Written evidence from Stephen Ison (STA0057)

Policy approaches to public transport at airports – some diverging evidence from the UK and Australia

Stephen Isona, Rico Merkert[*], b and Corinne Mulleyb

a Transport Studies Group, School of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU , United Kingdom and Visiting Professor at Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, The University of Sydney

b Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Sydney, Australia

Abstract:

The growth of aeronautical and non-aeronautical activities at airports not only creates capacity constraints but also has a substantial impact on the airport’s environmental footprint. This paper discusses the different approaches to ground access at airports in the UK and Australia. In the intensifying debate on how to address transport congestion and the related environmental degradation (i.e. CO2 emissions), public ground transport can be seen as a potential cornerstone in an airport’s effort to address the issue. It is hence unsurprising that a key element of the UK airport approach has been to promote a shift from the private car to more sustainable transport options for both passengers and employees. Surprisingly, Australia appears (despite its relative poor environmental performance) to focus much more on the expected growth of aviation activity and measures that will aid in addressing the resulting road congestion. In contrast to UK airports, Australian airports do not use environmental targets or educational measures in their ground access plans. Our findings and the lessons learned from the UK approach suggest that more sustainable ground transport strategies could aid Australian airports in reducing their transport congestion and resulting carbon footprint.

Keywords: Airport ground access strategies, congestion and carbon footprint of airports, public transport policy

1. Introduction

An increase in the demand for air travel and the growth of non-aeronautical activities of airports has led to an increase in the amount of ground traffic in and around major airport sites. The main mode of transport for such trips is the private car which offers the benefits of convenience and reliability for what are time critical journeys (Coogan et al., 2008). These journeys can benefit an airport since they bring with them much needed car parking revenue but they may also result in increased journey times as a result of congestion and add to environmental degradation, particularly with respect to the airport’s overall CO2 emissions (Ison et al., 2008; Graham, 2008). Clearly as air travel continues to grow (particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, see for example Airbus, 2012), ground access is likely to become a greater issue. As a result of this growing concern coupled, at least in a UK context, with

constrained land use at airport locations there has been an increased emphasis on public transport as the prime mode of ground access (Humphreys and Ison, 2005). Airport operators are increasingly faced with significant challenges in relation to ground access policy and in particular how to address the issue of private car access, seeking to balance the airports commercial and environmental objectives (Ison et al., 2011). This is made all the more challenging by the commercialisation and privatisation of airports in recent years, particularly in the European Union. The heterogeneous nature of airports with regard to their business model and geographic location undoubtedly means that the ground access issue will vary from airport to airport and with no one solution to the problem. Ground access is not a problem that can be compartmentalised without considering the interrelationships between airport access, congestion and the wider issue of global emissions.

The aim of this paper is to examine the spatial and temporal aspects of ground access to airports in a UK and Australian context. This is motivated by the way in which per-capita CO2 and CO2 changes, as revealed by Table 1, are dramatically different between these two countries and a consideration of what this signals for ground access policies. It is also motivated by the current and forecasted strong growth in aviation in Australia which will contribute to ground access issues, in contrast to the situation in the UK where there is much slower growth in air travel at most airports.

Table 1: tonne CO2 /capita emissions in 2011 and 1990–2011 change (CO2 /capital and total)

Source: Olivier et al. (2012). Note: the industrialised countries shown in Table 1 have emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The United States emission target has no legal status (signed but not ratified the protocol).

Table 1 shows that Australia performs the least well in terms of per-capita CO2 and CO2 changes whilst the UK has demonstrated improvements in both. The UK government has sought to address the issue of congestion and the related CO2 emissions in a ground access context by a number of policy initiatives and, whilst these will not be wholly responsible for the environmental improvements observed in Table 1, they will have been contributing factors. Australian airports are typically well within the city footprint (for example, Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport is 15 km from the CBD) and a more sustainable approach to ground access could contribute significantly to congestion amelioration and national environmental goals.  This paper, via a comparative study, aims to ascertain what lessons can be drawn from UK airports which have put measures in place to address issues of private vehicle access that have potential relevance in an Australian context and vice versa. Our initial review of master plan (and related) documents has revealed that the UK can in fact be seen to be at the forefront of ground access strategies not only with regards to passengers but also and perhaps more importantly in relation to employees that work at and around the airport.

