 Felly, wrth gwrs, wrth gwrs, yn gweithio gwaith i Gweithio'r 9 yng Nghymru yn 2016 ar gyfer y Cyfnodol i Gweithio Pryddol Cymru. Mae gwybod, wrth gwrs, yn cymdeithasol i sicrhau gweithio'r gwybod mwy o'r ddechrau sydd ei ffordd gyda'r cymoedd cyffinidig. Byddwch chi'n gweithio'r cyfyrdd i gyd yn gweithio'r cyfyrdd cyfyrdd cyfyrdd cyfyrdd cyfyrdd cyfyrdd cyfyrdd cyfyrdd cyfyrdd cyfyrdd The Apologies have been received from Siobhan McMahon. Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. The first item on the agenda is for the committee to decide whether to consider its annual report for the parliamentary year from 11 May 2015 to 23 March 2016 and its legacy paper in private at its next meeting. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The second item on the agenda today is to take evidence from the ScotRail Alliance. Following the committee's inquiry into access to Scotland's major railway stations, Phil Verster, the managing director of the ScotRail Alliance, committed to updating the committee on matters raised in its inquiry, as well as providing a general update on the operations of the ScotRail Alliance. I welcome Phil Verster, managing director at the ScotRail Alliance, and I invite Mr Verster to make a short opening statement. Thank you very much, convener. Members of the committee really appreciate the opportunity to be here. I found the comments and questions at the previous meeting very helpful. I hope that our correspondence and answers that we have given has helped to clarify some of the questions raised. Going forward, in whatever shape this committee has reconstituted under the new Parliament, I would sincerely like and be very keen to continue to contribute to the workings of this committee and any questions that we can clarify, any issues that we can clarify, and any clarity that we can give you on Scotland's railway is always a good opportunity for us. Thank you, Mr convener. That concludes your opening statement. Would you like me to pick up on a few highlights? I would like to pick up, if possible, on a few highlights. Since we've met, and I'll just pick up on a few of the key items that have been really important for us to build on the spirit of the things that we discussed at the previous meeting. As you would have seen at Haymarket, for example, which was a clear station for discussion last time round, we are now building a cycle hub that will take the 22 spaces to 90 spaces. The point is not that we're doing that. As we had this really good conversation last time round, it is about working closely with the City of Edinburgh Council and Sustrans to make sure that this is consulted outside of what was called the so-called red line. I'm very excited about that, and I think cycling, especially at Haymarket, is really important to fix. Another one would be, as you're probably aware, that we've found a way forward with land securities and the development of the Buchanan Galleries development in Glasgow, so that both programmes, both the Egypt programme and the renewal of Glasgow Queen Street as well as the Buchanan Galleries development can fit into a delivery timeline over the next couple of years. That was also a big development in terms of thinking across the so-called red line and working collaboratively with SPT, Glasgow City Council, as well as with network rail projects and with land securities. We've created, on the Aberdeen to Inverness line, for example, we've created what are called informed groups. As that is a major enhancement of the Aberdeen to Inverness line, there is a huge focus on engaging local communities and to make sure that we have lots of visibility and lots of clarity to local communities in terms of our programmes, as well as our objectives, also engages with access groups and is very useful. Fourth important thing is, as you know, we've opened the North Ramp at Waverly for cyclists. That's working reasonably well. We still, every now and again, have a delivery van parked, blocking the cycling route. But for cyclists, this is a big step forward and it's great for the development of cycling access to our major stations. Gateway, Edinburgh Gateway is a fantastic new station that you will see on your way to the airport, close to Gogar. It's fantastic for us as a new multi-modal connection point for travelling around the Edinburgh area. That also succeeded to get quite a lot of access groups as well as quite a lot of different groups such as the City of Edinburgh Council engaged with network rail to make sure that we have a development that is constructive and that meets the requirements of all stakeholders. I think that's perhaps the refrain and the message of what we have done since we've met with the committee last time. A huge focus to make sure that there's significantly more conversation, discussion and clarity between different interest groups where we as a railway interface through the local community. I would like to pick up on one more and that will be the taxi rank we are proposing in the New Street car park to develop a taxi rank for Waverly. That will be a drop-off facility and a pickup facility would be in the New Street car park. We're working again very closely with the City of Edinburgh Council and I think that would give us a significantly better taxi facility than what we have at Market Street currently. That was also a consequence of that earlier decision a couple of years ago to summarily move the taxi rank and I think we've worked very closely with Edinburgh to make sure that we have a better way forward than where the council is currently and where taxi facilities are currently. Perhaps just to close, we have as a business, as a ScotRail Alliance, we have a massive focus on customers and customers are the centre point of our roadmap and our strategy. I'm very pleased to share with the committee that we scored a 90% score of customers that are satisfied or very satisfied with our services in the autumn 2015 National Rail Passenger Survey. The National Rail Passenger Survey is the definitive survey of customer satisfaction across all train operators and of all of the big train operators as in ourselves with 2,300 plus services that operate per day we were one of the operators that scored the best in this passenger survey. That does not mean we have achieved everything we have to achieve. We know there is loads we can do to improve the railway still. We have a huge programme going forward. £475 million of investment in our rolling stock fleets would be important to address busy trains, punctuality programmes to make sure our punctuality improves even more than what we have improved at this year and to make sure that our customer satisfaction in the years to come is more than what it is now. If I could close with that, Mr Convenant. Very much, Mr Verstyr. Perhaps I could kick off just by asking you. You mentioned the railway interface with the general public and with stakeholders more generally. Can you tell us a little bit about how you have gone about improving that engagement with rail industry stakeholders, particularly with regard to the major train redevelopment projects across the country? If I could divide my answer in two parts. Since we have met last time, we have formed a stakeholder advisory panel and a stakeholder equality panel. These two panels are really important for us. We engage people from all over Scotland and all over the different sectors of life in these stakeholder advisory panels and in the stakeholder equality panel. These two panels are not where business gets done, though. These two panels are places where we can reflect, take stock on whether the strategy of what we're doing with equality groups and access groups and then in the wider sense with our stakeholders in general meets the requirements of the railway. So that would be the first answer. I'm very pleased that we've got that in place because it's really important for us to not just do tactical stuff but to also reflect on whether we are strategically keeping in the run. We're keeping on the right track. Then on a tactical basis, every enhancement project, every redevelopment project on the railway is allocated a communications team member. The communications team member facilitates interactions and I can take Abedin to Inverness and I can take Egypt as two examples. They facilitate interfaces with local communities, with access groups and the discussions around what needs to be done to support what the local communities require can vary between projects. These communications members are the facilitators of those discussions. If I give you an example on the Waverley platform extension, the Edinburgh stations accessibility forum was consulted on that, but even more than that, key stakeholders were invited to a meeting in December to discuss access concerns and access requirements. I think that that becomes less of a thing to do on a programme and just part of our basic approach now to all of our programmes. I think that that will continue going forward. Since you gave Edinburgh Waverley as an example, it gives me the perfect opportunity to ask you about the progress that's been made there. You mentioned opening the north ramp for cyclists, and I know that that has been very much welcomed by cycling organisations. Full marks for that. You said that there have been discussions with the Edinburgh access panel to take on board the needs of disabled people. You mentioned that you are looking at the feasibility of a taxi rank at New Street car park entrance, which would be an improvement on existing arrangements. Have you done that as a result of the discussions that you have had with disabled people and people with a visual impairment in particular? Yes, we have. With regard to the facilities that we have in Colton Road, for example, a direct consequence of the conversations that we have had with people with reduced mobility, we have added the shelter, we have added better communications linked to our mobility assistance team, and we have taken the considerations of the access groups or groups that deal with people with reduced mobility on board to deal with wavefinding within Waverley Aswell. Wavefinding has been improved, and I dare say that we now regularly invite different disability groups back into Waverley to give us running commentary on what they think needs to be changed still. It is not even as if it is a once-off event to consult. I know for a fact that my custom experience director met a group from Max a couple of weeks ago at Waverley again to discuss the changes that we have made at Waverley. Is there a process of continuous dialogue and improvement to meet the needs of your stakeholders, particularly disabled people? I think so, and I think we'll continue to do that. I can only say that at nearly every occasion when we meet with different groups, we get different information every time, useful information, and every time it allows us to just consider again what our policies are, what our strategies are and what we can adjust. So, this is more than just a meet to hear complaints. This is becoming something that will drive our policies into the future to be more focused on customers. The feedback that we received as a committee from disabled organisations is that since taxis were denied access to Waverley station, it has been far more difficult for disabled people to have a seamless journey from the taxi to the train and from the train to the taxi. Notwithstanding your commitment to engage in a constructive way with those organisations, they still feel that what we have today is inferior to what previously existed. What I wanted to ask you was whether there is any way that you would be willing to consider community transport organisations that exist and operate in the city of Edinburgh having access to the station and whether your discussions have looked at the issue of specific disabled organisations and people being able to use taxis on a licenced basis that would allow them to gain access to the station? The challenge for us in terms of access to the station is as we get closer and closer to the work that we are going to do related to Egypt and the platform work close to the south ramp, is that access to the station for vehicles themselves are going to be very, very difficult. The proposition we have, which is a very strong proposition, is the new street car park. It is a significant improvement for any group of people with reduced mobility and we are working very closely with the city of Edinburgh council to get that work started around June and July. We have consulted with different disability groups and access groups on what that would be as a solution and the response has been broadly constructive and positive. It is a definite improvement on what we have at market street currently. It is like a note to me in terms of access to vehicles into the station for disabled people. On now, in the interim, till we do... If that is something that I can take away, I will think about that. I will take that away and come back to you. Dave Stewart has a supplementary on that. You recall that we took quite a lot of evidence in this, Mr Verster, and I think myself along with other colleagues. We were just expressing some surprise why vehicles were moved from Waverly, but other stations such as Aberdeen have access to cars direct into the station. Is there any particular security reasons why Waverly is being treated differently from other stations across the network? There was some question mark, there were some security issues, but I do not think that we ever got to the bottom of that particular issue. I know that it is probably before your time, but I am just interested. Apart from the work, I take the point that there is some work to be carried out in the station. The point that I am making is why was a decision made to remove the taxis, for example, from within Waverly. In other stations that is not the case. Is there any security reason why Waverly has been treated differently? Waverly was treated like that because of the high footfall and the high risk that vehicles pose to customers and to pedestrians within that area of the two ramps. If you look at any of the big national stations of similar size to Waverly, over a period of many years the interaction between road vehicles and pedestrians have been removed and Waverly has been the last station where that was still the case. The consequences, as I explained at the last committee meeting, are the consequences of an incident that happened where someone tragically lost their life, a pedestrian lost their life due to a vehicle that tried to use the access ramp and then reversed into a pedestrian triggered a concern around safety. As I said at the time I don't necessarily think that that was managed in a structured manner as it could have been but it is definitely not in the interest of pedestrians and people on the ground to have vehicles cross the concourse area because that's in effect what happens. It's just not safe and we had to make it safer. The difficulty with reintroducing vehicles is that it's a balance between the safety risks of some and the facilities and features that we provide for people with reduced mobility on the other hand of the equation. Can you confirm in writing to the committee whether or not the decision to remove vehicles from the station was based on security advice? If there is security advice, I understand that you won't be able to share it with us but whether in fact that decision was based on security advice. I will be able to confirm that. Thank you. I'm going to move on. Adam, you have some questions. Can I talk about the Borders Railway? Can you give us an update on the performance of the Borders Railway? Yes, so the Borders Railway, even though I haven't got the statistics with me at this particular moment now, but the Borders punctuality performance have improved systematically over the last couple of months. At the point of introduction, I dare say there was a period of which we expected sort of latent demand or continued interest in the newness of the railway to drive customer numbers. We strengthened trains accordingly. We strengthened weekday trains that we counted peak numbers of passengers on and we also strengthened trains on Saturdays and Sundays. On Sundays now, we run strengthened trains throughout the day because it's that popular and because it's an hourly service. So what I think I indicated to the committee last time around is that with a new railway there's quite a lot of newness that needs to find its way to business as usual. Conductors need to understand how the route works, drivers need to understand how the route works and very often our customer base also have to understand how some of the gadgets work, how ticket vending machines work, how doors operate and doors don't operate, don't open automatically like on the underground, that type of thing and surprising how many little kinks there are to INL during that period. All of those have a potential impact on the service. The service pattern is still really tight because it's a single line railway. Anything that is a failure of a train in a critical location has all of the potential to disrupt the service significantly thereafter. However, we are from my recollection performing in the high 80s, considering that our punctuality performance for Scotrail now is around 90.8%. We expect to close this year at 90.8%. We had an opening performance on the franchise of 90.3%, so we are roughly half a percent better in punctuality and borders is contributing to that as well. So the performance is where we expect it to be now. I'm very keen to continue to strengthen the borders' fleets. In the next three years, as you probably know, we're adding around 180 new coaches and new vehicles to our fleet. Currently, we have a fleet of roughly 800 carriages. We're going to add 180 carriages. We have this £475 million train renewal programme, which is just the biggest rolling stock programme that Scotland's Railway has ever seen. It's a fantastic programme. As we buy over the next three years, as we buy new rolling stock and deploy those across the network, we will continue to strengthen services in places such as Fife as well as the borders. There have been concerns expressed about the Class 158 rolling stock that is currently in use in the borders railway, specifically that more four or six car services should be run and refurbishment should be carried out as a matter of urgency. Do you recognise that? We do, and the Class 158 programme is a refurbishment programme that is ongoing. So part of our £475 million investment is to refurbish quite a number of different fleets. The Class 158 programme is definitely part of that. The challenge for us is time in the sense that the capacity of the companies that provide train refurbishment facilities for us is x, and if we try to put three or four units at a time to get the refurbishment done as quickly as possible, then we run short of units to run the daily service. We try to get that trade-off right, and so we've agreed a programme for the refurbishment of the Class 158 fleet with Transport Scotland, which sort of reflects the practicalities of what we can achieve. I must agree with you that the 158 fleet and the 156 fleet as well, is in need of that critical refurbishment to give it a more modern look and feel. I dare say that when you look at the refurbished units that have come out, like unit 701, it's a fantastic product. The other question I had was that this will be a return to no doubt by others cycle carrying capacity. Has anything been done on the bottles railway to expand cycle carrying capacity? So when we look at cycling, and so I'd like to sort of just create context for the discussion around cycling, when I talk to customers, we always have different needs expressed by the customers. The majority of our customers are keen for seats on trains. So we have a trade-off decision to make between what space we allow for seating and what space we allow for cycling. So what we have on the refurbished Class 158 product is two designated cycling spaces. But we have also agreed with the Department for Transport Accessibility Committee, who is the holder of the keys on all things accessibility-wise, that we can take the second wheelchair space on the Class 158 and we can demarcate that area for useful cycling spaces as well. That's on a single two car. So I know there's been lots of letters and correspondence and questions in Parliament about what availability there will be for cycling spaces. Sometimes the detail is where the answer lies. So when we have these two additional spaces, so there's the two spaces that will be designated and an additional two spaces in the wheelchair area, it can only be operated like that if, as long as we, as ScotRail ensures that the wheelchair area gets priority, should there be a wheelchair user that wants to use that space. And in those circumstances, to just be really practical about it and to be really honest about it, our staff is going to find a way to move those two bicycles and put them on another place on the train. And I see that we are going to continue to provide the facility to move bicycles on all of our fleets. If I can just for a moment give you a sense of, on our Class 385 fleet, which is the new fleet that's coming in, we've got two designated bike spaces. We've got a further two designated bike and cycling spaces in the universal access toilet area where there are flip-up seats, and then we've got two more spaces in the luggage area for folding bicycles. So our commitment to support cyclists is definitely there. But I just want to make a really big point on cycling. We are much, much, much more interested in developing cycling at stations and as a facility to get to our railway. In the end, our trains are not really aimed at moving bicycles. So we are putting 3,500 cycling spaces in the next three and a half years into our stations, and that covers a multitude of stations that also includes putting, in Glasgow, in Edinburgh, as well as in Stirling, very big cycle points that allow a provider of cycling services to overall maintain, resell second hand bicycles and the like. So we are much more keen to support cycling as an active mode of travel that comes to our railway rather than comes on our trains. But in order to account for those people and some cyclists when they talk to me and say, yeah, but I cycle to the railway, I cycle to a station, I get on a train and I cycle at the other end as well. Do you want to buy two bicycles? I say, well, it would be nice if you could. But we have this very difficult balance. I can guarantee you that if I ask a broad spectrum of my customers, what should we do? Should we have two more seats or should we have two more cycling spaces? The vote would probably go to seats. Appreciate that. Alex. Scotland has a wonderful climate and a wide range of ways in which the weather can affect the rail network. This winter has been no different. I wonder if you could take us through some of the reasons for the closures and the underlying causes this winter. Thank you, Mr Johnson. So our railway is very exposed to environmental impacts. And if I pick up on two of the biggest concerns and risks that we are facing, and I'll use a few examples, then the two biggest concerns would be land slips and on the one hand, and scour. Now, scour is a phenomenon whereby the foundations of bridges are endangered due to significantly increased levels of water flow, both level and rate. And land slips are caused by repetitive long duration saturation of the soil levels that over time causes embankments to be unstable. So those are two major risks for us. The risk of embankments are that something happens in the night first, train out, hits a mud slurry on the track and derails. Scour obviously poses massive risk to bridge structures. So if I can use scour as an example and perhaps talk about Lamington, Lamington was just huge for us in terms of its impact and in terms of the phenomenon itself. So give you a rough example and the committee, sort of just a rough indicator of the severity of weather and how it affects us. In the Clyde at Lamington, the water level is typically 0.7, on average, 0.7 of a metre deep, and that is on averages. On the 31st of December, when we started to see the damage at Lamington, it was three metres deep. And just give you a sense of what that means, is if you think of where the deck of the viaduct or the bridge structure is, the water was right underneath the deck level. Now what that does is it causes quite a lot of flows because of that huge volume of water that is more intense and faster the deeper down the structure you go, the deeper down the river you go. And that undermined the one piers of foundations at Lamington, and that was a big concern for us. Now what we have now deployed to Lamington as well, and what we have with structures such as Dahlgeis, in the Patlochry area, which often affects the Highland mainline unfortunately, is a practice whereby when the water level gets above a certain marker, and we call it the amber marker, an amber marker, we caution trains to drive slowly and to be on the lookout for anything abnormal. When it goes above a red marker level, we close the line. We close the line, close the structure, because we prioritise... There is no debate, we prioritise the safety of the structure and the safety of the railway. Over the December-January period, Dahlgeis was affected multiple times, and it really affected the service on the Highland mainline significantly. And so did flooding away from Dahlgeis itself, but on the rest of the Highland mainline as well, we added a washout in a different part of that line. So yes, the amount of water that we are seeing, to put it bluntly, the amount of water and the level of water fall that we are getting, in Scotland, in this last couple of years, is steadily increasing, and it's becoming a real challenge for us to figure out what do we need to do fundamentally different in our renewals plans and in our planning of strengthening of structures as well as the strengthening of bankments and cuttings to make us more robust in our defence against these weather phenomenon. Now we have operational means to respond to severe weather, and the operational means are things like, when we get extraordinary high gusts of winds, for example, which is another weather phenomenon, then we close part of our electric network. If we get certain rainfall levels within certain periods, then we send teams out to go and observe what landslip risk areas are doing, and we therefore have as many defensive operational measures as we can have in defence of severe weather. However, Lamington has brought back a reality to us that we need to think of how we invest in more scour resistant techniques, for example, and a different renewals programme to make our structures more robust. I'm certainly aware of the issue of high rainfall. I was on a train on the east coast mainline between Montrose and Lawnscapck that, on a day when the railway was subsequently closed, the train I was on had to slow to walk in pace and go through deep water as the cuttings filled with rain. You explained the action that you are taking in the short to medium term, but is there a long-term strategy that can be taken with the railways to try and make them more robust against the prevailing weather conditions? There is. The long-term strategy that has been put forward by Network Rail was considered a good strategy at the time, secured a portion of funds over the control period. I can't give you the exact number currently, but I figure around 240 million comes to mind across the country. There is a need for us to take that basic long-term strategy and continue to evolve it to deal with more of the scenarios that we are seeing. If I put that into practical words, if I look at my operational strategy with landslips, I need to translate what I do currently by sending teams of people out to go and look at high-risk landslip sites to something that uses telemetry and electronic measurement, displacement of soil levels must trigger an alarm that just gets sent back to our control. That requires investment, and that's the type of thing that I think is becoming more and more essential for us to put into that long-term strategy. In our planning now for control period 6, which is for the control period from April 29 onwards, we are putting exactly that type of investment proposals to the funders, which in this case would be DFT and Transport Scotland, and that would be part of our long-term strategy. The two things that I've seen done on the railway to deal with the embankment problem is reinforcing with cages full of crushed rock and the more complex is reducing the angles of embankments. Is that the type of work that will continue? That's a really good question because the angles of embankments is generally a good indicator of something that can be done, but it depends very often about what's in that soil on the embankment, and you can have a fairly steep angle, but if it is a good composition, a strong composition strongly supported by structural supports, then that embankment could be perfectly fine as it is. Sometimes the less obvious embankments that has got rubbish over many years that have collected there and it's not as firm in its constitution that poses the risk. Now, my root asset manager for earthworks have got a map and a plan of each length along the railway in terms of what its condition is, what its composition of material is and what the risk is that it poses. We look at those earthworks on a rolling programme, control period after control period, to renew that and to get that into a better condition. We have plans for that. However, your question is still