Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much money has been spent to date developing and operating (1) the Electronic Service Delivery of Abnormal Loads system operated by Highways England, and (2) any other commercial software systems which are designed to perform a similar task; and what proportion of abnormal load notifications received by Network Rail have been generated by each system in the last two months.

The Electronic Service Delivery for Abnormal Loads (ESDAL²), operated by Highways England, has cost £3.9million to develop and operate to date.

There are commercial systems that perform some elements of ESDAL², but do not offer the same end-to-end service. These have been financed through private concerns and no public money has been used to develop or operate them.

For the period 1^st September to 31^st October 2016, Network Rail has received a total of 11,308 notifications through ESDAL² from 361 companies. In the same period, it has received 6,834 notifications from 87 companies who have used a commercial software platform (or 29% of total notifications received in the period) with approximately half of these being from a single company. There have been 5,149 notifications from other forms received by Network Rail, which equates to 22% of total notifications received.