Memorandum by RMT (LR 65)
INTEGRATED TRANSPORT: THE FUTURE OF LIGHT
RAIL AND MODERN TRAMS
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport
Workers (RMT) welcomes the opportunity to make brief comments
to the Transport Committee's inquiry Integrated Transport: the
Future of Light Rail and Modern Trams in Britain. The RMT represents
over 70,000 workers across all sectors of the transport industry
and organise members on the Docklands Light Railway and the Tyne
and Wear Metro. Our long-standing support for a publicly owned,
democratically accountable, accessible and fully integrated transport
network is well documented.
BENEFITS OF
LIGHT RAIL
Light rail plays an increasingly important role
in the provision of public transport passenger services. Transport
Statistics 2004 indicates that despite only making up 1.5% of
rail route kilometres open to passenger traffic, around 7% of
all passenger rail journeys—142 million—were made
on light rail networks in 2003-04.[20]
Environmentally sustainable, largely city-centre
routes provide access to employment, shopping, tourism leisure
pursuits and other social activities. The April 2004 National
Audit Office report Improving public transport in England through
light rail found that "light rail delivers fast, frequent
and reliable services and provides a comfortable and safe journey"
and that local authorities charged with monitoring the schemes
were on the whole satisfied with performance levels.
Whilst the number of passengers on bus services
outside of London has fallen, patronage of light rail systems,
although below projected forecasts, continues to grow. The recently
published Passenger Transport Executive Group (PTEG) commissioned
report What light rail can do for cities indicates that
light rail has removed 22 million car journeys per annum from
UK roads and is generally six times more effective than buses
in tackling traffic congestion. Additionally peak time modal shift
from car to tram is around 20% and road traffic has been cut by
up to 14%.
COST
The NAO report indicates that the seven metro
systems developed since 1980 have cost £2.3billion with the
Department of Transport contributing in excess of £1billion
towards the schemes. The RMT favours central Government financial
support for light rail and modern tram systems but we are of the
view that raising revenue from additional revenue streams should
be more seriously explored.
The February 2000 rail union commissioned report
Funding London Underground: Financial Myths and Economic Realities
noted that "in Paris and New York, sophisticated arrangements
exist for the spreading of the burden of costs between passengers
and beneficiaries of the system and between different levels of
government".
The Parisian transport authority, the Syndicat
des Transport Parisiens, is funded through a levy on employers,
the "Versement de travail" and also receives half the
revenue raised from traffic and parking fines. Money raised by
the Versement de travail is used to fund subsidised fares and
capital maintenance.
Research conducted on behalf of the PTEG, published
in June 2004, indicated that the city of Lyon can raise more than
£100million a year from the dedicated payroll tax which can
be levied at up to 1.75% of a company payroll.
Furthermore property and land values have often
soared where light rail and metro systems have been introduced.
RMT believes that local authorities should be given powers to
raise money for transport projects from companies and institutions
that have benefited economically from an expansion in the local
transport infrastructure.
The Funding London Underground report explained
that "the State and City of New York fund grants and subsidies
which account for 46% (of Metropolitan Transportation Authority
funding). A large proportion of the subsidy comes from hypothecated
taxation, which is in principle at least targeted at the non fare
paying beneficiaries of the scheme. These include new charges
on business and property owners, taxes on commercial rents, business
telephone charges (and) property transfers".
RMT believes that the Department should explore
raising revenue for light rail and other local transport schemes
in line with the French and New York models. We also support the
NAO report recommendation that the Department for Transport should
consider whether the duty on light rail promoters to meet 92.5%
of the cost of diverting utilities should continue to apply.
Local authorities currently have a duty to include
in the cost of proposed public transport projects the value of
fuel duty lost to the exchequer as a result of car users switching
to light rail, or other forms of public transport. RMT believes
that this duty acts as an obstacle to authorities securing Government
support for transport plans designed to tackle traffic congestion
and encourage modal shift and should therefore be revoked.
INTEGRATION
The social, environmental and economic benefits
created by a fully integrated public transport system are well
rehearsed. The success of light rail in Europe is no small measure
attributable to services being fully integrated into local transport
networks. The NAO report indicates that in France and Germany
light rail systems are "embedded in fully integrated public
transport networks in which buses, for example feed into the light
rail systems" and that "Timetables are co-ordinated
and all cities have comprehensive through-ticketing arrangements."
Regrettably the deregulated bus sector in the
UK is in direct competition with light rail. The NAO found that
passengers believed that the lack of integration was the least
satisfactory aspect of light rail. This has meant that despite
the best efforts of local authorities and Passenger Transport
Authorities and Executives cross-modal integration has not been
too successful.
The RMT is firmly of the view that Government
should abandon the failed Tory deregulation of buses and return
services to local authority control. This would encourage local
transport planners to deliver accessible and integrated services
across different transport modes.
CONCLUSION
The Government is committed to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions by one fifth by 2010. An expanded role for existing
and future light rail systems, in the context of integrated and
sustainable national, regional and local transport plans, will
play an important part in initially meeting the target and subsequently
sustaining resultant environmental benefits. However the duty
on Local Authorities to include the value of fuel duty lost to
the exchequer in the cost of proposed transport projects does
not sit well with either the Kyoto Protocol or Government targets
to reduce carbon emissions.
The European experience demonstrates how properly
integrated public transport systems work to create through ticketing,
heavily subsidised fares and co-ordinated timetables all of which
make light rail an attractive proposition to the travelling public.
Sadly in Britain the deregulation and privatisation
of the buses in the 1980s has all too often led to forms of public
transport competing against rather than complementing each other.
The Government should take the necessary steps—initially
by ending the folly of bus deregulation—to create the legislative
framework where light rail, and other forms of public transport,
can thrive rather than continuing with the current fragmented
and competitive market place.
Bob Crow
General Secretary
February 2005
20 Journeys made on Docklands Light Railway, Tyne
& Wear Metro, Manchester Metrolink, Sheffield Supertram, West
Midlands Metro, Croydon Tramlink and Nottingham NET. Back
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