very pertinent. The plans need to be given a different shape and need to in some cases be sped up in order to make us more robust for severe weather. Thank you, convener. I was pleased to hear of the progress with Egypt that you gave in your opening statement. I just wondered if you're confident that the service change is planned for the closure of Queen Street. The high-level station at Queen Street will be able to meet the demands whilst minimising delays. Thank you, Mr Mackenzie. I'm very pleased that you said when you said the closure of Queen Street you added the high-level, because one of the very important messages we're trying very hard to get out to our customer base into Scotland is that Queen Street is not closing. We're open for business and our whole communications campaign is about keeping you moving and that's our banner. So, yes, we have a really big challenge with a new revised timetable. Can I give you a snapshot? So, any weekday I move around 39,000 customers into the high-level. Around 5,200 of them coming in the peak. It's around 366 trains. So, that's the capacity. By the way, on any day when I move 39,000 customers I have capacity running through the high-level of 75,000 seats. So, roughly, and that takes the off-peak also into consideration, roughly we have one out of every two seats occupied on a full-day service pattern. So, a revised timetable is tough and it's tight. What we are doing is, and just talking percentages, around 20% of the people that travel into Queen Street high-level are travelling end-to-end from Edinburgh to Glasgow. So, they are not intermediate station pick-ups, but they are end-to-end. So, we've got a very strong campaign to target that 20% and to convince them to use the air-to-barthgate services, or the service-wise shots. So, in a sweep we're shifting 20% of that capacity that went into the high-level onto air-to-barthgate, four trains per hour, or shots two trains per hour. Then, of the remainder, 65% of the remaining capacity, which brings us to 85%, 65% of the remaining capacity, we are redirecting through the low-level. So, the low-level now becomes really, really busy. Those are services from Falkirk High, Lynlithgo, and the existing services, the Helenspress, the Mulguys that continue to run through the station, all going through the low-level. And provides that service pattern for us. Now, that service is going to be very dependent on punctual joining of customers on the train and a lighting of customers on the train. So, what we've set up around Queen Street, both platforms at the low-level, both platforms eight and nine, is a systematic holding pattern whereby we bring people by train size down to the lower-level, queue them up, and help them to get onto the train that then departs. So, we are doing everything we can to what's called the dwell time, to minimise that dwell time, and to minimise the transition of people onto and off the train. And the timetable is tight. It's going to be very tight. And we spent hours with our teams figuring out what we should do here. There is just no way I cannot provide the service that is necessary for our customers. We have to provide that service for our customers. So, we have to find a way to make that timetable work. And my teams, and what we have done, and I wish I could show the committee some of this in real life, but what we have done between Network Rail enhancement projects, or the IP team, or infrastructure projects team, which is not part of the Alliance, but the Alliance as well, my own Network Rail infrastructure people, my own train operating company people, we've done what we call readiness reviews, where we've gone through, iteratively, through different levels of detail to figure out what can we do better to make sure it works on the day. And only yesterday I visited my teams at Queen Street, and they've taken one whole room at Queen Street Station, and they've put all of the scenarios on the walls, and that they use to brief our employees and our people on how to respond and where should everyone stand at what, but in the peak, this is how we do the peak, this is where you should stand, this is what you should do, and this is what you do in the off-peak, and they've got role descriptions, or what's called role simplifiers, that says what everyone needs to do. So, yeah, your question is very pertinent. It's going to be challenging. We've got plans. I expect that in the first week, and week, week and a half, we're going to learn more than what we thought what we're going to prepare for. And the original plans will probably be a casualty a little bit in parts, and we'll come up with new plans. But whichever way you look at it, I have to continue to move those numbers of people. And so we are very confident that the Winchborough experience has taught us a lot about helping customers to make decisions on their journey options. And we are reasonably confident that we have all of the bases covered. We will see what happens in this first week. We'll see what areas we might not have covered well, and we'll adjust. I've kind of dug myself into a bit of a hole in this committee because on a previous occasion or two, I've quoted a bit of poetry, and the line that springs to mind is one from Robert Burns. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but it's the line that says I've made plans of mice and men, gang, I've dug lay, and so my question, my next question really is, I'm absolutely, you know, I can see that you've given this very serious thought indeed, but have you retained a bit of flexibility so that, you know, if you find the plans of maybe not quite got it right, do you have some spare capacity that you can play with? Do you have a degree of flexibility? I don't. You wouldn't? Don't. There is no spare capacity. We are, to give you a sense of this, I am hiring in crews from other train operators and freight operators to help me with transferring some of the services from Aberdeen and in Venice into Glasgow Central, and we haven't got spare capacity. We haven't. We are, it's all out, and it's going to be all out for this 20-week period, and it's going to be a huge effort from our side, and we have to find ways to create the robustness which spare capacity could have given us. Let me give you an example. With a way that I'm cycling rolling stock and services through areas from Belgrove, through to Hindland, if I have a train failure there, the plan is dead, the daily service plan is dead, and that's just the way the network is. So we have put more train fitters that normally work on trains in the depots. We'll put on the stations to, if there's a casual, if there's a train that shows a hiccup that we can get that train, on the train to see if it can diagnose the problem and fix it and get it to run. So we don't have to send a fitter to site. I'll have infrastructure engineers that will look after the signalling system in those areas, and if there's anything there that gives a hiccup, they'll be on hand. So we're deploying people that would typically do other duties to be there to give us a robust service on the day. So no, I'll be very honest, the plan is tight and it's going to be tough. But we're very excited about it, because to be honest, it's a once in 50 years, and we just have to fix that tunnel. It's a once in 50 years event, so we have to just do it. My next question would be really about this 20-week closure period. Are you confident that the works can be completed within that period and, if not, do you have some contingencies for an extended period of construction? So yes, the work in the tunnel becomes something that's more manageable and better understood than the vagaries of what can happen on an operating railway during the 20-week blockade. And I'm very confident in the network rail infrastructure projects IP team. I've suggested to them some time ago that they must do some trial working, and what they did very successfully is over the Christmas period when services were down, they went into the tunnel and they experimented with their technique to remove the concrete from the tunnel to break it up. As you know, there are thousands of tons of concrete that must be moved, and I've got the stat or the number around here somewhere. But for the 1800 meters of slab that must be removed, they have to have a technique that they can time and say, yep, if I'm going to do so many drills over here, so many holes I'm going to drill and then I'm going to break the concrete out and I'm going to ship it out, so many hours therefore, that's how long it's going to take me. They did that in December, and it gave them a high degree of confidence that they will deliver that. You can imagine, I know how critical it is that we deliver that on time, and you can imagine how nervous we all are about the scope of it, because quite a lot of it is unknown. When you dig in one part of the tunnel, you can get to another part of the tunnel and you can encounter different rock formations and stuff like that. So there is a large part of the work that has a known nature to it that we can plan for and understand. We're fitting the same slab track as we fit in Winchborough, and when we did Winchborough, we learned lessons about how to fit the slab, and the guys have got that knowledge in hand, but there's still a proportion of uncertainty that we have in that 20-week programme. That's also going to be exciting, and we're going to have to deal with it as the challenges emerge. I'll keep my fingers crossed. My final question is just about... We know that there's a wider redevelopment of Queen Street plan. Can you just outline that for us and how things are going with that? Yes. So... This is the bit I referred to right in the beginning. We had a very tough situation about six months ago where it appeared as if the Buchanan Galleries Development and the redevelopment of the station was going to be sort of mutually exclusive, rather than mutually inclusive, and wouldn't be able to be completed at the same time. Now, it's really, really important, and I must be really honest with you that this committee has played its role in helping organisations to figure out what they should be doing in the community. The railway typically would have focused on we have to build a new station, so everyone just get out of the way we're going to build a new station. We're now in a better place because we now think differently. Queen Street station is not about the railway. Queen Street station is about Glasgow. And we've worked very closely with the Glasgow City Council and with Anne-Marie and her team. And with SBT, the coordinates team, and I'm very pleased to say that we have a way forward whereby we can accommodate the development of the station itself as well as the Buchanan Street Gallery's development. And this is an ongoing discussion with land securities to make sure that we achieve both. And I can say we're now in the process on there's a self-cutting part where we're very close to concluding a deal with land securities that will allow some of the development to start and to proceed. So if that was part of your question, I can just say that that part has come together much better than where it was six months ago where I think there was sort of heads banging together in terms of the two developments themselves. But if I talk more about the station itself, and it's one of these things that we can do more of to show committees like this about what it is we're planning, and it is just a fantastic change to the station with quite a lot of glass frontage that will change the nature, we think, of how George Square is perceived and how George Square is actually sort of drawn into the station itself. The really exciting bit about it is we will now, during the blockade that starts on the 20th, will start to lengthen the platforms to the seven and eight car lengths that we need. And therefore we'll have that huge increase in capacity available in Queen Street itself. The biggest challenge for us that comes with the phasing of works for the Queen Street station redevelopment is to provide a retail offer that is acceptable for a station of that size. Now if we could have succeeded to get Buchanan Galleries in the Queen Street development to integrate perfectly, we would have had a Buchanan Street quality and class of retail right at station level. So because these are now going to be slightly shifted in time, we'll probably not have that and we're working with TS Transport Scotland to put retail facilities in the station that is sufficient for the commuters that will use Queen Street. Perhaps if I just leave a thought with you and because this will get a lot of consultation in public and this will get a lot of discussion, if you think of Glasgow Central, then Glasgow Central feels like a destination station and the retail facilities we've got there is pretty superb. But if you think of Queen Street, most of the super attractive retail around it is actually already outside of the station. So it's perhaps a slightly different retail proposition but it still needs to meet the needs of our people. But it probably doesn't have to be the same as we have in Central. So we feel very excited about what Queen Street station would look like. That sounds good. Thank you very much for such comprehensive answers. I hope all those projects go well. Thank you very much. Thank you, David. Thank you, convener. Good morning. Can I ask you about the new attachee electric trains? Obviously I'm sure as many members of the committee I'm very excited by the prospects of these trains coming online. Clearly with the interaction with climate change, I think it's vitally important that we do look at higher targets for electric trains. A couple of points. Mr Ingram is still on my thunder, but I'm on capacity issues. There are some issues around the ability to carry bites on these trains. I take the earlier points you made on that. Could you just touch on that first? I've got some other follow-on points to do with the attachee AT 200s. You'd like me to pick up on the cycling? Sure. On the cycling, the class 385s, was the original attachee codification. It'll be class 385s going forward. When I talk about class 385s, just put that into the same bracket as 8200s. It's the same thing. On the class 385, we'll have two clearly designated cycling spaces in the area of the universal access toilet, where we'll have space for another two cycling spaces. Those would not be in the similar place, as I've explained the 158s to be, that those would be in an area where there are flip-up seats. That wouldn't be subject to a priority of another user. That's two additional spaces. For folding bicycles in the luggage rack area, in the luggage space area, a further two fold-up cycles would be able to be accommodated. That is per unit. That feels like a pretty reasonable coverage of cycling. Compared with your more traditional