Memorandum by the Light Rail Transit Association
(RT 30)
1. INTRODUCTION
The Light Rail Transit Association (LRTA) was
established in 1937 by a group of people concerned about the proposed
closures of tramways in London. The Association has grown over
the intervening 62 years into an international body with around
4,000 members around the world, half outside the United Kingdom.
Although the LRTA's members come from all walks of life, they
share a common concern with the development of good quality public
transport through the use of light rail and tramways. Many are
professionals working in the transport industries. The Association's
monthly magazine, "Tramways & Urban Transit"
is widely regarded as essential reading around the world by those
concerned with the development, building, operation and use of
light rail and tramway systems.
The Association's objectives are to educate
people about light rail and modern tramways and to advocate the
adoption of such systems as core components of modern integrated
transport systems.
2. THE SUB-COMMITTEE'S
INQUIRY INTO
LIGHT RAPID
TRANSIT
The Association welcomes the opportunity to
present evidence to the Sub-committee's Inquiry. It feels that
the Government has made a grave error in putting virtually all
its eggs in the one basket of buses as the way to improve local
public transport in cities and towns.
(a) Buses are necessary but not sufficient:
Whilst buses are, and undoubtedly will be, very
important elements in any integrated transport system, the LRTA
feels that there is ample evidence from towns and cities around
the world that car drivers and users cannot be tempted in large
numbers from their cars merely to ride on buses—traditional,
low floor or guided. However, a much larger proportion are prepared
to use public transport when a modern light rail or tramway system
is their mode of transport for all or part of their journey eg
where buses feed in passengers to light rail lines in the main
transport corridors.
(b) There is no "cheap fix":
The LRTA is concerned that the Government sees
buses as a low cost answer and will realise slowly and painfully
over the next five to 10 years that only relatively modest transfers
of car users to buses can be achieved—the evidence from
UK experience with quality bus routes is that although such provision
is popular with existing bus users and those without their own
transport there is an insignificant modal shift from car to bus.
If urban traffic congestion is actually to be reduced, rather
than simply moderating the rate of increase, an increase in bus
use in the order of 500 to 900 per cent is needed over the next
20 years—or to put it another way, an average annual increase
of between 25 per cent and 45 per cent—the exact percentage
may be disputed but the order of magnitude of the shift from cars
to buses is certainly in the right ball-park. To put the size
of the problem in context, earlier this year the Deputy Prime
Minister celebrated a 1 per cent increase in bus use year-on-year.
That leaves at least 499 per cent to go! (see end of report
for calculation details).
(c) Public Transport needs serious, sustained
capital investment:
The LRTA argues that massive investment in high
quality public transport is necessary over the next half century,
comparable with that which has gone into the trunk road and motorway
network over the half century since the Second World War. The
Association believes that a large part of this investment should
be in providing every city and town and urban area of more than
200,000 population with a light rail/tramway system as the core
of its public transport system.
This is not an unreasonable or unrealistic target—it
is what has been achieved in many if not most continental countries
and at least the embryo has been achieved in a handful of British
cities—Manchester, Sheffield, Croydon, Tyne and Wear, Birmingham/Wolverhampton.
Most of this investment will need to be by the public sector,
as was that in roads.
(d) Much of the investment has to be public
investment:
Initially, the returns which the private sector
require from an investment are inevitably not achievable from
light rail schemes. The developer has to provide and pay for at
the outset both the infrastructure and the vehicles. In a free
society, people will not transfer voluntarily from their clean,
comfortable, warm, secure cars to present day public transport
which is perceived as (and often is) grossly inadequate in frequency
and extent and as dirty, unpleasant, insecure, unreliable and
inconvenient and private sector investors reasonably expect ridership
and revenues of new schemes to be modest initially and so not
to justify the whole cost of the investment from the private finance
market.
(e) Private sector naturally cautious and
risk averse
So, at the time new light rail systems are planned,
planners and financiers take cautious and prudent views of ridership
levels—and fare revenues—normally basing their expectations
on existing public transport usage levels with cautious views
about passenger growth. This inevitably means that many schemes
fall at the very first hurdle—on paper—and even those
schemes which survive and get built expect—and commence—with
modest ridership levels initially, especially where there was
not already an established public transport customer base for
the transport corridor concerned.
