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Friday, 25 May 2012

BBC News

• Minister steps into East Midlands Trains drivers' dispute A government minister has stepped into the pensions dispute that has led to a wave of strikes at East Midlands Trains.
• Bracknell Forest Council to cut 4C bus service A Berkshire bus service which the local council claims cost it £52 per passenger last year is to be cut.
• Torbay fast ferry and green transport receive £8m grant Green transport schemes in Devon are being given almost £8m in grants.
• Somerset County Council wins £3.8m cycle transport grant Nearly £4m will be spent on a new cycle route and cycling projects in a Somerset town.
• Bus lane fines to be cancelledThousands of traffic fines issued to drivers in Edinburgh for using bus lanes are to be cancelled.
• 'No savings' in nuclear rail planMoving nuclear material from Dounreay to Sellafield will not result in a
• Diamond Jubilee Tube in breakdownA Tube train that broke down in a London tunnel stranding 733 passengers was a special Diamond Jubilee train, it emerges.

Department for Transport

• Transport Statistics: Road goods vehicles travelling to mainland Europe: Q1 2012The Department for Transport has today published the following Transport Statistics:
• Green growth gets £113 million transport boost30 carbon cutting, growth boosting local transport schemes were given the green light today by Transport Minister Norman Baker.
• New plans to reform strategic road networkThe Transport Secretary, Justine Greening, has set out the first steps in an ambitious programme for reforming the strategic road network. This programme aims to increase the quality and efficiency of the national network, offering a better service to motorists and business users.

Financial Times

• Gadflies gain wings in activist revoltBlackstone™s role in the campaign that brought a clear-out of the railway operator™s board reflects a power shift on Wall Street
• India warns EU over airline carbon taxCivil aviation minister threatens to ban European carriers entering India if Brussels goes ahead with sanctions against country™s airlines
• Air France to slash staff numbersFrench flag carrier to split short and medium-haul operations into three new units as part of a restructuring plan aimed at restoring profit
• US railways: a model businessPrivate equity and infrastructure funds, which have regularly dipped into and out of the sector, are the most likely buyers
• DHL sees opportunity in TNT-UPS mergerEuropean express parcel leader is ready to capture customers disaffected by a distraction in service caused by integration of the two companies
• Georgian Railway pulls London IPOFormer Soviet state blames ˜challenging capital market conditions™ amid concerns for the eurozone and the botched Facebook listing for postponement

The Herald

• Legal bid over ferry contractTHE Scottish Government will go to the Court of Session today to get permission to sign a £243 million northern isles' ferry contract.
• Auditors to probe crisis-hit ferry firmAUDITORS have been asked to look at a troubled Clyde ferry service which has been restricted to carrying only 12 passengers after it emerged the crew were not adequately trained.

The Independent

• Wheels are turning slower at FirstGroup Fewer in the North can afford its fares right now, and that's costing the buses giant as the area provides two-thirds of its revenues. Lucy Tobin looks at the prospects of the company getting back on the right route

The Scotsman

• Death of the bus ticket as Stagecoach passengers to pay by smartphone PASSENGERS will be able to use smartphones instead of bus and train tickets for the first time if a trial is successful, transport giant Stagecoach announces today.

The Telegraph

• Spaghetti sourceTelegraph View: Birmingham's Gravelly Hill interchange may be an engineering marvel, but we still love to hate it.
• Parking fines rise sharplyCouncils handed out 250,000 more parking tickets last year despite cutting the number of traffic wardens by 5 per cent, research has found.
• True rail punctuality statistics to be revealedTrain operators are to be forced to publish confidential punctuality statistics for the first time.
• Pay by phone trials start in CambridgeCommuters across the country will be able to use their mobile phones to pay for travel as a result of an initiative being pioneered by Orange and the transport giant, Stagecoach.
• High Speed 2 chief costs taxpayer £450,000 a yearOne of Britain's highest paid civil servants is a temporary HS2 official.

Press Association

• Teachers' concern at airport plans More than 20 schools will suffer from increased noise levels because of proposed changes at George Best Belfast City Airport, a residents' campaign group has claimed.
• £113m for local transport schemes Thirty local transport schemes worth a total of £113 million have been given the go-ahead by the Government.

