Memorandum by Ian Souter (LR 54)
INTEGRATED TRANSPORT: THE FUTURE OF LIGHT
RAIL AND MODERN TRAMS IN BRITAIN
1. BACKGROUND
1.1 Transport is a fundamental need of society
yet there is little debate in the UK on the linking of society's
transport needs with transport provision, especially public transport
provision.
1.2 The UK still has comprehensive road
and rail passenger transport networks but a worsening difficulty
for potential users is securing access to/from these networks.
In lieu of the time, price and uncertainty penalties of public
transport usage, private transport enjoys considerable advantage.
1.3 For a variety of historic reasons, UK
has been spreading its population, commerce and industry away
from traditional centres for a longer time period than its continental
equivalents. The UK is thus more reliant on private transport,
with the lower densities of urban populations, wider areas to
be served, and widening gap between demand for peak and off-peak
travel all militating against "profitable" operation
of urban public transport in conventional terms of accounting.
1.4 In contrast to experience on continental
Europe and North America, there is still an expectation in the
UK that an effective urban public transport can be run profitably.
The view is offered, as a broad generalisation, that whilst the
market driven public transport policies in the UK have successfully
driven down the costs of service provision, the overall quality
of service/attractiveness to the travelling public has also dropped.
2. THE COSTS
AND BENEFITS
OF LIGHT
RAIL
2.1 The view is offered that the costs of
light rail promotion and construction are unduly high in the UK
when compared with practice elsewhere. (Please see separate submissions
by other contributors on the findings of the LibeRTiN project.)
At the same time, bus operation is both overtly and covertly subsidised
in various forms such as the provision of road fund licensing
at a very low rate when compared with a private car or a goods
vehicle of equivalent weight, and through the provision of dedicated
rights of way (bus lanes, guided busways) and other traffic priority
measures at no cost to the bus operator.
2.2 Rail has the capacity for transporting
people in quantity, is economic in terms of land use, but is limited
in access points to the network which contributes in part to its
relative speed advantage over bus. Bus has far closer access to
the diverse points where individual journeys start and finish,
but at the cost of a low average speed and lower standards of
comfort in comparison with car or train. Light rail is a hybrid
between rail and bus which combines the carrying capacity of rail
vehicles with the accessibility of the bus.
2.3 Light rail operations have a proven
track record in the UK of attracting motorists from their cars
for commuting journeys. (Source: Passenger Transport Executive
Group Report "What light rail can do for cities" issued
23 February 2005)
2.4 Light rail operations have, overall,
enhanced the property values of the areas they serve and have
made a positive contribution to urban renewal. (PTEG Report)
2.5 Light rail operations are compatible
with operation within pedestrian zones, and, through advances
in signalling technology, light rail vehicles can be safely operated
on main line (heavy) rail routes. (example: Karlsruhe, Germany)
2.6 A light rail operation has some important
environmentally friendly features:
(i) it is a fundamental property of a steel
wheeled vehicle on steel rail that the rolling friction is lower
than for an equivalent rubber tyred vehicle, even on a modern
road surface. The energy demand to accelerate a rail vehicle is
less than for the road equivalent, and, more importantly, the
rail vehicle can coast much more readily;
(ii) a rail system lends itself more readily
to the application of electric propulsion with its inherent benefits
of:
— no pollution at the point of
delivery,
— no energy consumption when coasting
or stationary,
— the recovery of kinetic energy
through the use of electric braking,
— a freedom in the choice of primary
fuel source to generate electricity, including renewable sources.
3. WHAT LIGHT
RAIL SYSTEMS
NEED TO
BE SUCCESSFUL
3.1 The opportunity to establish/develop
a route network without undue time delay, and by processes which
are not cumbersome. The UK requirement to have light rail proposals
sanctioned by national parliament is the exception; overseas,
the rule is for such sanction to be granted by local or regional
government.