Table 2 identifies the top 10 world airports in terms of passenger numbers and shows London Heathrow to be the only airport possessing a separate Ground Transport Access Plan. In the context of their per capita CO2 emissions, with ground access traffic being a contributing factor, and the expected strong growth in air traffic Australian airports need to be proactive in terms of measures considered to control and monitor their private vehicle access strategies. As many UK airports have implemented such strategies they are a sensible comparator in this study.

Note:              a http://www.atlanta-airport.com/Airport/MasterPlan/ATL-FacReqts-DRAFT-Summary-101113.pdf

b Heathrow airport surface access strategy 2008

c http://www.ohare.com/MasterPlan/Section%20II%20-%20Inventory%20-%206.pdf

d http://www.lawa.org/uploadedFiles/SPAS/PDF/LAX%20SPAS%20Final%20SPAS%20Report%20Document%20Final%20CD-Web%20Version%2001%2030%202013.pdf

e https://dfwairport.com/development/masterplan/index.php

f http://www.airport-int.com/news/major-upgrade-for-jakarta-airport.html

g http://www.dubaiairport.com/en/media-centre/Documents/Dubai%20Airports%20-%20Strategic%20Plan%202020.pdf

There is no publicly available evidence of any transfer of ideas or sharing of best practice between UK and Australian airports in terms of ground access, although given the practitioner nature of the sector this doesn't mean it has not been taking place. Other transfers of ideas relating to policy are in fact taking place in the transport sector in general, not least best practice in terms of travel plans and parking policy, and in particular the Workplace Parking Levy as administered in Perth, Australia and Nottingham in the UK.

The paper is structured as follows, section 2 provides a brief literature review dealing with the nature of the ground access problem, section 3 details a brief explanation of the method used and section 4 introduces the policy frameworks to be found in the respective countries with regard to ground access. Section 5 offers a comparative assessment and finally in section 6 the conclusions offer lessons from the UK and Australian experience.

2. Literature review

In relation to ground access a number of issues appear to be central, namely the impact of traffic on the environmental footprint, the fact that there are both passengers and employees accessing and egressing airports on a daily basis, car parking provision, the commercialisation and privatisation of airports in recent years which impacts on the context within which ground access takes place, and the range of options that are available to airports when seeking to deal with the issue of ground access. This section seeks to briefly outline these related issues in the context of understanding the debate pertaining to ground access for airports.

The environmental footprint of airports has become a more important issue in recent years and this is heightened by recent news that the mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has passed the 400 parts per million for the first time since measurements began at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. There has been growing pressure on the airport sector to improve its environmental performance (Budd et al., 2011), particularly with the growing competition from high speed rail which is seen as more environmentally friendly (see for example, Zanin et al., 2012). One of the main reasons for this however is that the environmental impact of ground access is greater than that of aircraft ground movements (Kazda and Caves, 2008). According to the UK Department for Transport, road-based journeys contributed 91% of airport access emissions in 2005, and this drops only marginally to 89% by 2030. It is important to note that the Department for Transport (DfT) forecasts make no allowance for the successful impact of policies that result in an increased public transport mode share for airport access (DfT, 2009). Increasingly, influencing ground access to become more sustainable is an important part of obtaining approval for airport expansion (Coogan et al., 2008; Kazda and Caves, 2008).

In terms of passenger ground access the private car is the main form of access (Kazda and Caves, 2008) with journey time, cost and distance travelled all important in the decision to use that mode (Pels et al., 2003; Harvey, 1986; Psaraki and Abacoumkin, 2002; for empirical evidence on Manchester Airport in the UK, see Ryley et al., 2013). Flexibility, reliability, safety, security, ease in terms of luggage handling and comfort are central to that decision (Humphreys and Ison, 2005) which is also the case for taxi use (de Neufville and Odoni, 2003). Business travellers are likely to have a higher value of time than leisure users which will impact on their choice of mode (Pels et al., 2003). Moreover, where business travellers are commuting between cities by air, as is common in Australia, their departure times are likely to occur in advance of good public transport frequencies. Airport employees, are not often considered in discussions of airport ground access but can account for as much as a third of total ground access journeys. The shift pattern in the nature of their work impacts mode choice, as often shifts begin or end at times when there is limited public transport provision (Humphreys et al., 2005).

