Memorandum by Peter Thompson (LR 44)
INTEGRATED TRANSPORT: THE FUTURE OF LIGHT
RAIL AND MODERN TRAMS IN BRITAIN
INTRODUCTION
I wish to set before the Committee some personal
observations on this matter. I have for many years been interested
in town planning, land use and transport. More recently I developed
a concerned interest in environmental matters in relation to these
subjects. I worked in the bus industry for a time in the mid-1960s,
and have since then kept somewhat in touch with it through personal
contact with people still in it. I also have some experience of
light rail as a user, as I live at the terminus of one of the
Manchester "Metrolink" tram routes, and have travelled
around several European cities exclusively by their public transport
systems.
My own travel patterns involve local bus, local
commuter train, walking and cycling, and use of my car only for
weekly shopping and for purely "social" journeys. I
consciously chose to live within a 20-25 minute walk of a local
rail and tram station which also has the local bus and coach station
alongside it. I deliberately avoid car use where a viable alternative
is available, and attribute my current and fortunate good health
partly to the regular exercise entailed by this.
I am very pleased to see that Integrated Transport
is again being looked at. Its achievement will not be easy, and
will involve hard fights with vested interests which are concerned
only for their own corners and profits, and which have little
or no interest in the overall public good. I sincerely hope that
the Committee's studies and deliberations will result in the rapid
creation of an effective and implemented Integrated Transport
Policy. For the purpose of what follows, I see the terms "light
rail" and "tram" as identical.
1. COSTS AND
BENEFITS OF
LIGHT RAIL
1.1 The UK experience is that light rail
appears to be so expensive that schemes can only be authorised
after exhaustingly detailed and time-consuming study. Clearly,
public money must be spent wisely, but, given that the UK economy
is regularly said to be the most successful in the whole of Europe,
it is remarkable how comparatively quickly light rail improvements
are carried out in Europe; by comparison, all is paralysis in
the UK.
1.2 Light rail construction costs should
be seen in relation to those of "heavy" rail, and also
of roads and motorways. I would expect light rail's costs to be
lower.
1.3 Light rail's land space demands should
be compared with the land take of roads and motorways. I would
expect light rail's to be far less.
1.4 Light rail's passenger throughput capacity
should be compared to that of roads and motorways. I believe that
LR is capable of moving more people per hour than any road.
1.5 Light rail's energy usage and pollution
"production" should be compared to buses and cars. I
would expect LR to be far less of a problem.
1.6 Light rail's versatility (it can use
"heavy rail" tracks, given the appropriate signalling
protection, as in Karlsruhe, Germany) and flexibility (it can
usually be woven into an existing urban fabric with minimum disruption
and intrusion) should be seen in relation to the devastation and
blighting of urban neighbourhoods caused by new road (and indeed
heavy rail) construction.
1.7 Light rail's ability to offer almost
heavy rail quality travel in an urban and suburban environment
is attractive to motorists (as buses are not), and as such LR
is essential in any urban area road traffic reduction strategy.
1.8 Light rail provides a fixed track link
with a visible presence; as such its medium to long term permanence
is an encouragement to businesses to locate around it. Bus services
are not as physically visible. They are quite unstable because
(outside London) they can disappear after only 42 days' notice
of cessation.
1.9 A light rail system encourages travel
between and among the specific places it serves; it is thus a
unifying and converging influence on the area served, and helps
the local economy thereof. It can also help to foster a sense
of distinctive local identity. By complete contrast, road investment
promotes even more "anywhere to anywhere" journeys,
thus such investment is a dispersing and fragmenting influence,
allowing loss of jobs to other areas, and as such does little
or nothing to assist local economy or identity.
2. WHAT LIGHT
RAIL SYSTEMS
NEED TO
BE SUCCESSFUL
2.1 Light rail needs to be integrated into
all local planning processes, and any scheme on a possible light
rail route should take this possibility into account, and routes
safeguarded for future LR exploitation.
2.2 Buses must be re-regulated; a return
to a more enlightened version of the 1930 Road Traffic Act's regime
would bring many benefits; regulation served us quite well for
55 years and was only abolished for doctrinaire political reasons.
A regulated bus system could then be fitted around a light rail
network, thus optimising the benefits of both modes.
2.2.1 Re-regulation does not mean public
ownership of bus companies. Many privately owned buses operated
harmoniously alongside municipally owned buses under the 1931-1986
regime. Buses in London were never de-regulated, and I understand
that the UK is the only Western country to have de-regulated its
town and city bus systems outside London.
