Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
WEDNESDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2005
MR KEITH
HOLDEN AND
MR STEWART
LINGARD
Q40 Chairman: What was their explanation,
Mr Holden?
Mr Holden: I seem to recall that
they told the Committee that they had commissioned some work by
some consultants to develop a framework but it had not been successful
so they wanted to revisit this particular area, if my memory serves
me right, within the context of the Manchester Metrolink, if that
were to go ahead.
Q41 Mrs Ellman: How long do you think
it would take to assess regeneration benefits?
Mr Holden: Partly it depends on
to what extent the system itself has regeneration as a key part
of its rationale. We point out in the report that regeneration
features more in some systems than in others, for example it is
in the Manchester and Croydon systems. If regeneration is a key
driver or a key factor in justifying the scheme then obviously
to start with, therefore, you need to think about how you
are going to evaluate regeneration. Regeneration is a very difficult
area to assess more generally, it can take a great deal of time
and over that period of time it may not just be the light rail
system that is contributing to regeneration but all sorts of other
factors as well. The case of Manchester is a case in point where
obviously we had the Commonwealth Games there only a few years
ago and that obviously had an impact upon the regeneration of
Manchester and the locality around. Isolating the effect of light
rail over a period of years also creates challenges. It may be
perhaps five to 10 years down the line before you see regeneration
bearing fruit.
Q42 Mrs Ellman: Would you say that
passengers are more attracted to light rail systems than they
are to buses?
Mr Holden: I do not have any information
or any evidence to say yes or no to that particular question,
I am sorry.
Q43 Mrs Ellman: Is it something that
you would find of interest to investigate?
Mr Holden: I think what I would
say is that one of the key things that we would want to draw as
messages from the report is that when we talk about things to
do with integration through ticketing, ease of access, both physical
and also in terms of finding out information about routes and
timetables, what we are really saying is that you have to make
public transport—light rail is no different—attractive
to people because what you are really trying to do is change their
behaviour, trying to encourage them out of their cars and on to
public transport, in this case on to trams. What you need to make
sure is that light rail is at least as attractive, if not more
attractive than, using your car. In terms of frequency, punctuality,
fares, it is going on the right route, it is taking you from where
you are to where you want to be and back again, and integration,
for example, with buses so you can hop from a bus to a tram and
then back on to a bus, all of those issues are important for promoters
when they think about designing their light rail systems. They
must think in terms of the passenger and how it will appear to
the passenger and what factors will attract a passenger to use
a tram.
Q44 Mrs Ellman: How important would
you say integration with buses is?
Mr Holden: Obviously there are
only seven existing light rail systems in England so buses dominate,
they are overwhelmingly the largest form of public transport beyond
heavy rail, so I think integration is very important between buses
and light rail. I think there is an issue here for the operators
of buses and trams both to benefit and for the passengers also
to benefit, and ultimately the taxpayer will benefit in terms
of getting a return on public money that is invested in light
rail. We do not see it as a zero sum gain, we see it potentially
as a win-win, where if it is, and is seen to be, well integrated
and seamless it is more likely that you will encourage an increase
in patronage for both bus operators and also light rail operators,
so you can actually grow the public transport provision within
a particular locality and everyone wins.
Q45 Mrs Ellman: What about the contribution
of light rail to reducing congestion and pollution? Has any work
been done on that?
Mr Holden: Yes. We do touch upon
it in the report. Obviously, one of the key things here is that
tackling congestion and reducing local air pollution is all about
reducing car use and that is all about modal shift, getting people
out of their cars to use trams, and the key driver there is patronage,
it always comes back to the passenger. There is some information
in the report which points out the impact that light rail has
had in Croydon and some other places on local congestion and air
pollution. The problem with any public transport system is to
do with backfill, in other words generated traffic, so if passengers
leave their cars behind at home and they use light rail, that
creates more space on the roads for other motorists then to fill.
There is a real complication around the extent to which modal
shift can be sustained. That is why we also touch on the need
for complementary measures, for example park and ride or parking
restrictions and those types of measures, to go alongside light
rail in order to help discourage car use, for example, where there
may be that backfilling or that generated traffic. Light rail
by itself without complementary measures, such as park and ride,
will not succeed to the extent that it should.
Q46 Ian Lucas: What are the advantages
of light rail over motorised buses?
Mr Holden: We do not do any work
in the report. It is not a comparative VfM study so we are not
comparing light rail as a mode against buses as a mode. I could
speculate but it would be no more than speculation.
Q47 Ian Lucas: Can you put on record
the way that light rail schemes are funded in Britain?
Mr Lingard: They are funded through
a variety of measures: central government grant and borrowings
from central government, local authority funds, European funds
and private monies.
Q48 Ian Lucas: Is it right that the
French and German light rail systems are much more heavily subsidised
than systems in the UK?
Mr Lingard: It is correct that
generally systems in the UK are not subsidised and systems in
France and Germany are subsidised to a heavy extent, yes.
Q49 Ian Lucas: Where does the subsidy
come from in France and Germany? Does it come from local government?
Mr Lingard: It comes from local
government, local taxes.
Q50 Ian Lucas: You say there is no
subsidy at all in Britain.
Mr Lingard: I believe that the
Tyne and Wear Metro is subsidised to some extent.
