Rail improvements

The UK's ambition on rail must not stop at High Speed

The delivery of high speed rail is some way off and in the meantime a great deal of business travel will be done via regular rail services. Throughout the recession the only mode of business travel that continued to grow was rail.

Business travellers' priorities for the redevelopment of major rail stations concerned the importance of stations as a working environment and the need to ensure work space, power and broadband connectivity.

The GTMC will look to the Government to assist the business traveller by limiting the prices charged for on-day travel. Business customers do not always have a long lead-in time and are penalised for having to travel at short notice.

Equally the GTMC looks to the Government to ensure that parking charges at mainline stations are controlled and not used to generate revenue to off-set caps on rail fares.

Finally, the GTMC looks to those bidding for new franchises to consider how working space and connectivity can be improved on board trains for passengers in all standards of travel.