2.3 Light rail would work well and maybe
even profitably where effective road traffic reduction strategies
are employed. Using the "carrot" approach would be the
Dutch policy of 10 years ago (still current?) of keeping public
transport fares below the cost of motoring. In the UK, the cost
of travel by public transport has increased at a far faster rate
than the cost of car use. It is often said that the UK has Europe's
costliest public transport, but of the worst quality. This problem
needs addressing urgently.
2.4 Following on from 2.3, I argue for a
cessation in new road building. It seems quite self defeating—and
a massive squandering of public funds—to invest in a new
light rail system, then to begin building new roads and by-passes
in the same general area. This would simply take away possible
passenger loads from the light rail line.
2.4.1 In Stockport, 10 miles south of Manchester,
a quite lengthy relief road has recently been proposed as part
of the SEMMMS (South East Manchester Multi-Modal Study). The road
is partly based on a 70-year old plan, and would appear to create
even more traffic by encouraging the very circumferential and
fragmented journeys which are impossible for public transport
to handle. The SEMMMS study proposes "Metrolink" tram
expansion in this very area, on routes not yet in any published
tram plan. The fact that failure to build the road for 70 years
has not caused the heavens to fall in means that we can do without
it a bit longer until other and traffic reducing strategies are
tried out. The revival of this road plan supports my point about
mindset at 4.1, below.
2.4.2 If the Government is serious about
climate change being the greatest threat we face, and about putting
the environment at the heart of policy, then a major signal is
needed to one and all about this; a complete shift in policy should
be made. To divert road building funds into light rail, and some
heavy rail schemes would be most appropriate, given that transport
as a whole generates 25% of the UK's CO2 emissions.
2.5 Motoring must become "pay as you
go" as soon as possible. The present motor taxation regime
encourages people to use their cars as much as possible, to "recover"
the tax disc fee. To use a different mode means paying out more
money on top of the car's fixed costs, and the only saving is
the fuel—often completely cancelled out by the cost as well
as the perceived inferiority and inconvenience of the public transport
on offer. If it cost nothing to leave the car at home and a light
rail route was nearby, I am convinced that a noticeable modal
switch would occur, relieving some rush hour road congestion.
2.5.1 When Manchester's "Metrolink"
opened in 1992 I heard several motorists, accustomed to regular
driving into Manchester, say that after trying out the new trams
they would never commute into the city again unless taking heavy
loads with them. Very sadly, Metrolink's quality has declined
since then, and it has become a victim of its own success (see
HC Transport Committee, "Overcrowding on Public Transport",
Seventh Report of Session 2002-03, Volume II, EV 78).
2.6 Public transport costs must be kept
low, to encourage modal switch from cars. See 2.3, above.
2.7 In urban and suburban areas, all currently
disused heavy rail routes must be protected from being built on,
so that they can be partly or wholly re-used by light rail schemes.
I do not think the current UK planning regime does this, and many
developers are totally ignorant of (or worse, totally opposed
to) the potential of light rail.
2.8 Spatial planning rules must prevent
urban sprawl. Most European tram schemes work because their routes
pass through quite densely populated areas, whose inhabitants
live within a convenient walk of a tram stop. Trams here attain
the passenger load factors required for a viable tram route.
2.9 Any projected light rail scheme must
choose routes which follow existing, defined and observably "obvious"
travel lines.
2.9.1 One proposed route in the current
major "Metrolink" expansion plans is in my view very
suspect indeed, ie: the Airport line. Its ultimate destinations
(the Airport, Wythenshawe Hospital, and the general Wythenshawe
town area) are impeccable, but the chosen route is most circuitous
and meandering, and it is so carefully threaded through the last
three significant large open spaces in South Manchester that it
is impossible to resist the conclusion that this line is intended
to break open those areas for later very major development. There
were significant objections to the route of this line at the Public
Inquiry.
2.9.2 The other two routes in this scheme
are well chosen, but another (to Stockport via Chorlton, Didsbury
and Heaton Mersey)is omitted despite public support for it along
most of the route, which follows a former rail line, itself parallelling
a very busy road traffic corridor, totally unlike most of the
Airport line. The benefits from this Stockport line would seem
almost as obvious and immediate as the Altrincham and Bury train-to-tram
conversions of 1992.
2.10 Light Rail must be given priority over
other road traffic. There are various ways of doing this, with
lighter or heavier impacts upon other road users. Local conditions
will determine what is acceptable, but the principle must be upheld;
there is little point in building a good light rail system at
substantial cost, only to have its vehicles delayed in lines of
congested traffic.