(f) Preoccupation in minimising initial cost
results in higher cost long-term
However, once people realise there is an acceptable
alternative to sitting in traffic jams, growth in ridership takes
off and—because initial expectations were so low—the
bizarre situation can arise in which before long the system is
full to capacity and once more the car and traffic jams begin
to look not such a bad alternative after all. Because all the
recent UK light rail systems have had to be built down to a price
the Government of the day was prepared to spend, this situation
is likely to become a familiar scene—there is already evidence
of it in Manchester. Preoccupation with the initial capital cost
can also lead to higher costs over the 30 years or so "financing
life" of the system, not only to reinstate things which were
cut out to save money initially, but also because penny-pinching
decisions at the time of construction can come home to roost as
high maintenance cost items in the longer term.
(g) Vicious circle has to be broken
So there is a classic example of the chicken
and egg situation—until there is good public transport car
users will not ride on it and until people will ride on it there
are not the returns to fund private sector investment, so there
is not the investment in high quality public transport infrastructure
and as a result there is not good public transport for car users
to switch to.
(h) "Buses-only" solutions may not
do the job required and may not be as cheap as is claimed
The cost of bus developments are, in our view,
often understated in that the infrastructure on which they run
and depend is often ignored. This infrastructure is publicly funded
and, effectively, provided either free or at a low "rent".
The private sector is relieved of the necessity to pay for bus
infrastructure, and only has to take on the incremental cost of
investing in new buses. The public sector makes the investment
in the infrastructure and maintains it—the roads, bus-stop
lay-bys, guided and unguided busways, bus gates, bus lanes, traffic
lights, signs, policing etc and even, in many cases, bus shelters,
stops and information systems. There is nothing wrong with the
public sector paying for these infrastructure elements but in
comparing the costs of different modes it is important in all
cases to be counting the cost—both capital and ongoing—of
both vehicles and infrastructure and so making "like-for-like"
comparisons. Sometimes this has not been done by, for instance
the advocates of guided busways, the track costs of which can
greatly exceed those needed by light rail systems. The new "quality
partnerships" for buses involve the bus companies doing what
they would do anyway for normal commercial reasons (eg replace
old buses with new ones) and the public sector doing much more
than would have been the case—both elements must be counted
or an accurate understanding will not be gained.
(i) Limits to private sector investment
The private sector has been shown to be willing
to contribute to the achievement of the core networks of light
rail, though, being risk-averse, not to take the risks and costs
of surmounting all the hurdles and barriers (such as acquiring
powers and complying with much more stringent safety requirements)
that beset light rail in this country.
(j) Light Rail essential to achieve high quality
mass transit:
The combination of high quality core networks
of light rail lines integrating as seamlessly as possible with
high quality modern bus networks needs to be in place before car
users can, in a democratic society, be enticed, taxed or forced
out of their cars for urban journeys. This means, necessarily,
that returns on capital will be lower initially than the private
sector require to justify private financing (typically 20 per
cent+ per annum).
The public sector, which in reality is much
less risk averse, and should not be using commercial rate of return
as its principal criterion, has to fill this gap. However this
sector is currently starved of public funding and the achievement
of high quality integrated networks capable of being regarded
as a fair and reasonable alternative to the car is currently not
happening.
3. EVIDENCE IN
RESPECT OF
THE FOUR
POINTS LISTED
BY THE
SUB-COMMITTEE"(a) examples
of rapid transit systems recently constructed both in this country
and worldwide;"
(i) Number of systems, worldwide:
Around the world, there are some 95 metro/underground
systems, 75 light rail systems and 350 tramways. A comprehensive
listing is available on the Association's website—www.lrta.org—go
to main index on home page and select "World Systems List".
