Memorandum by Parsons Brinckerhoff and
Interfleet Technology (LR 60)
INTEGRATED TRANSPORT: THE FUTURE OF LIGHT
RAIL AND MODERN TRAMS IN BRITAIN
SCOPE
This memorandum addresses the issue of track
sharing and converting railways to tramways to enable trams to
use railways and trains to use tramways.
This subject is pertinent to the following of
the issues that the Select Committee wishes to address:
— The costs and benefits of light rail;
— the effective use of light rail as
part of an integrated transport system; and
— barriers to the development of light
rail.
PARSONS BRINCKERHOFF
AND INTERFLEET
TECHNOLOGY
Parsons Brinckerhoff and Interfleet Technology
are both consultancy companies working in the UK light rail industry.
We have taken an initiative together and with Axel Kuehn (an independent
German consultant with considerable experience in this area) and
with Nexus to help enable track sharing and track conversion to
take root in the UK. We believe that track sharing and tramway
conversion developments in the UK lag far behind practice elsewhere.
We have joined together to in order to bring together the critical
mass needed to overcome the institutional, regulatory and technical
barriers to progress.
INTRODUCTION
The UK, like continental Europe, has a vast
investment in railway infrastructure in its cities, towns and
countryside. Like elsewhere, there are many places where this
infrastructure no longer provides the social, economic and environmental
needs of the area served. This might be because the infrastructure
is inadequate, acting as a bottleneck that causes nearby infrastructure
to be under-used or because it is in the wrong place, no longer
serving the places that people want to travel to and from.
Over the past decade, Germany in particular,
but also France, Holland, Switzerland and the US have started
to introduce track sharing and conversion to light rail. These
have been successful. Examples are:
— Growth of the Karlsruhe light rail
network from about 100 to 500 km since 1982, mainly through application
of these principles.
— The Saarbrucken shared track
"Saarbahn" opened 1997-2001, is reported to have achieved
22% modal shift from car and a 4% reduction in car use over the
region. It cost the current equivalent of
6 million/route km compared with
23 million/route km for recent modern LRT systems
in Nantes and Bordeaux.
— The Hessische Landesbahnen is Germany
achieved a 10-fold increase in passengers since 1992 by applying
"Light Rail" principles to railway operation, and is
typical of several such applications in Germany.
The only UK application of track sharing has
been Sunderland Metro but this is a Light Metro "railway"
type of system, rather than light rail or tramway. This memorandum
suggests some of the reasons why this opportunity has not been
taken up in this country and proposes how this important issue
might be resolved.
SUMMARY
Track sharing and track conversion promises
many benefits in reducing the cost of providing high quality local
transport, closely integrated with existing provisions. These
benefits have been realised in Germany, France and other countries
in similar conditions to the UK.
The expertise in the UK is too thinly spread
to enable the break-through needed to transform track sharing
and track conversion into tools available to transport authorities
seeking value for money transport investment projects.
A sustained effort could provide the industry
harmony and guidance that would give transport providers the confidence
to promote and support track sharing and conversion schemes.
BENEFITS
Track sharing and conversion can deliver all
of the benefits that might be expected of any major transportation
investment. This can include environmental benefits, socio-economic
benefits and accident savings. Track sharing is intrinsically
also able to reach some parts that other forms of investment cannot
reach. That is, it can penetrate already congested areas close
to city centres where there is some spare capacity on the railway,
but none on the streets.
Track sharing is not applicable everywhere but
where it is, compared with other forms of high-capacity, high
quality public transport, the benefits of track sharing and track
conversion are mainly in costs. By using existing infrastructure
for some or all of a light rail route, the costs can be reduced
dramatically.
Another important benefit is accessibility.
Light rail is inherently more accessible than heavy rail and bus.
By running light rail on existing railways, accessibility can
be improved significantly.
There are other benefits but these are unlikely
to be key to the decisions. These include public acceptability,
avoiding risks of obtaining powers, higher quality high-speed
routes, minimising construction disruption etc.
Track Sharing
A typical light rail project is intended to
provide a transport link from an outer suburb at (say) a large
commercial or office development or park and ride site to a city
centre, serving on the way other established suburban centres.
City centre railway stations are typically congested with little
scope for a new intensive service and in any case, competing pressure
for space for more intercity services. Often where the transport
corridor concerned has an existing railway carrying local passenger
services it may not serve all the places that now need to be linked.
A new branch line to the outer suburb is unlikely to be feasible
because it is too expensive and disruptive and even if this isn't
an impediment, there will probably be no capacity to accommodate
more trains in the city centre station.
Track sharing might provide the answer. The
outer part of the route can use the relatively cheap land or highway
space, taking advantage of the flexibility of light rail to fit
into existing infrastructure. In the older, established suburbs,
the trams can join the railway where there is spare capacity.
Extra stops can be provided, taking advantage of light rail's
superior acceleration and braking performance.
