UK puts rail at heart of green revolution in wide-ranging review

The Department for Transport’s (“DfT”) new White Paper, “Great British Railways: The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail” notes that for every mile a person travels, passenger trains produce a third of the emissions of the average petrol car but acknowledges that to date railways have not been run to generate environmental benefits for the nation. It commits to change on that - and many other - fronts, in proposals to transform the UK’s rail network. “Rail can and will do more to spearhead the country’s ambition to become a world leader in clean, green transport”, it says, in order to become “the best option for long-distance travel”. For this to work, it will have to get people and heavy goods out of lorries, cars and planes and onto trains. Transport generates over a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions (which makes it the largest emitting sector of the economy) but rail only produces around 1% of those emissions. The paper acknowledges that rail is, in fact, the only form of transport currently capable of moving both people and heavy goods in a zero-carbon way.

A comprehensive environment plan for the rail network will be published in 2022, as a key part of a new 30-year strategy, setting out commitments on carbon emissions, air pollution, biodiversity, waste, water usage, noise and vibration. A specific duty will be placed on Great British Railways (the new public body that will own the infrastructure and run and plan the network) to consider environmental principles in all its operations and it will be accountable for the sector’s delivery of a more environmentally sustainable rail network.

Energy efficiency, renewable power production, tree-planting and other green initiatives across rail’s extensive land estate are to be accelerated to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions and improve biodiversity. Renewable power generation is to be increased to provide more clean energy to stations and local communities. Long-term investment in climate resilience is promised as is expansion of electrification of the network (seen as the main way of decarbonising the majority of the network). Where that isn’t economic, battery and hydrogen-powered trains will be trialed, in order to support the government’s ambition to remove diesel-only trains from the network by 2040.

In relation to heavy goods, there is to be a new era for rail freight, supported by modern track access rights. Great British Railways will also have a statutory duty to promote rail freight to secure economic, environmental and social benefits for the nation. The government says it will work with the market to consider vital network enhancements that will increase capacity for freight or help to grow the rail freight market.

See all 62 of the government’s commitments, in the paper here: Great British Railways: The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail (web version) (publishing.service.gov.uk).

For more on green transport, take a look at our clean transport experience: Clean transport: A Net Zero System | Thought Leadership | Insights | Linklaters.