Rolling stock: the key to unlocking the regions?

We are all familiar with Europe’s burgeoning high-speed rail network, which despite economic downturns continues to expand. With the advent of this planned system, mental geographies have shifted: rather than thinking in terms of distance, we have become used to conceiving of journeys and their destinations in units of time. Headline figures promoting a town or city as being within ‘x hours’ of the capital or any other significant centre can have a major boost on the regional and national economy.

Yet as well as wide geographical coverage, a successful high-speed network is equally dependent on good accessibility: journeys do not start and end at the high-speed station. Even a high-speed line and associated station does not guarantee good regional connectivity if the onward links to local destinations are lacking. Whilst a high-speed London–Manchester journey may be consistently reached in 2hrs 7mins, a distance of 189 miles, the last leg to, say, Oldham, continues to be dispro por – tionately lengthy. And such problems are not confined to ‘peripheral’ locations outside Europe’s economic core: within otherwise well connected zones connectivity can drop off markedly. For instance, through Eurostar and TGV links, the city of Lille in north-east France has become extremely well connected over the past few years, with Brussels, Paris and London only a short high-speed train ride away. But Valenciennes only 50km to the south-east cannot benefit from Lille’s connectivity in the same way. In fact here, although frequencies have increased, the average train time between the two cities has only decreased by six minutes between 1968 and 2006. So there is a clear discrepancy between the international success and the more local ‘bypass’ effect. And aside from high-speed lines, to a lesser extent, ‘classic’ national railway networks also throw up the same problem.

Sintropher

So our focus in Sintropher (Sustainable INtegrated TRam-based transport Options for periPHeral European Regions)1 is on improving access into and out of EU regions which, despite the growth of transport networks, remain disadvantaged by virtue of being geo – graphically peripheral within the context of North West Europe.

One way of doing this is by assessing and promoting new or improved tram services, which link to national and international rail systems, both high-speed (300km/h +) and ‘classic’. (Where relevant, these should connect to regional airports as well.)

Of course, within our current financially straitened circumstances, given that desirable infrastructure may have to take second place to other priorities (when funded locally or regionally), the emphasis is on solutions which make best use of existing transport infra – structure by applying innovative technologies – an important consideration in regions where the cost of major new transport infrastructure may be a barrier.

One recent innovation here is the tram-train: by constructing a short physical connection between a city tramway and railway, trams can move seamlessly from one system to another, enabling passengers to travel from city centre to outlying regions without having to change modes. Karlsruhe in Germany pioneered the technology, and it has been taken up by several cities across Europe including Kassel, Mulhouse and Saarbrücken. We are also interested in highquality interchanges at key rail or air hubs, where such tram-trains may interconnect.

Approach

Improvements to the transport system will be tested across five demonstration regions in five EU Member States: Valenciennes (France), the Fylde Coast (UK), West Flanders (Belgium), North Hesse (Germany) and Nijmegen-Kleve (The Netherlands).

A key feature of the project is transnational cooperation. By working together, each region has the opportunity to benefit from knowledge transfer, joint problem-solving on economic and technological issues, exchange of experience, pilot projects and demonstration projects, and capitalising on best practice across the EU. There are 14 project partners representing key agencies in the five demonstration regions, on a cross-sectoral basis including transport operators, local authorities and academic research expertise from across North-West Europe. The project is led by University College London (UCL), and coordinated by Prof. Sir Peter Hall.

Sintropher has a budget of €23 million, of which €7 million is ERDF. As part of the European Union’s regional policy, it is co-funded through INTERREG IVB. Project completion is scheduled for the end-2012, though this may get extended.

Our work

We have four main areas of concern or ‘work packages’ within the project, which are:

1. Technical and legal challenges in the application of new local transport systems

2. Appraisal of economic feasibility and territorial impacts

3. Knowledge transfer in improving the interoperability and accessibility of transport hubs

4. Marketing strategies

This allows us to develop active knowledge transfer and practical joint working across the five regions, exchange experience, and jointly commission and benefit from best practice in other European cities and their regions.