3.2 Access to transport corridors with sufficient
passenger demand to warrant the provision of the carrying capacity
of a light rail system. Some UK light rail operations have been
denied access to the trunk routes of their domain and have had
to make do with a second best choice.
3.3 Integration with other transport modes
in respect of ease of transfer between different transport modes
and ease of through ticketing.
3.4 Integration with local land use planning.
3.5 Access to a core of expertise for planning
and for construction of routes. It has been a feature of UK light
rail development by private sector consortia that there has been
minimum transfer of learning between the planning and construction
teams involved in the various new projects.
4. HOW EFFECTIVELY
IS LIGHT
RAIL USED
AS PART
OF AN
INTEGRATED TRANSPORT
SYSTEM
4.1 The following assessment is offered
of the UK light rail systems in respect of their integration with
neighbouring transport operations:
— Manchester and Sheffield are particularly
poor, with the minimum of through ticketing and effort to transfer
passengers effectively with local bus services.
— West Midlands has very good through
ticketing with the major bus and heavy rail operators in the area
(assisted by commonality of operating company/franchisee), but
does not have good access to either the natural destination points
or the major traffic exchange points at the two termini.
— Croydon has good through ticketing
with local bus and rail operations and has good interchange facilities
with other transport modes. This is the best example of "integration"
in the UK.
— Nottingham has good interchange facilities
with other transport modes, and good through ticketing with local
rail services and the major bus operator in the city. The major
bus operator serving the outer suburbs and neighbouring towns
declined to participate in through ticketing with the light rail
operation.
4.2 There are many examples worldwide of
good integration of light rail with urban transport provision,
but the best examples are in Europe. Of particular merit are the
cities of Eastern Europe where the level of population spread
and associated car dependence is some years behind UK.
5. BARRIERS TO
THE DEVELOPMENT
OF LIGHT
RAIL
5.1 The concept of light rail operation
and what it can achieve for integrated transport provision is
not well understood in local and national government circles.
In particular, light rail seems to be seen only as an expensive
alternative to the urban bus and not a transport medium with its
own strengths. Light rail is capable of complementing heavy rail
services and of serving as a surface "metro".
5.2 Open competition "on the road"
between different transport operators denies light rail the opportunity
to carry passengers in quantity. It is unusual in continental
Europe and North America for local public transport operations
to be in open competition with each other on the streets as practised
in the UK outwith London and Northern Ireland. Because a rail
system is limited in its coverage of an area, a light rail operation
will best serve its locality if there are facilities for passengers
to transfer between transport feeder modes with the minimum of
formalities and inconvenience. Whilst such facilities are far
from universal on the UK's light rail systems, they are inherent
in a journey made by private transport. It must be a prime objective
in making public transport attractive to car commuters to recreate
as far as possible these aspects of the "seamless journey".
5.3 The lack of through ticketing/connecting
services also denies light rail the opportunity to carry passengers
in quantity. The fragmentation of bus and rail provision in the
UK between so many operators has brought serious problems with
the Office of Fair Trading regarding the co-ordination of timetables,
advertising of services, through ticketing and the provision of
network ticketing. Whilst there are increasing instances of through
ticketing and timetable co-ordination becoming available, these
benefits are appearing piecemeal and usually between modes where
there is a commonality of ownership. Any public transport provision
must have an integration of ticketing and timetables with neighbouring
transport operations, but the public demand a consistency in such
provisions.
5.4 UK light rail authorisation practices
are slow, cumbersome and very expensive. The gestation period
for a UK light rail system is the longest in the world at between
nine and 12 years; this period is to be compared with four to
six years in France and three to four years in Germany.
Project funding for all light rail proposals
in the UK has been required to have a private sector input. The
view is expressed that the processes adopted in gaining private
funds has added to the cost and the timescales of projects—one
source at a conference suggested an addition of up to two and
a half years. The cost element is being inflated by the uncertainties
surrounding the financial risk which the private sector funders
are expected to bear.