ruling stock, you're in fact seeing there's an enhancement and an ability to carry bikes and trains. More. I can take the class 380. The class 380, which is the Siemens De Zero product, that operates very widely in strathglide areas, as well as through to Edinburgh itself. You'd have two designated spaces, and the other two designated spaces, the other two spaces we use in a similar area to the wheelchair area, is that we haven't got a derogation like we have for the 158s. So when the law changes and insists that wheelchair spaces are used for wheelchairs only, we wouldn't be able to put bicycles in that area. Even if we could, it is still on the class 385s, we'll be able to take two more folding bicycles. I appreciate that. Could I just touch very briefly, because time is tight, convener, on an industrial relations issue? I understand from the relevant trade unions that there is an unofficial overtime ban about plans to downgrade conductors on the new electric trains. Can you update us on that? Is that correct? If so, can you advise us? Is there plans to downgrade conductors on the new electric trains? So can I be really absolutely clear on this? So we don't have any plans to downgrade conductors to use that language at all. Conductors play an immensely important safety role for us on our railway. What we have, in simple terms, is a conductor, when used as a conductor on a train, closes the doors and dispatches the train. Now in the Strathclyde area, for decades now, we've not used that practice. We've used the practice with a ticket examiner on a train and a driver that controls the doors and dispatches the train. So there's a safe working method that we use in the Strathclyde area that can be used as long as you have two people on a train, you still have a safe product. What we have done with our conductor colleagues is we've engaged them in a proposal whereby we are guaranteeing that we will use conductors on the Falkirk line between Edinburgh and Glasgow and that we will continue to use conductors on all of our diesel services. So what could be potentially seen as having less conductors on our railway is not the case. We are developing our service proposals that will go with Aberdeen to Inverness services in the future and with our fleet plans as well as our network plans that we have, if we can engage our conductor community to work on Sundays as part of the working week with us, then we can guarantee the same number of conductors that we employ currently. So in terms of an IR issue, how did we approach this? We have been working out a proposal and putting it to our trade unions. What we have done is we have worked with a number of the different local teams and we have discussed with them what proposals could work for them. We have discussed an implicit memorandum of understanding and we have published this week what we call a fact sheet of roughly what our proposals are. Now, I've seen in the press that there are references made to what you refer to as an informal overtime ban. I can't really comment on that. It's up to individuals where they personally decide they will not work overtime, don't want to work overtime. Overtime is not something that they are committed to work in any case. I am in a place where I am extremely positive about what we have as an opportunity for conductors to still have massively important roles in our business, but we will now go through a process of consultation with our unions on the proposals and hopefully we will get an agreement in the coming weeks. First, I don't have time to pursue those points, but perhaps you could keep the committee up-to-date with that particular issue. Can I just move on to the draft Scottish route study? It was published in December. Could you explain for the outcomes of that exercise? The route study is based on what we expect the railways impact and growth would be in the next 25 years. You would have seen there that we expect traffic increasing by around 114 per cent in Edinburgh, around 108 per cent in Glasgow, and Aberdeen up to 151 per cent over the next 25 years. Now, what the route study does, the route study propositions options, and the options are propositioned for consultation by communities, by interest groups, and to be honest, by all stakeholders in Scotland. There is a consultation process, which I think completes by the end of March. Once that consultation process has been completed and feedback has been received, that gets packaged up and gets discussed with the funders. The funders, Transport Scotland, will make a decision on which of those opportunities are the highest priorities and where to steer the investment for the next couple of control periods. In brief, that is what the route study tries to do. Can I raise a Pro-Calhans and Islands issue, which is important to me? I had some correspondence from Mr Richard Ardern, who is very interested in rail issues. What he said, and I am quoting loosely, is that it was impossible to respond properly to the Scottish route study because we have not been told what highland mainline enhancements have been imposed by control period 5, i.e. by March 2019. Could you respond to that issue? That is a really interesting point. The Highland Mainline is such a good example of why what we are doing in Scotland is so much different to what we are doing in the rest of the UK. Explain what I am saying. The Highland Mainline was planned to have a couple of interventions on it to achieve an output, and the output was roughly a 10-minute improvement in journey time. But that was proposed by a route study and by Network Rail a couple of years ago. So there is that proposal. When Abellio ScotRail secured the franchise, Abellio ScotRail said, we want to run high-speed trains. The assumption in the original proposal for the Highland Mainline was Class 170s. I dare say if you consider anyone that travels on those routes, it is more a commuter product than a long-distance product. So what is beautiful about what we are doing in Scotland as an alliance is we bring the two worlds together and said, oh, hang on. If we are going to run HST trains, do we really need to spend that same amount of money on the Highland Mainline with those same options? Or can we do something different? Because you have a different train, different speed, different acceleration, and we are now publishing around the end of April our GRIP 3 stage, which is the sort of concept design of where the interventions on the Highland Mainline needs to be. So from the point of Abellio winning the franchise, the Network Rail and design teams had to look for a different solution. So the commentary that you got from your reader is accurate because we couldn't, we now know that the two interventions we'll have will be at Avimoor and Pitlochry and will not be at the original locations that was in the original plan because the rolling stock allows us to intervene in different places with a simpler manner and a simpler solution. So it's a very valid comment, but through this year, in the next couple of months, when our proposals for the Highland Mainline are published, your reader or the person that corresponded to you on that would have a better sense of where we're going to invest and would then be able to fit that into the understanding of the route study itself. Certainly that route, I think, a very important objective is to reduce journey times, particularly going south. You'll know from my parliamentary questions that the actual average time improvement has actually been one minute going south if you take away one of the Sunday journeys, and that's what I got back rather than the 18 minutes. Again, I don't have time to pursue you on that issue, but I'm sure that that's something you'll be very aware of in terms of future improvements. Can I ask about the draft Scotland route study before you move on, David? That's fine. Have you finished with the draft route study? Yes. One of the other propositions in that consultation, of course, is a proposal to electrify and enhance the Edinburgh suburban railway. You'll know that that's an issue that I'm particularly interested in, but that specific proposal is for existing freight traffic and the diversion of passenger routes on to that route. My question for you would be given the renewed interest that there is in reinstating the former Edinburgh south suburban railway for passenger use, albeit that that is a very early stage and we don't yet have a feasibility study that would provide the green light for that. If that work was to be included in the next control period up until 2024, would that work future proof the route for possible future passenger use? I think electrification, wherever it's deployed, future proofs partially or fully whatever developments come afterwards. When you think of a tram train solution, tram train solutions are typically electrified solutions because you don't want to run trams in city centres with diesel engines. Those days are long past. In terms of just the structured logic of your question is accurate, definitely accurate, is that electrification on the south suburban route would be for freight as well as to help with diversionary flows for any disruption on the western side of Waverly. Once that is installed, it can be installed in a way that can make provision for a future extension of a tram train solution. Tram train solutions must be on the cards for so many big cities in the UK and it presents a real practicable solution to get stations and footfalls off the heavy rail network. I think that it could be. The business case is the key though, isn't it? The business case for opening a sub-suburban line for passenger transport is the key and that must be agreed with Transport Scotland first. I think that I'm right in saying that prior to your role with the ScotRail alliance you were involved in the development of the first ever UK train tram in Sheffield. I learned that when I visited Sheffield recently to learn more about that particular project. I think that my final question to you on this would be whether to be a feasibility study would the ScotRail alliance stand ready and willing to make their expertise available to that study in order to take this work forward? Yes, so the work would predominantly be led by the network rail infrastructure projects theme. It was not part of the alliance but we will act as client for on behalf of TS. We will definitely steer that. Sheffield had its challenges and many lessons learned from Sheffield. I think that the lessons learned from Sheffield would help us to not repeat some of the issues that occurred there. David, do you have a final question? My final question is what involvement has the ScotRail alliance had with the show review, which is the UK Government review looking at the future shape and financing of network rail? I participate in the review and one or two members of my team participate in the review as well. We met with Nicholas Shaw on an individual basis. I met with Nicholas Shaw on an individual basis as well as in a working group context. I dare say there was quite a lot of interest in what we are doing in Scotland. This whole way of working in Scotland where we have the network rail root team that does maintenance and operation of the railway paired up in an alliance with a Bellio ScotRail franchise, two different legal entities, two different sets of accountabilities, one management team and an aligned strategy to deliver what is right for both businesses is just common sense. Obviously the show report will be published in a couple of weeks time. What I can say is that all of these reports have one thing in common and that is that the railway industry needs to focus on probably three important things and those three important things are customers, customers and customers. If we get those three important things right then quite a lot of what happens behind the scenes will align itself properly and will just deliver a growing railway going forward. We obviously cannot predict what is going to happen in the show review but we can speculate as politicians like to do that could for example be a full privatisation of network rail. You've obviously got very close alliance in the current setup you have. How would that affect your operation if that was the recommendation in the show review and was that something accepted by the UK Government? Without having a view on whether privatisation or non-privatisation of parts of network rail is right or wrong I actually don't see that decision between privatisation and non-privatisation as the core issue facing the railway. I see the core issue facing the railway as the need for a clearer perhaps simpler but stronger in some areas regulating function. The regulator must have a clearer role that's probably going to be a different role to what it has today and I see an unambiguous alignment of objectives to focus on customer issues at the front end of the industry and neither of those two really have an impact or is affected by how you decide whether you privatise the asset base or not. For us as an alliance what decision is made on network rail structure and what private finance is invited in to own parts of network rail is neither here nor there. For us the focus is simply to take the asset base we've got to take the operational methods we've got and to maximise the benefits for the customer. You're absolutely confident irrespective of the outcome of the show review and irrespective of what is accepted by the UK Government that will not have an impact on the day-to-day working in the alliance. Not the way that my team and myself are running our business. No, we run our business with whatever assets we've got, whatever policies we've got, whatever operations we've got, we run it with a focus on what other objectives that the Scottish Government has set for us. That's it. We make our decisions based on each of those objectives that the Scottish Government has set for us and we focus on delivering that. Right. With that telling off, I will leave the question here. Thank you. Good morning, Mr Vester. I've got a few areas, three areas to cover with you. The first one is in the area of safety. We know that we do have a good safety record in the UK railways but a few years ago I was lucky enough to attend an event hosted by the Scottish Youth Theatre where ScotRail had been delivering a series of workshops to primary 5 and 6 children, particularly in the areas of electrification on the line. I was really impressed with the skills that were being taught to the young people and that safety message. I'm just wondering if you're doing anything like that now or intend to do anything in the future. Yes, we've got a very active programme that includes a router of visits to schools and we've got a very active programme with level crossings. We are level crossing managers engaged with local communities about level crossing safety and