Airport parking and its users is a complex area. With the private car being the most important form of airport access there is competing demand by both passengers and employees for car parking provision, in addition to commercial pressure for the land to be used for other purposes (Ison et al., 2009). Interestingly car parks are usually the non-aeronautical activity at airports that is not outsourced to third parties in contrast to, for example, food and beverages, speciality shops or duty free.  As such, car parks are under the direct control of airport management, at both strategic and day-to-day operational levels. Unsurprisingly, the growth in air traffic and the growing non-aeronautical activities at and around airports has also resulted in an increase in the number of airport staff requiring car parking facilities. This creates a tension for airport management since staff car parking provision, which many airports see as an important tool for staff retention, could be more profitably used by airport authorities to provide for passengers. Alongside this is the conflict between the revenue streams arising from car parking provision and environmental pressures to reduce car parking supply (Ison et al., 2007). The car parking situation is made more difficult given the shift pattern nature of the work and the pressure at ‘change over times’ (Ison et al., 2009). Given the competitive nature of airport operations, relatively expensive and/or inadequate provision could place an airport at a distinct competitive disadvantage (Ison et al., 2008).

Airport commercialisation and privatisation over the last 25 years has changed the airport-airline relationship in many cases, not least in terms of stimulating the use of secondary/regional airports by the growth in low cost carrier operations (Francis et al., 2004). The growth in the low cost carrier market at such airports has offered passengers a price incentive such that they are willing to travel some distance (from places that often have poor direct public transport links to the airports in question, primarily as a result of the distances involved), thus impacting on ground access (Budd et al., 2011). In addition, the potential for the low cost carrier market to fluctuate has meant that airports are somewhat reluctant to invest in long term ground access infrastructure, such as road and rail links (Humphreys and Ison, 2005). However, some UK airports have recently discovered the value of environmental branding for sustainable ground access and present their strategies and achievements in their corporate responsibility reports and marketing material. Moreover, the low cost carrier market in Australia is somewhat different to Europe since Australian cities/airports are typically so far apart that they cannot compete on location for low cost carriers.

Changes to road capacity is a medium/long term strategy and is potentially an important approach to addressing the ground access problem, be it for passengers or for employees and varies from airport to airport depending on size (Budd et al., 2011). The presence of traffic congestion in accessing airports and the associated environmental impact of ground access to airports has led to many airports encouraging the use of public transport and non-motorised modes, namely cycling and walking, particularly for employees. Targeting the use (or non-use) of private vehicle access needs to take account of whether it is airport passengers or employees that are being targeted and whether it is a short-term or long term strategy. While changes in road capacity can address constraints in ground access to airports, this supply side measure has waned in popularity, at least in a European context in recent years based on the financial and environmental implications and the perceived wisdom that the ‘predict and provide’ nature of the option is less than effective (Goodwin and Noland, 2003). As such, demand side measures have been adopted such as introducing a charge for vehicles dropping off and picking up passengers. This is seen as a means of reducing curb side congestion at a number of airports in the UK and mainland Europe (LeighFisher et al., 2010). As regards employees, the so called ‘softer’ options have been adopted, such as developing staff travel plans, subsidising public transport fares and the introduction of car sharing schemes. In Australia, such measures are rarer and, in some cases, employees suffer through higher than normal public transport fares as in Sydney, where the airport link station access fee adds to public transport fares for all travellers using the airport stations, including employees. 

In terms of public transport airports have tended to focus traditionally on bus networks and air-rail links (Budd et al., 2011). Airports tend to be connected to a bus network (even if in many cases this is a ‘special’ airport service as opposed to part of the wider local transport network) at least from the airport to the nearest city centre or the nearest rail station (such as London Luton airport). Larger airports, for example London Heathrow and indeed Manchester in the UK, have developed as public transport interchanges (Humphreys and Ison, 2003) and are connected with the national rail network which has a feeder function. Some Australian airports however buck this trend with little access by traditional bus services (Perth and Sydney, for example).

