FirstGroup statement on the Brown Review of the Rail Franchising Programme Thursday 10 January 2013

Vernon Barker, FirstGroup's Managing Director, UK Rail said:

The independent review by Richard Brown is an important development for the rail industry as it calls for an early return to refranchising, which has allowed the private sector to provide effective and efficient passenger rail services for many years. Rail franchising continues to deliver performance and infrastructure improvements and attract historic highs of passenger numbers to the rail network.


We remain committed to maintaining our leading position in the rail market and we believe the review is an important step towards regaining certainty and confidence in the future of rail franchising. As such, we will take time to study the findings of the review carefully and look forward to further detail on the franchise process restarting so that we can submit further high quality bids that deliver for passengers, taxpayers, employees and the industry.

distributed by