Mail Online

• London 2012 Olympics: Heathrow Airport staff training to handle huge baggage increaseStaff have been put through their paces to ensure they are fully prepared for an enormous increase in the amount of baggage coming through the terminals. Spectators, tourists and the athletes themselves are set to swamp the airport with luggage.
• Rail companies and councils are raking it in from honest punters. Their ruse? Make the rules impossible to understandMARTIN SAMUEL: Train firms are treating innocent travellers like criminals, simply for making mistakes. The truth is, it pays them to catch us out.
• Use your phone as a train ticket: New app will allow travellers to pay via tap technologyA trial is already operating on buses in Cambridgeshire with a view to rolling out the technology across Stagecoach services around the country next year.

Network Rail

• NETWORK RAIL AGREES MULTI-BILLION POUND CONTRACT FOR CROSSRAIL SURFACE WORKS

Birmingham Mail

• Huge haul of smuggled tobacco found at Birmingham AirportA HUGE haul of tobacco has been seized in freight containers by Border Force officers at Birmingham Airport.

Birmingham Post

• New public transport authority at heart of LEP's ambitions Midland councils have told ministers they could create 22,000 jobs and boost the local economy by £1.5 billion if they are allowed to seize control of public transport.
• Council considers overhaul of Birmingham's A38 Queensway and St Chad's tunnelsBirmingham’s St Chad’s Tunnel could be filled in and the neighbouring Queensway overhauled in an ambitious £85 million scheme being considered by the council’s transport department.

Bradford Telegraph & Argus

• FirstGroup looking at cutting busoperations Transport group FirstGroup, which operates buses across Bradford, has warned that it is looking to offload more of its bus operations as rising fuel costs, lower demand and reduced subsidies continued to hurt the division.

Edinburgh Evening News

• Council to refund thousands of bus lane chargesTRANSPORT chiefs are to waive every fine handed out to motorists caught in bus lanes on one of the city’s main roads.

London Evening Standard

• FirstGroup’s buses dive but trains on the right lines Britain’s north-south divide is worsening: those in the north can’t afford a bus ticket and operator FirstGroup is selling off routes that bring in £100 million of revenues as a result.
• Give better help to commuters stuck on trains, rail companies toldMainline commuter operating companies and Network Rail were today ordered to develop new procedures for rescuing passengers from stranded trains.
• No end to Tube nightmare as commuters warned of MORE chaos tonightTube commuters were warned there would be no respite to the problems plaguing the service this evening “ as Boris Johnson was forced to apologise to passengers trapped underground for up to three and a half hours in stifling heat.
• Stansted, Heathrow, and Gatwick Airports ˜all need extra runways™London's three main airports may all need new runways to meet demand in future decades, a Conservative report says today.
• Every time ministers reject third Heathrow runway, my European rivals say thank youLondon is losing out to competitors such as Amsterdam and Frankfurt. BAA chief Colin Matthews tells David Cohen why a new Thames Estuary airport is not the answer.

Manchester Evening News

• Trams set to be running on Oldham Metrolink line ’in June’ Tram drivers are continuing to test the new Metrolink line to Oldham amid speculation it could open as soon as next month. Metrolink ticket machines are now displaying messages advising passengers that services on the line will be ˜starting soon™.

Metro

• 'Beautiful' Spaghetti Junction turns 40Spaghetti Junction was the unlikely recipient of birthday wishes today after the sprawling network of carriageways turned 40. Spaghetti Junction in all its glory (Picture: Flickr/Highways Agency) Web users took to Twitter to congratulate the road system, officially known as Gravelly Hill Interchange, on its 40th birthday.The junction was given its nickname by Birmingham Evening Mail journalist Roy Smith, who observed it looked like spaghetti on a plate from an aerial view.The interchange connects the A38 (M) Aston Expressway into central Birmingham with the M6, linking the M1, M5 and M6 when i...

The York Press

• New railway centre for York approved PLANS to bring 477 new jobs and a major new rail centre to York have been approved by councillors.
• 20mph limit set for all York streets TRANSPORT bosses have mapped out plans to introduce 20mph zones on all of York™s residential streets by the end of 2014.

Crewe Chronicle

• UK & World News: Councils issue more parking ticketsLocal councils handed out an increased number of parking tickets last year despite cutting back on traffic wardens, according to latest figures.