Non-motorised modes, namely walking and cycling form only a small percentage of ground access trips, and then from an employee perspective only. Loans for bike purchase, cycle parking facilities, lockers and showers are all examples of what might be implemented by an airport authority (MAG, 2007) to improve the proportion of these more sustainable transport trips. This approach is conditioned by the proximity of the airport to employee (in particular) home locations and the distances which can be undertaken by non-motorised modes.

3. Method

Based on the literature review of the preceding section, the methodological approach is one of undertaking a review of the legislation and policy frameworks relating to airport ground access in the UK and Australia. The review is followed by an examination of the master plans (and ground/surface access plans if separately published) and the annual reports of key airports to identify patterns or differences in the approach to ground access in the two countries. In order to undertake a meaningful comparison, this paper focuses on the 10 largest airports in each of the two countries, measured in terms of passenger numbers.

The rationale for focusing on the 10 largest airports is based on providing a meaningful comparison. The issue of land use constraints at airport locations in remote Australia is very different to the UK average (despite some airports in Wales and Scotland being fairly similar to Australia in their catchment area characteristics). Given that Australia has an average population density of 2.5 inhabitants / km² while in the UK it is on average about 100 times greater (2500 inhabitants / km²), it is important to focus on the large urban areas in both countries where the population densities and land values are not so different (Sydney airport is for example at least similarly land constrained as any of the London airports).

The next sections review the policy frameworks in each country before turning to a discussion as to the extent that the governance structures and the environment of the airport support a propensity to implement policy in respect of airport ground transport developments.

4. Policy frameworks

This section considers the airport policy frameworks in the UK and Australia as well as the governance and recent legislation which control and regulate ground access in these countries.

UK ground access policy

The UK was the global pioneer when undertaking airport privatisation following the 1986 Airports Act. Before that time airports were seen as public utilities owned and subsidised by local and central government (Ison et al., 2011). Airports have now become financially self-sustaining organisations operating along commercial lines. They are owned by a variety of shareholders including the Spanish Ferrovial Group with London Heathrow, London Stansted, Glasgow International, Aberdeen and Southampton, Abertis with London Luton, Birmingham part owned by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Victorian Funds and indeed Manchester still under public sector ownership with the Manchester Airport Group. Since Government, in the main, no longer owns airports in the UK it has lost the ability to influence infrastructure development. As such, airport investment decisions may be somewhat different to that of the UK government, not least since the two have differing objectives (Ison et al., 2011).

In terms of ground access, a major challenge for UK airports is “…to encourage increased public transport usage to airports” (DETR, 1998) and to reduce car dependency. As such, the Transport White Paper “A New Deal for Transport “(1998) tasked UK airports above a certain size in England and Wales with establishing an Airport Transport Forum (ATF). The ATF is responsible for:

• co-ordinating the different bodies involved in ground access, such as airline operators, public transport operators, local authorities, local businesses, airport employees and the highway agency;
• producing an Airport Surface Access Strategy (ASAS) to encourage trips to the airport by public transport; and
• meeting twice a year.

As part of the guidance on ATF’s and ASAS’s (DETR, 1999) it was stated that ATF’s should have three specific objectives, namely to:

• develop and agree challenging short and long term targets for reducing the proportion of private vehicle access to the airport and also increasing the share of journeys undertaken by other modes;
• develop a strategy for achieving the targets, by managing traffic on access roads and promoting private car alternatives;
• oversee the strategy.

Achieving these objectives requires the ATF to prepare an ASAS including: achieving increased public transport access over a five year time period to be reviewed every five years The ATF and ASAS are being seen as of strategic importance as part of a long term sustainable national airport policy (Humphreys and Ison, 2005).

Australian ground access policy

Australia’s 22 federal airports were privatised much later than their counterparts in the UK over the period 1997-2003 through the sale of long-term leases to private investors and then regulated under the Commonwealth Airports Act 1996 (‘the Airports Act’). This governance structure means that the planning and development of these airports is under federal (Commonwealth Law) and not subject to state/territory or local government laws.  As a result, the investment and development of these airports have generated a growing concern that airport related planning decisions may not be adequately aligned with state, territory and local planning (see for example, Freestone et al., 2011).

