United Kingdom

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Railways

The world’s first public, steam-powered railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in 1825. There followed 25 years of “railway mania”, in which more than 9,600 km (5,965 mi) of track were laid down. The expansion continued at a less frenetic pace into the early 20th century. During the first 100 years of the railway, the myriad small companies gradually merged, amalgamated, or were taken over to form a few larger ones. By 1923 there were just four large groups left in Great Britain: the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway; the London and North Eastern Railway; the Great Western Railway; and the Southern Railway.

In 1948 these four companies, together with their associated lines, docks, hotels, and canals, were nationalized by the government and taken under the administration of the British Transport Commission. The commission was replaced in 1963 by the British Railways Board (BR).

In 1955 a modernization programme was started, beginning with the steady replacement of steam trains by diesel and electric trains; the last steam locomotive was withdrawn by BR in 1968. Another aspect was the closure of many of Britain’s branch railway lines during the 1960s, as part of efforts to cut costs and rationalize services in the face of growing competition from road transport. The plan, devised and approved by Richard (later Lord) Beeching during his chairmanship of BR (1963-1965), became popularly known as the “Beeching Axe”.

Until 1994, BR was divided into six administrative regions: London Midland, Western, Southern, Eastern, Anglia, and Scottish. In 1994, under the Railway Act 1993, it was restructured to allow for privatization from 1995. Track and train operations were separated. Railtrack, a government-owned company, was set up to operate all track and rail infrastructure. Freight operations were divided into three geographically based companies that were privatized in 1995. Passenger operations, which were opened up to the private sector through franchises for particular passenger routes, were restructured into 25 separate operating units within BR. In 1995 franchises for the first passenger lines were awarded, with more following in 1996 and early 1997. In May 1996 Railtrack was privatized through a share issue. These moves to fully privatize BR were highly contentious and generated considerable criticism within Britain.

The fractured nature of rail organization was forcefully brought home in the late 1990s and early 2000s with a series of high-profile rail accidents—including those at Southall, London (1997; 7 deaths); Paddington, London (1999; 31 deaths); and Hatfield, Hertfordshire (2000; 4 deaths)—that were blamed in part on the separation of ownership of rail and rolling stock and the problem of the needs of privatized companies to provide shareholder income at the perceived expense of passenger safety. After the Hatfield crash, caused by faulty rails, the entire railway network was examined and track replaced, leading to severe delays to rail journeys for months. In October 2001 Railtrack went into official administration; it was succeeded by Network Rail, a not-for-profit company, in 2003.

In mid-2003, Network Rail was responsible for some 33,790 km (21,000 mi) of track and 2,500 stations. There was, in addition, some 408 km (254 mi) of track in London operated by London Underground Ltd. of which about 42 per cent is underground. The Underground system has been extended with the new extension of the Jubilee line. There are also urban rail systems in Glasgow, Liverpool, Tyne and Wear, Manchester, and Sheffield. In Northern Ireland, railway services are operated by the Northern Ireland Railway Company Ltd. Some 350 km (217 mi) of track were in use in the early 1990s.

In the late 19th century work was begun on a tunnel beneath the English Channel. The project was abandoned and then revived in 1957. Work began again, but Britain halted the project in 1973 citing the immense cost. In 1987, however, work began again and a service tunnel was completed in 1990. The main Channel Tunnel, which is 50.4 km (32 mi) long, runs from Folkestone, England, to Calais, France. It cost more than US$16 billion (£10 billion), runs at an average depth of 40 m (132 ft) below the sea bed, and was completed in 1993. It was officially opened on May 6, 1994, when Queen Elizabeth II and French president François Mitterrand travelled through the tunnel. Freight services began later the same month, but full passenger services were not established for almost another year.

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Air Travel

British Airways was formed in 1974 by combining the two state-run airlines, British Overseas Airways Company (BOAC) and British European Airways (BEA). Privatized in 1987, British Airways is one of the world’s leading airlines and operates the world’s largest network of international scheduled services, travelling to over 152 destinations in 74 countries. In 1976, together with Air France, British Airways inaugurated the world’s first supersonic passenger service, using the Concorde aircraft.

