Byers to list new rail targets

Embattled Transport Secretary Stephen Byers will take a huge political gamble by setting detailed targets for improvements to the rail network by the likely general election year of 2005.

He revealed today that he will publish, within weeks, a range of measures of punctuality, reliability and customer satisfaction which the rail network must meet within three years.

The aim is to give voters a way of judging his promise, made last week, to stake his political reputation on securing improvements to the service.

With critics claiming that rail services are getting worse not better, it is by no means clear that the targets will all be met. Any failure will be seized on by the Tories to press home their case that Labour cannot deliver on public services.

Asked whether the targets would prove a hostage to fortune, Mr Byers said: "Life is a political risk, as I have discovered." The year 2005 also marks the halfway point in the Government's 10-year plan for rail investment, published by John Prescott in 2000.

Mr Byers said: "It is quite frightening as a politician to have such benchmarks against which we so clearly will be judged."

Welcoming the strategic plan published last week by the Strategic Rail Authority, he described it as "a clear message that it is time for the industry and the Government to get its act together, to make sure that they deliver what passengers and freight customers want". Mr Byers revealed his plans today at a conference of rail industry executives in London, where he claimed that he had heard anecdotal reports from industry chiefs that things had improved in recent weeks.

However, he admitted there is "a long way to go" before he could point to a sustained level of high performance.

With Railtrack still in administration, Mr Byers admitted that its collapse had led to "uncertainty" in the industry.

He dismissed suggestions that it could take until autumn next year to get the company back on a more permanent footing.

Mr Byers also called on both unions and management to get back to the negotiating table to put an end to the wave of strikes which has hit Britain's rail network in recent weeks.

He added: "Arbitration, when the justice of the case can be properly considered, must be a better way forward than strike action which is just a matter of strength."