Technical and legal challenges

A particular area of interest here is the trials that have been conducted across Europe into tramtrain technology. In the UK, the Department for Transport (DfT) has formed a partnership with Network Rail, the infrastructure operator, and Northern Rail, the train operator in the north of England, to take forward a tram-train trial, but given present budget cuts it remains to be seen how this will be progressed. Equally significant has been the requirement for any new diesel hybrid vehicles to comply with tougher IIIB emissions regulations: a very small UK order of these could not have borne the substantial R&D unit costs demanded by the sole manufacturer. This led to the abandonment or at least postponement of testing what could have been a very useful technology. In the Netherlands, our project partner ProRail, the Dutch infrastructure provider, has already installed shared track on the central section of RandstadRail and has completed tests giving the green light to track sharing on the RijnGouweLijn. And in Kassel, Germany, also project partners, a tram-train system has been running successfully since 2006. Other partners in France and Belgium have elected not to pursue trials. Some reasons here include track gauge incompatibilities between the Flemish Kusttram and the SNCB network, and anecdotally, institutional issues appear to have hampered progress in France. So part of our aspiration is to understand how and why such decisions were taken, and to act as a repository for these experiences. We would thus welcome experience from other areas.

Appraisal of economic feasibility and territorial impacts

Many approaches are used in assessing the viability of a tram-based scheme across different regions. Some rely on satisfying a benefit-cost ratio as a key part of the business case for approval; others fit into a more strategic plan. Our ambition is to analyse these varying approaches to appraisal and how each is appropriate for the situation. Again, the effects of reduced government funding at the present time will be influencing decision-making across all regions, and it will be telling to see how new schemes and the framework in which they were planned respond to current financial pressures, and consequently which ones are progressed, postponed or simply cancelled.

Interoperability and accessibility of transport hubs

This is central to our thinking in Sintropher as previously discussed. A successful scheme needs to be well-designed and able to plug into the existing transport network in order to derive maximum utility. At the national and international level, stations such as Berlin Hbf or Antwerpen Centraal create vast opportunities for onward travel, both regionally and locally, but it is principally the smaller stations that cater for the majority of interchange passengers. The Swiss example is well documented: working to a Taktfahrplan mainline trains interconnect with local railways, trams and buses, with the system repeating at regular intervals, and it is indeed justly famous. However, while lessons can be learnt, especially at the timetabling and operational level, not every region has the same degree of physical service infrastructure as Switzerland. Indeed, this system is very ‘hungry’ (could one even argue ‘inefficient’?) in its use of infrastructure, with Zürich Hauptbahnhof unused for 20 minutes each hour, for instance. As a result, other types of improvement can be equally effective: those derived from enhancements to the station environment, such as better signage, improved information, ticket purchase and retail facilities, customer information screens (CIS) and so on as appropriate. Some of these have already been codified in best-practice guidelines, such as those produced by London Underground, and despite having been developed for a metro environment, much is transferable.

Marketing strategies

Marketing of transport products has developed considerably in recent years, with a much more integrated approach, so that users only need to have one ticket or ‘proof of travel’ irrespective of mode or operator. Many urban systems have developed smartcard technology as well as the latest revolution, the use of mobile phone technology for information and ticketing to do this, but other transport areas, particularly more dispersed regions, continue just as successfully with simple multimode time-based passes, whether weekly, monthly or annually. The key here is appropriateness for the situation, and new ticketing technology is not necessarily a substitute for old (though, of course, it would be foolish to ignore advances). With a high proportion of regular travellers using such passes (well over 80%), it is more cost-effective for our partners in Kassel just to stick to that form of ticketing. More creative marketing strategies have also targeted new passenger groups to public transport: the leisure market, particular segments of the population, or infrequent travellers, for example; and indeed the transport in itself can be a tourist attraction ripe for exploitation (for instance Blackpool and the Flemish Kusttram from De Panne to Ostend, both Sintropher partners).

Rolling stock

The phrase “doing more with less” is an increasingly familiar refrain in an environment where large and often still growing numbers of passengers need to be transported, despite potential cutbacks at a time when governments are reviewing large capital infrastructure spends.

Making existing assets work harder, or adapting them creatively – such as by building through links to make new journey oppor – tunities – is one way, but at some point new resources have to be procured. On the rolling stock front, existing vehicles will not necessarily continue forever, and the need for replacement stock may be accelerated by other factors such as more stringent accessibility and emissions regulations.