Against a background of considerable growth in aviation in the last decade and substantial forecasted growth, investment in airport capacity both airside and landside has been identified as a priority. For example, Sydney airport is forecasted (based on 2008-09 data) to need to accommodate some 130% increase or 40m additional passenger movements by 2029-30 (BITRE, 2009). This was the context for the 2009 National Aviation Policy White Paper that identified as a key aim that the “planning framework should above all facilitate the development of airports as aviation infrastructure, not only by encouraging investment in aviation facilities, but by enhancing the place of airports as key transport hubs located in vibrant communities and regions” (Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, 2009, p. 22). This was followed by the Commonwealth Airports Amendment Act 2010 is designed to give the State neighbours of the leased federal airports more powers but to require policy to be put in place to achieve enhanced, more integrated and better coordinated airport planning and development. This Bill requires airports to provide:

• a separate ground transport plan for the first five years of the Master Plan’s 20 year life span;
• incorporate an environmental strategy in future Master Plans.

Being relatively new and aimed at strengthening the requirements of master planning, this paper next looks at how this Act has been implemented at the Australian airports which form part of this study and whether their approach to ground transport (surface access) plans is now more similar to that of UK airports.

5. Comparison of the findings and discussion

As presented in Table 3, this analysis focuses on the 10 largest UK and Australian airports, measured in passenger numbers. While Australia has no airport the size of Heathrow, in terms of the size distribution, the Australian metropolitan airports are comparable to their UK counterparts.

Table 3: Sample of airports by size

Source: UK CAA, BITRE.
Note that Air traffic movements include passenger aircraft only.

The smallest Australian airports presented in Table 3 are less than half the size of the smallest airport in the UK ranking given in the table (Liverpool J Lennon), but they are growing quickly. For example, Perth and Darwin both have an 11 per cent annual growth in passenger numbers and are expected to continue growing. In contrast, in the UK there has been stagnation or a decline in total air traffic movements from 2011 to 2012, based on total passenger numbers. Assuming that low cost carrier (LCC) passengers have different preferences in terms of ground access at airports compared to passengers travelling on full service carriers, it is possible to argue that the large share of LCCs at some UK airports such as easyJet (despite it moving away from the pure LCC model) at London Luton have a different impact to that experienced at Australian airports following the entry into the market of Virgin Blue (now Virgin Australia) and Jetstar. This is clearly an area for further research.

Table 4: Unconstrained public transport demand forecast for Sydney region (m passengers)

Source: Booz & Company; DIT (2012).

The forecasted growth of air travel demand (as revealed for the Sydney region in Table 4) represents a challenge to providing a contribution to the improvement of Australia’s CO2 performance since, as shown in Table 5, many Australian airports typically have a small public transport passenger mode share, with the norm being up to 80% private car travel.

Table 5: Ground Access for selected airports, ranked by size.

Notes: 1 This is total traffic less rail and bus/coach travel (and includes active travel where separately mentioned). This comprises the use of the private car when accessing the airport. 2 Sydney Airport Corporation Ltd (2013a), p 64. 3 Canberra Airport Pty Limited (2009) p 167. Bus includes car rental and hire cars; 4 Darwin International Airport (2010),Table 19; 5 Australia Pacific Airports(Melbourne) Limited (2009) 6 Hobart International Airport Pty Ltd (2009) 7 Townsville Airport Pty Ltd (2011) Master Plan 8 Department for Transport (2012) These results are based on the CAA passenger survey, which surveys departing passengers only., 9 Also includes minicab; 10 BAA Edinburgh (2007) 11 Birmingham International Airport (2006) 12 BAA Glasgow (2009) 13 Bristol Airport (2006) 14 Liverpool John Lennon Airport (2011) 15 Civil Aviation Authority (2011) 16 BAA Heathrow (2008) 17 Gatwick Airport (2012) 18 Manchester Airports Group (2007) 19 Civil Aviation Authority (2012) 20 BAA Stansted (2008) 21 London Luton Airport (2012) 22 The figures for Heathrow comprise 12% rail and 16% for Tram and Tube. 23 This comprises both passenger and employee access to the airport by public transport in percentage terms. 24 Productivity Commission (2011) Economic Regulation of Airport Services, Productivity Commission Inquiry Report, No 57, Chapter 11, Table 11.1

