Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by CTC the National Cyclists Organisation (LR 88)

INTEGRATED TRANSPORT:  THE FUTURE OF LIGHT RAIL AND MODERN TRAMS IN BRITAIN

  Before answering the specific points raised by the Committee, we would note the following addition matters where light rail and tram systems have had an impact on the amenity and safety of CTC members and other cycle users generally diminishing their ability to make journeys available prior to the implementation of the scheme. Key points are as follows:

  (1)  The introduction of new on street tramway systems has an obvious impact on the cyclist with the rails in the road surface, a prominent hazard which has killed and injured even in the short period of operation of some modern systems. Nottingham reported falls before their system was even operating. The incidents are often clustered around specific points—Sheffield has 2-3 such locations—and the reporting of injury and incidents has in several instances slipped from the official statistics, because the Police under-reporting of single vehicle injury crashes is well known, and additionally the grey area of reporting a crash on the tram track and highway surface 18" either side, which technically can be argued to be a tram track and not the adopted highway, thus in theory the Railway Inspectorate or current equivalent should be receiving reports and, where appropriate, carrying out formal inquiries into serious or repeated incidents. The profile of this issue was made prominent by the case of a motorist rather than the more common victim—the 2 wheel road user—in the case of Roe vs Sheffield Supertram & others. We comment later on the detail of rails embedded in the carriageway and their installation & maintenance.

  (2)  The replacement of former rail services—which carried bicycles, with tram and metro systems (Croydon, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, and to a lesser extent Nottingham) has seriously eroded the transport choices and raised social exclusion issues as well as removing a whole market sector from the potential passenger base. The UK systems stand out from those overseas in that carriage of bicycles is generally the accepted practice elsewhere, with the occasional exception, or restriction of access times, here, to date, no light rail or tram system has officially carried bicycles, although work has taken place with CTC and local cycle lobby groups to survey the potential and (Sheffield) demonstrate with a full-size cardboard bicycle template and passenger reaction survey on a Sunday service. Where figures are known, an indication is that 2-4% of passengers will travel with a bike, and possibly greater numbers ride to & from stations.

  A case of damaging their own operation has ironically occurred with the extension of the Nexus Metro system to Sunderland, as the train crew, working shifts, found the combination of bike and train (using the pre-Metro train services) an ideal means of getting to the depot, when otherwise they would need to travel at times when a car or motorcycle is the most effective alternative, thus the new operation has created a need for car parking and its larger demand on space at the Metro depot than the old regime of staff taking bikes in on the train.

THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF LIGHT RAIL

  The general comparison between "tram" systems and the guided bus alternative is often quoted in terms of the tram costing between 2 & 3 times more than the guided bus to construct and commission, and tram systems have a long gestation period, before the service starts due to the massive disruption and the need to complete the whole line before a service can start. Once started the service often will spend a long period requiring subsidy to maintain the infrastructure, and that infrastructure has to be completed for the entire route before services can begin to run.

  This question has an interesting case study of an alternative of guided bus operation in the Gatwick-Crawley Fastway system, which provides the equivalent of a tram route between Crawley and Gatwick Airport which was described in detail in a paper delivered by Councillor Col, Tex Pemberton, the W Sussex Cabinet Member for Transport—details are carried on www.fastway.com This system was moved from concept to operation in under 5 years, and cost £35 million—compared to an estimated £350m for an equivalent tram route. It has started running before all the sections of dedicated route are in place, and can extend routes to diverse starting points using the existing roads infrastructure. The operation is fully commercial and expanding—it now has 10 minute peak frequency and a minimum level of 30 minute frequency over 24 hour running 7 days/week. The Commercial operators move to Overground and other core route development mirrors this approach.

WHAT LIGHT RAIL SYSTEMS NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

  A light rail system which is a reduced heavy rail system which can handle tighter curves and steeper gradients will cost less to construct and operate. Frequently the light rail systems in Europe use a 1 metre gauge track in place of the 1.435m standard gauge of heavy rail, which allows for cheaper construction, especially for the rail lines themselves—typified in the UK by the narrow gauge lines which penetrate deep into the Welsh Mountains. This as we understand has not been a consideration for UK systems, and we might ask why?, a narrow gauge track with conventional width vehicles will put a broader gap between a boarding platform and the inside rail, so that a cyclist is less pinched where this arrangement occurs in a street-running situation as delivered for the Nottingham, Sheffield, and Croydon networks. In Manchester and Birmingham the platforms can be island platforms, and the places where the cycle (and other vehicle) traffic passes through a tram stop are rare. The high cost of platform systems contrasts with many overseas operations where passengers can board from the street, or any "platform" is little more than a standard height footway.

  In both Sheffield and Croydon, where the trams run extensively on-street, the systems are not popular with cyclists because the way that cycles are forced to cross tram tracks is compromised, either by bad initial design or lack of road space, the tram-track crashes are heavily clustered, a strong indication that there are specific features of the track or tram operation which produce the crashes (ie a crash black spot).

  Manchester has less of a problem, as this system uses the trams in a manner closer to the "correct" way with fast limited stop running on reserved tracks (mostly old rail lines), and only coming on-street for high density demand in the very centre of the city, or satellite towns. This was very much the style of operation for Glasgow's successful and intensive network, with tram tracks running in the centre of the street as they do in many locations, avoiding the kerb pinch problems, but requiring a major discipline issue for other road users not to pass a tram which is stopped to pick-up passengers.

  However the track cross-profile in Manchester is however appalling both in specification (surface finishes which fail too easily and too wrong-side) and maintenance which fails to hold this in check.

