Rail journeys in West Midlands have ‘doubled’

Listen to this article

Rail journeys in the West Midlands have ‘almost doubled in a decade’, the West Midlands’ transport chief has said.

Centro’s Geoff Inskip is set to tell a parliamentary inquiry into high speed rail that in order for the region ‘to cope with escalating demand for rail services’, the HS2 project ‘must happen’ as soon as possible.

Centro has been invited to give evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for High Speed Rail at Westminster on April 18.

The APPG inquiry has been set up to examine the UK’s rail capacity needs.

Mr Inskip will report that 22.8 million passenger journeys were made in the West Midlands area in 2000/01 yet this had almost doubled to 42.8 million journeys by 2010/11.

Mr Inskip said that HS2 would bring 22,000 jobs and generate £1.5bn for the West Midlands economy while ‘freeing up desperately needed capacity on the existing network’.

Looking ahead to the inquiry, Mr Inskip said:

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in rail in the West Midlands.

“But what is often overlooked is the important fact that HS2 releases capacity for more train services on our existing lines allowing us to provide better local and regional rail in our region.

“It might not grab the headlines but it’s vital because this means we can get more people to work, reduce congestion and overcrowding and take freight off our roads. This will significantly boost our economy.”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Rail News

ORR review leads to 50% reduction in maximum fees for ticket refunds

New rules will mean that from 2 April the maximum fee that train operators and ticket retailers can charge...

More like this...