2.11 A slightly relaxed Health and Safety
regime could help the potential viability of new light rail proposals.
I am told that some safety requirements which are perfectly valid
on a heavy rail system are not relevant to trams, and push up
the scheme costs. I regret I cannot give examples, but the point
is worth investigation.
3. HOW EFFECTIVELY
IS LIGHT
RAIL USED
AS PART
OF AN
INTEGRATED TRANSPORT
SYSTEM
3.1 In short, there is no integrated transport
system worthy of the term.
3.2 Passenger Transport Authorities and
County Councils do what they can to achieve some semblance of
integration within their areas, but they have no powers to compel
bus operators to work either together, or in conjunction with
rail, be it light or heavy. See item 2.2, above.
3.3 In terms of costs there needs to be
a completely level playing field between public and private transport
modes. Track costs are particularly difficult; no doubt they could
be quantified with difficulty, but charging them off to individual
users would be even harder. However, some examination and publicisation
of the issue would be beneficial because the public have no knowledge
of this.
3.3.1 The point is made at 3.3 to try to
achieve some equity between public and private transport, and
hopefully to show that light rail is not—in overall terms—not
as intimidatingly expensive as it seems to be. There is an overwhelming
need to stop cars being seen as the sole mode of transport. People
are conditioned to think this partly by the pricing regime but
also because of the overpowering amount of press, TV and cinema
advertising put out by the motor industry. There is no "countervailing"
public transport advertising except for an occasional "prestige"
main line train advertisement.
3.4 Multi-modal ticketing. Once the physical
infrastructure is installed, every effort must be made to maximise
the number of users. Because public transport provision in the
UK is very fragmented (eg: various independent bus companies operating
in competition in a given area), it is hard (almost impossible?)
to get bus, light rail and heavy rail to work together as a co-ordinated
local network. The Manchester Metrolink, when first opened, was
in "cross ticketing isolation" from local buses and
trains; there has been some improvement since 1992, but it is
still not part of the "seamless garment" of "all
tickets on all modes" needed to attract users.
4. BARRIERS TO
THE DEVELOPMENT
OF LIGHT
RAIL
4.1 The in-built bias of planners' mindsets,
the planning system and the funding system whereby road building
is seen as the only true solution to mobility problems.
4.1.1 I was recently told that if a local
highway authority is faced with, say, a road collapse, it will
have to pay for the repairs out of its own budgets. But if the
LHA chooses to "improve" it then the Government will
provide large sums of money to fund works which will produce a
stretch of road quite out of scale with the original. This seems
a "motorways by stealth" strategy.
4.2 The anti-rail and anti-tram stance of
the "road lobby".
4.2.1 This became evident in the Report
of the Royal Commission on Transport, July(?) 1929, a four volume
report in which tramways were dismissed in a few lines as obsolescent,
and to be completely replaced when worn out by buses or trolleybuses.
In that same year, the city of Milan took delivery of part of
an order for 500 trams; 75 years later, over 100 were still in
daily service, and giving fully acceptable service (see 6.9, below).
Even in the increasingly car dominated USA, a revolutionary new
streetcar appeared in 1936 which staved off light rail closures
there until the 1950's, and provided the technical under-pinning
of most of the modern trams we see today.
4.2.2. This 1929 Report did produce the
1930 Road Traffic Act which gave us the regulated bus system which
lasted until 1986, but it sealed the fate of the British tram
which completely disappeared (except for those in Blackpool) by
1962. The tram was seen as unprogressive, out dated and inflexible,
and to have no place in the city of the future; it is true that
for an unfortunate concatenation of reasons UK trams by the mid-1940s
were in a sorry state, except in the very few cities which had
tried to modernise their fleets. A virulent and vicious anti-tram
campaign by Paris motorists was a factor in the end of the trams
there by 1938, which left that city with a very modern bus fleet,
most of which was commandeered by the German army for use in the
Russian campaign! It took a major detection effort in 1945 to
reclaim these, many of which survived in service until 1970.
4.2.3 I do not think the road lobby was
all that sympathetic to trolleybuses, either, given that these
all disappeared completely by 1973; this may have been more because
1960-70s town centre major re-development schemes would have meant
major expenditure on diverting the overhead power lines and subterranean
power supply systems to follow new road layouts.
4.3 The lack of knowledge among the general
UK population of what modern trams and light rail systems are.
