This week’s round-up of business news from the UK railway industry.
Indra Group has formally signed a £587m contract to manage and maintain Transport for London’s ticketing systems until 2034. Potential extensions and options until 2039 could take the value to more than £987m. Shashi Verma, Director of Technology Strategy & Revenue at TfL, said ‘working with Indra will allow us to bring in new improvements to our systems, helping the millions of people who travel on our services every day. It’s essential that customers have a ticketing system they can trust so they can travel with the confidence that they’re being charged the correct fare. We look forward to working with Indra group on the next evolution of our Oyster and contactless ticketing system.’
Transport for Wales has reopened Ty Glas station following the modernisations including a 16 m platform extension, level boarding and a renewed crossing surface with a safer route linking the station to the crossing. This will enable Stadler Class 756 tri‑mode units to call at Ty Glas for the first time.
South Western Railway has renewed a multi-year contract for Telent to maintain CCTV, public address, help points and real-time information screens at 186 stations and 13 depots.
The Department for Transport has published agreements between the UK and devolved Welsh and Scottish governments setting out future ways of working under Great British Railways.
From June 6 Great Western Railway will undertake a 12-week trial of overnight services on the Reading to Gatwick Airport route to testing demand for early-morning and late-night connectivity. There will be two services from Reading to Gatwick and three return services every Saturday morning, plus one service from Reading and two from Gatwick every Monday morning. GWR said passengers with early departures or late arrivals, over 20% of Gatwick’s daily traffic, are not able to reach the airport by rail from the west.
Network Rail plans to procure a 15-year single supplier contract worth £234m+VAT to design, supply and install ETCS onboard equipment and associated services for the Adtranz/Bombardier Turbostar family of 202 Class 168, 170, 171 and 172 DMUs, of which 168 are planned to be fitted. NR said Turbostars are its next priority because fitment and driver training must be completed ahead of the planned ‘signals away’ for the Grantham Infrastructure ETCS Scheme on the East Coast Main Line.
Campaign group the Light Rail Transit Association says revised guidance on how public investment decisions are assessed in HM Treasury’s Green Book 2026 directly addresses a ‘long-standing structural bias against high-capacity fixed-rail infrastructure’ by moving the primary metric from cost:benefit ratio to net present value.
The Institute for Public Policy Research has published a Transport & Growth report saying Treasury processes are blocking the development of transport projects, and recommending devolving control, funding and approval of projects to mayors. The report says local leaders lack access to upfront funding, leaving them dependent on short-term funding rounds and repeated Treasury sign-off, and local areas have to take the political risk, while the benefits of long term growth which generates tax revenue go to central government.