Q51 Ian Lucas: The revenue of the
Tyne and Wear Metro?
Mr Lingard: Yes, it is subsidised
on an annual basis. The loss that the system would otherwise make
is subsidised by the local PTE.
Mr Holden: Chairman, can I just
clarify that our understanding of subsidy, I hope, is the same
as your understanding of subsidy where we are talking about operating
subsidies. Once the system has been built, and obviously the Department
will have given quite significant grants to help construct the
systems, when we are talking about subsidy I think we are talking
along the same lines in terms of operating subsidies subsidising,
for example, or underpinning, underwriting the income that an
operator may have in running the light rail system.
Q52 Ian Lucas: If we look at the
capital costs in, say, France and Germany, to what extent are
those provided by government?
Mr Lingard: Again, they do receive
government grants. I cannot recall the exact proportion of grant
that they make. From recollection, however, I do know that they
were reducing the amount of central government grant that their
local schemes were going to get in the future, but from what to
what I cannot tell you.
Q53 Ian Lucas: Is there an increasing
use of the private sector in France and Germany in terms of funding
capital schemes?
Mr Lingard: If the central government
grant is going to be reduced then I would expect they are hoping
for greater private monies.
Q54 Ian Lucas: Are there schemes
being taken forward on private funding in France and Germany?
Are you aware of any?
Mr Lingard: I do not know.
Mr Holden: No.
Q55 Ian Lucas: Is the diminishing
input in terms of grants from government leading to a lack of
development of the light rail sector in France and Germany?
Mr Holden: Our work did not extend
to looking further ahead in terms of future developments in France
or Germany. Obviously what we wanted to do was to look at how
they have got to where they are at the present moment in time
and the report does point out that Germany has over 50 systems,
France has 11 main systems and obviously within the last year
we have just opened up our seventh, so we are little bit behind
them in that regard. We did look ahead to look at any changes
that are in the pipeline with regard to funding the French or
German systems.
Q56 Ian Lucas: What are the main
lessons that we can learn from the French and German systems?
Mr Holden: Primarily they revolve
around the design of your system and the services that you can
provide in terms of better integration, choosing your route carefully
to make sure that you connect the centres of economic activity,
like hospitals and universities and shopping centres and business
districts, obviously the extent to which you can potentially make
savings with regard to standardisation or driving down utility
diversion costs. I think those are the main things.
Mr Lingard: Can I add one thing
to that? They also give priority to their light rail vehicles
on the roads at traffic lights—always—and here we
do not always do that. Of course, that reduces the reliability
of our systems.
Q57 Ian Lucas: Mr Rowlands claimed
that light rail was more successful on the Continent because of
higher population densities there. Would you agree with that?
Mr Holden: From my understanding
there is an issue around your patronage base. You still have to
have a critical mass of people along that route, or at least within
a fair catchment area, that you can attract to light rail. I am
not too sure that we have any direct evidence which would suggest
that you need a densely populated town or city for light rail
to succeed necessarily. You still need the people there and I
think a case in point in the report was the case of Sheffield
Supertram that had projections of patronage and it did not succeed
because the city council knocked all the housing down during the
development of the scheme and those potential passengers moved
elsewhere. Obviously I do know that there were issues associated
with travel-to-work patterns where people may see the advantages
of light rail travelling in to a town or city centre, for example,
and being prepared to divert from their normal route, perhaps
go a little bit further than their normal route, in order to obtain
the benefits of light rail, for example driving to a park and
ride site, hopping on to the tram and being in the city centre
quicker than you would be able to achieve if you drove there directly.
There is definitely an issue in population densities in terms
of having enough people out there to attract but I am less convinced
that it has to be highly densely populated; I think it is more
to do with the hinterland and the general population around the
edges to attract patronage.
Q58 Ian Lucas: Do you think in view
of the much lower number of light rail schemes we have in the
United Kingdom that we have a lack of expertise in developing
projects here?
Mr Holden: It is not something
that we necessarily identified within the report as such. Obviously
until most recently there have only been six systems and some
of those have come on stream in the last five or six years, so
there are not many of them, so the industry is really quite small
in this country. Having said that, we do point out in the report
that local authorities do not necessarily have the information
or the knowledge to know where, for example, a light rail system
may be successful. There has not been a great deal of good practice
sharing and lessons being learned from the position of the Department
because obviously the Department oversees everything and is in
a unique position to see all of those systems as well as systems
abroad. Obviously the promoters of systems can also go abroad
to see how it works over there. There is definitely an issue about
the maturity of the industry in this country and you could speculate
that over time if there were more systems then obviously you would
build up that degree of technical as well as managerial expertise
as well as perhaps generating economies of scale.
Q59 Chairman: Yet, in fact, this
Committee went to Munich to see the tram system which is entirely
managed on the assumption that it will be heavily subsidised and
it does the job not only of renewal but of the efficient movement
of jobs precisely because it is controlled by the local authority.
You say on the one hand that you are convinced there is a very
heavy level of subsidy and you say you do not know exactly how,
but you must have made some enquiries because fares are subsidised
by 70% in Grenoble and 40% in Freiburg. That information must
have given you some clear indication of what the local taxpayers
or ratepayers were paying, must it not?
Mr Holden: No.
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