around the developments of our electrification programmes such as Edinburgh to Glasgow we have very active engagement with local communities on what the risks are of the new railway. Electrification brings two big threats, a risk relative to electricity as well as a risk relative to quiet trains. The trains are quieter electric trains, you can't hear the train coming and therefore footpath crossings, not even level crossings across the railway can become very unsafe. So absolutely part of our community engagement programme is extensive engagement across the community on those topics. I could move on to the area of overcrowding on the trains presently and you've already discussed the plans for 2017 and the new stock but I just wondered given the growth in passenger numbers which is to be welcomed but how are you ensuring particularly people with young children or with a disability are getting access to trains that are in overcrowded status as reported in the recent 2014 ScotRail statistics in this area? So we have trains that are busy. There's no doubt about it. We have trains that are busy and some trains will be less busy as we start to roll out our new fleets. The new fleets can't come quickly enough so we've put a lot of effort this year to finalise contracts to get our HST fleet in and to get the Class 385 fleet deployed. If I can just for a moment explain this. I started something in our business which I'm encouraging my leaders to do more of. Once or twice a week I go on a train and I go on trains all week. I travel trains morning and evening but once or twice a week I go on a train and I announce myself to the customers on the Managing Director. I'm walking down the train. Please tell me everything you want to tell me about what's wrong and what's right and whatever. It's amazing. I was doing it yesterday again. Yesterday morning I travelled to Haymarket from Queen Street. Do you know that 99% of the comments about our staff and how our staff help people, help children, help people with reduced mobility is extremely, extremely positive? Our staff are fantastic. They don't need to be invited. They don't need to be managed by a process or to be told what to do. Our staff have just this natural inclination to help people on the railway. So I'm very confident that whatever the circumstances are that are posed to our staff and our employees and our people that they will respond and deal with the demands of the day. It's my very strong impression that we are meeting those requirements currently. Thank you for that reassurance. I'm sure that if I'm lucky enough to be returned after the election I look forward to dropping my emails with the complaints of overcrowding as this gets rolled out. One of the unintended consequences of the 4th Road Bridge closure was the increased popularity in the route between Fife and Edinburgh. Given the increased numbers that seem to be maintaining on this route have you given any thought as to how you might improve parking at the stations and the opportunity for people to go from car to train in Edinburgh in those areas? Parking is one of those areas where we need to get so much support from local councils. Parking around the railway is not always fully within our gift in terms of either land or access for parkings. Parking becomes part of the road and the transport strategy for the local council and there are lots of dimensions to it which makes it more of a joint issue and much less of a railway issue. I can unambiguously say the more parking we have at stations the better and we encourage local councils to work with us because we, as part of our franchise are delivering more parking facilities in many places across the network during the next three or four years. So to develop parking in key nodes has been a commitment that we signed up to and that we are working very intensely on with local councils but you're right, there are so many stations out there that parking would benefit the use of the railway. What we do is we pick up from feedback we get from local communities and we feed that back to local councils. We formed what we call an economic development unit which is a team of people that try to do everything in their power to get councils to invest in parking where it would benefit those local communities. We haven't got the funds nor the property to do all of that ourselves so it has to be a joint solution. Thank you for that. If I could just finally ask about train and station standards during the period between July and September 2015 ScotRail were fined £265,282 for failing to meet the service standards measuring quality of the trains and stations and the areas of concern included the toilet facilities, graffiti, passenger information displays and the seat reservation system. What are you doing to address those service-level benchmarks and move towards a better service? Thank you very much for that question. It's a very good one. Can I have cards on the table? The scheme that we have that those penalties come from is called square. It is an immensely powerful scheme. So a target for us to achieve a zero fine is around 94% performance on the scheme. Take a guess what we achieve. Around 91, 92%. So we are 3 percentage points short and sometimes depends on the schedules you end that depends on what the fines are. Some of the fines are really tough. If someone doesn't arrive to open a booking office in time it's curtains for us and it's a big fine. But it's reasonable. So I can honestly say the square system is driving performance which is manifesting itself in our NRPS score of 90%. I think the quality of our trains inside, outside, the quality of our stations, the quality of service of our staff is just fantastic and square has made a major contribution to that. So I know that the 260 odd thousand that you talk about becomes the headline but there is a much more important headline is that Squire is super powerful to drive customer service quality and we put everything in place to catch problems and to reduce that payment. Things like if an induction loop system that helps people that are hard of hearing to hear what someone is saying if those need to be tested regularly if one of those fail as quickly as possible needs to be replaced so all of these little niggly things becomes a focus for our service quality drive and it becomes really important to our customers so I think it's massively good. It's perhaps just useful to make one observation that is very very positive in terms of how Transport Scotland is approaching this whole Squire scheme is that whatever payments we make gets reinvested into the railway for the benefit of customers so I can assure you as an alliance that figure that you see in the penalty doesn't mean we are neglecting or ignoring it if we neglected and ignored it it would be a ginormous amount of money we actively engage with it we think it's a really positive scheme and what's really positive about it is it gets reinvested into the railway. Thank you. Thank you. Do members have any final questions? Is there anything further you would like to say? No thank you convener, I'm pretty exhausted as it is. I think on that note it only remains for me to thank Mr Verster for attending today's meeting and for the knowledge that this may well be your last appearance before the committee in fact it will undoubtedly be your last appearance before the committee during this parliamentary session. I'd like to thank you for your commitment to maintaining an open and constructive dialogue with the committee and the ScotRail Alliance and I'm sure I speak for the whole committee when I say that I hope this relationship will continue with the successor committee. Thank you very much and I now suspend briefly for a witness change-over. In this meeting of the infrastructure and capital investment committee the third agenda item is to take evidence from the minister for transport and islands on general transport matters. I welcome Derek Mackay, minister for transport and islands and his officials Aidan Gricewood, director of rail John Nicolaus, director aviation Maritime freight and canals and Michelle Rennie, director of major transport infrastructure projects all from transport Scotland. I now invite the minister to make a short opening statement. Good morning, convener and committee. This morning I intend to share with you the excellent progress made in transport since we last met in October despite very challenging weather conditions. The annual Scottish Transport Statistics published just last week provided an encouraging insight into areas in which we are performing well together with indications where more work will be beneficial in continuing to deliver our transport vision. Once again we have seen an increase in rail use and cycling, a clear sign that our continued investment in these areas is paying dividends. The Scottish Government is currently delivering the most extensive investment programme in our railways ever a tune of around £5 billion up to 2019. While there has been a small decline in bus use we have remained committed supporting bus services through the £240 million made available through the bus service operators grant and concession rate bus travel and we are also pushing forward with the introduction of smart ticketing which will be rolled out across more transport services going forward. One of the more encouraging signs is the fact that almost three quarters of all journeys to school are made by active or public transport and this provides a real opportunity to encourage the next generation to leave the car behind environmental and health benefits now. While the increase in car registrations reflect the ongoing economic recovery in Scotland, the Scottish Government remains focused on reducing emissions and congestion by encouraging a greater number of journeys by public and active travel. We are investing more than £1 billion per annum to get people out of their cars including overall investment in active travel to a record £39.2 million for 2018-16 last year's record investment in cycling and walking. The latest statistics confirm the trend identified during the refresh exercise of the national transport strategy which was undertaken in partnership with COSLA and I saw this refresh at the beginning of a conversation that will lead to a fuller more comprehensive review of the national transport strategy in the next Parliament I appeared before you just a few weeks ago about the closure of the 4th Road Bridge in early December and I paid tribute to all staff involved for the swift and dedicated actions undertaken in often challenging circumstances to repair the fault carry out further maintenance and reopen the bridge to all traffic ahead of schedule on 20 February a feat which has been described as a remarkable achievement by an independent suspension bridge expert. On the rail network part of the Lamington Viaduct was left on the brink of failure by flood damage caused by Storm Frank on New Year's Eve and its closure it was decided. Thanks to the efforts of all those people who have worked so hard in securing and rebuilding the structure especially amid challenging weather conditions vital passenger and freight services that rely on the west coast mainline resumed ahead of schedule. Ahead of the forthcoming 20-week closure on Main Street Station high-level tunnel I've launched in mid-January ScotRail Alliance's communications campaign to inform the public of the changes to the timetables and although I understand this work well cause someone convenience to passengers at Network Rail, ScotRail Alliance is working to ensure that services are maintained where possible, disruption is kept to a minimum and that passengers are kept well informed throughout the work. Mid-January I was pleased to welcome colleagues from all our island authorities to the first meeting of the islands transport forum. Effective and reliable transport links are essential for island communities and with constructive talks on the main issues in particular beginning to focus on air services where I believe we've made some significant progress. The recent increase from 40% to 50% in the air discount scheme itself extended until 2019 offers a significant discount on air fares for travellers from remote communities and the new regular ferry service in the addressing Campbelltown route is one of a number of enhancements being brought forward as part of this summer's timetable which will increase overall capacity across the Clyde and Hebrides network and make sure we get the most from our ferry fleet and talking about our ferry fleet I'm delighted to have cut the first steel on the first of our two new 100m ferries making marking the start of the construction of this massive £17m investment project bringing in commercial ship building back to the Clyde. These vessels will also be due fuel ferries allowing them to use cleaner fuel and future proofing them for the advent of tighter regulations around sulphur emissions. Finally, recent analysis of the rollout of road equivalent tariff to Islay, Collinssea and Ghia in 2012 shows an increase in the passenger numbers and a rise in the number of visitors showing that RET is doing what we said it would do promoting our islands by reducing the cost of ferry travel making them more attractive to visitors and helping to support those local economies. On road safety in the first year of operation of the new average speed cameras on the A9 there were no fatal accidents anywhere on the route from July to December. These improvements are taking place with rising traffic volumes and continuing use of this route to support the economy of the highlands and islands. We are monitoring the performance of the A9 and welcoming the figures that indicate that the route continues to perform far more safely than was the case before. Every road death is one too many and that is why we remain steadfastly committed to reducing casualty numbers even further as we continue to work with all partners to reach our ambitious road safety targets for 2020. At the end of January we announced £24 million funding to take forward the design and construction of a new grade separated junction at Lawrence Kirk, which has been a long standing commitment of the Scottish Government. The funding boost for Lawrence Kirk is part of an extra £254 million when investing is part of Aberdeen city deal, adding to our already impressive transport infrastructure investment portfolio which includes the £745 million Aberdeen bypass £170 million improvements to the Aberdeen and Burness rail line, improved road access in the A96 at Inveramsy bridge, dualling the A9 between Aberdeen and Burness and preparation work to begin to remove the notorious bottleneck at the Hodigan roundabout. The fourth replacement crossing is being built on time and under budget and I am aware that the committee received a full briefing on this from the