So, the spotlight is on the vehicle to do more than it did before. Of course, tram-trains show this very well, giving rise to the idea of a ‘goanywhere’ vehicle, ideally suited to the demands of regional traffic. And here, traditional boundaries between tramway and railway break down, blurring seamlessly into the other. With successful and growing deployment in a number of cities across Europe and further afield, it can be an ideal solution in the right context.

But, of course, vehicles come at a price. Historical legacies have left us with a multitude of differing systems across the world, and so unlike the volume builds in car production, orders for rail- and tram-based stock are typically built for one particular area. This may be fine for large metropolitan transport systems, but more challenging for regions to contend with. For their part, manufacturers have begun to respond by making the vehicle do ‘more than it did before’: common ‘product platforms’ in which a minimum of 80% of components are shared across orders, with the remainder customisable is what Alstom sets out to achieve, for example2. And the unique parts can even be great fun, such as the series of front-end ‘noses’ that distinguish French trams, not to mention the colourful liveries to mark out routes and market the city, e.g. Montpellier. So this common base helps to increase the affordability of vehicles in the market.

But the greatest cost efficiencies are naturally with bulk orders, using one running production schedule for another customer, or ‘piggy-backing’ on to an existing order. Can we learn from the example of Brest and Dijon who placed a joint order for new trams? Both sides benefit, manufacturer and customer alike. Though this example is merely the tip of the iceberg – more of a one-off than the norm. Yes, we acknowledge that a lot of effort has been invested in harmonisation of standards across the rail sector, and much has been achieved, but in our view there are still many more opportunities to exploit. In the UK, local government have begun to see tentative steps in pooling healthcare and education resources – for instance the London Boroughs of Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham in 2010 announced a merger of their education departments in recognition of the fact that 33 separate education authorities within the Greater London Area is no longer sustainable. But even here, are we merely seeing a resurgence in collaboration? There is a distinct parallel with the ideas previously discussed in the CLASP3 system of school procurement launched in 1957. This is an unincorporated association of public sector authorities which acts as a ‘knowledge-based organisation committed to improving the efficiency of the whole building process for the benefit of owners and users’4.

Thinking radically, what we are therefore proposing as a spin-off from our INTERREG Sintropher work is to bring together and codify knowledge and intelligence on future light rail vehicle orders. Ultimately this would function as a procurement consortium for regional railbased vehicles in order to secure cost savings across Europe and further afield as appropriate.

To this end we offer the manifesto-type points below to stimulate debate:

• Recognition that with bigger, largely standardised orders, purchasers get vehicles at prices they can afford, while manufacturers find bigger markets and economies of scale. Compare the Model T revolution in car manufacture
•  To increase purchasing power by systematically combining the forces of two or more light-rail orders
• To embrace the principle of x% common platform and y% customisable component for each order  A willingness to get together and cooperate
• Build on proven successes like Brest and Dijon
• It makes sense

The vision

So the vision is simple: having disembarked from our Siemens-built ICE-3-type high-speed express (popular, of course, in a number of countries) at a bustling metropolitan centre, we transfer cross-platform, or even remain on the same platform, to a tram-train-type or other light-rail vehicle. This diverts off the mainline into the high street where there is the opportunity for shopping, before picking up a suburban and then rural line into the region: our final destination. And this adaptable pattern would be replicated across other interchange hubs and regions with one common feature, though it may not be immediately obvious: jointly procured rolling stock.

For more information, see www.sintropher.eu

References

1. Sustainable INtegrated TRam-based transport Options for periPHeral European Regions

2. See Tramways and Urban Transit, July 2010

3. Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme

4. See www.clasp.gov.uk/index.php?page=10

About the Authors

Sir Peter Hall is Bartlett Professor of Planning and Regeneration at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, University College London, and President of the TCPA. Author of many books on urban and regional planning, he has been Special Adviser to Government on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (HS1) and a member of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Urban Task Force. In 2009, he co-authored a report on future train stations for the Secretary of State for Transport, and launched Sintropher, a €22 million EU programme promoting new transport technologies, particularly tram-trains, to assist European regional development.

Charles King is Communi – cations Manager for Sintropher, based at University College London. After working for Deutsche Bahn in Frankfurt, he was a rail transport planner with consultants AECOM where he was involved in demand forecasting and operations planning. His current role brings together his experience in lightrail and promoting the outcomes of the Sintropher project.