History of the Department

The Transport Department of the Velocity Interoperability Network is a new body, but the arrangements it administers were settled over the months before its establishment. The principal steps are set out below.

1. Before March 2026

   Routes maintained by member organisations

   Each member organisation of the Network maintains the routes serving its own sites and sets its own conditions for traffic on them. Operators carrying goods between the sites of different members must satisfy the requirements of each in turn, and no timetable covers more than one member's routes.

2. March 2026

   Working group on movement across the Network

   Member organisations convene a working group to consider how people and goods should move between their sites and who should be responsible for the routes that connect them.

3. May 2026

   Four classes of route proposed

   The working group reports. It recommends that routes be designated by order and assigned to one of four classes, each with its own conditions of use, and that a single body be made responsible for their upkeep.

4. July 2026

   Permit system agreed

   Members agree that goods and passengers carried for hire on designated routes should require a permit, issued without fee and for a period of up to two years, and that every permit in force should be recorded in a public register.

5. 10 August to 5 September 2026

   The transition period

   Member organisations transfer their route records, inspection records and interim permit arrangements to the Department in formation. A condition survey of all 260 kilometres of route is completed, the first timetables are drafted in consultation with the members served by each route, and twenty-three applications for permits are received from operators working under the interim arrangements, of which sixteen are ready for issue on establishment.

6. 6 September 2026

   Department established

   The Transport Department is formally established, launches transport.gov.vin and publishes the initial schedule of ten designated routes.

7. 6 September 2026

   Timetables, conditions and permits published

   On the day of its establishment the Department publishes the first timetables, in force from 7 September; the conditions of traffic and the limits for each class of route; the programme of planned works to December 2026; and the register of permits, recording the sixteen permits issued that day.

8. Forthcoming

   Further designations and the first quarterly report

   Applications for the designation of further routes, the seven permit applications under consideration, and the Department's first quarterly report on traffic carried and the condition of routes, covering the quarter ending 31 December 2026, will be announced in the Newsroom.

Announcements made since the Department was established are published in the Newsroom. For the Department's present responsibilities, see About the Department; for the routes designated on establishment, see the schedule of routes.