The Railways Infrastructure (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005

Scheduling and co-ordination

18.—(1) The infrastructure manager must, so far as is reasonable—

(a) meet all requests for infrastructure capacity; and

(b) in doing so, take account of all constraints on applicants, including the ecomomic effect on their business.

(2) The infrastructure manager may give priority to specific services within the scheduling and co-ordination process, but only in accordance with the provisions in regulations 20 and 21.

(3) The infrastructure manager must consult interested parties about the draft working timetable, and must allow such interested parties a period of at least one calendar month to submit their comments.

(4) In the event of conflict between different requests for infrastructure capacity, the infrastructure manager must use all best endeavours, in consultation with the appropriate applicants, to co-ordinate the requests and, in so far as it is reasonable to do so, may propose alternative infrastructure capacity from that requested in order to resolve the conflict.

(5) The infrastructure manager must facilitate the establishment and operation of a dispute resolution system to resolve disputes about the allocation of infrastructure capacity and, where that system is applied, a decision on the matters in dispute must be reached no later than ten working days after the final submission of all relevant information in accordance with that system.

(6) The infrastructure manager must take such measures as are appropriate to deal with any concerns about the allocation process raised by interested parties.

(7) For the purposes of this regulation “interested parties” includes—

(a) all applicants for infrastructure capacity as part of the specific allocation process to which the draft working timetable relates; and

(b) other parties who have indicated to the Department, in such form or manner as the Department may from time to time prescribe, that they wish to have the opportunity to comment as to the effect that the working timetable might have on their ability to procure rail services during the working timetable period to which the draft working timetable relates.