In addition, investigating the data reveals a distinct difference in the recording of public transport use with each airport having its own characteristics. For example, for Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport the recently published draft Master Plan with its associated environmental strategy in June 2013 is not comparable with the earlier 2006 Master Plan and Ground Travel Plan. In 2013, a revised methodology was used to calculate public transport use which now includes transport movements on the airport site between the airport terminals by shuttle bus and/or train. Moreover, in contrast to UK airports, Australian airports typically provide statistics for passengers and staff combined even though staff movements to airports are both regular and significant (for example, 12,000 staff per day at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport (SACL 2013b, p 105) even when based on surveys where it would be easy to separate. However, despite this heterogeneity across airports, there is a common pattern showing that Australian airports have much less non-private car-based ground access mode share compared to their UK counterparts. There is therefore great potential for Australian airports to improve the public transport ground access, as indeed there still is for UK airports, which would not only help with the increasing problem of congestion but also with the environmental footprint.

The different levels of public transport ground access to airports in Australia and the UK presented in Table 4 are also reflected in a major difference in the prevalence of Ground or Surface Access Plans. This is highlighted by the final column of Table 6.

Table 6: Surface transport elements of the published plans of airports

Notes: 1 MP= Master Plan, GA=Ground Access/Ground Travel Plan. Source: Analysis based on MPs and GAs of airports.  elements included in the Master Plan, X elements not included in the Master Plan.

In addition to the difference in timing of policy in the two countries (the setting up of ATFs in the UK in the late 1990s and the Commonwealth Airports Amendment Act 2010 in Australia) the two countries have chosen fundamentally different approaches to airport ground access. Table 6 shows there to be a strong focus on the environment and employee access at UK airports as compared to their Australian counterparts. The Australian Airport Master Plans demonstrate a much more supply driven approach, less often focused on sustainability and the employee travel CO2 footprint. Australian airport strategies are more concerned with how to tackle the expected substantial growth in air traffic and the resulting increase in passenger numbers and road congestion to the airport than the effect their business has on the road network for other users and the wider environmental impact.

Table 6 highlights this lack of environmental concern in many ground access plans for Australian airports with some airports having no details of ground access in the public domain or available on request. Although environmental issues are discussed by Australian airports’ in their separate environmental strategies, public ground access transport is rarely mentioned. The exceptions are Sydney and Melbourne airports which have produced separate Ground Travel Plans in 2006 (prior to the passing of the Commonwealth Airports Amendment Act 2010) which consider public transport access and this, it could be argued, is a function of airport size. Surprisingly, the 2013 Draft Master Plan and Environmental Strategy for Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport (SACL 2013a, SACL 2013b) do not build on the earlier Plan with public transport access discussions still combining passengers and staff although their needs are quite different. Although new cycle and end of trip facilities have been installed in all terminals (SACL 2013b, p 159, p 209), it appears that Australian airports are lagging behind UK airports in terms of promoting sustainable travel particularly for employees. Brisbane and Perth consider employee access to the airport but assume this will be by private car which is unsurprising given the low overall public transport mode share.

Beyond the lack of an environmental footprint of the airport as a whole, Table 5 reveals differences in the expectations for employee airport access between the two countries. Contrary to Australia (where there is generally a lack of recognition of the contribution of employee travel to the environmental footprint of the airport), the UK ground access plans demonstrate an understanding of the part paid by employees’ access in the context of overall surface access to airports. Examination of the UK Ground Access Plans reveal a number of initiatives have been enacted in order to promote a shift from the private car to more sustainable transport options for employees. In the short term this includes improved public transport bus services, improved cycling facilities in terms of access and end of trip facilities (such as cycle racks and showers) with the longer term solutions looking to the development of ground access interchanges, rail links and the implementation of Employee Travel Plans. More specifically, UK airports have recognised the role of ‘softer’ measures in driving mode shift in airport access with the majority of airports providing incentives to encourage increased use of public transport with subsidised bus services, bus operator partnerships and marketing of public transport information. Innovations have also included, for example, the hypothecation of a proportion of staff car parking fees to the improvement of public transport services at Gatwick airport.