(ii) Number of recent systems:
Sixty-one new tramway and light rail systems have
opened since 1978 (excluding heritage tramways):
|
| 1978
| - 1
| (Edmonton, Canada) |
| 1980 | - 1
| (Tyne and Wear, UK) |
| 1981 | - 3
| (Calgary, Canada; Helwan, Egypt; San Diego, USA)
|
| 1982 | - 1
| (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) |
| 1983 | - 1
| (Utrecht, Netherlands) |
| 1984 | - 3
| (Manila, Philippines; Constanta, Romania; Buffalo, USA)
|
| 1985 | - 3
| (Vancouver, Canada; Nantes, France; Tunis, Tunisia)
|
| 1986 | - 1
| (Portland, USA) |
| 1987 | - 9
| (Buenos Aires, Argentina; Grenoble, France; Brasov, Romania; Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Craiova, Romania; Ploeisti, Romania; London Docklands, UK; Sacramento, USA; San Jose, USA)
|
| 1988 | - 5
| (Mosyr, Belarus; Tuen Mun, Hong Kong; Resita, Romania; Ust-Ilimsk, Russia; Valencia, Spain)
|
| 1989 | - 2
| (Guadalajara, Mexico; Istanbul, Turkey) |
| 1990 | - 2
| (Genova, Italy: Los Angeles, USA) |
| 1991 | - 6
| (Campinas, Brazil; Monterrey, Mexico; Pyongyang, North Korea; Botosani, Romania; Lausanne, Switzerland; Cheryomushki, Russia)
|
| 1992 | -4
| (Paris, France; Konya, Turkey; Manchester, UK; Baltimore, USA)
|
| 1993 | - 1
| (St Louis, USA) |
| 1994 | - 4
| Rouen, France; Strasbourg, France; Sheffield, UK; Denver, USA)
|
| 1995 | - 3
| (Ankara, Turkey; Buenos Aires (2nd system), Argentina
|
| 1996 | - 3
| (Oberhausen, Germany; Dallas, USA; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
|
| 1997 | - 3
| (Sydney, Australia; Saarbru£cken, Germany; Izmir, Turkey)
|
| 1998 | - 1
| (Paris (2nd system), France) |
| 1999 | - 4
| (Croydon, UK; West Midlands, UK; Antalya, Turkey; Salt Lake City, USA)
|
| Total over the last 21 years = 61
|
|
Many more systems are under construction or planned around
the world. To instance just one country of similar population
to the UK, France—Further lines and extensions in Grenoble,
Nantes and Strasbourg; new systems in Clermont Ferrand, Lyons,
Marseilles, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Orleans, Valenciennes.
(iii) Evolution into modern systems:
Many German, Central and East European cities retained their
traditional tramway systems after the Second World War and could
neither afford to abandon them nor were willing to contemplate
doing so, and adopt motor buses as happened in the UK and France.
Such cities have generally found it both desirable and possible
to update and develop their traditional tramway systems, in some
cases into modern, extensive and effective networks incorporating
modern light rail/tramway technology and practices.
(iv) Entirely new systems:
Perhaps of even greater interest are those new systems which
have opened in the last 20 years in places which either never
had a "traditional" system or where it had been completely
taken out of service and the tracks, etc removed many years earlier.
The recent systems built in France and the United States provide
some of the best examples of such new schemes.
(v) Nature of the UK's systems:
In the United Kingdom only Blackpool's tramways have survived
from the earlier era, though reduced in extent. New systems have
been developed in Newcastle/Tyneside, London Docklands, Manchester,
Sheffield, Birmingham to Wolverhampton and Croydon—and Nottingham
is about to commence construction. Leeds has powers for its proposed
Supertram, South Hampshire is awaiting approval of its application
for an Order under the Transport & Works Act and Bristol is
developing a scheme (see case study, later).
So far UK schemes have generally involved the conversion
of rail routes to light rail/tramway or the re-use of disused
rail routes to some extent and there has not been the extent of
planned integration with the physical planning of cities in order
to create an urban renaissance that has happened elsewhere in
Europe and the United States.
Extensive street-running is a feature of only the Sheffield
system (though without the benefit of extensive priority measures
which extensive street-running requires) and the Croydon system,
though the systems in Manchester and Wolverhampton/Birmingham
have relatively small amounts of street-running. Of course, segregation
from street traffic ensures there are no delays due to traffic
congestion, whilst street-running in town and city centres, particularly
where it is in pedestrianised areas, is highly desirable to allow
accessibility and convenience to passengers.
Trams/light rail vehicles in pedestrianised areas are much
more acceptable than motor vehicles or buses as it is exactly
predictable as to where they will go, whereas pedestrians, not
surprisingly, give buses and other motor vehicles a wide berth
for safety and by having to do so the whole ambience of a pedestrianised
area is fundamentally degraded.
(vi) Integration:
Most of both the new and the evolving systems have a high
level of planned integration with the bus networks in the same
towns/cities—some are absolutely text-book examples—eg
Hannover and Zurich. However, in the UK, since 1986, other than
in Greater London, deregulation of bus services has both destroyed
and prohibited such planned integration. It is doubtful if there
are any examples in the UK of the sophisticated integration which
can be found in cities such as Hannover, where buses wait across-platform
for light rail vehicles to arrive and allow immediate and very
easy interchange. Even in Greater London where there is a planned
and regulated bus system it cannot be said that integration of
this quality exists between buses and underground and Docklands
Light Railway (or, probably, Croydon Tramlink).
