Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1380
- 1399)
1380. I am not asking about the nature of pedroute.
I am saying, if you had three escalators, if you could only accommodate
three rather than four, it would be bound to be worse?
(Mr Spencer) I think you can see that in the
test of the—. Do I have enough information? If we go to
the initial test of Crossrail plus 15,000, you will see that with
three escalators with the Crossrail scheme we go to red with this
scenario.
1381. Yes, but for your scenario you have assumed
four escalators going up to Eldon Street?
(Mr Spencer) And it goes to yellow.
1382. Even on four. So, if Eldon Street can
only accommodate three, coming back to what I thought was a very
simple question, the situation is bound to be worse for Eldon
Street?
(Mr Spencer) It would not be worse because
the escalators carry exactly the same numbers of people in both
tests; so it would only be the same if you had two escalators.
1383. There would be fewer escalators and therefore
less capacity to carry the same number of people?
(Mr Spencer) You are asking me if you have
three escalators in the Crossrail scheme and three escalators
in the Eldon Street scheme.
1384. No, Mr Spencer, I am asking you a perfectly
simple question. Your Eldon Street entrance shows four escalators?
(Mr Spencer) Correct.
1385. I am saying, if it did not prove possible
to get four escalators in your Eldon Street exit as a matter of
engineering and it could only have three in your scheme, the situation
you have shown would be even worse?
(Mr Spencer) It would be the same as the test
that I have done on the Crossrail scheme, which would be worse
than what I am showing here.
1386. Thank you. Let us move on.
1387. Mr Binley: I am a simple country
boy.
(Mr Spencer) So am I.
1388. And I am going to lose out a bit. It seems
to me that we are here with a new project and yet that is showing
yellow, red, pink, purple or green. It is showing that it is not
satisfactory as a new project. How fine are the differences, in
technical terms, between making it okay, recognising we are looking
forward and recognising that we have never yet done a calculation
about traffic on roads? How fine is the technical difference which
makes this okay rather than not okay in terms of those projections?
(Mr Spencer) In terms of pedroute, year of
opening, you would expect the entire station and the entire exit
system to be either dark blue or light blue. That would be a way
of putting it. What we are seeing here, and I would speculate
here that there is no other facility within Crossrail that is
showing a level of congestion above light blue. That is the design
parameter, basically, for the Crossrail stations, and Mr Elvin
may correct me here, but that is what Crossrail are clearly seeking
to aspire to in terms of how they have expressed the design objectives
for the project. In this scenario we are clearly seeing routine
congestion, not with extreme tests but with perfectly realistic
tests, which says to me that another solution is required if it
is to be of consistent quality and consistent operational capacity
and consistent future proofing with the whole of the rest of the
project.
1389. Let me follow that up, because I want
this exactly in my mind. In a normal scenario would the fine differentials
between the colours have a line there which would say: this makes
this acceptable and this does not? That is a very crude question,
but you are an expert and I would like your view on that question
and I recognise there will be others?
1390. (Mr Spencer) I think basically
for a 2016 test of what is in effect a new station, is deemed
to be a new station by London Underground, you would expect it
to show nothing beyond the pale blue definition, which, to explain
exactly how Crossrail interpret that, their characterisation of
that in very simple terms is basically that they characterise
that as occasionally congested. The green they characterise as
regularly congested. We then move to yellow within the appraisal
of the eastern ticket hall proposal, which is continuous congestion
for a 15-minute period. Ideally, you would have no congestion,
and certainly if you went and looked at the Jubilee line on the
day of opening there was no congestion. There is congestion subsequently
because the demand has increased, but in a constrained environment
like Euston, were there to be agreement to it being the access
facility to Liverpool Street, you would expect it to be no more
than occasionally congested and at a low level of occasional congestion,
because clearly if there is a range you want to be at the bottom
end of the range, not at the top end of the range where it could
easily flick into the regularly congested.
1391. Thank you. I now have that answered.
1392. Mr Elvin: Of course, Mr Binley
will recall, our pedroutes are not testing what we think the situation
will be.
1393. Mr Binley: I understand that too.
1394. Mr Elvin: Can we look back at document
18. This is test three that we were looking at slightly earlier.
This is Crossrail with an inflated base to take account of some
of your sensitivity testing. I am going to go through just three
of your points in a moment, but if you are wrong in your sensitivity
testing—if we look at page 17—this is the total trips
to Crossrail of 10,500, so it is higher than the Crossrail base,
but even on that reduced number of sensitivity testing we see,
in fact, the situation is significantly better—it is largely
blue—and we can compare that with document 14, which is
test one, without Crossrail, and we can see the relief that it
has caused to the Central line which we were discussing earlier?
(Mr Spencer) Because I have got a more detailed
output, I am struggling to actually find exactly the test that
you are asking me to compare it to.
1395. They are on the screen.
(Mr Spencer) I can only see one on the screen
at a time. It is the with Crossrail base.
1396. With the Crossrail base?
(Mr Spencer) With low growth.
1397. It is page 80 of 81 in the outputs you
originally got, I think, if that helps.
(Mr Spencer) I think I am looking at the right
one. I need to be certain I am looking at the right one. I was
looking at the correct drawing.
1398. I appreciate you do not agree with this
and you say, no, it needs a lot more sensitivities building in,
but, even if you strip out some of your sensitivities, and this
includes at least some of them, you get a massively better picture?
(Mr Spencer) If you stripped out every single
one of my sensitivities.
1399. We have added additional flows into Crossrail?
(Mr Spencer) Where?
| 