On the approach to the city centre, the light
rail vehicles can leave the railway and use the streets, or in
cities that already have light rail, existing tramways to give
access to the key destinations. This has two advantages. Firstly,
it doesn't add to the central station congestion. Secondly, very
often, the central station is no longer in the best place for
many people's trips and light rail can give better access or at
least extend the choice of destination.
Track Conversion
Track conversion applies usually to rural areas
where a railway is only used by local passenger trains, or perhaps
some irregular freight or special trains. Often the operating
and maintenance costs are disproportionate to the revenues of
the services, yet closure may not be politically acceptable. On
the other hand there may be considerable potential for increased
traffic but the investment required in heavy rail facilities to
accommodate this could not be justified. This is typically the
type of rail route identified as a "Community Railway"
by the SRA.
The adoption of tramway standards for such routes
allows significant reductions in costs over the longer term. For
example, using vehicles with track brakes would mean that level
crossings could be converted safely to simple traffic signal controlled
crossings and stations need no longer have footbridges or subways.
The cheaper and simpler "line of sight" signalling used
on modern light rail systems could also cut costs dramatically.
In the longer term expensive infrastructure might be replaced
taking advantage of the ability of trams to negotiate sharper
curves and steeper gradients, avoiding the need for some bridges,
viaducts and tunnels.
The benefits of track sharing could, in the
right circumstances apply to conversion. For example, the station
at the terminus might be remote from the destination town. Using
trams could provide the opportunity to leave the railway and use
relatively cheap tramway infrastructure to penetrate the town
centre.
INTEGRATION
Track Sharing
Track sharing, by its nature is integrated with
the heavy rail network. On the shared part of the route, it could
share stations with the heavy rail system. This means that the
other parts of a typical route would have direct links to and
from the existing transport system.
By being able to insert additional stops on
the existing heavy rail system, it offers scope to integrate more
fully with local bus services, which might cross the railway line
away from existing stations.
It should act as a catalyst for integrated ticketing
and operation as well as integrated passenger information.
Track Conversion
Track conversion would typically be well integrated
with main-line heavy rail services and, because it can penetrate
town centres along the route, offers the opportunity for much
better integration with the bus services in them. Passengers can
interchange easily between buses and trams without climbing any
steps or using ramps and lifts.
BARRIERS
Dilution of experts amongst competitors
There are a limited number of people who have
the knowledge and experience to give confidence to potential investors
that track sharing and track conversion projects are deliverable.
Generally, these experts are distributed amongst the competing
teams and no team has yet had the critical mass to achieve a robust
proposal to make this happen. The exception to prove this rule
is the Sunderland Direct project, which extends the Tyne and Wear
Metro to Sunderland via the railway. Here, the promoter, Nexus,
had sufficient knowledge and expertise in its own ranks to undertake
the difficult development and negotiations with (the then) Railtrack
and the regulatory authorities. The remainder of the potential
track sharing industry do not appear to see sufficient parallels
between their tramways (or potential tramways) and the railway-orientated
Tyne and Wear Metro.
Our commercial grouping is in place to overcome
this difficulty, but with no industry-wide commitment, this has
not yet been delivered.
Regulations
The regulations governing the operation of railways
have naturally been developed for that purpose. The introduction
of a different type of vehicle, designed for a different environment,
onto a highly regulated railway inevitably cuts across many of
the rules because the situation was never envisaged. This means
that the plethora of regulations needs to be examined, guidance
written and changes made as necessary. The industry had already
recognised that this was necessary and Network Rail has a group
standard that deals with how track sharing should be implemented.
This helps, but does not go far enough. The
requirements for track conversion have yet to be complied. A thorough
review is needed to give a complete and clear picture of the process
and hurdles in front of a promoter of a track sharing or conversion
proposal.
Institutions
There are a lot of institutions that would be
involved in track sharing or track conversion projects and their
influence ranges from advisory to critical. From our own discussions
with many of these bodies we realised that it is the lack of understanding
of both the role and attitude of these institutions that may be
instrumental in suffocating all of the potential track sharing/conversion
projects to date. Changes to the roles of these organisations
and upheaval in the rail industry has prevented progress.
THE WAY
FORWARD
We have been lobbying the SRA and PTEG to support
a project undertaken by us to bring the key stakeholders, including
regulatory bodies, promoters, operators and others together to
prepare industry guidance on track sharing and track conversion.
The objective is to establish track sharing and track conversion
as two of the tools available to transport authorities seeking
to get the best benefits from their investment.
CONCLUSION
For the UK to take early full advantage of the
significant benefits to be achieved from applying shared track
and track conversion it is necessary for government and industry
to provide the funding required to enable our group to proceed
with its proposals. These proposals have been shaped by and have
the support of the key organisations but have not gone forward
because of the lack of a clear and stable policy for the light
rail industry in the UK.
Andy Dixon
Parsons Brinckerhoff
February 2005
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