Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1420 - 1439)

  1420. No, in favour of Moorgate: 55 per cent to Moorgate, 45 to Liverpool street, on the basis of the figures that were received just before the hearing started?
  (Mr Spencer) The figures that I received.

  1421. No, no, no. This is not a blame passing exercise. I am saying that the exercise was only done later because the city provided the employment forecast on 12 January to us. Do you remember?
  (Mr Spencer) We provided the City forecast.

  1422. It does not matter. I am only trying to explain?

  1423. Sir Peter Soulsby: What he needs to know is what Crossrail's prediction is of the split and what Mr Spencer's prediction of the split is. What is Crossrail's?

  1424. Mr Elvin: Fifty-five percent to Moorgate, 45 percent to Liverpool Street?

  1425. Sir Peter Soulsby: Mr Spencer, you are suggesting to us that it would be different.
  (Mr Spencer) I am, although what I have tested specifically, because I have only tested the Liverpool Street end, is 65 per cent at Liverpool Street.

  1426. You have tested what would happen if 65 per cent of passengers used the Liverpool Street line.
  (Mr Spencer) Correct, and our test, as I have said, is specifically related to gateline capacity. It has subsequently been put through pedroutes.

  1427. Of course we will be coming back to the question of walk times and these other issues, which will enable us to make a view as to which is the more realistic.
  (Mr Spencer) Absolutely. It is a combination of the accessibility of the station location as well.

  1428. I understand that. Mr Laurence.

  1429. Mr Laurence: Yesterday Mr Elvin rebuked me for rising effectively to complain that a relevant document, namely the gateline standard telling you what you had to do in certain scenarios if future demand figures were unavailable, you had to add 120 per cent—he rebuked me for suggesting that it would be appropriate to put in front of the witness the relevant passage from the relevant standard, and I, duly rebuked, remained seated and said no more. I am getting up now because I think it is only fair to the witness if the figures 55 and 45 per cent appear somewhere in written form that they should be put in front of the witness so that he can see exactly what the provenance is of those numbers. In trying to assist a moment ago, I suggested to Mr Mould that one of our tables was possibly going to be helpful in that regard. Mr Elvin heard my remark and said those are your tables, not ours. My point is a simple one, sir. If the Committee is to be assisted and if fairness to the witness is to be maintained, if numbers are being quoted that are relevant for him to comment on they should be put in front of him; that is all.

  1430. Sir Peter Soulsby: The Committee is very clear what Mr Spencer's assumptions are and why his reasoning has led him to adopt those particular assumptions. I think that is all we need to know at this stage and I do not think we need to go back at this stage to how Crossrail came to their different assumptions. At the moment it is Mr Spencer's assumptions that we are exploring. It has been pointed out to me that obviously we would not want Mr Spencer cross-examined on the detailed Crossrail assumptions. It is his assumptions we are exploring and we understand that.

  1431. Mr Elvin: The fact is that what Crossrail have used is the Railplan, have they not?
  (Mr Spencer) They certainly have.

  1432. And what Crossrail have done is run the new employment figures through Railplan.
  (Mr Spencer) They have.

  1433. I am afraid you will have to take it from me on instructions but we cannot get to your figure of 65 per cent for Liverpool Street. You have been told that, have you not?
  (Mr Spencer) No, I have not been told that because I was only told what the Liverpool Street prediction was. I was not told what the Moorgate prediction was so I could not know what the split was. The Railplan modelling for that that has been done to date has only taken on board the first significant part of our evidence, which is the employment rate. There are other equally important aspects of the Railplan model which still need to be amended and I would like to run through them quickly so that the Committee understands that we have only got to stage one here. If the origin pattern at Liverpool Street is so incorrect what confidence can we have that Crossrail understands where these people are coming from if it does not know where they are going to? We had superior information, up to date information, which could equally be put into the Railplan and I am confident that that would provide a higher level of certainty that what Railplan is saying is robust. I could not tell you what the outcome would be. The other thing which I have said repeatedly in my evidence is that what is required is a much more sophisticated understanding and a micro model of what goes on at Liverpool Street station. Railplan is not a model which should be used to provide station demand forecasts and that is in our evidence.