Interestingly the one exception to the lack of integration
in the UK (outside London) may prove to be Midland Metro Line
One (Birmingham-Wolverhampton) where the same private sector company
is the operator of both the light rail line, local train services
and the vast majority of bus services. Here it may be said that
the evolution of a local private monopoly enables (but does not
ensure) the planned integration which in other countries is achieved
by public sector control. Whether it is in the long term public
interest for such a monopoly to be in private hands is another
matter, especially in the absence of a Regulator for the bus industry
to ensure protection of the public interest.
(vii) Track sharing:
An important development of the last decade or so is the
development of through running of light rail vehicles on heavy
rail tracks in cities such as Karlsruhe and Saarbrucken in Germany
(and planned for Mulhouse, France). This enables seamless journeys
for commuters—serving suburban settlements and penetrating
city centres as well as more modern and appropriate vehicles for
suburban and urban journeys and better utilisation of often under-used
rail infrastructure. It can also greatly reduce the capital costs
of infrastructure as compared with the costs of building totally
new lines. It can make good financial sense for both the heavy
and light rail operators. The safety and "cultural"
issues—once thought to be insurmountable barriers—have
been satisfactorily solved in the countries where track-sharing
is now operating and, at least conceptually, progress seems to
have been made in the UK (see case study, later). Within four
years passenger loadings on Karlsruhe's first track-sharing line
had increased by more than 400 per cent (compared with previous
heavy-rail service) at over 12,000 per day and about 40 per cent
of these passengers are former motorists and a high proportion,
72 per cent, walk to their local station suggesting that the policy
of providing additional stations on the track-shared line was
soundly based. (Source: Tony Young, LRT consultant)
(viii) Well proven technology:
Light Rail Transit is a tried and tested technology which
has evolved and developed over more than a century into the highly
sophisticated and attractive transit systems that are in operation
and built now.
"(b) the problems they have faced, both at the time of
their construction and afterwards;"
(i) Hurdles and Barriers:
Light Rail projects in Britain face difficult hurdles from
their very conception—hurdles not faced by buses. First
of all any light rail/tramway scheme has to obtain statutory powers.
It used to be said when Private Bills were required that this
cost £1 million for each line. The reality was more like
£2 million. Now, application has to be made for an Order
under the Transport and Works Act 1992. The costs are almost certainly
higher and the time-scale and complexity longer. Costs of this
scale are inevitably daunting for any promoter and especially
so for those concerned with ULR (Ultra Light Rail) projects which
are small in scale and cost but have to go through the same process
to obtain powers with similar costs. £2 million to £3
million to obtain powers for a £200 million scheme is burden
enough, but for a £20 million scheme it is an insurmountable
hurdle and the potential rewards to a promoter are not likely
to justify hazarding such a large sum given the uncertainties
of success.
Even more significant is the time involved and the uncertainty
of the outcome. This has meant that, so far, it has only been
public authorities which have had enough stamina to promote schemes,
to win the support of local authorities, obtain the powers to
construct and operate and justify the case to central government
and win central government and European funding. Due to the requirements
to transfer as much risk as possible to the private sector and
to maximise the private sector's contribution, all the recent
schemes have ended up being constructed and operated by private
sector consortia.
The Chartered Institute of Transport produced a report proposing
changes to the Transport and Works Act procedures but, so far,
no commitment has been given by Government to implement any of
the proposed changes.
The biggest hurdles facing LRT promoters are (a) getting
clear Government support for their projects at a reasonably early
stage and (b) financing the project (raising the funding)—the
two are crucially interlinked—without Government support
in principle, as well as to funding, raising finance from other
sources, private and public, is much more difficult. Treasury/Government
has set its face against major transport infastructure schemes.
The basic rules set by the previous Government, and continued
by the present Government, seem to be:
(a) no operating subsidy must be required or paid.
(b) users should pay through the fare-box for all the
benefits they derive and that only non-user benefits (ie the benefits
to people who don't use the new tramway or light rail system)
can be counted in the social cost-benefit analysis. It is assumed
that the fares people pay equal the full value of the benefits
they derive.
(c) the cost-benefit analysis must give a high enough
positive net present value. In practice this is a very difficult
criterion to achieve because the principal benefits of a public
transport system are not allowed to be reckoned as benefits (time
value of passengers not at work), though this is allowed in assessment
of new road construction projects.
(d) the project's risks must be largely transferred to
the private sector.
(e) the maximum contribution possible to the capital cost
must be obtained from the private sector (and that contribution
must be high compared with other competing schemes).