For passengers there are more similarities in the consideration of access in the two countries. In the Australian airports, passenger access features in the majority of Master Plans but these are focussed on the provision of car parking for travellers (this is discussed further below). The reliance of private car access in Australia is related to the more low density nature of cities generally but also the lack of constrained land use for many of these airports with Table 6 revealing a strong correlation between concern for passenger access and the constraints of location. The UK airports use targets, particularly for modal shift from private car access, to stimulate changes in behaviour in access to airports (for a specific case study on behavioural change of airport access at Manchester airport see Ryley et al., 2013) whereas in Australia, the concept of targets to increase public transport mode share is not currently on the policy horizon. As revealed and summarised in Table 7, UK airports not only encourage improved public transport services but also seek to educate the public and employees in terms of greater use of public transport (either via the internet or through paper based means).

However, airports in the UK and Australia share a common problem in not having complete autonomy over their ground access policy. In the UK this arises primarily from the way in which bus services are deregulated and so, although airports can encourage the provision of improved bus services for access, this is ultimately outside their control unless they provide subsidy themselves for services which are not commercially viable and which local authorities choose not to subsidise. For employee access, with shift patterns which are likely to be out of step with passenger access flows, this is a particular problem. In Australia, the difference is that airports are under federal control but the responsibility for public transport lies with State portfolios. This can be illustrated by the rail airport link in Sydney which, even though part of the wider rail network for the Metropolitan area, was privately funded and imposes a station access fee for the two airport stations and, until recently, stations either side of the airport. The station access fee for non-airport stations was removed in March 2011 (with recompense being made to the private operator) on the grounds of making public transport access affordable, particularly to employees and has led to significant increases in patronage. The management of Sydney airport would not have been able to bring this about even if it had been in their interest.

Table 7: Recommended policy measures in ground transport Master Plans of airports

Source: Based on master plans and ground access plans of airports.

Table 8 illustrates that public transport access is not an area that generates direct revenues to airports in Australia. Whilst revenues from taxi operators, private bus and car operators could be a potential income stream, it is currently negligible (with all landside access revenues summing up to no more than approximately 1% of airports’ revenue). it is not surprising, therefore, that Australian airports have no commercial interest in public transport access to their site and the regulatory environment has not made this a priority in contrast to the policy framework in the UK which provides an incentive to improve the share of public transport access.

Table 8: Landside access revenues (in m AUD and y/y change in %) at selected Australian airports in 2011-12

Source: ACCC (2013).

The commercial focus of Australian airports is unsurprisingly on other non-aeronautical sources of ground transport revenues, namely revenues generated from car parking. As shown in Table 9, car parking revenues are highly profitable, contributing significantly to airports’ total revenues (for example, 20% in Melbourne Tullamarine), and indeed the most profitable revenue stream of large airports in Australia.

Table 9: Car parking at selected Australian airports in 2011-12

Source: ACCC (2013). Note that Perth Airport adopted in the relevant period a new methodology for deriving fair value of its investment property assets. This resulted in an asset revaluation gain of its non-aeronautical investment property of $377 million for 2011-12 (which explains the more than 80% share of non-aeronautical revenues in total revenues).

Table 9 shows how, on average, car parking at Australian airports provides operating margins of around 70% giving very high value (compared to the world airlines’ 40 year operating margin of 0.1% (IATA, 2011) and the margins of other parts of the sector) and a key motivator for any rationally behaving business for their retention and further development. Unsurprisingly, the annual change to 2011/12 in the number of customer car parks at the five monitored Australian airports was almost ten per cent. Interestingly, the airport with the highest share of car parking revenues in total revenue but with low public transport access shares (Melbourne) is also that with the most comprehensive and environmentally focused ground transport plan.

Non-aeronautical activities such as duty free, speciality or food and beverage shops are important to Australian airports, with up to 50% of their revenues generated from those activities. Growing these revenues means an increase in staff working and providing services at airports although the number of staff car spaces have not increased by the same proportion. This explains why employee access is discussed in the ground access plans of airports such as Melbourne or Sydney but not in most other airports where space is not such a constraint. This suggests the motivation for improving the public transport mode share of employees is not one of environmental traffic management but a response to a lack of car parking capacity working against the airport commercial interests. This contrasts with the situation observed in the UK, where staff travel plans are designed to provide targets and create incentives to encourage and educate employees to use public transport when travelling to and from the airport as a place of work.

