Merseyrail

The Merseyrail concession is Abellio’s longest rail contract, let by Merseytravel (the Liverpool City Region’s strategic transport advisor), for a period of 25 years (2003 to 2028). Merseyrail operates metropolitan services in and around the Liverpool City Region and is operated as a 50/50 joint venture with Serco.

As a result of the corona virus pandemic, the focus has been on providing a safe and reliable service to the people of the Liverpool City Region who need to travel. This has involved numerous timetable changes and changes to advice to passengers in line with UK government public health messaging.

Merseyrail continues to operate under the Concession Agreement with Merseytravel and during the course of the pandemic has continued to operate with revenue and cost risk. Only due to the strong profitability of the business which has been built up since 2003 and the hard work of the team have we been able to remain profitable for the year ended 31 December 2020 without additional government support for lost passenger revenue.

Merseyrail continues to work towards delivering the introduction of a new fleet of rolling stock in 2021 and 2022 and continuing to roll out smart ticketing initiatives such as platform validators at stations across the network and digital ticket products. The new fleet has been publicly procured by Merseytravel and will be delivered by Stadler.

Merseyrail continues to be one of the most punctual UK operators as measured by PPM and retained its place as the top regional rail operator – and second best overall rail operator - in the country in the Spring 2020 National Rail Passenger Survey.