project team just last week. Construction work on the M8, M73 and M74 motorway improvements as well under way and scheduled for completion for spring 2017. Work is progressing well. I see I am trying your patience, convener, so we are also making good progress on the A9 dualling other joint ventures and the AWPR and I will now take any questions you may have but, convener, if you allow me to say, I think that is an impressive record of transport interventions since we last discussed them. Thank you very much minister. Just picking up a couple of points you mentioned the first of all road equivalent tariff. Are there any plans to roll out RET to those islands that are not currently benefiting from it? I am thinking particularly of the Northern Islands. The commitment from the Government was to roll it out across the Chaff's area and to then look to the Northern Islands because there is a different impact in the Northern Islands because this is about distance ultimately in the equivalent as it says of road travel. The Government is actively considering in partnership with the local authorities through the island area ministerial working group. Although its work is concluded there is on-going stag appraisal work and other route service methodology work that is considering the ferry options for the future to the Northern Islands. The answer to your question is yes, we are looking at a model for the future that covers other islands that do not currently benefit but there are some islands such as Shetland if you do it purely on equivalent road basis. It does not work for them and you have to look at the methodology which having completely fulfilled the Government's manifesto in this term is certainly something for the next Government to consider. I heard you correctly and no doubt you will correct me if I didn't. You said £5 billion of investment in public transport to encourage people out of their cars and into alternative modes of transport. Is that right? £1 billion a year approximately on public transport and £5 billion for the control period for rail investment? That is helpful. I am going to hand over to Alex Johnson. The minister did not leave many questions to ask. The statement was so comprehensive but he did not mention high speed rail. If you have received the results of the study being carried out by HS2 into the extension of the High Speed Rail Network to Scotland? It is unlike Alex Johnson to ask a difficult question that I did not cover because Keith Brown, cabinet secretary leads on high speed rail work and there is an announcement due. We are doing it in partnership with the UK Government because this is clearly a project that requires the co-operation of the UK Government and the Scottish Government. Reports have been received on the study and that will require further UK Government, Scottish Government co-operation to be in a place where... What are those reports at the moment? Absolutely nothing. Can I take it then that we can expect a formal announcement at some time? Yes, you can before the period. That is very interesting. Media reports indicate that the decision not to proceed with a standalone Edinburgh Glasgow high speed rail line in consideration of a draft business case for the project in 2014. Can you outline the content of that draft business case and explain why it was never published? I can't outline it and the reason as I've said in the previous statements to Parliament is really that the work there was more advanced in the aspirations of having high speed rail to Scotland, the benefits of it, having it physically come to Scotland in between Glasgow and Edinburgh were considered. It was clear that it makes sense before you proceed with the Edinburgh to Glasgow route that you should know what's happening coming from south of the border and do it together and that's exactly what we have been doing so both will be published at the same time in an open and transparent way and the Keith Brown statement I think we'll be able to cover much more of that so I can't give the content exclusively of the Edinburgh to Glasgow element because it's very much part of the programme. I'll now jump to an issue that you did cover in your opening statement and that is the development that's going on in the road network. You mentioned the M8 completion project and I was along that road for the first time in daylight, about six months the other day and I see there's huge amounts of work being carried out since I last saw it. When do you expect that project to be completed? 2017, spring off. The dueling of the A9 is a longer term project. Is there anything more you can tell us about the schedule that will be adopted for the complete dueling of the A9? So it's on track for 2025. If you want individual detailed elements of the 12 sections of it I can do that but I'm being more contained in my answers to be more direct. The final road project that is on-going is Aberdeen Western peripheral route which is a game one that I observe on a regular basis when I'm going around in the north-east. Can you tell us what the current position is in relation to that and whether any further work is going on to improve relationships with the project, the construction project and local people who are having difficulties as a result of that project's continuation? The project is on schedule to open to traffic in the winter of 2017 so it's very much on track. Some of the other advantages of it include the use of a skills pledge around apprentices as well. In terms of engagement, Transport Scotland and the operators and contractors we encourage good relationships with local communities through exhibitions explaining what's going on real information about what's happening and progress that's being made and offering people up to be accessible for meetings. If Alex Johnson has any issues around a lack of accessibility or information I'm not happy to address that but there should be an adequate sharing of progress. My experience is that it's a long construction project and it goes through a lot of areas where people's lives are being disrupted one way or another so difficulties are inevitable and all I really seek from the minister is an assurance that he will work on his side to encourage engagement with people to work these problems out whenever the opportunity exists. It is a fair point to say that when there is such a construction project the end benefits are absolutely worth it but during that period of disruption it can impact on people's lives consultation and a bit of compassion of course I would expect and proactively pursue. The minister mentioned the junction at Lawns Kirk which a funding announcement has now been made and all I seek to do by raising the matter once again is to ask the minister to confirm that the decisions that have been made and the announcements that have been made now ensure that the road that junction will be upgraded to a grade-separated junction and that it will be funded from within Scottish Government budgets. However there are issues of planning obligations that were live before the Scottish Government's announcement and if we can get further planning contribution as you would expect from developers if that's appropriate it would still proceed on that basis. I established a partnership to take forward before the Government's announcement on funding to try and work together to ensure that everyone that had a stake was able to contribute towards its actual delivery. If there's legitimate and reasonable contributions to be towards that transport project we should still receive them but there's a commitment to see it through to completion. Is there at this stage any prospect that the minister could give us a timescale for achieving completion of that upgrade? I think that's quite ambitious. It would be particularly ambitious for me to set out a timescale at this time. I mean obviously there's many stages to go through in terms of detailed design and all the necessary legislative and order requirements so I think I would be setting up an ambitious and potentially misleading date if I was to attempt it right now. Thank you very much indeed and I hope convener that you're impressed with the speed that went through that. And the answers. Absolutely. Brevity and questions and answers are always welcome. Thank you convener. As Mr Johnson said you've left very little for us to ask the minister with that comprehensive introduction. I was however very pleased to hear the emphasis on safety in our roads and I was wondering if you could tell us what the Government will continue to do especially working with small to medium enterprises about the use of telematics to monitor driver's performance in commercial vehicles and what the Government's current position is on black box technology for new drivers and whether the Government has a position on the possibility of graduated licensing being introduced to improve safety in younger drivers. Okay so we take road safety very seriously. The long term travel pardon upon was reassuring fatalities and casualties coming down. I think we've made substantial progress from the baseline figure and that said any fatality is regrettable and we want zero fatalities of course we do. So we've currently refreshed our framework and our targets. UK Government doesn't set targets in this area we do. It helps drive performance so we're working with the fill partnership to improve a number of work streams and we've got specific categories we feel that are more vulnerable and it includes vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists motorcyclists and actually younger and older drivers as well. So there's a range of interventions we can make social media campaigns area specific campaigns, rural roads encouraging 20 mile per hour zones and built up areas. So there's a range of actions that if it hasn't been published already and I think it is this week it has been signed off in terms of road safety in that framework. I think that that will assist and show the sense of priority that we have. Specific questions, black box technology some of these areas are out with our competency and rest with UK Government either the department of transport or the DVLA but we are supportive, we're accused of being the nanny state but you know what government's here to help and if there are further interventions we can make then we're happy to look at that and to answer specifically on graduated driving licences yes we do support such violence and I know I've given that answer before in Parliament but again out with our direct competence but something that we have supported indeed lobbied UK Government for. Thank you very much minister. Can I finally ask just about the national transport strategy which has recently undergone a refresh and could you give us an update on that and also you've indicated that a full review should take place during the next session of the Parliament and I just wonder if that information obviously we don't know who might be in charge of that at this stage but also give us an indication of how that consultation will take place. That's the second time in a fortnight that I've been told I won't be the transport minister any longer but the national transport strategy as it said on the tin it was a refresh it was to bring up to spin up to date to all the relevant policy elements of it you know we've made such great progress on climate change on targets on cycling on walking strategy on community planning that all of those elements should fit within the national transport strategy and be updated because it was some time since it's last iteration of publication so it's been refreshed agreed unanimously by COSLA at a meeting last year which I particularly welcome the engagement that we had but also a workshop of other stakeholders as well from across the transport world and the reason we committed to a fuller review is I know we discussed this before felt that the timing wasn't right for a comprehensive review and there was a greater opportunity indeed it was suggested by this committee and other stakeholders that aligning it with the strategic transports projects review and also the national planning framework makes sense so that the next parliament will have that opportunity to totally comprehensively go through those policies but I think it's in a good place and it's certainly fit for purpose it's updated policy and hasn't changed the fundamentals which public transport is good it's worth investing in and we make the right policy interventions to encourage people out of the car into public transport and we've enjoyed more success and for example rail than we have on buses so it's further strengthened our view that we need to do more to support the bus sector Just a very brief point minister I'm a very strong supporter of looking at new aviation routes for example from Broadford to Glasgow you'll be aware of Haise report today which endorses the economic benefits of that do you share that view and also in the risons do you see the positive changes that the CAA are recommending which as you know is about single engine aircraft that routes that are perhaps not viable now would be viable with single engine because as you know there'd be less staffing requirements and they're more economical in terms of the number of passengers they can carry what's your view on that? My first point would be that adopting the Government's position on APD air passenger duty would help new routes to Scotland generally and is a good thing to do for economic growth new routes and sustaining the routes that we have slightly separate issues for some of the airports that Haile covers because of the exemptions that are there in terms of the specific proposal for a new airport and you know the times of austerity we have to balance our budgets Haile like all agencies will have to consider their costs and operate efficiently what I've said around the prospect of any further new airports is you know I'm a listening minister if there's a proposition to be put you know I'm willing to hear from stakeholders that might have a view around the cost-benefit ratio or what it can do to unlock local economic potential and there's been work done in the past in that respect but we will continue to support Haile particularly and operators to expand routes generally in Scotland and to support those communities that are more remote and we've done it through the air discount scheme of course increasing the subsidy from 40 to 50% of the pension and support for Haile and there has been a couple of new routes announced recently which I think should be welcomed and showing that we are trying to do what David Stewart has requested within very tight financial resources but it is ambitious to propose a new airport but I've said I'm happy to engage in the subject but we'll need far more by way of certainty as to who would use such a facility does that assist? Thank you and if the minister hasn't already seen it it's just come out today I certainly recommend the HIE's report on this very issue I have engaged with a number of members on this subject in just a week or two ago Dave Thompson specifically so I'm well aware of the issue I've not seen today's report but I'm aware of the requests for that proposal and I say I'm happy to engage in it before we commit to a new operational airport Thank you Can I move on to active travel minister? You mentioned in your opening statement that investment in active travels at a record level you said that a quarter of all journeys to school are now by active travel have I heard you correctly? Three quarters Actually three quarters by public transport or active travel Public transport or active travel three quarters I think is what I said Of course the figure for cycling and walking has been pretty static over the last decade and the transport statistics that you mentioned show that cycling as the usual means of transport to school is 1.7% up from 1.2% so obviously the trajectory is in the right direction but that's still a very modest figure and I'm just wondering given how important safety is particularly for children travelling to school what role further investment in cycling infrastructure can make to driving up those figures So I think there are a few interventions that will help well the record funding on active travel and infrastructure I think should be welcomed again a very challenging financial environment there are particular behaviour change projects as well there's also the community links plus design competition which convener you were instrumental in taking forward to have an exemplar project of showing how in urban areas we can encourage more people to cycle which has been delivered on that cross-party basis I also convened at an active travel summit to bring local authorities to the table to try and encourage active travel as well I was disappointed by the attendance it was an Inverness I have to say and I was disappointed that more local authorities weren't present and more senior figures weren't present and that's why when I published a national transport strategy and wrote to each local authority leader I drew out important issues for me and active travel was one because it is largely local although government will do what we can and we also commissioned a piece of work around the school run so what more can we do to encourage people to use active travel for the school run and I'll come back to the committee once I have a fuller update on that because if we get it right and we encourage people to do it at an early age then hopefully they'll continue to take active travel choices for the rest of their life if you think there's any jubiety about the figures on mode to school I'm happy to give more detail to the committee I think we trust the statistics I think it's just more about how we drive the figures in the right direction so there is the cycling action plan which leads to a number of actions there's a record investment, there's the behaviour changers the bike ability which is in a number of schools at the moment I think from memory the figure was around 40 odd percent of schools involved in the bike ability project but again I can check that out so I think there's a range of packages within the schools, improving infrastructure also why I encourage more 20 mile per hour schemes in urban areas as well I think Edinburgh is leading on this consultation of course is the right thing to do and is required rather than a top down approach from government and the record funding that we've put into the act of travel is all significant so we've extended the pathways and the cycle routes over the last number of years as a consequence of that extra resource so there's examples of interventions and the point you make about local authorities and it's clear from what you've said that there's a variation in the level of commitment that local authorities have to taking forward the act of travel agenda and that's perhaps reflected in the fact that there's also a variation in cycling rates between local authorities so Transport Scotland's local area analysis for 2014 shows that 11.8% of journeys to work were made by bike in Edinburgh but only 0.3% in Renfrewshire so what is Transport Scotland doing to share best practice between authorities and what are you doing as transport minister to provide further leadership to the local authorities I absolutely commend you for all the work that you've done and for convening the act of travel summit of local authorities but as you say, if they're only sending people who are of a junior position within their local authority how do we get them to take it seriously? In some respects convener population local communities will have to say to local authorities this is a priority for them it should come through community planning I'm saying it's a priority for Government it's clear in the action plan the cycling action plan, the walking strategy the national transport strategy or health policies, education policies you know as well as transport policies to share expertise specifically as you've asked we do now have a smarter choices smarter places learning network that does exactly that that shares good practice and what's working to try and improve the delivery in every local authority area the first annual networking workshop will take place later this month as it happens so apart from making it clear in transport policy this should be a priority the record advancement, the exemplar project which I think will set out to local authorities what can be done there has been other exemplar projects but I'll show I don't have it here I can give you as much as I know at the moment that we've committed to that investment that the community links plus design competition will provide significant funding for one or two exemplar on-road segregated cycling schemes over the next two to three years with the aim of being able to bring about step change in the levels of cycling for short journeys in target communities and as you'll be aware convener we said we'll do that in partnership with local authorities and it will be led by Sustrans as you would expect so we've made a significant commitment around supporting that and making it happen after the cross-party meeting that we held so clarity and policy resources allocated making it clear as transport minister to local authorities this matters engaging with community plan partnerships to focus on this and then encourage the right kind of interventions and guidance and support to deliver it but on this subject because most of the journeys are local local authority leaders will have to lead and deliver at the most local level and this isn't a government as we all know wediid to ring-fenced budgets this is one of the few areas that we still have ring-fenced budgets to local government which was around safer walking routes to schools one of the few remaining ring-fenced budgets in addition to the dimensions that I've made so it's a priority for the government but I do believe there has to be more local leadership on this subject yes I do finally on the issue of investment as a committee we received a range of evidence from stakeholders involved in active travel and cycling during our budget scrutiny exercise and one of the proposals from spokes cycling organisation in the Lothians was that 1% of the trunk road budget should be transferred to active travel which would amount to something like an additional £8 million in the current financial year there was also a more ambitious proposal that 10% of the transport budget be spent on active travel will you commit to either of those figures or to maintaining and increasing the active travel budget in the years to come I think by my actions I have ensured that it reached a record level and then sustained that record level whilst quite challenging times within the transport budget the reason I don't believe in an arbitrary figure on proportion of spend or an arbitrary number I mean discount something for example cyclists use roads too so as investment in other roads a bad thing for cyclists of course it's not, investing roads is good for cyclists as well so an arbitrary figure I don't think would be helpful, apart from the fact that I don't think it's right to simply base allocations for different modes of transport I mean if I was to ask the committee which big project that you've heard about would you not deliver the Queensferry crossing, the A9 dualling the new routes to island communities for ferries, the purchasing I think there are priorities that the Government's priorities are while supporting active travel and Government has clear contractual obligations maintenance and upgrade requirements so I think we've done a lot in active travel there's certainly more to do but you can't I think separate out road investment as in suggesting that it doesn't support cycling when cyclists use roads too so I don't support me like convener, no? I'm not sure that cycling lobby would agree with you but we'll leave it at that I'm going to pass over to Adam to ask some questions Okay, thanks convener I could start by asking about border's rail issues where I'd asked Phil Verster in our previous session this morning about plans for improvement and rolling stock for is this something that's crossed your desk, minister and have you pressed for any action on this front? It's a very good question we had looked at is there any spare capacity within the current rolling stock to assist some would argue a good problem to have, it's so popular people want more contrast with some people who said including at least one opposition politician that said it would be a big white elephant and that member would never use it and understand that there's now a frequent user of border's railway so it is a success story if we had the spare rolling stock Alex Johnson thinks asking who it is I won't name the Conservative member because you might be embarrassed by it but Mr Ingram is right to say Minister, please feel free I think it's polite to move on but if we had spare capacity of rolling stock of course it would make sense to deploy that spare rolling stock at the moment so I'm difficult to expand it we didn't make some modifications improvements by way of enhancement but I think the big progress will be made when the high speed trains where we have deployed and the new electric trains are deployed for the Edinburgh to Glasgow route and that will give us the opportunity to cascade the existing rolling stock we know that that is some time off between 2017-18 timescale but at that point we'll have more rolling stock we can cascade it around the network and help, meet, need and I think Borders would have a very reasonable call for enhanced rolling stock Thanks for that the other issue with regard to Borders Rail the campaign for Borders Rail is calling for the Scottish Government and the railway to Hoik and Carlyle is this something on your radar are you considering this minister or is it somewhere in the distance? There are a number of requests at the moment to extend passenger railway services from a number of members and a number of communities more often than not come from a local promoter going through the necessary appraisal, stag appraisal and so on support the local transport partnership Sestran as it happens to be of course to look at the advice to work up a case that they can then inform a stag report so that appraisal of transport options so Transport Scotland will assist in that but it will be for the local transport partnership to proceed with that work and understand that they intend to extend the railway but there's a process to go through and we'll be supportive of advising that process and then any future commitments around expansion railways will be considered as part of a control period review and all other finances at the time looking at any business case that may emerge The minister has mentioned his ambition to be reappointed after the new after the elections I won't be joining him because I'm not coming back here but I'd like to appeal to him on behalf of colleagues in the south west of Scotland we look on enviously with all the transport infrastructure developments elsewhere in Scotland the north east highlands and the Edinburgh Glasgow corridor and we're wondering if we can get a piece of that action in the south west of Scotland there should in Freeson Galloway can he hold out any hopes for us that developments will be coming forward in that area in the future I don't think that Mr Ingram would expect me at this stage to be able to offer a new transport project in this fashion other than to say I understand that the regional issues that exist exist around connectivity as well as some of the economic growth issues as well but wonderful opportunity around tourism as well as accessibility and joining up some of the potential there so as with all new transport projects it requires promoters and leadership and a business case to come forward but I hear the case that's been made by Mr Ingram and I'll certainly bear it in mind and if it's not me then my successor will be informed if you request as well I can assure you there will be proposals coming forward the other just finally you've mentioned a couple of times minister the need to perhaps look at bus services a lot of emphasis has been placed on real but we do know from our own constituency mailbags we get an awful lot of issues and concerns with regards to bus services in our areas or the lack of bus services could you maybe develop a wee bit your thinking what you're thinking in this regard first of all the national transport strategy one of the objectives I wanted to achieve was greater clarity in who's responsible for what so in this scenario that there is a lack of a bus service at a local level the local authority or if appropriate the transport partnership can intervene to support the creation of a route through the international process but they can intervene when I was a council leader I don't think I realised the opportunity and the powers that I had at the time to support communities where there was a lack of service provision so if a case can be made a local authority absolutely can intervene rather than wash their hands of the issue and say oh that's the private sector or that's for someone else to fix or the government we deliver the national concessionary travel screen, the bus service operators grant or the greener bus fund but we don't set local routes traffic commissioner so on has a regulatory role so I think if there are gaps in service provision through the local transport strategy community planning or direct intervention of local authority can act first of all in a scenario that there is a lack of service but more widely I don't think it's a lack of investment that's led to a falling patronage or stagnation for bus