Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the technology involved in HS2 will be outdated by 2033.

The core design for HS2, should it go ahead, is based on proven international technology for high speed rail, so as to contain risks to schedule and cost, but will use elements of new technologies wherever feasible to maximise benefits. These include a digital signalling system with increased safety compared to conventional signalling, automatic driving of trains to improve capacity and performance and an advanced Traffic Management system that will optimise the movement of trains on the network to ensure rapid recovery from perturbations.

Because of the complexity and criticality of these systems, the development cycle of this technology is very long (decades rather than years) and we expect that HS2’s systems will still be considered ‘state-of-the-art’ when it opens.

There are other areas of technology, such as passenger communications, entertainment and WIFI, which have a much shorter development cycle and today’s technology in this area is likely to be out-of-date by the 2030s. For this reason we have incorporated flexibility into our specifications for the rolling stock and stations to ensure that the latest technology can be included later in the programme, allowing HS2’s customers to benefit from future innovations. Decisions on such technology will be taken at the latest appropriate moment so that the programme is not put at risk.