METRONET

'Metronet Rail' is a group of companies responsible for the maintenance, renewal, and upgrade of the infrastructure on nine London Underground lines. This includes track, trains, signals, civil work, and stations. As of 18 July 2007, the company is in administration.
It has five shareholders:

★ Atkins,

★ Balfour Beatty,

★ Bombardier,

★ EDF Energy, and

★ Thames Water.
The Metronet Rail Group consists of Metronet Rail BCV Holdings Limited, Metronet Rail SSL Holdings Limited, Metronet Rail BCV Limited, and Metronet Rail SSL Limited: the group operates under the common name of Metronet Rail Limited.
Since January 2003, the London Underground has been operated as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), where the infrastructure and support services are maintained by private companies but the London Underground is still owned and operated by Transport for London (TfL). Metronet Rail won a 30-year contract for the following tube and sub-surface lines:

BCV (tube) lines

★ Bakerloo

★ Central

★ Victoria

★ Waterloo & City
SSL (sub-surface) lines

★ Circle

★ District

★ East London

★ Hammersmith & City

★ Metropolitan
Under the terms of the contract, Metronet Rail agreed to provide London Underground (LU) with trains, stations, and related infrastructure to the standards and performance levels required to give the travelling public a reliable service in a safe, efficient, and economic manner. LU paid the Metronet Rail consortium an infrastructure service charge (ISC) - a monthly payment increased or abated to reflect the network's performance. Revenue to the consortium was reduced if service fell below benchmark levels and deductions suffered for poor performance were at twice the rate of the increase in revenue for improved performance.
Metronet Rail had promised to modernise and refurbish 150 stations by 2012, with £17 billion invested over the course of the 30-year contract. Within their maintenance and capital-project management remit they had 347 trains, over 471 miles of track, 155 stations, 77 miles of deep tubes, and over 2000 points, crossings, and bridges.
In November 2006, Metronet were heavily criticised by the PPP arbiter, Chris Bolt, over their performance from 2003 to 2006. His analysis included criticism that Metronet had not performed in an economic or efficient manner, and had failed to follow good industry practice. ^[1]
The remaining London Underground lines, (Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly) are maintained by Tube Lines.

Contents

Financial crisis

References

External links

Financial crisis

On 17 July 2007 it was reported^[2] that Metronet was "teetering on the brink of administration". The situation has arisen because it has received only £121m out of the £551m it needs to cover cost over-runs. By contrast, Tube Lines, the other PPP company, has brought in almost all of its works on time and on budget^[3].
On 18 July 2007, the company went into administration.^[4]

References

1. Tube and train services disrupted BBC News, retrieved 12 January 2007
2. Metronet on brink of collapse after plea on costs is rejected, The Times, 17 July 2007
3. Partnership that turned sour, The Times, 27 June 2007
4. Metronet calls in administrators

External links

★ Company website

★ Renewals programme map

★ Document detailing commitments for track replacement/upgrade across all nine lines

★ CityMayors article