In terms of likely future trends, particularly at the largest Australian airport in Sydney, public transport ground access to the airport is increasingly seen as a commercially important issue. From discussions with senior management of Sydney Airport Corporation and the recently published Draft Master Plan 2033 (including the 2013-2018 Environment strategy) Sydney Airport will focus much more on public transport which would provide a potential role model for other Australian airports. However, the motive behind this focus is not based on environmental concerns, as discussed above, but on capacity constraints with regard to the existing ground transport infrastructure. Interestingly and in contrast to many commentators, the Sydney airport management claims the airport’s airside (i.e. runway) and terminal infrastructure is capable of growing the current (2012) passenger numbers of 37 million to 78 million passengers in 2045 per annum, despite the presence of independent research revealing strong passenger growth (see for example, Department of Infrastructure and Transport, 2012). Where the airport management has indicated it feels less confident, is whether its airport ground transport access infrastructure would also be capable of such passenger growth. This lack of capacity in passenger ground access infrastructure may turn out to be the real bottleneck for Sydney airport and not its runway capacity and may explain a recent focus on improving public transport access. Again, this reinforces the point above that ground transport plans in Australia are much more supply driven than their UK counterparts.

6. Conclusion

There is a growing need for airports world-wide to focus their strategies and master plans on their environmental footprint. The UK is a good example with all of the ten airports analysed in this paper having a clear ground transport strategy in the public domain that focuses on encouraging a modal shift from private car use to public transport when travelling to or from the airport. Besides investments in public transport infrastructure, UK airports set themselves targets for modal shift and CO2 reductions. They also aim for improved information and awareness as to what public transport services are available. UK ground airport strategies generally also include educational elements for both the general public (e.g. passengers, shoppers) and importantly, airport staff. Finally, UK airports use this sustainability focus for communicating a positive image in terms of corporate responsibility and marketing.

In Australia, where CO2 emissions per capita are one of the highest in the world, it might be expected that airports aided by government policy or otherwise would have, a vested interest in managing their carbon footprint as a contribution to lowering the country’s global CO2 emissions. A change in legislation in 2010 now requires Australian airports, similar to UK airports, to publish their ground transport strategies separately from the master plans. However, as revealed in this paper, the approach of Australian ground transport plans is very different to that of UK airports. All of the analysed Australian airports focus heavily on strategies that aim to prepare the airport for the forecasted substantial growth in air traffic and business activity at and around the airport. This approach is much more supply and primarily road access oriented. It is questionable whether the ground access strategies are contributing to reducing the airports carbon footprint to a meaningful extent, even if the strategies improve the airports’ sustainability in terms of ground access traffic congestion. The few public transport measures appear to be entirely infrastructure provision related and not focussed on the environmental benefits compared to access private car travel but on congestion. In contrast to the UK, Australian airports employ very little public transport information, awareness and education measures. Australian airports also do not generally focus on staff travel specifically.

Overall, it is understandable why Australian airports need to have investment in ground transport access as a key strategy. However, Australia could learn from developments in the UK as at some point Australian airports will need to answer for their contribution or lack of contribution to the reduction in the Australian carbon footprint. Although a recently introduced industry-wide carbon tax will need to be paid (and which the new government has threatened to remove) and which may be less successful at bringing about change than ‘softer’ incentives encouraging modal shift. The analysis of this paper suggests the Australian authorities should encourage Australian airports to consider establishing something similar to the UK Airport Transport Forums and tasking them with developing Airport Surface Access Strategies (ASAS). The ASAS would seek to improve the use of public transport as a mode for accessing airports, for passengers and employees, as well as encouraging more sustainable forms of transport. These conclusions are especially pertinent to the Australian context, as a result of the relatively high CO2 emissions per capita and the strong growth in air traffic but would also be applicable to many other airports worldwide, particularly when considering the findings presented in Table 2. In terms of policy transfer, the ground transport access strategies, as implemented in the UK, present an interesting case for airports globally.

October 2015

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the three reviewers for their insightful comments. Their contribution has made for a more robust paper and for that we are grateful.

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