
maintenance delivery units across the country. The events
comprised animated reconstruction to enable local teams to
have safety conversations that will help all of us take better
responsibility for keeping ourselves and each other safe.
Employee health and wellbeing strategy
Weve received executive committee approval to roll out
an ambitious and collaborative 10-year strategy to improve
the health and wellbeing of our people. Were resourcing
delivery of this strategy by increasing the size of the central
health and wellness strategy team and recruiting a full-time,
permanent occupational health and wellbeing manager for
each of our routes.
Health and wellbeing data
Were focused on improving the quality of data in areas such as
occupational health diagnoses, health surveillance compliance,
employee absence, mental health (including stress) and general
wellbeing.
Managing occupational health
We have improved our understanding of our organisational health
and wellbeing performance. Were working more effectively with
our third party service providers and improving understanding of
occupational health diagnoses, management referrals, drug and
alcohols outcomes and mental wellbeing.
We are working hard to reduce hand arm vibration syndrome
(HAVS) by identifying and addressing risk associated with plant
and equipment. Weve conducted a feasibility trial of HAVS
monitors on our Kent route and are investigating the potential to
roll these across the business. Were developing material to enable
our routes to develop local action plans to address HAVS.
To address occupational respiratory hazards, we are measuring
the risk posed by exposure to respirable crystalline silica during
specific tasks and will use this information to inform future
improvement actions. Weve worked with our occupational health
service provider, BUPA, to make an incidental asbestos exposure
assessment available.
Weve developed educational materials such as videos, posters
and presentations to raise the awareness of occupational health
and wellbeing.
39
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Reducing road-related risk and developing
technology for safer trackside working
Reducing risk from hand-arm vibration
and work-related stress
Continuing to improve safety culture.
Mental wellbeing
We ran a series of articles and events related to World Mental
Health Day and Mental Health Awareness Week. During December
2013 and April 2014, we delivered courses in both mental health
first aid and mental resilience and our business functions are
now further developing skills and competencies around mental
wellbeing through these courses. We worked with our professional
development and training function to embed content related to
workplace stress and resilience within our Tomorrows Leaders
training programme.
One of the key risks for our peoples mental wellbeing is exposure
to potentially traumatic incidents, such as suicides or fatalities on
our infrastructure. We have trialled the use of traumatic incident
management training in our South East route, with the aim of
developing a peer network that is able to support colleagues and
spot potential warning signs relating to mental health.
Working collaboratively for employee
health and wellbeing
Our chief medical officer has met with members of the rail
Industry Safety Leadership Group and established a cross-
industry working group focused on the issue of HAVS, as well as
working with our internal group strategy team on the issue of
effluent discharge from moving trains.
Our contracts and procurement team is embedding principles
of effective health management into the pre-qualifying
questionnaire process for contingent labour supply.
We publically signed up to the Department of Healths
Responsibility Deal for Construction and Civil Engineering and
then partnered with our Infrastructure Projects function to
encourage their major contractors to do the same.
We are currently in the process of installing automated
external defibrillators in approximately 400 of our major
corporate buildings, managed stations, depots and
delivery units.
Weve expanded the range of health-related offers
available to our people, including discounted
memberships at 2,500 gyms nationwide, discounted
health assessments and wellness vouchers, as well as
promoting our Cycle-to-Work scheme.
Case study 3
New Sentinel system
Sentinel is the system that monitors and records the
competency of our employees and contractors to work
on our infrastructure. The new Sentinel system was
introduced and rolled-out in 2013/14 and uses smartcard
technology to encrypt, store and update information. This
enables us to better verify that everyone who accesses
the railways has the correct credentials to do so. This is
enabling better competence management and control
over the contingent labour force and there are already
indications of improved management of safety risk. We
have also rationalised sponsorship arrangements for each
cardholder, so that there is one single, accountable sponsor
for an individuals health, safety and wellbeing. This is a step
forward in managing fatigue risk to our workforce.
Case study 2
Short films to
change behaviour
and culture
Six Lifesaving Rules short films were
developed, depicting the human
consequences of breaking these rules.
Designed to be hard-hitting, they were aimed
at all our employees, and made available from
the end of January 2014 on the Safety Central
website and on our corporate YouTube channel
youtube.com/user/networkrail
40
Employee engagement
and development
We are investing
in our people
Case study 1
Your Voice
In 2013/14 we commissioned ORC International to design a new
survey and approach to employee engagement that was better
focussed on business drivers than our previous Q12 employee
questionnaire, and that included scope for localisation.
The resultant Your Voice questionnaire focused on behavioural issues.
We explained our reasons for using the questionnaire to our employees
through an extensive internal communications programme and issued it
to all direct employees in November 2013. We tried hard to make sure that
the questionnaire was accessible to employees with dyslexia and all types
of disability.
We invited responses on a voluntary rather than mandatory basis; on-line,
on paper or over the phone. The response rate exceeded our expectations,
at 46 per cent.
We analysed all the responses at a corporate and a team level. We fed the
learning back to all teams during March and April 2014, by managers talking
through slide decks of findings, at their regular team meetings.
We have delivered:
Presentations to all leaders across our business; 21 in total
Results to 4,500 line managers and we are supporting them with engagement
planning through training
Comments reports to 250 line managers.
41
To engage employees, manage
talent and plan for succession.
Objective Why it matters
To deliver our strategic objectives we need a high-performing
culture across our 34,000 staff. This means having engaged
employees, who are motivated to go the extra mile, and have
the freedom to innovate. Our employees must be well trained
and receive the support necessary to maximise their potential
and provide the best possible pool of talent to continuously
drive the business forward.
Metrics
Investment in further education and formal qualifications
2012 2013 2010 2009 2011
0
100
150
50
200
250
Apprenticeship
Graduates
MSc
Part time PGC
Part time BEng
Foundation degree
Conversion engineers
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

p
e
o
p
l
e
Employee training
2012 2013 2010 2009 2011 2012 2013 2010 2009 2011
0
2
3
1
4
5
Delegate days
Delegate days per capita
0
30,000
60,000
90,000
120,000
150,000
D
e
l
e
g
a
t
e

d
a
y
s
D
e
l
e
g
a
t
e

d
a
y
s

p
e
r

c
a
p
i
t
a
42
Progress
Performance management
Weve clarified processes, guidance and forms around
performance reviews for executive and bands one to eight
employees. We have enhanced our process for setting SMART
(specific, measurable, aligned, realistic and time-specific)
objectives and goals, to ensure they address behaviours, safety
and, where relevant, the management of people. Alongside formal
interim and final performance review meetings, we encourage
managers to have regular one to one meetings with their staff.
Talent management
We now have a realistic view of the succession pipelines,
and their readiness, for top 21 key roles.
