EHS0023/EAC/14-15

51m—Written evidence

51m is an alliance of 18 local authorities deeply concerned with the proposed HS2 rail project.  The group wants to emphasise the impact this proposed scheme will have on every taxpayer in the country for years to come

Q1.  Is there an economic case for HS2

1. 51m authorities do not believe the case for a new north south line has been made and submit evidence below in relation to current and future capacity issues on the West Coast Main Line

Summary

2. Whilst the original arguments for HS2 focussed on journey time improvements, the Government has more recently consistently argued that HS2 is primarily about the provision of vital additional capacity on the West Coast Main Line between London and the Midlands and the North.

3. For example, Patrick McLoughlin, the Secretary of State for Transport, stated in a speech to the Institution of Civil Engineers on 11th September 2013: ‘The reason we need HS2 isn’t for its speed…the benefits of faster journeys are easy to explain. But the main reason we need HS2 is as a heart bypass for the clogged arteries of our transport system..without the capacity provided by HS2 the main road and rail lines linking eight of our 10 largest cities will quite simply be overwhelmed.’

4. Similarly, Baroness Kramer said in the House of Lords on 5th June 2014: “Busy arteries such as the West Coast main line will be overwhelmed in the next decade if we do not build new capacity between our cities in the form of new rail, which is why we need the new north-south rail High Speed 2.”

5. However, the capacity argument is fundamentally flawed for the following reasons:

• The West Coast Main Line is the least crowded InterCity route to London;
• Growth of long distance rail travel has plateaued over the past two years, despite the upturn in the economy; and
• If additional capacity is needed, there are much quicker and less expensive ways of delivering this than HS2.

These points are discussed in more detail below.

Current crowding

6. There is consistent evidence, compared with other routes, that there are no major overcrowding problems on the West Coast Main Line to and from London.

• The most recent comprehensive data provided by Network Rail for morning peak demand and capacity for each London terminal shows that services into Euston have almost the lowest ratio of demand to capacity of any route into London (Annex 1)
• The average loading of Virgin West Coast trains in 2012/3 was only 166 passengers; the majority of trains used on the route have 589 seats.
• Data released to the High Court as part of the 2012 Judicial Review challenge to HS2 showed that the average evening peak load factor (the ratio of passengers to seats) for InterCity services from Euston was only 52%:

7. These counts were carried out before 35 out of the 56 “Pendolino” trains used on the route were lengthened from 9 to 11 cars, giving an additional 150 standard class seats

8. Furthermore, information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act[1] showed that the peak loadings into and out of Euston slightly declined between 2011 and 2012:

Long distance rail travel volumes

9. The latest data from the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR)[3] shows that long distance rail passenger volumes have now been flat for over two years, despite the recent positive growth in the economy:

10. The strong growth up to 2011/12 reflected major service improvements, particularly the upgrade of the West Coast Main Line which transformed journey times and frequency for services between London and the West Midlands and the North West, with improvements on other key routes also. There is clear evidence that these improvements have now worked through, with volumes now having reached a “steady state” level.

11. The ORR data for the Virgin franchise[4] also confirms very low growth on the West Coast Main Line; passenger journeys grew by only 0.66% in 2012/13 compared with the previous year.

12. In contrast, the HS2 business case is based on an assumption of continued compound annual growth of 2.5%.

Provision of additional capacity on the existing network

13. As part of its comprehensive input to the Transport Select Committee’s hearings on HS2 in 2011, 51m submitted an alternative strategy[5] which demonstrated that, even if the high growth forecasts by DfT/HS2 Ltd proved to be realistic, the passenger numbers could be accommodated on the existing network.

14. The first key element of this strategy relates to train formations:

• Reconfiguration of one of the four first class cars to standard class in each train
• Lengthening West Coast Main Line InterCity trains from the current 9/11 car formations to 12 cars for all routes except London – Liverpool (lengthening platforms at Liverpool Lime Street would be prohibitively expensive).

15. These changes would increase the standard class seating capacity for each train from 294 for an existing nine car train to 594; for an existing eleven car train, the increase is from 444 seats to 594. Given the current low loadings on the route, these changes potentially allow for passenger numbers to double on the route.

The first element of the train formation strategy is already being implemented in part under the recent “Direct Award” to extending the Virgin franchise to April 2017. As part of this agreement, Virgin will convert 21 first class cars to standard class.

16. The strategy also proposed potential infrastructure enhancements to allow the operation of more InterCity and commuter services and create additional capacity for freight:

• Construction of a grade separated junction south of Milton Keynes to enable operation of additional fast commuter trains to Milton Keynes and Northampton.
• Construction of a “Stafford bypass” to eliminate bottlenecks in the Stafford area.
• Construction of an additional track between Attleborough and Brinklow (south of Nuneaton), providing an additional northbound tracks on this section.

The 51m strategy was deliberately cautious about capacity utilisation on the West Coast Main Line, hence the proposals allowed for a significant increase in capacity at key bottlenecks. However, from 8th September Network Rail are doubling the frequency of fast commuter trains to Milton Keynes and Northampton in the busiest part of the evening peak period without construction of the grade separated junction proposed by 51m – and are presumably confident that these additional services can be operated without impacting on overall punctuality. In addition, Network Rail have agreed with Alliance Rail Holdings (an open access operator and a subsidiary of Deutsche Bah, that there is capacity to operate an additional 12 InterCity trains a day on the West Coast Main Line (six in each direction between Euston and Blackpool and six between Euston and Leeds via Manchester Victoria and Huddersfield)[6]

17. It is clear from the developments described above that the 51m alternative strategy is realistic, indeed cautious – Network Rail have agreed significant additional services without the infrastructure enhancements proposed by 51m.

Annex 1

September 2014