  Light rail, as in the Newcastle Metro and to a lesser extent the London Underground, is, in the UK generally worked closer to the best practice option with well spaced stations, and, when the regulated bus routes were co-ordinated with the Metro station hubs, part-way to the goal. The missing element being the integration with personal transport for the essential element of the shoulder journey, connecting at the "front door" of origin and destination, and the importance of good permeability and connectivity for the consolidation of passengers at stopping points is the key to making a system popular and useable. Nexus Metro scores here too by diverting from the basic re-use of a local rail network, to put station stops where people will be travelling to & from a journey generator such as a shopping centre, university or hospital. An example of the failure to do this is at Watford, where the potential to connect the potential to collect a substantial element of tens of thousands of trips generated by a development is not being grasped.

  Outside the major journey generation sites, the ability to spread the catchment through providing direct routes on foot and cycle, linking housing, low density commercial sites, and more distant major sites to a station stop, is a notably absent feature from systems which are underperforming. The bicycle has a role to play here, especially for light rail, with stations spaced too far apart to make them walkable for all potential customers, and for tram systems where the routes move out to high speed reserved track running outside town centres. In this respect the inverse of UK practice seen overseas, where cycle carriage on the system is commonplace, cycle parking at stops is secure, and planned from the outset, and cycle access delivered as a ride-up and board facility.

  Cycle carriage does, we understand take place illicitly on a number of UK systems, especially the Nexus Metro

HOW EFFECTIVELY IS LIGHT RAIL USED AS PART OF AN INTEGRATED TRANSPORT SYSTEM

  In the UK we fail miserably in integrating light rail networks with, the personal transport systems that deliver the passenger—the ultimate unit of travel—door-to-door. To achieve this the light rail system has to connect with a high level of service to walking and cycling networks which fan out—dispersing the high concentration of traffic which can be delivered from a popular service, and serving all destinations with the most direct routes that can be accommodated. This is seen widely in Europe, and even in the re-born US systems, with generous and well laid out pathways, and large cycle parks.

  As noted the light rail system which runs like a train with well spaced stations delivers the best benefits from the concept, and the tram equally works to the light rail model outside town centres and locations where passenger demand is densely clustered. As noted we are failing to integrate with the bicycle as a mode practically ideal for the shoulder journey distances involved, and available to a far more socially inclusive group than driving (most of the population can ride a bicycle including those excluded by age or disability from driving), with a level of service (individual and immediate) not offered by the bus.

  The failure to achieve these details in integrating the tram & light rail systems seriously detract from their patronage.

BARRIERS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIGHT RAIL

  The bad reputation from high cost schemes which bodge a Light Rail network out of a disused rail line that no longer goes to the right locations, and on-street running where reserved track or a separate light rail network should have been built has dogged UK development. A key example was the failure to provide a direct and obvious connection from the Sheffield Supertram to the rail station, which has only now been partially addressed. The Sheffield system still has tram stops at Meadowhall, University and the Midland Station which do not put information on tram departures where their potential customers can use it. This is a major failing for all UK public transport.

  Trams should normally run in the centre of the carriageway and not to the side, with island platforms or walk-out provision which forces all other traffic to stop for passengers, a positive move to encourage those travelling in the `other' traffic to consider the tram as the mode to use. This will greatly improve safety for cyclists and others at the nearside of the road

THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT FINANCING ARRANGEMENTS (PUBLIC/PRIVATE) ON THE OVERALL COST OF LIGHT RAIL SYSTEMS

  We cannot comment specifically on the finance mechanisms

THE PRACTICALITY OF ALTERNATIVES TO LIGHT RAIL, SUCH AS INCREASED INVESTMENT IN BUSES

  Investment in the appropriate type of bus is possibly more the issue rather than simply increased investment, guided buses, running with hybrid power units, or as trolleybuses in high density city centre sections used by several routes, and using these small turbines (diesel or gas) or car-sized diesel engines running through batteries. The Seattle system operating since the mid 1980's with Breda dual powered buses making up 25% of the 1,200 bus fleet, appeared almost seamless in the change-over from diesel to wires through the city centre tunnel and on street. Fastway is a clear demonstration of this, and other smaller scale guided bus systems show that the scale of infrastructure does not need to run to rails embedded in a road to generate the public response.

  Bikes can go on buses, and the demonstrator vehicle from the German operation die Andere Bahn was demonstrated in Chester & Cardiff last year. This vehicle runs as a "train" and carries up to 7 bikes on a vehicle almost identical to the typical London articulated bus (it is also a Mercedes Citaro). Curitiba especially, in their decision to use high capacity guided buses instead of trams (Volvo bus has a video available, which we would ask to be considered by the committee), has established an enviable network quickly and a lower cost. Bus systems which do openly carry bikes report that between 2% and 4% of passengers are travelling, and typically only 25% of that number are existing passengers changing their travel pattern, and 25% are completely new journeys (Portland OR report 1994). Buses can also be completely flat floor accessible from road level or a raised platform when used on a guided or dedicated busway system

SAFETY

  The HSE RI spec for rail head levels relative to abutting road surfaces is +0 to -6mm installed for all new systems, a detail changed after representations from CTC and others that the old specification left a potentially "high" railhead which lifted the tyre and removed the spread of contact patch to either side of the rail, in theory on less slippery road surfaces. The tram operator is responsible under Tramways Act for the road surfaces between the rails and 18 inches to either side. In Europe, some operators have a very regular programme to clean out the flangeways (to reduce the oil & crushed leaves which collect there and greatly enhance the risks of slippery rails) CTC believe that current operators should be asked about their track housekeeping in this respect as this has a significant influence on the image of the tram to other road users. If the track infill is well maintained and the rails `clean' this speaks well of the maintenance regime.

Dave Holladay

Transportation Management Solutions

March 2005



 
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