Training and development
We provide employees (leaders, line managers and front line
staff) with training, learning opportunities and support to help
them meet development needs and business objectives:
We support line managers with the Assessment in the Line
process, providing feedback and guidance to help managers
make the right decisions on the competence of their staff
and decide whether any training is needed or not
We work across our business to implement the development
needs analysis process for our employees
We offer employees a range of instructor lead training,
e-learning and workshops, through an on-line training
catalogue
Weve invested 25m in four state-of the-art workforce
development centres in Larbert, Paddock Wood, Bristol,
York and Walsall and others are in development. These are
comprehensively equipped to enable practical training in safe
and increasingly realistic environments, including replicas of
internal and external track layouts and overhead line spans
We have an accelerated leadership programme to train our
leaders of the future and a tomorrows leader programme for
those who manage people
We facilitate coaching and mentoring and support people to
become coaches and mentors, themselves
We train and support all staff working on our infrastructure
to achieve our intent of everyone home safe everyday. This is
outlined in the Employee health, safety and wellbeing section.
Technology strategy
Weve embarked on a programme that will migrate our
performance management and talent and succession processes
to online systems for executive and Band 1 8 employees by
mid 2015. This will drive greater consistency of deployment,
enhance the support tools available to employees and allow more
visible alignment between peoples personal objectives and the
overall goals of the business.
Employee consultation and engagement
In 2013/14 we undertook Your Voice to engage and consult
with our employees and to work out what we need to do better
in the future.
Internal communication
We work hard to reach our 34,000 employees at their 1,350
workplaces, with information about our activities and plans.
We also explain what we require of those employees and how
we can support them to achieve:
Weve adapted our Connect News weekly e-newsletter to
be accessible on mobile devices as well as laptops and PCs
Weve introduced a new magazine for our people called
Network. We circulate this in both hard copy and electronic
versions. It is people-orientated with a strong emphasis on
telling human stories at pace
We continue to organise an annual programme of business
briefings along with management cascades and team briefings
We celebrate success by sharing information, through Connect
News, on all the awards that we and our staff win. We organise
our own Make the Difference awards. At our November 2013
ceremony, there were eight winners who had been selected,
by 60 employee judges, from more than 850 nominations.
Preparing for Control Period 5
We have identified the competences and established the
management structure that we need to deliver our commitments
for Control Period 5 (20142019). This has involved the
implementation of a management efficiency programme
that will achieve a 15 per cent executive and management
salary bill reduction.
43
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Delivering our new, one-day corporate induction programme
to all new employees
Undertaking comments text mining on the comments
received back through Your Voice engagement and
undertaking Pulse cultural surveys
Preparing a new process to move the business to review all
talent that will support the work of talent review boards.
Case study 2
Our behaviours
In late 2012, our board defined how to put our values into action by
defining our behaviours. These identify how we will only be successful
if we are customer driven, accountable, collaborative, and prepared
to challenge. These are now being passed through our business by
integrating them into:
The Strategic Business Plan which sets out how the business will
deliver our outputs for Control Period 5 (2014 2019)
The key stages of employee lifecycle, including recruitment,
induction and performance management
The core capability framework that is applied to organisational
resourcing, learning and development
The work of the safety leadership team, who deliver training,
workshops and toolbox talks to our 17,000 frontline staff.
We have produced a simple, one-page Help Guide to our
behaviours, so that employees and managers better understand
how to demonstrate them.
Case study 3
Business briefings
We organise an annual programme of half day business
briefings, at venues across the UK, each year. At these,
our chief executive, representatives of our routes
and our infrastructure projects and other internal
and external speakers explain our and rail industry
priorities and what we will all be doing to achieve
these over the next few years.
Our 2012/13 programme comprised 18 briefings at
nine different venues between 8 March 2012 and
26 April 2013. Attendance is voluntary. Around
7,000 employees chose to register for and attend
these sessions.
We invited participants to submit questions for
speakers, in advance. We posted responses to
these questions, and reports on each session
from participants themselves, on our intranet.
44
Diversity and inclusion
We are building a more open, diverse
and inclusive organisation so that
we attract the best possible talent,
encourage creativity and innovation,
and continually improve our safety
and performance
Access and inclusion: We will establish
a culture which is inclusive for all our
employees, enhances their individual
and our collective performance and
makes our recruitment and promotion
processes open and accessible for all.
Behaviours and benchmarking: We will
promote our corporate behaviours that
support collaboration, being customer
driven, accountable and challenging.
We measure our approach against
other businesses to gauge our progress.
Collaboration: We will work
internally across the business
and externally with other
organisations and stakeholders to
promote diversity and inclusion.
Objectives
Why it matters
By being more open, diverse and inclusive we will enhance our safety
and performance. We will realise the creativity, innovation and problem-
solving of our people. This will help us to attract and retain the best
people from diverse backgrounds and experiences and build more
effective working relationships with our customers, partners and suppliers.
45
Metrics
Ethnicity data
Gender pay gap
Network Rail: 1%
National: 10%
Our performance is significantly better than the national average.
We know there is limited staff turn-over within our business and so,
ethnicity and gender data gives a partial picture of our approach
to diversity and inclusion. For 2013/14 we are reporting data across
a range of characteristics to provide a richer illustration of people
within Network Rail.
Ethnicity and gender of apprentices and graduate trainees
1.7% of our apprentices and 11% of our
graduate trainees are black and minority ethnic.
2.6% of our apprentices and 10.4% of our
graduate trainees are women.
Disability
20 per cent of those who took part in our diversity monitoring
update answered the question about disability. Of those that
did 3.9 per cent declared a disability compared to 19 per cent
in the UK working-age population. We are therefore working to
increase declaration rates, which will make it easier to measure
our progress towards offering inclusive employment opportunities
for disabled people.
Age
We know that the age profile of our employees is generally
reflective of the population of the UK. We must also plan for
skills gaps caused by people retiring from our workforce.
Sexual orientation
20 per cent of those who took part in diversity monitoring
answered the question about sexual orientation. Of those that
did 0.7 per cent told us that they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or
transgender, which is much lower than all estimates for people
living in the UK.
We believe that there is significant under-reporting of disability
and sexual orientation and we are working to create an
environment where staff can be open about these issues.
2009/10 2010/11 2011/12
2012/13 2013/14
White
Black and
minority ethnic
Undeclared or
unknown
2009/10 2010/11 2011/12
2012/13 2013/14
Male
Female
Gender data
We are pleased with the reduction in the levels of unknown within
the business. We anticipate a further reduction as staff become
more comfortable and confident with the purpose of diversity and
inclusion monitoring.
2009/10 2010/11
2011/12
2012/13 2013/14
White
Black and
minority ethnic
Undeclared or
unknown
2009/10 2010/11 2011/12
2012/13 2013/14
Male
Female
46
Progress
Were making progress in building a more open, inclusive and
diverse organisation.
Weve created our first ever diversity and inclusion team which
is a centre of expertise for the whole business, responsible for an
ambitious and extensive programme of work for Control Period 5
(2014 to 2019). The team gives shape to and monitors and
measures our approach to diversity and inclusion. The team also
makes links with the significant culture change programmes
including safety and sustainable development, health and well-
being and transparency.
We published a draft diversity and inclusion strategy; Everyone
which describes our activities for the next five years. It has
three broad themes of access and inclusion, behaviours and
benchmarking and collaboration. The centre of expertise will
lead its delivery and support each route and business function
to implement their own local action plans.
Access and inclusion
Weve delivered our inclusive leadership programme to over
1,500 of our leaders, including our chairman, the chair of the
audit committee and members of the executive committee.
