Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence


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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