FEARS that rail passengers would suffer from widespread cuts in ScotRail services were eased last night after the Scottish Executive claimed victory in a rail spending row.
Nicol Stephen, the transport minister, said he had won assurances that proposed (pounds) 750m cuts in rail maintenance across Britain would not harm ScotRail.
The Strategic Rail Authority, led by Richard Bowker, has suggested the cuts as a way of reducing the costs of Network Rail, the track and station owner.
The SRA wants to spend more on a handful of main lines in Scotland but cut spending by up to 50% on the rest, which includes the Glasgow suburban network and rural lines.
Mr Stephen feared the cuts would trigger speed restrictions.
Any cuts in services would be directly contrary to the executive's ambitions to increase ScotRail's current timetable of 2000 daily trains.
Speaking after the first Scottish national transport awards in Glasgow yesterday, Mr Stephen said he had secured a commitment from Mr Bowker in the past few days.
He said: ''Richard Bowker was very clear that we would be able to deliver the current
ScotRail franchise and further improvements based on what his authority is doing.
''He gave that reassurance. I'm very pleased to receive that reassurance, it is important.''
Mr Stephen cannot tell the SRA what to do because the devolution settlement gave the Scottish Executive control over ScotRail services but not rail infrastructure.
However, a spokesman for the SRA stopped short of agreeing with Mr Stephen's interpretation of his conversation with Mr Bowker.
He said Mr Bowker had assured the minister of the importance of ScotRail and that the SRA would consider the impact of its proposals.
Mr Stephen told the conference that his key task was to deliver transport projects like rail links to Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.
He told the audience of transport operators, local authorities and politicians to follow the example of Tom Peters, the management guru, who said that when a new product was launched it needed to ''glow and tingle'' to succeed.
Professor David Begg, the chairman of the Commission for Integrated Transport, the government's transport advisory body, told the conference that radical changes to motoring taxation were the only way to tackle rising congestion.
He published new Scottish figures for his two-year-old plan to cut congestion by up to 44% by reducing fuel duty, abolishing vehicle excise duty and charging drivers to use busy roads.
Professor Begg said Scots using quiet roads at the quietest times would get a significant reduction in motoring costs.
Drivers on busy commuter routes during the rush-hour would pay more but face shorter and more reliable journeys.
Motorists in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee would pay up to 12.6p a mile at peak times, less than many bus journeys, compared to a peak charge of 54p a mile in London, he said.
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