Weve developed a range of learning initiatives, some for specific
teams or routes for example diversity conversations. Others
address particular topics for instance flexible working, or inclusive
safety behaviours, or training for our hiring managers.
Integrating diversity and inclusion so that it becomes part of
the day job has been an important feature of our progress in
2013/14: within Your Voice our employee engagement survey,
our corporate induction for new employees and the induction for
people new to line management, considerations about diversity
and inclusion are reflected.
There have been a number of presentations to schools, colleges
and job fairs by our STEM (science, technology, mathematics and
engineering) ambassadors and staff network members. Similarly,
the Could IT Be You competition for young women was created to
increase the number of young women considering IT as a career
path whilst promoting Network Rail as a place for women to work.
Case study 1
Our staff networks
In June 2013 we launched three staff networks which reflected those groups who traditionally are
either under-represented in the business or may experience discrimination. The staff networks
are: Archway for our lesbian, gay and bi-sexual and trans gender staff; Cultural Fusion for
our staff from black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds; and Inspire for our women. Each
network was sponsored by a member of the executive committee, has a leadership team and
has set out their plans for supporting diversity and inclusion.
The staff networks have been active ambassadors for us at jobs and skills fairs. The staff
networks are open to everyone and have increasing membership across the organisation.
They have also been a helpful site for consulting on policy developments and diversity
impact assessments.
For example, the Health and Safety Executive recently proposed amending the exemption
in the Employment Act 1989, so that in any industry, Sikhs who wear turbans would be
exempt from the need to wear head-protection. Our safety team realised that there may
be potential cultural considerations associated with this issue and so contacted Cultural
Fusion. Most members supported the proposal for the exemption to be extended, and
recommended that consideration be given to the design of protective headwear to be
worn over a turban.
During late 2013 we set up the second set of staff networks, one for staff who are
carers, one for disabled staff and another for staff of different faiths and beliefs.
Following the same approach as the first three the networks are proving a rich source
of expertise and feedback for our business and help to test out our messaging.
Accolades
Business in the Community
Opportunity Now and Race
For Opportunity schemes: we
achieved a bronze level in each.
47
Behaviours and benchmarking
We know that under-reporting for particular groups of staff needs
attention and can mask some of the challenges they experience in
the work place. We have introduced the Managing Disabled Staff
training programme and have published a Reasonable Adjustments
Policy. We have also supported deaf awareness training to over 100
employees, delivered by one of our own member of deaf staff.
We have an Equality and Inclusion Trade Union working group
which has amongst other things partnered with us on developing
guidance about managing bullying and harassment.
Diversity impact assessments have been piloted including the
transparent pay project, to ensure that we have considered the
effect of our approach on everyone and we will extend this to a
number of initiatives and policy developments.
For the first time, we benchmarked our approach to diversity and
inclusion externally against other organisations.
Collaboration
Weve built important links with membership organisations
and external bodies that promote diversity and inclusion.
For example:
We are proud to be the lead employer sponsor of the Sir
Simon Milton University Technical College (UTC). The UTC
aims to attract a high proportion of girls andyoung people
from ethnic minority communities across London to study
engineering-related subjects
We are working with Women in Engineering and Science ,
Women in Science and Engineering, the Royal Academy of
Engineering and other partners in the science, technology,
engineering and mathematics sector, to attract significant
numbers of younger people and those from minority
groups into our industry as we have an ageing workforce
We developed a new code of practice for contingency labour
suppliers that includes a positive commitment to diversity
and inclusion
We sponsored the Rail Business awards first diversity and
inclusion award category and the Women in Science and
Engineering awards.
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Implementing our diversity and inclusion strategy Everyone,
including establishing meaningful key performance indicators
Facilitating collaboration; supporting suppliers to promote
diversity, inclusion and inclusive design within their workforces
and operations, promoting inclusive procurement and promoting
diversity and inclusion across the rail industry
Implementing other initiatives around collaboration,
behaviours and benchmarking.
Case study 2
Women in Rail
Women in Rail is a key initiative, set up by Angel Trains
to address the under-representation of women in our
industry. We joined the steering committee comprised
of Bombardier, Clifford Chance, East Midlands Trains,
ESG, Northern Trains and the Office of Rail Regulation
(ORR), to help give greater prominence to women
who represent 17.6 per cent of employees in the
sector. Women in Rail has a LinkedIn membership,
and convenes regular meetings and produces a
quarterly newsletter.
Following its launch Women in Rail developed
three priorities, networking/communications,
mentoring and engaging with young women.
Women in Rail set up a mentoring working
group to establish a mentoring programme
for the rail industry. The group facilitated a
number of new mentoring pairs of people
working in different organisations. Women in
Rail is continually developing the programme
and there will be further tranches as the
membership of Women in Rail increases.
48
Value
We plan for the long term
development of the rail network and
constantly seek more efficient ways
of working to reduce the burden on
taxpayers, funders and rail users
To enhance the network,
delivering outputs that
taxpayers, investors and
funders value.
To continuously reduce
the whole system,
whole life net cost
of the railway.
To deliver a successful periodic review process over the next
four years, agreeing the outcomes with our funders and
regulator and establishing the basis for our next funding and
investment period (2019 2024) - Control Period 6.
Objectives
Why it matters
We exist to generate outstanding value for taxpayers and rail
users by continually improving the railway. Investment in our
infrastructure and services represents a key component of
sustainable development in Great Britain.
49
Metrics
Weve spent more than 39bn to deliver more than 9,000 projects
since 2009.
Our annual investment in renewing and expanding our network is
increasing each year in real terms.
CP4 investment programme
Progress
How we are delivering value to Great Britain
We are stimulating the northern economy through improved
access and connectivity to labour and markets through the
Northern Hub project.
We are improving journey times and connectivity between other
economic centres through targeted journey time reduction
schemes, including line speed improvements in East Midlands,
Yorkshire, Bristol and Oxford areas.
We are creating a more efficient, greener and safer transport
system. Initiatives to support this include the strategic freight
network fund, electrification programmes and new and cascaded
electric trains including the Intercity Express Programme.
Were supporting economic growth in London and the South
East through our Thameslink and Crossrail programmes, the
remodelling of Reading station and other capacity and station
schemes.
Efficiency
We are reducing costs and creating a more efficient railway through
smarter, more efficient ways of working, closer integration with
the industry and making the infrastructure more efficient through
programmes like electrification. This includes a programme to
consolidate the existing network of signal boxes into 12 operating
centres and reductions in the cost of support functions.
Whole life costing
Weve mandated the use of whole life costing (WLC) analysis
across our business. Weve published a WLC manual to ensure
this is undertaken effectively. Our approach to WLC analysis
includes consideration of each of our sustainable development
priorities. Embedding WLC analysis has already delivered
significant benefits including:
30 per cent cost reduction and saved time in the delivery
of our level crossings closure programme
Improving the effectiveness of the development of plans
for enhancing the number of trains per hour between
London Waterloo and Windsor stakeholders, by engaging
key stakeholders with the maintenance and operational
implications of the options proposed
Identifying the optimal equipment to electrify the Midland
Main Line between Bedford and London St Pancras
Improved decision-making within our Thameslink programme,
for example around the station-wide use of LED lighting,
level access platforms and the use of terrazzo flooring
instead of granite.
