Presentation to:

Inaugural meeting of North East Rail Forum – July 2014

Jerry FarquharsonDirector of Business PlanningFirst ScotRail

Background• 95% of passenger rail services in

Scotland

• 2,300 services a day / 351 stations

• Caledonian Sleeper: 800 beds between Scotland and London

• Over 4,700 staff – up more than 35% since start of franchise

• Strathclyde rail network the largest outside London

• Train miles increased by 19% to 44.4m

• Punctuality improvement

– 6th highest in the UK:

– 2nd highest of regional TOCs

Since 2004 …..

• Introduced an hourly service between Aberdeen and Inverurie with 2500 extra seats;

• Introduced enhanced level of Sunday services to and from Aberdeen;

• Re-opened Laurencekirk Station - after absence of 42 years;

• Rolled out Wifi at stations and on trains.

Making the North East of Scotland a better place to live and work

Since 2004 …..

• Aberdeen : Installation of first class lounge, refurbishment of public toilets, automatic ticket gates and a new car park with more than 100 spaces;

• Dyce : new footbridge and lifts, and a bus link operated by Stagecoach;

• Insch : car park extension with up to 34 extra spaces;

• Inverurie : new cycle shelter and station café.

Making the North East of Scotland a better place to live and work

Aberdeen City4.4m passenger journeys in 2013-14 – up 65%

Aberdeenshire1.4m passenger journeys in 2013-14 – up 98%

North East area: More than 7m passenger journeys a year – up almost 50%

Since 2004 …..

2014-15

• Extension of one or two services to Huntly;• Additional evening peak service to Inverurie;• Off peak fares frozen in 2014 / peak fares RPI -1%• Aberdeen - New ‘Ticket On Demand’ Machine• Dyce - New waiting shelter, Ticket Vending Machine (TVM)• Elgin - Access For All Funding• Portlethen - Platform extension, TVM• Huntly - Replacement of Customer Information System (CIS), new

cycle shelter• Insch - Replacement of CIS• All Stations - Smart - Platform RolloutValidators on all Stations, up-

grade of all TVMs and re-painting/re-branding by end of 2014

 

Future Issues…

 

Future Issues:• Rail capacity – to the north and south of Aberdeen;• Local versus Long Distance train service specification;• Journey times to Glasgow, Edinburgh and ?;• Extremity of commuting belt north of Aberdeen, Is it:

– Inverurie,– Huntly, – Or ?

• Seating capacities• Interchange at Aberdeen station;• Integration with other transport modes

Supporting the North East economy

FraFraser of Allander Institute Economic Impact Report: • ScotRail injects some £17.6million a year into the North East

economy alone as a result of its activities;

• Enables total employment of 670 people in the North East;

• Every ScotRail job supports an additional 1.45 jobs elsewhere - and that for every £1 paid to its employees, another £0.99 in wages is generated in Scotland.