Assessing the potential for a ‘railway renaissance’ in Great Britain

Abstract British Rail was privatised by the Conservative government of 1992–1997. This privatisation was driven primarily by political ideology and there is little to suggest the policy was implemented as part of an integrated transport strategy designed to encourage modal shift from road to rail. Since privatisation, however, passenger numbers and freight shipments have risen in absolute and relative terms and the current Labour administration has stated that its transport strategy offers the potential for a ‘railway renaissance’. In this paper, we question whether, four years on from the publication of the new strategy, such a renaissance––that is, a 50% increase in passenger kilometres and an 80% increase in freight kilometres by 2010, along with a degree of modal shift to rail from car and lorry––can be achieved given recent developments both within the rail industry and in government transport policy.

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