We are becomingly increasingly efficient. As a result of all the
investment that we describe in this Sustainability update, our
operating costs measured per train mile running on our network,
are 46 per cent lower in 2013/14 than they were in 2003/4.
Controllable operating costs per train mile (2013/14 prices)
2
0
0
3
/
0
4
2
0
0
9
/
1
0
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
2
0
1
0
/
1
1
2
0
1
1
/
1
2
2
0
1
2
/
1
3
2
0
0
4
/
0
5
2
0
0
5
/
0
6
2
0
0
6
/
0
7
2
0
0
7
/
0
8
2
0
0
8
/
0
9
2
0
1
3
/
1
4
C
o
s
t

(

)
2009/10
Renewals Enhancements
4
3
2
1
0
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
2
0
1
3
/
1
4

p
r
i
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e
s

b
n
50
Our approach
Planning with partners to deliver the best
for Great Britain
In 2013/14 we completed our period review process for the next
five years, Control Period 5. Our planning process for Control
Period 6 (2019-2024) is now underway.
Alongside the five year review process we have a long-term and
on-going planning cycle that enables elements of the rail network
to be planned in a way that is flexible and includes the views of
all stakeholders. For example, in March 2014, we published a
study on how the West of Exeter route can be made more resilient
to extreme weather, with a view to agreeing future works with
stakeholders.
Investment decision-making
Our group investment team is responsible for managing robust,
internal decision-making around the investment to deliver our
business plans. In 2013/14 we issued a new format for making
investment proposals to our board. All investment proposals
must include an answer and explanation to the question does
this project have a positive social, economic or environmental
impact?.
Economic value
Weve been working to access the funds required for the
new investment commitments we have made for Control
Period 5, such as Thameslink, the Northern Hub and mainline
electrification. New investments are typically funded by raising
new debt. We are reducing the cost of our finance so that as
much investment as possible can be made in our network:
Our borrowings are guaranteed by the UK Government,
giving us credit ratings in line with the UK sovereign.
This enables us to access cost-efficient financing in the
international bond markets
Our bonds are held by a global investor base. We have
issued debt in Sterling as well as US Dollars
Weve protected ourselves against rising interest rates
over the next five years.
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Preparatory planning for the next periodic review process
and continuation of route studies
Provision of advice to the Department for Transport and
other stakeholders on the impact of High Speed 2 on the
current network
Achieving efficiency improvements in our business.
Case study 1
Electrification of our rail network
Electrification provides faster, quieter, greener and
more reliable journeys for passengers and freight users.
It reduces wear and tear on our track.
Even after taking account of additional infrastructure
maintenance costs, electrification has the potential to
contribute to cost savings of around 40 per cent.
Electrification reduces traction carbon emissions by
replacing diesel used in locomotives with electrical power.
At present, around 40 per cent of the railway network
in Great Britain is electrified. Weve committed to
electrification schemes across the country over the
next five years. The first phase of the North West
electrification project was completed in December 2013
allowing electric trains to travel between Manchester
and Scotland and delivering a 30 per cent increase in
capacity. Were delivering electrification of other
routes in the North including the north Trans
Pennine corridor, together with the Great Western
and Midland Main Lines, South Wales Valleys and
routes in the West Midlands and Scotland. When
we complete the electrification programme set
out in our business plan for Control Period 5
(2014 2019) of 50 per cent of the network
will be electrified and 80 per cent of vehicle
miles will be able to operate through electric
traction.
Were refreshing our Network Route
Utilisation Strategy: Electrification,
which investigates the case for further
electrification of the network beyond
currently committed schemes.
51
Case study 2
Birmingham Gateway
Our Birmingham New Street station redevelopment is part of the wider Birmingham Gateway
project. It is creating an icon for Britains second city. It will transform the experience for
passengers, improve links to and through the city centre and is acting as a catalyst for growth for
the local areas economy.
The project is backed by Birmingham City Council, the Department for Business Innovation and
Skills, Centro and the Department for Transport. It is supported by the citys business leaders,
passengers and the wider public.
We completed the first phase of the station redevelopment on 28 April 2013, when we
opened the first half of the new concourse. This is one and a half times the size of the
old concourse with better facilities and improved accessibility between the station and
platforms. When the project is completed in 2015, the station will be enclosed by a giant
atrium, allowing natural light throughout the station and to all 12 refurbished platforms.
We are improving accessibility for passengers by installing 15 new lifts and 30 new
escalators.
Our works are adding significant value to the city:
The redeveloped Pallasades shopping area is being relaunched as Grand Central
Birmingham. The new John Lewis store to the south of the station is creating up to
1,000 new jobs
Improved transport connections will stimulate regeneration in the area
The stunning station will add to Birminghams reputation for good design and
transform New Street into a world class destination
We and our partners have a goal to leave a legacy of skills, training and
education in the community
We are creating supply chain opportunities or local businesses.
James Skyrme from Birmingham, became the 100th apprentice to be recruited
to work on site at Birmingham New Street. He is an apprentice for local
demolition firm Coleman & Company.
Apprenticeships are vital to ensure that we are training our next generation
of young people. To achieve this milestone of 100 apprentices gives a strong
message of what can be achieved through leading by example and striving
for excellence in skills and employment.
Councillor Tahir Ali, cabinet member for development, jobs and skills,
Birmingham City Council
Birmingham New Street is our highest value project to date and the
most complex. Working with Network Rail and Mace since September
2009, we have removed 20,000 tonnes of mass reinforced concrete
from site with minimal noise, dust or vibration, complying with the
strictest of project requirements. Weve invested heavily in engineering,
specialist cutting and most importantly our people. Weve built a
unique range of specialist demolition skills. It was great for our work
to be recognised at a global level at the World Demolition Awards.
Mark Coleman, Managing Director, Coleman & Company Limited
52
Case study 1
Anglia route and Greater Anglia
improving performance
Our Anglia route reduced delay minutes by around 12 per cent through Control
Period 4 (20092014), whereas delay minutes across the industry overall
increased. This significant improvement in performance was achieved through
effective partnership working between us and the train operating company,
Greater Anglia.
During summer 2012, Anglia route and Greater Anglia worked closely together
to achieve a record per centage of trains arriving at their destination on time
during the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. At that time we also
asked over 94,000 customers about what mattered to them most about our
service. We have taken lessons learnt from that period and applied them since.
Weve addressed issues that are most important to our customers, such as
communicating with them better, and weve thought about new and inventive
ways of improving performance. We have worked together as an industry to
improve our performance and our reputation. As a result weve continued to
reduce minutes caused by delays, including those resulting from cable theft.
Weve significantly decreased compensation payments that have been made
for late train arrivals, which is enabling reinvestment in further improvements
for customers.
Performance, passenger satisfaction
and communication
Every day, in everything we do,
we are working to make the
railway better and to maintain
positive relationships with the
millions of people who use, or
are affected by, our network
To satisfy our stakeholders by
communicating with them effectively
and meeting their expectations
around train performance and other
aspects of their journey.
Objective Why it matters
Four million people a day use our network and around 20 million people live within
500 metres of a UK railway line. We connect people to places and jobs. Our role is
fundamental to the economy. Our responsibility is to enable people and goods to
be transported safely, to where they want to be, on time, every time.