I would hope that this is lessening now; it was a major educative
problem in Manchester in 1992, the first new UK tram system.
4.4 The perception that light rail schemes
are too expensive and so probably not worth bothering about
4.5 The physical disruption of preparation
and installation works along a chosen light rail route.
5. DIFFERING
FINANCING ARRANGEMENTS
FOR LIGHT
RAIL.
I regret that I am unable to comment on this,
except to say that it would be interesting to know how for example
Milan and Ghent financed their recent tram route expansion schemes
and the provision of new low-floor tramcars. I consider that these
developments enhance the local communities involved by linking
them into the existing tram network and providing them with a
better mode of travel.
6. THE PRACTICALITY
OF ALTERNATIVES
TO LIGHT
RAIL, SUCH
AS INCREASED
INVESTMENT IN
BUSES
I believe that light rail should be given priority
over buses in investment decisions for the following reasons:
6.1 If car usage reduction is the aim (to
benefit the general environment) then there is no alternative
to light and heavy rail. Motorists will use reliable train and
tram services, but not buses. This is from personal discussion
and anecdotal evidence.
6.2 Buses use the public road system and
are thus subject to general traffic congestion, without the benefits
and comforts of the private car when it too is stuck in traffic.
6.3 To provide buses with their own private
right of way or guide way would need more land than a light rail
track and so be more intrusive. A wider area would have to be
paved, and construction would therefore seem more expensive than
a tram line.
6.4 Buses cannot provide as good a quality
of ride as can a tram, even assuming both road and tram track
are properly maintained.
6.5 Buses often smell of diesel fuel oil,
gear lubrication oil, and sometimes exhaust fumes. None of this
applies to electric trams.
6.6 A bus cannot carry as many passengers
as a tram, because modern tram units can be coupled together at
busy times to double or even treble the capacity of the journey,
but still needing only one driver.
6.7 The rolling resistance of a steel wheel
on steel rail light rail vehicle is far less than that of a bus,
and so is more energy efficient. It is possible to have "regenerative
braking" on a tram system, whereby a coasting tram acts like
a dynamo and feeds electricity back into the overhead wire, thus
lessening the load on the power station.
6.8 Buses, wherever they run, produce external
pollution in the form of vehicle exhaust. The pollution generated
by a light rail system all occurs at one point, ie the power station,
and may be easier to deal with than with a myriad of internal
combustion buses.
6.9 Light rail vehicles outlast buses; they
cost far, far more of course, but if well built at the outset
and then well maintained they can last for 40 years (Antwerp),
50 years (Brussels), and—most remarkably and almost unbelievably—75
years (Milan). British buses did achieve 24 years because of the
effects of World War 2, but many postwar vehicles were written
off over 13 years, although they might achieve three or four more
years. De-regulation of 1986 resulted in poorly maintained buses
being "sweated" to almost 20 years, giving a very degraded
service and presenting an abysmal image to any car user contemplating
bus travel.
6.10 The bus has a very poor social image
which almost prohibits modal shift to it from cars. This seems
not the case with trains and trams, where anecdotal evidence and
some personal knowledge suggests that a very high percentage of
rail users are car owners who have chosen the train or tram in
preference to their car.
6.10.1 A social problem which occasionally
hits buses yet does not seem to affect trains and trams is gross
misbehaviour of certain young people. The bus driver seems legally
unable to remove them from his bus, and has to await the arrival
of the police. Innocent passengers are thus forced to endure delays
on top of the bad behaviour.
6.10.2 The TSC's invitation to comment notes
that bus usage increased by 3% in 2003-04; this is welcome news
but it must be seen against the fall in bus use by 20% during
the 1990's. Decline in bus usage began in the mid 1950s with the
onset of "mass motoring". Passenger train use rose by
25% between 1986 and 2001. (These last two percentages from "Which?"
magazine).
7. CONCLUSION
I feel very limited by lack of professional
expertise in putting together this submission, and I admit the
lack of detailed statistical data to support many assertions.
Nevertheless, as a regular public transport user with some knowledge
of the subject, and as a taxpayer and council taxpayer who wishes
to see a much better urban environment for us all, I feel that
I have some valid points to raise, if only for those better qualified
than me to examine then accept or reject as appropriate. I am
firmly convinced, based on a European urban transport experience
not shared by the vast majority of the UK public, that light rail
schemes are absolutely necessary to urban re-generation, countryside
protection and a reduction of road traffic problems.
February 2005
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