It is also apparent that the privatised utility
companies are the source of additional cost and delay in the implementation
of light rail proposals.
There are two further negative consequences
from the UK approach to light rail promotion which should be considered:
(i) The winners of the competitive bid to
develop a proposal comprise a consortium of specialist contractors
generally dominated by a civil engineering company. A visible
result of this process has been that there are no two light rail
operations in this country with the same type of vehicle, an outcome
which will add to future costs as there is no opportunity to share
maintenance spares and equipment overhaul procedures. Mention
is also made of the quality of the vehicles supplied under this
arrangement, some being "good" (eg, Sheffield, Croydon),
some indifferent, but in the case of West Midlands, "problematic".
(ii) This same form of analysis can be applied
to other forms of equipment supplied by the consortia, and also
to the development and spread of human knowledge/expertise in
the design and construction of a light rail operation. Fragmentation
of expertise has been so marked in some projects that continuity
of thought and approach was being provided (unofficially) by the
HM Railway Inspectorate, a body now under threat of being disbanded
in its traditional form.
5.5 The drift away from public transport
over many years has created various interests which have grown
up around private transport and which would be opposed to a return
towards public transport. The country's multi-million pound car
parking industry, and the UK Treasury's reliance on motoring derived
taxation revenues (see The Times 21 February 2005) are
offered as two such examples of public transport and light rail's
exposure to "Perverse Incentives".
6. THE EFFECT
OF DIFFERENT
FINANCING ARRANGEMENTS
(PUBLIC/PRIVATE)
ON THE
OVERALL COST
OF LIGHT
RAIL SYSTEMS
Commentary on this issue is left to others who
have a more robust experience, in particular, contributors from
the LibeRTiN project.
7. THE PRACTICALITY
OF ALTERNATIVES
TO LIGHT
RAIL, SUCH
AS INCREASED
INVESTMENT IN
BUSES
7.1 Light rail is/should be justified where
there is a requirement for moving people in sufficient quantities
along a specific corridor. The level of passenger demand to justify
the higher investment of a light rail system is not fixed, but,
unlike neighbouring European countries, there is no public agency
in the UK which can assess the relative merits of alternative
modes of conveyance.
7.2 As previously described, the process
of creating a light rail system in the UK discourages the development
of a transport system which requires its own infrastructure to
support the operation. This limitation also applies to alternative
modes which can move people in quantity, citing such proven alternatives
as underground railways, expanded use of existing heavy rail routes,
and trolleybus, and to unproven alternatives such as "personalised
rapid transit" and monorails.
7.3 Bus has had a near monopoly of local
public transport services for over 50 years, and during the last
20 years bus services outwith the London area and Northern Ireland
have been deregulated. Despite this relative freedom to act, and
an increasing level of overt and covert subsidies, including various
traffic priority measures, the bus industry has recorded an almost
continual year on year decline over the last 10 years according
to DfT statistics published on their website (-13% for all services
outside London, -17% for English metropolitan areas). During this
period, light rail operations of all types increased passenger
loadings by a factor of 1.45 (=145%). It would appear then that
bus, as presently operated outwith the London area, is not capable
of attracting the public back to public transport.
7.4 The reasons for the decline in bus patronage
warrant their own study, but this attrition cannot be divorced
from the bus industry's never ending problems with staff recruitment
and retention, and the poor levels of service reliability offered
to passengers. The prospect of creating further support for bus
operations should require the bus industry as presently constituted
to demonstrate that it can handle greater peak time loadings,
particularly in respect of its ability to provide staff to operate
and maintain additional vehicles. The local roads authorities
need also to be consulted as to the ability of the urban road
networks to absorb such vehicles.
7.5 As broader transport integration issues
for consideration, the prospect of more motor buses in urban areas
at peak times (i) does not stand easily with government commitments
to reduce vehicle pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, and
(ii) the desirability of controlling the national reliance on
imported mineral oil.
I A Souter
February 2005
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