passengers it's maybe the attractiveness of the individual car or the cost of fuel maybe some people have opted for train instead of bus so we need to show that bus is a priority we've got greener buses their emissions are far better when there's a case before that they're accessible they're attractive, they're affordable and that's why we've got the national concessionary travel scheme and other direct subsidies and make bus more attractive by giving it priority within a transport system and what do I mean by that? Well for example local priority co-ordinate with the bus companies where the disruption is going to be if there's roadworks give bus priority junctions or gates or priority lanes whatever the right local intervention is I think we have to do more to show people public transport is the mode of transport we should try and use first if a journey is necessary and in most areas that is bus because the vast majority of all public transport journeys are made by bus it's just that the growth in bus has stagnated so there's very little growth indeed some decline where there's rail is soaring but it's still far less in bus journeys so I just think that the bus industry progress in partnership with local communities and certainly local authorities does that exist? I certainly look forward to future initiatives in this area obviously the constituency that I represent is largely rural or has a large rural and the issue of coverage bus service coverage is a constant one really so I would really welcome further development of bus services across Scotland Thank you David Minister I've got three very quick questions on the Caledonian sleeper you'd be well aware that members of the RMT union took industrial action over the Christmas period about concerns about defects to the sleeper rolling stock what action is transport Scotland taking to ensure that all sleeper rolling stock is safe for passengers and indeed for staff as well First of all I'm sure the whole committee would welcome the fact that RMT has lifted its dispute with Caledonian sleeper so I think that's an important point for everyone to acknowledge there are very strict safety guidelines in terms of the rail services and what Caledonian sleepers can operate and there's a role here as well for the office of rail and road but what has transport Scotland done is to respect contractual obligations to be delivered and we were proactive in ensuring that a number of the concerns that I heard about were raised in terms of operation and safety and so on and there has been pressure applied there is new rolling stock of course for the sleeper to be delivered and much of the rolling stock or all of it in fact is prided and it's not necessarily an issue that has just come about recently but the condition of some of the rolling stock has required extra maintenance workers and extra investment and that's been put in and of course transport Scotland were pursuing the operator circle throughout Thank you for that Minister could you just be clear to the committee on penalties imposed in circle for operating potentially in safe rolling stock If there's a loss of service it's at the cost of the operator if they've lost profit due to carriages being out of service then they essentially have taken the hit for that if it's due to their issues but no there's been no formal request of compensation or requirement for us to impose a penalty because if they don't provide a service because they lose their revenue and if it breaches contractual obligations then we would certainly initiate any relevant clause so we've been and I appreciate you won't know every you won't be able to dot every I on the contract terms but in general terms if in theory an operator has in safe rolling stock in this particular contract is there a clause that you can take some particular action against the operator Can I ask maybe Aiden if you want more detail to take the officials detail When it comes to issues about safety then that's clear responsibility for the office of rail and road so in terms of enforcement of safety standards on the railway that's their responsibility so obviously if there are any safety is absolute imperative and the railway has a very good track record and this respect but that would be the office of rail road who would act in those circumstances rather than it being a contractual issue The regulator could take financial penalties against the operator if there was a breach of standards of rolling stock There would have a range of potential options and the first thing is that they simply wouldn't be allowed to operate if they were deemed to not be operating safely and in this case they hadn't reached that conclusion so the issues that were raised weren't deemed to be breaching safety issues in terms of licences or obligations on safety I'll find a question I suppose I'm looking at the flip side of this Does the contract terms require compensation to circle for losses following industrial action? If they can make a case that that would be reasonable they could make an approach it would be considered by ministers and we have uniquely a parity clause that we would also engage with the trade unions to make a judgement on what's reasonable and what's not so they are entitled to approach the Government and say we've incurred loss because of an industrial dispute to have to explain that and we uniquely in the UK would go to the trade unions get their take on it as well and then make a judgement on this issue for the avoidance of doubt no such approach has been made I think it would be rather perverse if they did make such an approach Thank you Thank you I wonder if you could provide an update on the tendering of the Clyde in Hebrides ferry service contract Okay, so two final tenders have been received on Monday from CalMac and Cerco they'll be considered, they'll be assessed and we should meet the timescale of an award an announcement at the end of May with enactment of a contract in the first of October of course a great amount of work has gone in to get us to this stage of the criteria the waiting process and it's now with officials to produce advice to ministers I've heard you give many assurances to the users, to the staff that service levels fares and the terms of conditions of staff will be fully protected regardless of whichever of the two companies wins the contract I wonder if you could just for the record provide these reassurances again Well absolutely it would be the case that all vessels and ports currently under public ownership will remain so the Government will continue to set the routes the timetables, the fares as appropriate and as we do now so nothing will change things that have changed since the last time this was procured I've enhanced the quality aspect of the waiting I've guaranteed that it will be a fair, affordable and sustainable CalMac pension scheme will be written into the contract whoever the operator is and there's a high proportion of the overall marks been allocated on HR strategy so I think that as I've previously debated enhancements they've made the process from last time round and the guarantee continues around that element of public service Thank you very much minister and just moving on to the subject of the fourth replacement crossing the committee heard from the team last week Transport Scotland officials and I think all delighted that that project is under budget and on time but I just wonder if a date has been set for the opening of the bridge towards the end of this year Will I hope that the briefing has been consistent that it will be complete on time by the end of this year so I don't have a date and I won't set a date because I think that I would be quite presumptive at this stage of the process apart from the anything else if it is later in the year and it isn't the winter as we all know with our transport expertise then there may be other issues that impact but there is no date set as the short answer to your question but it's very much on track Thank you very much Final questions from members David Very brief point minister you know that we had a very useful session earlier with ScotRail and obviously the issue about the deep alliance to me a very positive idea obviously I appreciate that the Caledon sleeper and the Virgin London services have already been let and these are longer term contracts but is there any general discussion from government terms about having some closer links with the sleeper and the Virgin London service in light of what's happening with the ScotRail services I'm not really sure I think that Aidan would probably be best placed to answer that there's lots of different relationships between different train operating companies and network rail depending on the nature of the service so I think that in Scotland particularly well placed to have a deep alliance because of a single dominant operator and a route a Scotland route that coincides with that dominant operator so that was a particular opportunity and the benefits are much clearer around a deeper alliance I guess when it comes into the sleeper it runs actually runs on quite a few routes depending on what's going on in any particular night so having that deep sort of commercial relationship and single management team really is less appropriate for an operator such as the sleeper that's not to say that they've got to work closely with Network Rail and actually in a Scottish context it's really important and the regulator too has an important role to play but the deep alliance doesn't work in a way that could potentially discriminate against other operators and that's something we're very alive to I wasn't here to listen to the question of Phil Verst I know that they are too and the regulator keeps very close eye on that as well as part of their responsibilities for equal access but the deep alliance is to agree with David Stewart that I think the alliance is working very well I think it's the thatcher years on the railways I thought that would get Mr Johnson's interest and actually bringing towards deeper integration is a good thing and it's working well and being able to make decisions in Scotland more quickly about our railways and I think it's one of the reasons we've made progress in engineering projects as well as wider investment priorities so as a project that the alliance I believe is working well Okay, do you have any final march that you'd like to place on the record minister? I know thanks, convener Okay, can I thank the minister and his officials for attending today's meeting and the minister for his update on general transport matters This will probably be your last appearance before this committee in this session of Parliament and so I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of the committee to thank you for the constructive way in which you've engaged with the committee during your term of office as minister for transport on the islands. We look forward to continuing this constructive engagement between your successor and our successor committee and I will now suspend this meeting briefly for a witness change over This meeting of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee Agenda item 4 is petition PE1236 The committee will consider an update from Transport Scotland regarding this petition from Gill Fortheringham calling on the Scottish Government to improve safety measures on the A90 by constructing a grade separated junction at the A937 crosses the A90 at Lawrence Kirk. I defer members to paper 4 which has an update from Transport Scotland Attached and confirms that it will provide £24 million of funding to take forward the design and construction of a grade separated junction at the A90 A937 south junction at Lawrence Kirk as the petitioner has requested. The letter indicates that the next stage in the scheme development is to progress with the design phases of the junction upgrade. Transport Scotland will look to appoint consultants and begin work to take the scheme through design development and statutory authorisation. The committee is invited to consider and agree whether it wishes to take any further action in relation to the petition. The committee has the option to close the petition should it consider that its objectives have been met should the committee wish to keep the petition open the committee would be required to add the petition to its legacy paper for its successor committee to consider further in session 5 comments from members. My comment is so near and yet so far. I am delighted that the Government has now allocated funds and made this a priority going forward. However, the answers that we receive from the minister indicate that there is one potential issue still within this. That is where the minister indicated that there was an expectation that or a possibility that they might seek local planning development funding for this junction. The problem locally is that planners see their commitment to developing the local red road network and junctions as focused on a different junction the north junction to Lonskirk which is the one that is likely to be used by commuters who live in the homes that will be built there. There is a view that has been expressed locally and by planning applicants that any attempt to use planning funding to develop the south junction would actually be open to legal challenge and unlikely to succeed. So my concern is that the Government have not yet conceded that funding achieved through local planning developments would not be allocated to this junction. Therefore, my concerns remain adequate enough to suggest that this petition might be retained. Do other members have any comments to make? Are we agreed that we wish to keep this petition open? Is that the view of the committee? Agreed. We will leave the petition open and add the petition to its legacy paper in order to consider further Session 5 Agenda item 5 The fifth item for today is the consideration of three negative instruments. The concession contracts Scotland regulations 2016 SSI 2016 slash 65 the concession contracts Scotland amendment regulations 2016 SSI 2016 slash 125 and the utilities contract 2016 slash 49 Paper 5 Summarizes the purpose and prior consideration of these instruments. These instruments are part of a suite of measures to enact changes to procurement law and the committee took oral evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities at its meeting on 24 February regarding the measures. The committee will now consider any issues it wishes to raise in reporting to the Parliament on these instruments. Members should note that no motions to annul have been received in relation to the instruments. I now invite comments from members. There appear to be no comments from members. Does the committee agree that it does not wish to make any recommendation in relation to these instruments? We are agreed. I now move this meeting into private session.