(f) cautious estimating of ridership must be verified
by techniques such as stated preference surveys—asking people
whether they will change their travel mode to use a not-yet-built
alternative and interpreting the results cautiously almost inevitably
produces very cautious conclusions which are then key factors
in gauging the viability of the proposed scheme.
(g) Finally, and most importantly, since the beginning
of the decade, promoters of schemes have had to demonstrate by
rigorous analysis that there is not an alternative mode or solution
which is more cost-effective. That fact that at least a few schemes
have survived and been built is, in a sense, extraordinary and
says a great deal for light rail/tramways' possibilities in a
more receptive environment.
The construction and operation of light rail is subject to
a much more stringent and demanding safety regime than exists
for its competitor modes (principally cars, but also, in this
sense at least, buses). This inevitably imposes a cost burden
on to light rail systems which does not have to be borne by, for
instance, buses. We do not argue that trams/light rail should
not be as safe as they are (indeed this is one of their merits),
but we do argue that it is unfair that competitor modes, especially
cars, should be allowed to operate to much less demanding safety
standards.
Light rail is, comparatively, discriminated against in other
ways, for instance the contribution that utilities have to pay
towards renewal of their equipment when this has to be moved to
allow for the construction of a light rail or tramway line. Proposals
to reduce the contribution the utilities have to make towards
the renewal of their assets from 18 per cent to 7.5 per cent have
recently been sent to the Secretary of State for approval—this
represents a considerable bonus for highly profitable utilities
and a most unwelcome additional cost to LRT promoters—representing
an additional cost to Manchester of some £5 million for its
proposed extensions to Metrolink. Can it really be the case that
there is only a 7.5 per cent betterment element when decades-old
utility services are renewed? Light rail is also subject to planning
controls (eg over the design and siting of stops and stations)
which do not impinge on bus operators.
The obsession of Government/Treasury with minimising capital
cost has in almost every system in the UK led to consequences
which do not make good sense in the longer term—eg the number,
size and capacity of the Midland Metro vehicles and the number
of stations/stops had to be reduced to get the cost of the project
down. The consequence will almost certainly be the need, within
a short time from opening, to lengthen the vehicles to provide
adequate capacity at a much higher cost than it would have cost
initially. Some last-minute cost-savings have led to environmental
or aesthetic degradation by effectively tearing up commitments
made and design standards set eg the design of the poles to support
the overhead in Croydon town centre.
Light Rail schemes inevitably cost quite large sums of money
because they have to create the infrastructure as well as provide
the vehicles (LRVs). However, the cost of light rail vehicles
could be reduced if there were not such a proliferation of designs
of light rail vehicle. In the last 15 years 25 different low floor
light rail vehicles have been designed, with the result that an
average of only 46 of each design have been built, so the economies
of scale that builders of cars, trucks, vans and buses and coaches
achieve have not been achieved and the consequent cost per vehicle
has been unnecessarily high, which has not helped LRT projects
achieve good cost-benefit ratios and, with marginal schemes, has
probably meant that some schemes have, as a result, not gone ahead.
Part of the problem has been each city wanting its own design
of vehicle, and each manufacturer also wanting to have its own
unique offering. Consolidation in the industry and the encouragement
of standard approaches by, for instance, the UITP Light Rail Commission
and the trend towards modular designs which can be customised
cosmetically (ie to look different in city A from city B) are
beginning to improve this situation.
The weight of light rail vehicles has tended to drift upwards,
with all sorts of undesirable implications for the costs of energy
to propel them and the strength and cost of the infrastructure
to support them. Fortunately, there are now signs of the latest
vehicles moving downwards in weight (towards the desirable weight
of something like 30 tonnes for a typical LRV as against the 50-60
tonnes of some well-known LRVs produced in the current era). The
trend to higher weights has been partly due to ever-increasing
sophistication, partly to ever more demanding safety requirements
and partly due to the inappropriate influence of the heavy-rail
culture on light-rail design.
Clearly, for vehicles to cost more to buy and more to run
than is necessary is undesirable and doesn't help the achievement
of schemes.
The lack of real strategic thinking in the town planning
system of the UK has meant that there is seldom a clear decision
by the planning authorities, for instance in Structure Plans,
that development is conditional on the provision of high quality
public transport provision, such as light rail. Structure Plans
have tended to be platitudinous about the desirability of public
transport and the reality is that individual planning applications,
due to their penny packet nature, have rarely, if ever, been seen
to be dependent on the provision of a whole local system of public
transit, such as a light rail line. All too often developers have
satisfied the planning authority simply by paying for improvements
to the local road system (as well as "development gain"
sweeteners in terms of community centres or whatever).
The new Local Transport Plans system announced by the Government
in the Integrated Transport White Paper promises a remedy to these
shortfalls but little is evident so far to suggest that this will
be achieved. Indeed the short-term, low-cost focus of the first
provisional year of Local Transport Plans give concern that this
new system may not encourage the sort of long term strategic vision
which is necessary.
Despite these very severe hurdles, the fact that a number
of schemes have been built in the 1990s in the UK shows that light
rail has surmounted hurdles which other modes do not even have
to consider—what could be achieved if the playing field
was not so heavily tilted against light rail?"(c) what
successes they have had, particularly in terms of removing traffic
from roads and thus reducing congestion or restraining its growth;"
There is increasing evidence from recent systems around the world
that light rail is able to attract car users whereas buses, even
guided buses, cannot do so in anything like the same measure.
This is particularly important, not only from the point of view
of a system's viability but also in terms of it achieving the
objectives of transport policies designed to reduce congestion.
There are two types of evidence—first, modal shares
of public and private transport before the building of a light
rail line or tramway compared with the shares afterwards. It must
be borne in mind that in most developed countries the mobility
of the population has been rapidly increasing, mainly through
growth in the numbers and utilisation of private vehicles. A survey
by UITP in 1997 showed that car drivers had transferred to using
LRT in 93 per cent of the cities which had surveyed modal choice
since the opening of LRT—the average per cent being 11 per
cent, the lowest 1 per cent and highest 16 per cent. Bearing in
mind that in most British cities quite modest reductions of traffic
levels to "school-holiday" levels effectively restores
free-flowing traffic conditions in cities, the achievement of
an average 11 per cent reduction in peak hours car numbers could
at least put cities back on the move again and further measures
to discourage or prohibit car use (which have not been applied
in any measure so far) might be expected to bring about further
significant levels of transfer from car use to public transport
use—provided there was an acceptably good mode, such as
LRT, available for use.
In Nantes (France), where the first of the new era tramways
was built (opened 1985, extended 1989—14.2 kms with 30 stops),
its inhabitants make 3.60 journeys per day (1997) an increase
of 19.2 per cent. Much of this increase has been in use of private
transport, but between 1990 and 1997 the use of public transport
has accelerated, the increase in use of private motor vehicles
has moderated and the decrease in cycling has stopped. Between
1984 (before the tram) and 1995 the ridership of light rail +
bus increased by 65.1 per cent. 43 per cent of the total public
transport journeys are now made on the trams (33 million journeys
per year). 16 per cent of tram users had never used the bus network
before the tram was built and 39 per cent of tram users had a
private vehicle which they could have used—they prefer the
tram to the car for certain journeys. The main reasons for choosing
the tram are its rapidity and accessibility to go to work or to
go shopping. More than 80 per cent of the tram users go to the
city centre to do their shopping and 85 per cent of them are satisfied
with the tramways. For 31.5 per cent of them, public transport
was an essential or important criterion in the choice of the location
of their accommodation. (Sources: UITP Light Rail Commission and
Town Planning Agency of Nantes area, 1998).
In Strasbourg total public transport ridership increased
by 45 per cent (1990 to 1997) since the opening of the tramway,
car use in the city centre reduced by 17 per cent and the central
square, which used to have 50,000 vehicles a day in it, now has
just trams and pedestrians. The number of parking places in the
city centre is being reduced by 1,000 and replaced by more park
and ride places in the suburbs (Source: M. Roland Ries, Mayor
of Strasbourg). The evidence is that tramways/light rail not only
attract passengers to themselves but also, where there is good
integration between modes, increase ridership of the public transport
system as a whole.
In cities which have had extensive tramway and/or light rail
systems for many years it is inevitably not possible to have the
before and after comparisons. What can be illuminating is to look
at the modal splits in such cities and compare them with, say,
British cities which have only buses as their public transport.
In Zurich, a city of around 300,000 population—a similar
size to Coventry—only 29 per cent of journeys are made by
private car, whereas in Coventry the figure is more than 75 per
cent. What makes this comparison even more impressive is the fact
that car ownership rates are actually higher in Zurich than in
Coventry, but people do not use them for many of their urban journeys.
To quote an ordinary citizen of Zurich, "I own a car with
someone else—no-one in Zurich needs a car just for themselves".
Zurich has an integrated public transport system which utilises
buses, trolley-buses, trams, light rail, commuter trains, funiculars
and passenger ferries in a dense and highly utilised network.
Coventry has buses and one lightly used commuter railway line
with just two suburban stations and the city's main railway station
within the city boundaries. Two other lines have no suburban stations
within the city and the main railway station is itself outside
the city centre. To all intents and purposes buses are the only
mode of public transport within the city boundaries.
The size of the problem
Our calculations, based upon statements by Professor David
Begg, Chairman of the Government's Commission for Integrated Transport,
that a 1 per cent reduction in road-passenger kilometres would
require a 17 per cent increase in bus-passenger kilometres, are
that the ridership of buses will have to increase by between 700
and 900 per cent over the next 20 years if the increasing congestion
on the roads is to be countered and indeed reduced to reasonably
free-flowing conditions compared to the present heavily congested
and future total grid-lock conditions which will otherwise apply.
Even to confine car traffic figures and congestion levels to what
they are now will require a 170 per cent increase in bus use to
be achieved over the next 20 years.
We do not believe that there is even the very slightest chance
of bus patronage rising by 170 per cent let alone 500-900 per
cent (The Deputy Prime Minister has recently celebrated a rise
of 1 per cent after 25 years of continuous decline, so this puts
the scale of the task into some perspective). To accommodate a
ridership increase of 500-900 per cent would require an increase
in the national bus fleet of huge proportions which in itself
would cause considerable traffic congestion, especially in city
centres, a problem which some city centres already suffer. There
is also great doubt whether sufficient bus drivers could be recruited
especially as they have fallen in status to be some of the lowest
paid workers in the country and recruitment is already difficult
in many places. If pay rates had to rise in order to recruit sufficient
bus drivers the entire cost structure of bus operation would rise,
further improving the case for light rail.
The LRTA submits that it is conceivable that transitions
of this magnitude could be achieved if multi-modal, fully integrated,
public transport systems are developed for every large town and
city based upon a combination of high quality buses, light rail
lines for the main corridors and use of the heavy rail network
for both heavy and light rail services. Cities with modern tramways
or light rail at the core of their public transport systems, fully
integrated with bus networks which gather and distribute passengers
to and from the light rail core are the only realistic options
for getting people out of their cars and on to public transport.
Light rail is mass transit and very efficient both in energy and
environmental terms and in terms of manpower—one driver
can carry as many passengers as can three to five (or even more)
bus drivers and the practical passenger carrying capacity of one
light rail line is dramatically higher than that of one bus lane,
and indeed is only exceeded by that of heavy metros such as London
Underground.
The question of seamless interchange is a key one—in
cities like Hannover light rail vehicles arrive at suburban interchange
stations and passengers walk across a platform straight on to
buses which take them on the last part of their journey. Buses
are synchronised to connect with light rail/trams and they do
not drive out of the interchange as the light rail vehicle comes
in, nor do the passengers have to wait 10 or 20 minutes for the
bus to depart—the waiting times involved in local public
transport are as big a deterrent to car users as any other single
factor (ie why stand around a cold, wet, draughty, unpleasant,
insecure bus-stop or bus-station when you could be sat in a nice
warm, secure car—even if stationary?)
Finally, we do not believe that the ability of light rail
transit in terms of removing traffic from roads and thus reducing
congestion or restraining its growth is the only criterion of
importance. Whilst many people have cars and use them, many others
don't and, effectively, have become second class citizens. Light
rail can be liberating for them, as well as providing an acceptable
alternative for car users. A survey by UITP showed that in 100
per cent of the cities responding, customers rated LRT as being
more accessible than buses and 73 per cent rated LRT as more reliable
than buses.
"(d) whether it is appropriate, and if so what help can
be given, to assist the growth of rapid transit schemes in the
United Kingdom."
Currently, Government seems to present us with an unsolvable
conundrum—ie that car users will not get out of cars (and
cannot, in a democratic society, really be expected to) unless
and until there is a reasonably acceptable alternative—but
until they do the expenditure on providing the extent and quality
of public transport which would get them out of their cars cannot
be afforded.
Arguably, it is only in London (despite all its shortcomings)
that there is really a choice (obviously there are beginning to
be some others—eg parts of Manchester, Newcastle/Tyneside,
Sheffield) but Government seems to want to bring in the sticks
before the carrots—the theory perhaps being that if you
force passengers on to public transport the return to the private
sector will go up and this will enable the private sector to justify
investing in new projects. This doesn't allow for the extent to
which motorists have a propensity to stick with their cars, even
if costs go up a lot (after all no-one would have a car at all
on a purely financial justification yet in reality people spend
as much on their cars as on food), nor does it allow for the democratic
revolt factor—of which there have been recent signs that
the Government is aware.