  1434. Railplan is able to make strategic divisions between passengers. It does the big picture such as the splits, major destination share and those sorts of issues, precisely the sort of issue we are looking at at the moment.
  (Mr Spencer) No, I disagree. Railplan will tell you how many passengers are going to be on Crossrail broadly speaking and it will give you a broad indication of what their requirements would be for ingress and egress from the individual stations. When you ask Railplan to differentiate between Moorgate and Liverpool Street a whole range of relevant bits of information which are only superficially included within the Railplan model, like walk times, like destinations, it is not going to provide the correct answer. The only way to get the correct answer is if you have sufficient detail to put into the model which is being used. To do that Railplan can be made more detailed. It is a big area.

  1435. Mr Spencer, if you were being remotely fair to Crossrail you would acknowledge that Railplan had taken account of local constraints, observed flows and the specific local circumstances. It says so in the Environmental Statement and, of course, Crossrail has had the benefit of many years to consider this specific issue. Perhaps we can look at the Environmental Statement, and I will give the references for the record: volume 8a, paragraph 2.37, "Forecasts are always thoroughly checked and where necessary adjusted. They draw on actual passenger accounts that are available using a statistical goodness of fit technique developed totally by London Underground and Transport for London", and in the same volume, paragraph 3.24, "Modes of access and egress also look at the local situation based on an assessment of the local situation and reflecting the local issues and constraints". It is not simply using the computer model without adjusting it to have regard to the various sensitivities you mentioned. It does do that and Crossrail has done that and has been looking at this issue for a significant period of time. It has not taken the rather simplistic approach which you appear to think is the case. That is right, is it not?
  (Mr Spencer) It is somewhere between the two, I would say. The amount of time which existed between the publication of the Railplan demand forecasts in December 2004 and the publication of the Environmental Statement in February 2005 and the immense complexity of the project would lead me to conclude that there was not the opportunity to do any detailed post-model adjustment of the demand forecasts. The employment data in the base is so patently wrong that whatever adjustments and statistical goodness of fit you do it is not going to rectify what is an enormous error in the understanding of the employment distribution in the City of London.

  1436. Mr Spencer, we do not accept your characterisation. Adjustments have been made and when the City produced the employment forecasts they were fed into the model to produce the split that I have put to you.
  (Mr Spencer) My contention is that there is a lot more work to be done.

  1437. Let us just get this position clear. You have not done any better modelling. You have used the same techniques in your approach. We have not got a position where we have moved on to some other method of forecasting. You have used the same broad approach that has been adopted by Crossrail.
  (Mr Spencer) As I said in my evidence yesterday, it is the only show in town.

  1438. Thank you. Coming back to the Moorgate/Liverpool Street split, in terms of the question of the five minutes from the platform or the three minutes, whatever the position is, and we will give the note round when it is available, you suggest that there is some degree of attraction in terms of shops for those coming out of Crossrail.
  (Mr Spencer) I think that is self-apparent at Liverpool Street.

  1439. Yes, and at Moorgate. At Liverpool Street, which the Committee has seen, the Octagon Arcade has a Boots but it has also got things which are perhaps less generally attractive—pen shops, glass shops, and I think you can buy scented candles if you have an overwhelming desire for that. There is a Maxwell and Kennedy specialist chocolate shop. Close to Moorgate on the other hand I think there is not only a Boots in Moorfields; there is a Dixons and there is a Marks & Spencer and a Gap close to Moorgate Station, which is precisely the sort of thing people are looking at on a more general basis rather than scented candles and glass. Is that right?
  (Mr Spencer) I do not know how to answer that question.



 
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