We must understand our stakeholders, be responsive to their needs and manage
enquiries from them so that we can organise our business to best deliver value
to them.
Other metrics
Number of trains running
on our network
Running more trains on our network is
contributing to passenger satisfaction,
as passengers have more choice and
flexibility. We now run 600,000 more
trains a year than at the start of Control
Period 4, in 2009.
2009/10
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
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53
Train punctuality
We know from customer surveys that train punctuality is the
issue that most influences passenger satisfaction. We measure
train punctuality (to what extent trains have arrived on time)
through public performance measure (PPM). This means
commuter trains arriving at their destinations within five
minutes of scheduled arrival times and long distance services
arriving within 10 minutes.
Performance against targets
Passenger satisfaction
In autumn 2013 customer satisfaction varied significantly between
different train operating companies (the range is 76 per cent to
96 per cent) and on different routes (74 per cent to 98 per cent).
Enquiries made to our
contact centre
We want to make it easy for people
to make contact with us in whichever
way they prefer. Our stakeholders still
overwhelmingly preferred to contact
us by telephone. The majority of
emails that we receive come through
the online forms on our website.
Calls answered by
a helpline advisor
Target
80% in 30 seconds
Actual
79.78%
Target
80% in 30 seconds
Actual
93.08%
Target
90% within 24 hours
Actual
88.58%
Target
90% within 24 hours
Actual
92.64%
Emails logged
and acknowledged
Letters logged
and acknowledged
Emergency calls answered
by a helpline advisor
Performance of our national helpline contact service Contact resolution
Case backlogs at year end
Target
3,500
Actual
3,904
Issues raised by the public
resolved within 20 days
or less
Target
100%
Actual
This is a new target
and data is currently
being collected, for
publication later
in 2014
Spring
2010
Target 90%
100
80
60
40
20
0
Autumn
2010
Spring
2011
Autumn
2011
Spring
2012
Autumn
2012
Spring
2013
Autumn
2013
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25
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100
50
0
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
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200,000
150,000
50,000
100,000
0
Phone calls Emails Post
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2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
Passenger satisfaction with our managed stations
The National Passenger Survey shows that passengers are broadly satisfied with their
experience of using the stations that we manage. There is significant variability in
satisfaction across our managed stations, driven at least in part, by the programme
of station investments that we have in place.
100%
80%
20%
40%
60%
0
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54
Progress
Trains arrived on time
Train punctuality is affected by many factors, such as poor weather,
incidents on the track (vandalism, cable theft) and maintenance
and construction works not being completed on time. Around
60 per cent of train delays are directly attributable to our
infrastructure and operations. We, and the wider rail industry, are
working hard to address all factors that affect train punctuality,
for example through programmes to improve our resilience to
extreme weather and to improve safety.
We continually remind our people of how important train
punctuality is to us, by communicating real-time public performance
measures on screens in our Head Office and other locations and
explaining period (four weekly) performance through our Connect
newsletters and intranet site.
Passenger satisfaction with our managed stations
Over the past few years we have made substantial investment in
a number of our managed stations including London St Pancras,
London King Cross and Manchester Piccadilly. It is clear from the
recent results of the most recent National Passenger Survey that
stations passengers are very positive about their experience at
such stations.
On the other hand stations where investment is planned
(London Euston) or is underway (London Victoria, London
Bridge and Birmingham New Street), and so where passengers
might face disruption, are much lower. We anticipate satisfaction
with these stations rising as improvements are completed.
National Helpline service
The periods of extreme weather during 2013/14 lead to
significant spikes in the volumes of calls received by our
contact centre. We always prioritise our response to potential
safety calls logged via our emergency line and so we are
pleased to have significantly exceeded our target for
emergency responsiveness.
Social media
We are increasing our use of social media. Our following on
social media increased by 121 per cent to 49,732 in 2013/14
and we received 40 per cent more tweets from our followers.
Of the tweets we send out approximately 45 per cent were
proactive information tweets rather than reactive tweets,
which reply to queries and questions. In 2012/13 just 25 per
cent of our tweets were proactive.
Case study 2
Most satisfied rail passengers in Europe
A survey of over 26,000 Europeans by the European
Commission was conducted in September 2013 to examine
rail passengers satisfaction with domestic rail services,
including trains, railway stations and accessibility for people
with reduced mobility. The survey found that passengers
rated the UKs railway the best major network in the
European Union.
Overall, almost four out of five people (78 per cent) surveyed
in the UK gave either a high or good rating to services on its
railway ahead of satisfaction levels among passengers in
France (74 per cent), Netherlands (67 per cent), Germany (51
per cent) and Italy (39 per cent). Of the 26 countries covered
in the survey, only Finland with a much smaller, less complex
rail network, scored a higher overall rating than in the UK.
We and the train operating companies run more trains
across Great Britain than are run in most European countries
almost 20 per cent more than in France and 60 per cent
more than in Italy. We run more trains each day than
Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Norway
combined.
Youve rated our railway top for punctuality
and reliability

Youve rated our railway top in Europe
Germany
51% 74% 39% 78%
UK France Italy
Germany UK France Italy
57% 48% 47% 73%
Germany
51% 74% 39% 78%
UK France Italy
Germany UK France Italy
57% 48% 47% 73%
55
Our approach
Collaborative industry approach to
improve performance
We have implemented the performance planning reform
programme that changes the way we work with train operating
companies (TOCs) to improve performance and meet our targets
for Public Performance Measure through Control Period 5. These
plans are underpinned by a suite of analytical tools, which we
developed with cross-industry input, in order to identify and
analyse those issues that have the greatest impact on public
performance measure attrition. These tools are utilised to create
performance strategies for each TOC, which are live documents
which well review each quarter between the TOCs and our routes.
Performance is a cross-industry priority, so this collaborative
approach to better and more strategic planning is critical to
achieving the level of outputs we are seeking. The programme
was commissioned by the rail industrys National Task Force and
has strong collective backing.
Types of queries and how we respond
When people contact us through the National Helpline we aim
to resolve their enquiries immediately. More complex issues that
cannot be resolved by the Helpline are assigned to our local
contact and communities teams to progress. Some issues, though,
require further investigation, particularly where physical work
might be required. In these cases we our route colleagues aim to
investigate and resolve the issues within 20 days. We prioritise
enquiries relating to safety, trespass and vandalism which require
an immediate response by liaising with our local control centres.
Top seven problem types addressed by our
helpline in 2013/14
Contacting communities
Our contact and communities teams also proactively manage
issues that may affect local communities, such as working with
project teams to notify lineside neighbours of planned works.
We are continually looking to improve our pre-notification
communication to our lineside neighbours as advocacy and
favourability levels towards Network Rail are significantly
higher (46 per cent to 64 per cent) if we notify people of
our work than if we dont (19 per cent to 40 per cent).
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Investing in technology and infrastructure to boost
performance. Our business plan for Control Period
5, Delivering a Better Railway betterrailway.co.uk,
explains the investment that we are making
through to 2019
Complete the implementation of our new
customer relationship management system
Increasing the number of hours in the day that
we can provide support through Twitter.
