Tube Lines Limited - A

Tube Lines Limited - A

Tube Lines Limited, initially known as 'Infraco JNP' (an amalgamation of infrastructure and company), is an asset-management company responsible for the maintenance, renewal and upgrade of the infrastructure, including track, trains, signals, civils work and stations, of three London Underground lines.

Originally a consortium of private companies, Tube Lines was one of two infrastructure companies (the other being Metronet) who entered into a public-private partnership (PPP) with London Underground in 2003.

The company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) since May 2010, and has now been rebranded as "London Underground".

Tube Lines History

In the late 1990s, the Labour government proposed a Public Private Partnership (PPP) to reverse years of underinvestment in London Underground. The Tube trains themselves would be operated by the public sector and the infrastructure (track, trains, tunnels, signals, and stations) would be leased to private firms for 30 years to allow improvements to be made.

Tube Lines was founded by a consortium of Amey plc (a subsidiary of Grupo Ferrovial), Bechtel and Jarvis plc in 2000 to bid for the PPP contract. In 2005, Jarvis sold its stake to fellow shareholder Amey for £147 million. Tube Lines planned to subcontract work to achieve the lowest possible cost, with Metronet (the other PPP consortium) awarding contracts directly to its shareholders.

Tube Lines Formation of the PPP

Following a two-year bidding process, Metronet and Tube Lines were selected as the preferred consortiums in May 2001.

In April 2003, Tube Lines began to maintain, upgrade and renewal London Underground infrastructure as part of the PPP. Tube Lines had been the successful bidder for the 30 year JNP (tube) lines contract, serving the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. A second PPP consortium, Metronet, held the other two contracts for the 9 remaining London Underground lines.

Both Metronet and Tube Lines were colloquially referred to as "infracos". Contracts were worth around £17 billion over the 30-year period, with each contract receiving around £660 million each month from the Government, with reductions if targets are not met.

Tube Lines Commitments under the PPP

Under the terms of the PPP contracts, Tube Lines agreed to maintain London Underground infrastructure (track, trains, tunnels, signals, and stations) to the standards and performance levels set in the contract. Tube Lines committed to delivering substantial improvements to the network by refurbishing, upgrading and renewing track, trains, tunnels, signals and stations. To encourage high reliability, deductions suffered for poor performance were set at twice the rate of increase in revenue for improved performance.

At a cost of £4.4 billion, Tube Lines promised substantial investment during the first 7.5 years of the contract (2003 to 2010):

• 100 stations (including lifts and escalators) modernised or refurbished
• 42 miles (68 km) of track replaced
• Upgrade and refurbishment of tunnels, bridges, embankments, track drainage and other civil structures
• Reconstruction and expansion of Wembley Park station
• Improvements to existing trains to improve reliability and reduce delays
• Additional carriage added to 1996 Stock trains to increase capacity on the Jubilee line
• New signalling system for the Jubilee and Northern lines
• 93 new Piccadilly line trains, which would enter service by 2014 (cancelled following the collapse of the PPP)

Tube Lines Overview

Tube Lines Industry: Railways
Tube Lines Founded: 2000
Tube Lines Fate: Sold to Public Sector on 7 May 2010, Equity acquired by Transport for London
Tube Lines Headquarters: 15 Westferry Circus, London, United Kingdom
Tube Lines Key People:
Brian Sedar (Bechtel)
Lee Jones (Ferrovial)
Terry Morgan Chief Executive
Tube Lines Number of Employees: 3500 (initially)
Tube Lines Parent:
Bechtel
Amey
Jarvis