Article: Rail operator seeks urgent cash advance

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From the Melbourne Age click here!

Rail operator seeks urgent cash advance

Rail operator seeks urgent cash advance
JASON DOWLING
April 14, 2010

METRO Trains has sent a plan to expedite funding for urgent upgrades to Melbourne's rail system to the state government just four months after taking over the network.

Metro's ''strategic operational plan'', sent last month, requested the government bring forward funding for rail upgrade work to improve the network's reliability and punctuality. Metro is yet to meet minimum monthly punctuality targets.

RMIT's transport planning expert, Paul Mees, attacked the funding request.

''It's a great system. You perform badly and then you demand that the government reward you for your bad performance by giving you more money and sooner than you signed up for under your contract,'' he said.

''We now have an international reputation for being a soft touch for this kind of behaviour ... you bid to get a contract, get yourself entrenched and then say, 'Oh goodness, it looks like we need more money,''' he said.

He said Metro was a private company obliged to maximise profits. But Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen said any work that improved the train network should be brought forward.

''If Metro has the capacity to bring forward upgrades, then it does make sense for the government to provide that funding to have that work done more quickly,'' he said.

A spokesman for Public Transport Minister Martin Pakula said Metro had recently submitted ''a draft plan, which is up for discussion with the Department of Transport''.

''Metro can identify new or ask to fast-track planned improvements. The plan has not been finalised.

''If projects are identified and given support, then these are funded through normal government funding procedures,'' he said.

Metro Trains Melbourne spokeswoman Lanie Harris said the company's $200 million-a-year infrastructure budget was ''a finite allocation of funds''.

But she said the Operating Plan and Asset Management Plan was a ''flexible document'' that ''allows us to reschedule maintenance and projects earlier or later as priorities are re-assessed, and the total allocation of funds doesn't change''.

She said track upgrades planned for Kooyong in the fourth year of the contract were brought forward and completed this year to ''improve reliability and enable us to lift the speed restrictions that drag down on-time running''.

She said commuters would experience ''less cancellations and improved punctuality as the maintenance regime continues, but there is often a lag as performance catches up to the level of maintenance activity''.

Opposition public transport spokesman Terry Mulder said maintenance work that would improve the safety of the network should be fast-tracked.

''John Brumby can't point the finger at Metro if he knows that there are significant unresolved safety and maintenance issues on the network that haven't been fixed because of a lack of funding,'' he said.

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Metro Trains Melbourne spokeswoman Lanie Harris said the company's $200 million-a-year infrastructure budget was ''a finite allocation of funds''.

$200 million per year sounds like a tiny amount when you consider constructing 2km of rail would cost just as much.