Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of passengers on the Manchester to Leeds railway line in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018 and (e) 2019.
The Department is currently running competitions to decide who will operate the new TransPennine Express and Northern franchises that commence in April 2016. The Department expects significant future growth on the services between Manchester and Leeds, supported by the substantial increase in capacity that the operator of the new franchises will be required to deliver. However, releasing specific forecasts of future passenger growth on routes served by the franchises during the competitions for those franchises could compromise the Department’s commercial position until the franchise competitions are concluded.