N
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25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
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56
Ethics and transparency
We want to become
more open, honest
and accessible
57
Why it matters
By working in a more open way we will improve the quality of
the decisions we make and become more accountable for them,
increase our ability to work in more innovative and efficient ways,
make our processes more efficient and enable information and
data to be used more effectively.
Access to information is fundamental to transparency. When we
become subject to the Freedom of Information Act from April
2015, anyone will have a legal right to ask for information, and to
get a response within 20 working days. This will increase the flow of
information between us and the outside world, strengthening our
accountability and driving improved understanding of what we do.
When we demonstrate integrity at all times, in all our business
dealings, we will increase employee retention and our
attractiveness as an employer, improve financial performance,
improve our reputation and trustworthiness and protect the
organisation from risks of criminal liability and legal non-compliance.
Progress
Ethics training for employees
We ran a series of pilot workshops on ethical business practice
across the business in July and August 2013. Approximately 500
people took part. Following positive feedback, we are committed
to making training available to all our people. We are developing
an interactive e-learning package to help us achieve this.
Communication campaign
We launched our Not So Superheroes communication campaign.
This uses calendars and posters to promote awareness of ethical
issues and the Speak Out whistle-blowing line to our people at
every company location across Great Britain.Weve increased the
communication that we send out through our intranet and other
routes to help drive engagement and raise awareness of ethics.
Ethics in our supply chains
Weve worked with the Rail Industry Supplier Qualification
Scheme to strengthen the bribery, corruption and fraud related
questions that are used within the Achilles Link-up Engage
pre-qualification questionnaire. From June 2014, all of the
suppliers we use from the Link-up Engage database (c. 3,700)
will be required to make declarations around ethics. Weve also
developed a code of conduct for contingent labour, adherence to
which will form a key part of our tender processes moving forward.
Governance
Weve published a consultation on our transparency strategy, put
in place a governance structure for our transparency programme
(including an internal transparency board) and developed
the policy and reporting framework underpinning our ethics
programme. For example, weve created a new anti-bribery policy.
Weve established an external transparency challenge panel to
provide an additional level of accountability. This is made up of
experienced people from across the corporate world, and brings
an objective view to our plans.
In 2013/14 we published our most popular category to date, delays
explained (networkrail.co.uk/timetables-and-travel/delays-explained)
which explains to people, in plain English, the challenges the network
faces and what we are doing to overcome them.
To be a company respected for our openness,
honesty and accessibility, setting the standard for
transparency and ethics in the corporate sector.
Objective Performance against targets
Voluntary disclosure of information
New categories of information published in 2013/14
Actual
22
Target
20
Categories
of information
published since
we began
our voluntary
disclosure
scheme in
June 2012
69
58
Our approach
Increased engagement for all employees
Our Code of Business Ethics sets out the principles and standards
of business behaviour expected of all employees. It provides
practical guidance on how to deal with situations that may arise
in day-to-day activities and covers 22 topics ranging from conflicts
of interest to gifts and hospitality and social media.
Employees can report concerns of unethical behaviour through the
ethics email address or through our Speak Out (whistleblowing)
service. Speak Out is managed by an independent third party
(InTouch). Speak Out provides employees with the opportunity
to report wrongdoing confidentially and anonymously, by phone
or online, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We are
committed to increasing the number of calls to the Speak Out line.
In 2012/2013, the average number of calls to the line was 11 per
month. In 2013/014, the average number of calls to the line was
17 per month.
iEthics is our online register for employees to log offers of gifts
and hospitality and conflicts of interest. We upgraded it in 2013.
The number of registrations on iEthics has increased compared to
this time in 2013/14 and the volume of enquiries has increased
suggesting employees are more engaged with the subject than
they have been previously.
In an employee survey in November 2013, 75 per cent of
respondents responded positively to the question I understand
how Network Rails Code of Business Ethics applies to me in my
day-to-day work. We recognise that whilst this is a positive result,
there is more work to be done across the business.
On sites and projects
Over and above our Speak Out service, our infrastructure projects
teams have whistleblowing mechanisms in place for employees,
contractors and contingent labour working on our sites and
projects (e.g. Thameslink). This enables people to report unethical
behaviour, and as well as concerns around health and safety and
impact on the environment.
Handling queries from the public
Weve worked to streamline how we handle requests for
information. To improve our capability to respond to them in a
prompt and helpful way, weve held internal events to promote our
approach to transparency, explaining to our people what it means
for them in their day to day work.
Throughout 2013-14, we worked to respond to requests for
information within 20 working days. We received over 200
requests for information and answered 85% per cent of them in
this timeframe.
We will build on this success in the course of 2014-15, and
again when we become subject to the Freedom of Information
Act in April 2015.
Theres nothing HEROIC about
breaking our Code of Business Ethics
Search for Not So Superheroes on Connect to nd out more about Captain Conicted and his friends...
MRS
SILENCE
MR
CORRUPTION
LAX
LUTHER
THE
BLUE
TWEETER
MR
BLAME
STORM
MR
NEPOTIST
CAPTAIN
CONFLICTED
BARON
BACKHANDER
DIVERSITY
DESTROYER
MISS
CARELESS
THE
DODGY
DEALER
THE
DISPOSER
59
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Preparing to handle requests for information under
the Freedom of Information Act
Putting transparency at the heart of how we work,
including continuing to improve and expand our
proactive publication scheme
Benchmarking our transparency and ethics work against
other organisations, and learning from the best in areas
like whistleblowing.
Case study
Open data and data feeds
Starting in June 2012, we have made available a range of real time train
running feeds from our operational systems. Consistent with the principles
of the Governments open data agenda, these have allowed a range
of developers to build and improve websites and smart phone apps
which show the public whats happening on the network in real time
and enable them to make more informed journey choices.We held a
stakeholder event in December 2013 which helped us focus our plans
for open data.
Our data feeds allow our industry, customers and communities to
benefit from information shared and are being used in exciting and
interesting initiatives. These include the Live Public Performance
Measure web app, which presents real time network performance
information and is used extensively in and outside the rail industry;
raildar.co.uk which features live departure boards for every station
on the network and an interactive train position map alongside a
wider range of performance statistics; and the CityMapper app,
which combines our timetable and running data with that of
other transport providers to allow passengers to plan journeys
and give them up to the minute travel information.
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60
Integrating sustainable development
We are building momentum across
our business, amongst our industry
partners and across our supply
chain to deliver our sustainable
development priorities. We are
giving direction and focus to
existing initiatives, developing
new ones and joining up activity
across our business and industry
Objectives
Why it matters
Rail has long been recognised as more environmentally
sustainable than other forms of transport, because the
environmental impact of transporting goods and people by rail
has and continues to be lower than by road and aviation. The
connectivity created by the network is also critical to driving
economic growth.
Whilst we deliver many sustainability outcomes very successfully,
we recognise that some organisations outside the rail industry
have been addressing certain issues more quickly than our
sector, in part due to the greater attention their sustainability
performance receives from governments and civil society. We
are working with stakeholders and joining up activity across
our business, to ensure we dont fall behind and to succeed in
delivering a railway fit for the future.
To focus our investment
on enhancing the
sustainability of the
railway and design
sustainability into
everything we do.
To put in place the
foundations to deliver
and maintain a sustainable
business through our
business functions
and routes.
To invest in our capacity
and capability to make
us more sustainable
and introduce
innovative sustainable
technologies.
To communicate both
the role rail plays in
making Great Britain more
sustainable and the benefits
of a more sustainable
approach to business.
61
Progress
Sustainable development integrated plan
Stakeholders from across our business have worked together to
plan the actions required to deliver the priorities outlined in our
sustainable development strategy. This involved a through and
detailed planning process, including specialist horizon scanning,
business wide consultation, and facilitated workshops for each
priority area. These have now been drawn together into our
sustainable development integrated plan, which we have
begun to implement.
Environmental management system
We have developed a manual for our environmental management
system (EMS) in conformance with the ISO 14001 standard.
This EMS interfaces with all our key business units and supports
functions to develop business unit specific EMSs. Our National
Delivery Service (now a part of National Supply Chain) has an ISO
14001 certified EMS covering our procurement of and reprocessing
of used key materials; Thameslink programme has achieved an ISO
14001 certified EMS and maintained certification; Infrastructure
Projects is in the final stages of seeking certification for a function
wide EMS; and our routes are each in the process of developing
their own EMS in support of the organisation wide system.
Embedding sustainability within Infrastructure
Projects
Many of the supply chain arrangements for delivery of our
Control Period 5 (20142019) spending commitments have
been established in the last year following competitive tender
processes. Our Central region developed a set of 10 social and
environmental sustainability requirements, which, with the
support of Business in the Community, were inserted into the
tender and contract award processes for the establishment of
their CP5 works frameworks. Contracts for up to 2.5bn of works
are likely to be awarded off these frameworks. Our Wales and
Western region have also used these sustainability requirements.
Business critical rules
We are rationalising our existing, somewhat unwieldy framework
of standards into a set of controls focused on better managing
and mitigating key business risks. This will result in summarising
our most significant controls within business critical rules, and
will be supported by guidance, procedures and training to embed
these across our business. Over the last year we have made
substantial progress driving this programme, including developing
and trialling the whole framework for our management of our
track asset.
Measuring sustainability performance
Over the last year we have procured and implemented advanced
software to enable us to better measure and monitor performance
across our key sustainability areas. This system, CRedit 360 is now
live in our business providing us the ability to track and analyse
performance in a way that has not existed before.
Embedding sustainability into our buildings and
civil structures
We are using third party schemes to evaluate the sustainability
performance of our infrastructure as we deign and build it. This
enables us to benchmark our activities against those of our
peers. We have set out a policy to always employ sustainable
certification methodologies (e.g. CEEQUAL or BREEAM) on
buildings and operational property projects that exceed 2m in
value and use targets appropriate to the project in question.
CEEQUAL (Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment)
is a sustainability assessment, rating and awards scheme for civil
engineering. Examples of recent use are:
The Borders Rail project, which involves reopening part of the
former Waverley line from Edinburgh to Tweedbank; Whole
Project Interim Excellent Award (87 per cent)
The Stafford Area Improvement Programme; Interim Design
and Client Excellent Award (97.4 per cent)
Thameslink Programme; Whole Project Excellent Awards to
Tanners Hill (77.7 per cent) and Borough Viaduct (88.9 per
cent) and Interim Design Excellent Awards to Bermondsey
Dive Under (96.3 per cent) and London Bridge (98.2 per cent).
Thameslink is also our first project to apply the new CEEQUAL
Term Contracts to a track and signalling project.
BREEAM (the Building Research Establishment Environmental
Assessment Model) is an environmental assessment method and
rating system for buildings. Examples of recent use are:
Birmingham New Street station; BREEAM very good rating
for its design stage
The lamp block building on Platform 1 at Birmingham New
Street station; BREEAM excellent
Wakefield Westgate Gateway Station; BREEAM excellent.
62
Awards
National Rail Awards 2013:
Thameslink Programme won the Environmental Excellence award
Our Cannon Street station was named Major Station of the Year
South West Trains and Network Rail won the Maintenance Team of the
Year award and Outstanding Teamwork award.
At the British Construction Awards 2013, the BestPractice Award was won by
Thameslinks Borough Viaduct and partners Network Rail, Atkins, Jestico &
Whiles and Skanska UK Civil Engineering.
Our approach
Governance
Weve established a governance structure so that our board and
executive committee take responsibility for the leadership and
success of all our sustainable development priorities. Review
and assurance on sustainability priorities is provided by the
Safety, Heath and Environment (SHE) committee, which is a
sub committee of the board. The board receives monthly SHE
performance reports, approves the annual corporate safety and
sustainable development audit programme and takes reports
from the chair of the SHE committee.
The safety and sustainable development (S&SD) executive is the
key decision making body for sustainability and reports into the
executive committee. The S&SD executive is supported by the
S&SD integration group, which integrates sustainability issues
across the business, and a series of key working groups that lead
and manage the agenda across a range of sustainability issues;
for example, the environmental steering group and track worker
safety group.
Risk management
Our corporate enterprise risk management (ERM) framework
explains how we manage risk, including that related to sustainable
development priorities. ERM is a comprehensive and integrated
approach to managing risks at all levels of the business that have
the potential to significantly impact the achievement of our key
objectives. This year, we have increasingly used an objective
centred bow tie approach to risk management across our
business.
Sustainable procurement and supply chain
management
Sustainable development priorities are included in the
processes for procurement and contact award through the use
a sustainable procurement toolkit (e.g. when establishing our
supply chain, recently, for lifts and escalators). This is reinforced
by a requirement that at least five per cent of total evaluation
points are allocated to sustainability issues when tendering for
infrastructure project works.
Sector working
We are active members of a number of industry wide,
sustainability forums:
We participate in international, European and national rail
industry groups, all of which address sustainability issues; the
International Union of Railways, the European Rail Agency, the
UKs Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) and the UKs Rail
Industry Association (RIA), which represents UK-based railway
suppliers to the worlds railways
The RSSB has a sustainable rail programme. This is supported
by a sustainable development steering group and supporting
rail sustainable development group we are active members of
this programme. RIA has a sustainable development group (to
which we contribute) but the organisation also plays an active
role in our Infrastructure Projects commercial directors forum
The Rail Delivery Group provides leadership to the UK rail
industry to improve services to rail users and value for money
for taxpayers. We currently have a staff member seconded to
them
Our former chief executive David Higgins chaired the
development of the key UK Industry Strategy Construction
2025: Government and Industry in Partnership This maps
a vision and action plan for achievement, by the UK
construction industry, over the next decade, including a 50
per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the built
environment. We remain part of the Construction Leadership
Council to contribute to delivery of this strategy
We have participated in the Green Construction Boards
infrastructure working group. The working group developed
the Infrastructure Carbon Review, which sets out actions for
the Government, clients and suppliers to reduce carbon from
the construction and operation of the UKs infrastructure
assets, in line with the UKs climate change commitments. The
recommendations have the potential to reduce up to 24 million
tonnes of carbon and save the UK 1.46bn a year by 2050.