Besides the national airline, Britain has numerous independent operators. The largest include BMI, easyJet, Virgin Atlantic, Monarch Airlines, and Britannia Airways, which is the world’s largest charter airline. London’s main airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, are among the world’s busiest centres for international travel. Heathrow handles more than 67 million passengers a year, and is the world’s busiest airport for international travel. A fifth terminal is due to open in 2008. Gatwick handles over 32 million passengers and is the busiest single runway airport in the world. Stansted, London’s third airport, carries 22 million passengers a year. There are another 143 licensed civil aerodromes in Britain, of which 19 handle more than 1 million passengers a year each.

In 1970 Britain joined Airbus Industries, a European aircraft-manufacturing consortium, as an associate partner. In 1979 the country became a full member. Airbus manufactures medium and large wide-bodied passenger jets, with each member of the consortium making specific parts. Members include France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain. Airbus became a single integrated company in 2001.

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Roads

Britain has some 387,674 km (240,889 mi) of public roads (2004), including 3,302 km (2,052 mi) of trunk motorways. England accounts for more than 71 per cent of the total road network, and over 82 per cent of the motorway network. Scotland has 13 per cent and almost 10 per cent respectively, Wales almost 9 per cent and 4 per cent, and Northern Ireland about 6 per cent and 3 per cent respectively. Although motorways account for about 1 per cent of the British road system, they also account for about 15 per cent of all road traffic. Trunk roads account for around another 4 per cent of the road network; combined with motorways they carry over half of all goods vehicle traffic.

About 90 per cent of all passenger travel in Britain is by road, and mainly by private car rather than public transport. In 2004 there were approximately 510 motor vehicles per 1,000 people in the United Kingdom. In 2002 more than 25 million passenger cars were registered in Britain, representing around 80 per cent of all vehicles on British roads. This inexorable growth in passenger cars has been paralleled by rising public concern about the environmental effects of increasing road traffic, and especially concern about pollution. In 1994 the government slowed down its road-building programme. The move was in part a response to research findings that tended to confirm environmentalists’ claims that the main effect of building new trunk roads and motorways had been to encourage extra traffic and not, as intended, to improve the flow of existing traffic. However, that trend is once more being reversed. Additionally, the Transport Act 2000 gave local authorities the power to levy road user charges in an attempt to reduce congestion. The Central London Congestion Charge Scheme, introduced under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, began in February 2003.

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The Post Office

The Post Office, founded in 1635, pioneered postal services and was the first (1830s) to issue adhesive stamps as proof of advance payment for mail. In 1969 the Post Office was reorganized as a public corporation. Today, its operations are divided into three major brands: Royal Mail, the letters business; Post Office, the retail business; and Parcelforce Worldwide, the parcels business. The Royal Mail handles collection and delivery of mail, dealing with 84 million items a day; Parcelforce handles parcel delivery; while the Post Office is the retailing arm. It acts as an agent for the letters and parcels business, for government departments and local authorities and for the Alliance and Leicester Giro (formerly Girobank) bank. The Post Office operates 500 main post offices; another 14,000 or so branch, or sub-post, offices are operated as franchises or on an agency basis.

In the 1980s, the Conservative government suspended the Royal Mail’s monopoly on letter deliveries, subject to a minimum fee of £1, leading to a proliferation of courier services. However, the Conservative government attempts to bring the Post Office into the private sector in 1995 failed, following a parliamentary revolt by some of its own supporters.

In February 2005 the postal services commission Postcomm announced that the British postal service market would be fully liberalized from January 1, 2006, thus ending the Royal Mail Group’s monopoly. Other licensed operators can collect mail from businesses and from their own collection boxes, and transport and deliver mail to business and residential customers. The Royal Mail is still required to provide a universal collection and delivery service, delivering mail at a uniform price to all UK addresses.

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Telecommunications

In 1870 the government acquired the British telegraph systems, and in 1892 it began buying the private telephone companies. Telecommunications were the responsibility of the Post Office until 1981, when British Telecom was founded to take over telecommunications management. British Telecom was privatized in 1984, and in 1991 changed its name to BT. BT agreed to a merger with the US telecommunications company MCI in 1997 to form Concert, one of the biggest companies of its kind in the world. A number of other companies offer telecommunications services, including Cable and Wireless Communications, NTL, and Vodafone. The National Grid, the privatized electricity transmission company, has used its pylon network to set up a fibre-optics telecommunications system (Energis), and cable television companies also offer telephone services. Hull has always had its own telephone system. In the mid-1990s some 28 million residential and 6 million business lines were in operation, as well as more than 300,000 public and private payphones, giving Britain one of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced telecommunications systems.