East Anglian Daily Times

• East Anglia: Summer of misery for rail users predictedCOMMUTERS fear they face a summer of delays and disruptions as the “outdated” rail network struggles to cope with the added demand of Olympic travellers.

Other Regional Press

• Rail line relief after vow to add carriagesTRAIN passengers on one of south Somerset's main rail links to London will be less squeezed within two years after its operator pledged to lengthen the trains they run.
• Port is England and should be ours for alwaysIN the next few months the future of the Port of Dover is likely to be determined. The Dover Harbour Board put forward a sell off plan with the blessing of the previous Government – a sell off plan which has caused a lot of uncertainty in Dover. It's hard to plan for the future when you don't quite know what that future will look like.
• 'Give Wales fair share of transport investment'CITY MP Geraint Davies claims Wales is being "short changed" on transport investment by the UK Government.
• Local News: The iconic Transporter Bridge reopens after repairsTEESSIDE’S Transporter Bridge reopened today after being closed since March.
• Road speed limit slashedAn MP has welcomed a speed limit cut on one of Fylde’s most dangerous roads.
• Danger drivers caught on cameraVideo of dozens of drivers speeding through a bus station and ignoring a pedestrian crossing has been released.
• Bus driver reinstated after girl fallsA bus driver suspended after a 13-year-old girl fell from his moving vehicle has been reinstated after the operators claimed the injuries were due to a œprank.

Global Rail News

• Europorte & Alstom sign rail freight partnership agreementEuroporte and Alstom have signed a partnership agreement covering the maintenance of 17 Alstom manufactured Prima locomotives now operated by Europorte. Within this framework, the two partners will improve the management and availability of the Europorte locomotive fleet. To do this, they will analyse existing processes; optimise maintenance cycles, interventions on the locomotives and the [...]
• Network Rail agrees Crossrail surface works contractNetwork Rail has agreed an ‘anticipated final cost’ with Crossrail to deliver ‘significant infrastructure enhancements on the rail network’ to enable Crossrail services to Maidenhead, Heathrow, Abbey Wood and Shenfield. Network Rail™s work for Crossrail represents one of the largest commercial contracts in the company™s ten-year history and marks a further significant milestone in the [...]
• Report on RailTel Europe 2012Written by Les Giles The recent RailTel Europe conference was wide ranging in its scope, and covered amongst other things GSM-R and its potential replacement, the provision of enhanced telecommunications services for passengers and other railway customers, issues with the implementation of ETCS on Thalys, cross-border communications network links, and the implementation of railway telecommunications [...]
• York rail operating centre plans given go aheadPlans for a rail operating centre in York have been given the go ahead by the city council. Network Rail will develop a new rail operating centre and workforce development centre on land close to York station. Phil Verster, Route Managing Director for Network Rail™s London North Eastern (LNE) route, said: œThis decision is great [...]
• Network Rail plans to reduce level crossing misuse in LincolnNetwork Rail is developing plans to reduce the risk of misuse at High Street and Brayford Wharf level crossings in Lincoln. The company is seeking to improve pedestrian access around the city through provision of two new footbridges and is now inviting comments. Phil Verster, route managing director for Network Rail said: œWe regularly see [...]

The Business Desk

• Road charging plan much fairer to UK hauliers says chamber PROPOSALS to make foreign drivers pay to use Britain’s roads have been welcomed by the Black Country Chamber of Commerce.
• Appoint Atlantic Gateway minister, says LEP THE new local enterprise for Merseyside is calling on the Government to recognise the importance of Atlantic Gateway by appointing a minister to champion the project.

Aviation Industry

• British Airways aims for major expansion to ChinaWalsh wants to use new Heathrow slots to triple number of Chinese destinations

Other News Sources

• Network Rail agrees £2.3bn infrastructure funding package with CrossrailNetwork Rail has agreed a £2.3bn funding package with Crossrail for new infrastructure enhancements and surface works.

Other Subscription Services

• EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE AND STAGECOACH PARTNER TO TRANSFORM PUBLIC TRANSPORT TICKETING Transport operator Stagecoach Group and the UK’s biggest communications company, Everything Everywhere, today announced plans to transform the way consumers use tickets to travel on public transport.