Economic regulation

The Value for Money Study was commissioned jointly by the Department for Transport and the Office of Rail Regulation. The Study's final report puts forward a wide range of recommendations focused on creating an industry environment which encourages cost reduction, changes which deliver new efficiencies, and mechanisms to drive implementation. The Study estimates that implementing these

Our long-term regulatory statement – 'Opportunities and Challenges for the Railway' – discusses how our regulation may develop in line with the changing shape of the industry, and identifies priorities for the growth and sustainability of Britain's railways. Railways have been a major success story for the past decade. Passenger demand is at the highest ever and freight numbers are growing. This

Independent reporters provide professional advice to the ORR on the quality of Network Rail's service provision, as specified in its licence.

The industry’s planning process is led by Network Rail to develop strategic proposals for the rail network through analysis and consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. This is done to inform decisions on long term plans, made primarily by governments. The process seeks to identify the future demand for the capability and capacity of the network, through a series of assessments in market

Condition 1 of the network licence sets out Network Rail's core obligations to secure the operation, maintenance, renewal and enhancement of the network in order to satisfy the reasonable requirements of its customers and funders. This covers both the quality and capability of the network and the facilitation of railway service performance. The condition includes some specific obligations on

Consents are considered where Network Rail approaches us to undertake activities that are restricted by conditions in its network licence. Conditions 16, 18 and 17 The main conditions where Network Rail applies for consent are conditions 16 (Financial ring-fence), 18 (Interests in rolling stock and train operators) and 17 (Land disposal). Consents are issued on the basis of the information

Network Rail's network licence requires it to comply with the conditions we set in the public interest. In connection with the 2018 periodic review, we revised Network Rail’s network licence to reflect the devolution of responsibility to geographical areas, designated as routes (now called regions), and a System Operator within the organisation. The licence also reflects the policy in our overall

On 30 July 2007, we imposed a penalty of £2.4m for Network Rail's breach of its licence in failing adequately to evaluate and mitigate the risks associated with the Portsmouth resignalling project and to manage its contractor in line with best practice. The documents below provide more background to our decision. Portsmouth Resignalling - enforcement - letter to NR 6 Sep 2007 Portsmouth

On 2 March 2006, we imposed a fine of £250,000 on Network Rail for its failure to ensure the information it made available to the industry on the capability of its infrastructure was accurate. Infrastructure Capability - letter to NR regarding completion of final milestones in the recovery plan PDF icon PDF, 103 Kb 10 Jan 2008 Infrastructure Capability - Breach of Network Licence - Letter from

On 13 May 2008, we imposed a penalty of £14m on Network Rail because of systemic weaknesses in Network Rail's planning and execution of engineering work which represented a serious and continuing breach of its licence. These problems were exposed in our investigation into the overruns into the New Year. Improving project delivery - 2010 Audits - ORR letter to Network Rail 15 Jul 2010 Improving