As part of the Reviews launch in November 2013, we signed
a Statement of Endorsement which is published on the Green
Construction Boards website www.greenconstructionboard.org
63
Case study 2
Loughor
Viaduct, Wales
Loughor Viaduct is a historic structure
built in 1852. We and Carillion have
undertaken a major project to replace
the viaduct, making it a double track
for the rst time in almost 30 years
eliminating a bottleneck on the line
between Llanelli and Carmarthen.
Particular care was required as the bridge
is Grade II listed and located in or adjacent
to protected sites that host around 20,000
over-wintering birds each year.
The local ecological habitat was considered
and protected, for example by using elevating
barges instead of coferdams to carry the piling
equipment and cranes to install the foundations.
This enabled us to work continuously within the
tidal environment, minimised disturbance to
the river bed and enabled works to be completed
outside of the bird over-wintering period. We
further managed our environmental impacts by:
Using mains electricity instead of diesel
generators to reduce noise and poor air quality
Buying only responsibly sourced timber
Recycling or reusing all of our waste materials on site
or within the local community.
What happens next
Our focus in 2014/15 will be on:
Developing and reporting on a comprehensive range of
sustainable development metrics and Key Performance Indicators
that will be externally assured, using CRedit 360 to support this
Fully implementing a Network Rail Environmental Management
System in accordance with the ISO 14001 standard
Finalising our integrated plan and publishing a summary of our
commitments in the public domain
Embedding sustainable development requirements that within
the key processes and policies that underpin our investment in
new infrastructure.
Case study 1
Stafford Area improvements
programme
Along the West Coast Main Line near Staford lies the Norton Bridge,
which has been a bottleneck for many years. With our partners Atkins,
Laing ORourke, and VolkerRail we are undertaking a project to con-
struct a yover, 10km of new track, 12 new bridge structures, four river
diversions and major environmental mitigation works. This will make
journeys between London, the Midlands, North West and Scotland
faster, more frequent and more reliable.
Sustainability considerations have been addressed at every stage of
the design and construction of the scheme. Engagement and con-
sultation with the local community and stakeholders is central to
the projects success. From an ecological point of view, benets are
incorporated into the design for the river diversions that increased
the channel length and created new wetland areas and back
waters that are suitable for nationally scarce invertebrates found
on-site, thereby increasing the diversity and abundance of ora
and fauna in the area.
Case study 3
Infrastructure Projects
Commercial Directors
Forum Sustainability
Charter
44 members of Infrastructure Projects Commercial
Directors Forum have signed a Sustainability
Charter. This commits our teams, most significant
contractors and partners to actively support,
promote and aspire to advance standards on
sustainability so that we deliver social, economic
and environmental benefits through our works.
The forum intends to use the Charter to deliver
on Infrastructure Projects commitment to
work to the spirit of the Public Services (Social
Value) Act 2012, although we do not come
under the scope of that legislation.
64
Independent Assurance Statement
Our scope
Network Rail commissioned DNV Two
Tomorrows Limited (DNV GL) to
undertake independent assurance of its
2014 Sustainability Update (the Report).
The Report covers the financial year of
01 April 2013 to 31 March 2014.
The assurance was provided in relation to selected
data and claims within the Report in relation to the
following sections:
Natural Resources
Land
Energy and Carbon
Employee engagement and development
Climate Change Adaptation
These sections were selected by Network Rail
as part of a rolling programme of assurance
which retains a focus on certain critical topics
whilst aiming to widen the scope of assurance
across the sustainability update over time.
Operating, performance and safety data
is audited separately by the Office of Rail
Regulation (ORR).
65
Our approach
We performed our work using DNV GLs assurance methodology.
This is based on our professional experience and international
assurance best practice and standards, including reference to
the International Standard on Assurance Engagements 3000
(Revised) Assurance Engagements Other Than Audits and
Reviews of Historical Financial Information.
We are providing a limited level of assurance. Our work focused
on information held at corporate level and we did not conduct site
visits to any of Network Rails operational locations.
We planned and performed our work to obtain the evidence
we considered necessary to provide a basis for our assurance
conclusions. This included selecting data and claims related
to these data which we considered to be the most material to
Network Rails stakeholders limited to the five sections stated
above.
Basis of our opinion
A team of sustainability and assurance specialists performed
work at Group level. Our assurance work included the following
activities:
Conducting interviews with seven members of Network Rail
staff at Head Office, responsible for data and report narrative
in relation to the five areas stated above. This was in order to
gain an understanding of how these issues are managed and
how data are aggregated at corporate level.
Reviewing the data collection and consolidation processes used
to compile annual data for the Report. This includes checking
assumptions made, the data scope and boundaries.
Sampling selected evidence to conduct checks of consolidated
datasets against raw source data.
Conducting a review of the 2013 Sustainability Report to
ensure consistency with assured data.
Responsibilities of Network
Rail and DNV GL
Network Rail has sole responsibility for the preparation of the
Report.
In performing our assurance work, our responsibility is to Network
Rail; our statement represents our independent opinion and is
intended to inform all stakeholders, including its management.
We were not involved in the preparation of any part of the 2014
Sustainability Update. However, having reviewed the report in
relation to the data we have assured, in a number of instances
changes were made to the final version.
We have not provided Network Rail with any other services during
the reporting period.
Our conclusions
On the basis of the work undertaken, nothing came to our
attention to suggest that the data published in the Sustainability
Update, within the scope of our work, is materially misstated.
We have seen evidence that Network Rail is demonstrating
good practice in areas such as the ongoing work to incorporate
embodied carbon and climate change adaptation into its
decision-making processes and strategy. The smart meter
programme is another example where Network Rail is improving
the quality of its data by reducing reliance on estimates, and at
the same time delivering cost savings. We have also seen evidence
of improvements being made to employee related processes such
as training and development and continued consultation.
This years report is a Sustainability Update and is intended
to provide an overview of performance and progress, especially
via use of case studies. We recommend that as Network Rail
continues to improve and revise its sustainability reporting
and assurance processes, risks, material issues and stakeholder
feedback should be analysed as part of a formalised process.
The report should be more closely linked to performance against
Network Rails Sustainability Strategy, A Railway Fit for the
Future, 2013 -2024 and provide greater detail on the challenges
it faces to address these areas.
Without affecting our assurance opinion, we make the following
observations in relation to accuracy of data and associated
narrative:
We recommend that Network Rail formalises and documents
the data management processes behind each reporting area
and dataset, to ensure consistency year-on-year. This should
include details of the reporting scope, and any assumptions,
limitations and exclusions.
Environmental information is currently sourced from a number
of systems, with final datasets being manually calculated or
collated. We understand that Network Rail is improving its
environmental data management systems and that this will
contribute to improved processes and a reduction in manual
calculation.
There is reliance upon the waste data provided by contractors,
and this data contributes nearly all of Network Rails waste.
The audit processes for these data are currently separate
from the reporting process, and more overlap between the
two would be beneficial. It is recommended that Network Rail
increase its oversight and checking of these data in this area to
ensure that contractor data is accurate and robust.
Current employee performance management procedures
are paper-based, making it difficult to obtain data and have
complete oversight of how they are used. We understand that
Network Rail plans to implement electronic systems in this
area.
DNV Two Tomorrows Limited
London, June 2014
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