There has always been a problem in getting Government to
commit itself to supporting individual light rail schemes; the
attitude has seemed to be that everything must be in place and
then the Government will think about it. This is not at all helpful
to promoters of schemes in assembling both the wider support for
and financing of projects which is essential. There was a period
when project promoters were expected to show that they had maximised
the contribution from developers and other land and property owners
who would benefit from the scheme. This is fair enough in theory
but the reality is that promoters are denied any mechanisms to
tap the increases in development value—there is no legal
mechanism which can be used to require developers to contribute
anything at all, even though the value of their land and buildings
may increase substantially. Nor can the promoter capture the development
gain himself because promoters have been precluded from incorporating
any land whatsoever into the limits of deviation for the project
beyond what is strictly required for operational purposes.
What has happened in practice is that developers have seen
no reason to pledge funds towards a scheme which they have no
confidence the Government will allow and support. So they don't.
At the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute, when the Government
does deign to support the scheme, it is then too late to get the
developers' money (as the total funding package has had to be
assembled in order to get the Government support). Indeed, at
that point developers can then see that the project is definitely
going ahead and, in the absence of any legal requirement for them
to contribute, they naturally prefer to keep their hands in their
pockets and hang on to their money.
The above scenario could be described as the "Eleventh
Year, Eleventh Hour and Fifty-ninth Minute" syndrome, because,
so far, it has taken something like 10 to 15 years to get light
rail schemes from conception to completion. In this time-scale
the average private sector developer has probably moved through
four or five successive schemes—the time-scale for the achievement
of these public transport infrastructure schemes are so incompatible
with the speed at which commercial property developers operate
that it is very difficult to both capture and retain their interest
and involvement. Whilst it is probably true that such major public
infrastructure schemes will never be achieved on the same time
scales as the average business park, office development or housing
estate, the only factor which has caused them to take 10+ years
instead of five or six years is delay and procrastination by governments
unwilling to approve and help finance such schemes. This is well
demonstrated by the case of Saarbrucken in Germany where the city's
innovative track-sharing LRT scheme was achieved in five years
from conception.
The Government is proposing to introduce legislation to permit
congestion-charging and workplace parking charges schemes to be
introduced by local authorities. What is vital is that this legislation
permits, and Government in practice agrees, to advance the funding
so that major improvements in local public transport infrastructure,
such as a light rail system, can be undertaken before the introduction
of the new charges. We believe that many motorists, even those
who decide to pay the congestion charges rather than use the improved
public transport, would recognise the reasonableness of the charges
in a situation where they can simultaneously see the improved
public transport available for them to use, and they can see the
beneficial effect on road traffic congestion which results from
other car users making the decision to change their modes of travel.
It is the LRTA's firm and confident belief, based upon experience
around the world, that many—though by no means all—motorists
would choose to use that improved public transport if it were
a modern light rail or tramway system—and this would be
a higher proportion by far than in a situation where all that
was on offer was only buses—be they new, low-floor, kneeling,
bendy, guided, low emission diesel or whatever.
A case-study is attached in summary form of the proposed
Bristol/South Gloucestershire LRT scheme which exemplifies both
the problems and opportunities of light rail schemes. The LRTA
is pleased to be able to present this to the Sub-committee on
behalf of the promoters, the Citylink Consortium and Railtrack,
their partners.
4. CONCLUSIONS
A solution has to be found to the several "chicken-and-egg"
situations which exist—
(a) motorists cannot and will not be tipped out of their
cars on to the grossly inferior forms of public transport which
are the norm today in the United Kingdom. If they are forced to
do so they will vote with their vote and the result will be a
stalemate situation with horrendous and worsening road traffic
congestion, energy waste, unnecessary environmental pollution
and damage to human health stretching into the indefinite future.
(b) the uneven playing field suffered by light rail projects
must, in the public interest, be levelled out otherwise the high
quality public transport, which can attract people out of their
cars and which many car users would accept as a reasonable alternative
to car use, simply will not come into existence.
(c) there is a crucial need for Government approval and
funding to be timed so that new light rail systems, such as that
proposed for Bristol, can be built before congestion charges are
introduced. Many car users will accept congestion charges as reasonable
and sensible when there is a good alternative that they could
use—and many of them will indeed use it—others won't,
and will pay the charges, and will see the benefits of doing so
(ie less road traffic) and so won't be so antipathetic to the
charges.
Robert J Tarr,
Secretary General
8 October 1999
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