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Railways: Theft

Answer

The information is not available in the format requested. Details of the number and costs of incidents of cable theft which result in delays to the operational network are collected by Network Rail on a route basis.

Network Rail cable theft statistics—route and national 2008-09 to date
Network Rail breakdown by route 2010-11
Route	Number of incidents	Delay minutes¹	Compensation cost² (£)
Anglia	74	21,055	1,089,809
CTRL	1	31	7,251
East Midlands	33	11,234	282, 473
Kent	17	12,681	417,950
LNE (London North Eastern)	526	137,801	3,531,416
LNW (London North Western)	196	105,842	2,795,811
Scotland	34	7,265	254, 825
Sussex	3	764	30, 081
Wessex	8	3,536	140,423
Western	103	65,026	3,587, 181

Breakdown by route 2009-10
Route	Number of incidents	Delay minutes¹	Compensation cost² (£)
Anglia	79	40,632	2,643,979
CTRL	0	0	0
East Midlands	27	6,386	155,750
Kent	10	3,331	82,849
LNE (London North Eastern)	327	102,680	2,630,249
LNW (London North Western)	166	125,089	3,085,507
Scotland	2	142	13,974
Sussex	1	748	41,876
Wessex	3	71	1,738
Western	41	42, 491	2,275,430

Breakdown by route 2008-09
Route	Number of incidents	Delay minutes¹	Compensation cost² (£)
Anglia	26	12,253	720,251
CTRL	0	0	0
East Midlands	22	6,532	215,439
Kent	23	5,570	148,591
LNE (London North Eastern)	489	167,509	4,725,454
LNW (London North Western)	136	71,548	1,361,966
Scotland	10	4,396	212,450
Sussex	0	0	0
Wessex	1	12	163
Western	35	15,347	474,203

National
Financial year	Number of incidents4	Delay minutes¹	Compensation cost² (£)	Total cost³ (£)
2011-125	464	166,353	5,877,347	n/a
2010-11	995	365,265	12,137,220	16,510,663
2009-10	656	321,570	10,931,350	13,961,998
2008-09	742	283,167	7,858,516	12,264,682
Total	2,393	970,002	30,927,086	42,737,343
¹ Delay minutes provide an indication of the scale of inconvenience experienced by passengers and vary with each incident. If the theft is on a busy mainline then they rack up much more quickly than on quieter suburban lines. ² Compensation costs (known as schedule 8 costs) are paid to train and freight operators for the disruption caused by the delay. This is a substantial part of the cost to the industry of cable theft but does not include the cost of staff time to repair and replace the cable, replacement cable itself and the cost of mitigation measures such as security patrols and investment in new technology. The amount of compensation paid depends on the type of services delayed. ³ Total cost comprises schedule 8 (compensation to train operators), as well as the average cost of replacement cable; average maintenance cost of attending to the fault and average opportunity cost of diverting this labour from elsewhere. This figure is available only as a national figure as it is an estimation based on averages. 4 Number of incidents which caused delay to the operational network. It does not include thefts from depots, engineering sites or redundant cable.
5 Year to date—to end of period 5.

	Hours delay
2011-12¹	2,772
2010-11	6,088
2009-10	5,360
2008-09	4,719
¹ Year to date—to end of period 5.

Details of the total number of cable theft crimes, including thefts from depots, engineering sites and depots are collated by BTP for 2010-11.

Crime area name	Number of crimes (live and redundant cable)	Arrests
London North	321	112
London South	391	94
London Underground	123	77
North Eastern	1,184	273
North Western	273	109
Wales and Western	632	218
Scottish	192	31
Total	3,116	914

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

90625; 538 c917-9W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Railways Metals Theft

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk