Public transportation

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Across the United Kingdom we face increasing challenges in the provision of sufficient reliable and truly accessible public transportation. This section will address some thoughts on major projects already underway, in planning and some new innovative ideas across the transport sector.

For many years we have seen disruption on the railways due to engineering works and ever increasing ticket prices discouraging passengers from making as many journeys as they would ideally like to make via rail.

In this section we will cover the issue of capacity verses demand, travel times and how we can improve the utilisation of the current infrastructure to support stopping local services, regional faster service, high speed rail and promote rail freight at the same time.

A YouTuber documented a journey from Edinburgh Castle to London’s County Hall comparing the travel times by air via Heathrow Airport verses rail and the results were impressive. With the time it takes to get to the airport, time taken to get through security, to the gate before the gate closed time plus the disembarking and travel time to the city centre the train won the race. This was even taking into consideration the number of stops the train made at great cities across the country picking up even more passengers and providing greater capacity than offered by aircraft on that route.

However it is also evident that the cost of the rail journey was considerably more. Looking at congestion on trains in the South East and well documented issues in the Midlands and North it does feel like the demand for rail is being managed not by increasing capacity but through Uber style surge pricing. This is not linked to just the long distance journeys as seen with the roadsigns on the A27 between Lewes and Eastbourne saying only 20 minutes by rail for a journey that takes 30-40 minutes by car.

It is clear that there are good opportunities to improve the network and release capacity on lines as seen with the Elizabeth line (Crossrail 1)  project which has seen over 5,000,000 passengers since it opened allowing more passengers to travel not only on the Elizabeth Line but also bus and London Underground lines that passengers have switched from.

Investment in public transportation infrastructure is something that has been proven to increase economic growth. In the U.K. repeatedly we have been told that for every £1 spent on rail infrastructure generates £4 of economic growth. If we look back to the US Great Depression of 1929 several governments around the world spent money on transportation infrastructure as a way to get people into work, stimulate the supply chains and as the workers had more disposable income than on benefits they were able to spend it locally creating more jobs in shops and the hospitality sectors, as more people entered the workforce these businesses also expanded and when the economy recovered they had the transport infrastructure in place to support the businesses move their goods and for workers to get around.

Across the wider transport section we will explore the way that we can look to encourage transport modal change as we could build extra lanes on the motorways and A roads but these will only fill up quickly and we would end up with a road looking like some of the 14 lane highways in the USA when other transport modes can transport more people using less space.

Finally we need to look for engineering solutions to the congestion at poorly designed locations like just north of East Croydon railway station by the Selhurst depot however this project has been delayed for so long that this is now restricting the throughput of the area. A similar pinch point on the national rail network is located just north of Birmingham but this is just two of what is likely to be a larger number of locations needing improving.

This will be an issue of great debate as we saw with HS1 with concerns during construction but the impact following landscaping of construction sites has restored the area to a high standard whilst also seeing some road improvements in some areas.

HS2 in the initial stages and the early communications made a number of mistakes. Firstly there are environmental protections that could have further have reduced the impact on the environment that HS2 phase 1 has made. The largest mistake was the marketing campaign focusing too much on the time savings that HS2 will present compared to the knock on benefits of the new line removing the conflicting needs between local stopping services and the fast/semi fast services. Whilst people in Wales may not think that it will have an impact on them on one line mentioned by an industry expert pointed out that trains often had to wait 10 minutes at a station or in a siding to allow faster trains to pass, HS2 will remove this conflict cutting the journey time on local services. Also the project will be using new lines and platforms so the current infrastructure can be repurposed whether this is for the handling of more services on existing lines or for the reconnecting of communities that have grown which had their connecting railway line close in the 1960s including but not limited to the infamous Beeching line review.

The announcement by Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the party conference in 2023 ironically whilst in Manchester that phase 2 of HS2 continuing from Birmingham to Manchester and Yorkshire would be cut was a blow to the North who deserved significant improvement in connectivity to other parts of the mainland U.K.

Rather than cutting the HS2 project back it is fair to say that the expanding of the benefits of removing the conflicts between fast and local services further north would have also helped not only communities become closer together but would have presented business opportunities for companies in different regions to work together. In an ideal world the HS2 project should have continued to Scotland with an Edinburgh and Glasgow  terminus. In London the will the line extend to Euston or not debate has again presented a weak leadership. Yes it is clear that we need to have a major terminus at Euston with the originally proposed number of platforms but I would question if this line should also have seen it extended further south to London Bridge to also better connect to services including cross country Surrey, Sussex and Kent including improved interchange facilities for the elderly, vulnerable and disabled.

This naturally also would not mean that Northern Powerhouse Rail should have been impacted as the need for regional and local services including cross country will be crucial to regional success.

The challenges with high speed rail also present an issue on the Great Western Railway line from Paddington to cities like Swindon, Bristol, Exeter and Cardiff to name a few but also potentially include a long term plan for connecting the midlands/North with the Southwest better without transferring in London.

Whilst the suggestions predominantly focused on the South East, where we are based, we accept that there are strong needs for the connecting of communities across the U.K.  Projects like East to West Rail are a sign of the type of projects we need to reduce journey distances and provide a real and viable alternative to car journeys across the U.K.

For London, Surrey and Sussex there are a number of projects that have been proposed which I feel have great merit in improving capacity across those areas. These include:

Brighton Mainline 2 (www.bml2.co.uk)

Crossrail 2

Brighton Mainline improvement works 

These will be explored in more detail in the Crossrail section.

We need to also look at how we can build contingencies into the network for during periods of disruption. Some examples that used to exist prior to the 1960s network shrinkage included a line from Three Bridges to East Grinstead which would have provided many a good daily route from East Grinstead to Gatwick Airport via Crawley Down but also a route which could handle diversions during planned engineering works.

We also need to look at how we can develop new lines such as linking Milton Keynes to Banbury via Silverstone which during major events would also reduce congestion on the road network. 

Another example could be the extending of either the Elizabeth Line from Terminal 4 to Feltham, Twickenham Stadium, Richmond and Wimbledon not only connecting the these stations to a major airport and sports venue but also linking terminus on the district line allowing easier onward travel during disruption or extending the Richmond branch of the district line to Heathrow Terminal 4 via Twickenham Stadium and Feltham railway station improving airport access from the south should the Elizabeth line option not be taken forward.

Where we have fast and local services operating on the same lines it would be prudent to see where reasonably practicable to separate the lines that fast and local services operate on.

In the Crossrail 3 project this is one of the aims of the project to increase the line capacity but also by separating them were possible there is potential to use the other section of track or contingency lines reducing the need to operate such large scale rail replacement bus service operations.

Across the U.K. we are sure that there are similar high demand routes that would benefit from a similar separation of fast and stopping services.

The Elizabeth line as the first of the Crossrail projects have proven to be a great success in improving connectivity across London whilst boosting the capacity on several London Underground lines.

There are a number of strategic plans for improving connectivity across different parts of London so the next 30-40 years will be an interesting time as the demands on the system increases. 

The Brighton mainline 2 project is an interesting proposal to connect the South Coast especially Brighton, Falmer, Lewes, Newhaven, Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings to an innovative new project. 

The maps on the website shows at the southern end that there is a strip of land where trains used to operate that could be reinstated but with a junction just outside of Lewes to allow trains to head east or west from this point to serve plenty of towns.

Heading North the plan from Uckfield would see services run to East Croydon, Lewisham, Canary Wharf, Stratford and beyond significantly improving connectivity in South London.

At East Croydon there could even be the potential to build a larger station box to allow Crossrail 3 to also be accommodated when funds become available in the same way that The British Library is already talking about constructing the Cross Rail 2 infrastructure ahead of time to allow redevelopment to take place above.

Even if the southern link is not pursued would be prudent to ringfenced the land required for future rail infrastructure development should local community withdraw their objection whilst continuing with the improvements to the North including the East Croydon to Stratford link via Lewisham where ideally it would link in with the other public transport interchange.

There would be some tunnelling requirement as well as upgrading of some railway lines from single track to dual track.

The Crossrail 2 project has been an interesting proposal with the plan of connecting Epsom, Hampton Court, Chessington and Shepperton in Surrey along historic South Western Railway surburban lines into London before taking new routes to serve Victoria and the Euston/St Pancreas Intl and Kings Cross hub.

In 2020 central government paused this game changing project and it has failed to progress further despite great potential to increase capacity through central London and on popular routes from the commuter belt.

The scheme also had the potential for additional future works as discussed in the CrossRail3 proposal bellow.

The Brighton mainline is a line that is under immense pressure not only due to the popular of both London and Brighton plus other coastal towns but also due to the links to Gatwick Airport that is currently seeking planning permission to move the fall back runway 12 metres north to allow simultaneous dual runway operating which will boost passenger numbers from around 46 million to 70 million per annum. With the airport’s ambitious plans to have 50% of staff, passengers / visitors using public transport sees the need to futureproof the airports transport connections.

This allows us an opportunity to develop a new line to run alongside / under the existing line using new platforms to remove the faster trains from the current surface lines with access points near Preston Park, Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath and Three Bridges to redirect a lot of the fast trains from Horsham and coastal areas to use these new dedicated lines and platforms without the limiting of the terminuses in London.

Stops on the main core under phase 1 would see stops as follows:

Phase 1

Brighton

Preston Park

Burgess Hill

Haywards Heath

Three Bridges

Gatwick Airport

Redhill (for North Downs line services)

Purley

East Croydon (interchange for BML2 & link to phase 2)

Balham (for Northern line)

Clapham Junction (interchange for Crossrail 2) 

London Victoria

Marble Arch (for Hyde Park and Oxford Street)

Paddington

Wembley Stadium

Watford Junction (for onward West Coast mainline)

Phase 2

At East Croydon there would be an option through constructing a larger than needed station box during either the BML2 or Phase one of this proposal to have another northern spur for the Thameslink services calling at:

Norwood Junction 

London Bridge 

London Blackfriars 

City Thameslink

Farringdon

then splitting to either:

a) terminate at Euston to improve connections to HS2

b) continue to St Pancreas and then continue to Peterborough and Bedford using existing or new lines as demand dictates.

Phase 3

At Clapham Junction a new branch would call at:

Kennington

Oval

Waterloo

Charring Cross/ Embankment

Leicester Square

British Museum/ Holborn

Kings Cross/St Pancreas International.

These three phases will provide good connections between most of the London terminuses whilst also allowing for displacement of demand from existing London Underground services.

This will also connect Wembley stadium to an international airport allowing quicker dispersal of away fans.

In this section we will discuss the benefits of intermodal transport hubs allowing for the transfer between different modes of transport including active leisure and the requirements to best support more sustainable travel.

The concept of intermodal hubs is not new and can be seen at a lot of our terminus railway stations with access to cycle parking facilities, taxis, buses, trams, underground or light rail or a combination of these facilities.

These examples are commonplace at the London terminuses, Brighton, Reading, Slough, Manchester Piccadilly to name a few but the concept has been applied a lot less in other locations such as busy town centres. 

If we are to encourage public transport usage it is reasonable to request the following:

• Affordability
• Accessible to all including disabled / vulnerable users
• Competitive journey times
• Convenient routes 
• Regular enough to minimise the impact of missed connections 
• Safe

We must not allow developers to deprive us of good transport interchanges and rail land should be used in the first instance to support the growth (current and projected) in demand. Where we have large stations with a considerable catchment area including rural areas we also need to ensure that we allow for parking at the stations to support those living in rural areas.

There may be occasions when the best answer for a site is not building blocks of flats but instead looking at developing the interchange facilities within a small footprint to support the less able in society. One option could be including secure cycle storage (including for oversized specialist bikes), taxi ranks that are able to accommodate sufficient taxis to service the arriving trains, buses users and even the town if located sufficiently close by; a bus station with future growth catered for but also with bus stands removing unnecessary journeys /parking on the roads; and finally an elevated car park above with sufficient spaces for rural communities using the station and bays for disabled users.

This is an interesting time with Heathrow and Gatwick having plans for improvements, Manchester Airport progressing well with new facilities including dual taxiway cul-de-sacs to reduce the risk of bottlenecks and finally talk about Manston reopening.

With developments on high speed high capacity rail it does make you question should domestic flights on the U.K. mainland be banned if the trip can be completed within a certain time frame by rail? If yes should the same apply to destinations like Paris which can also be accessed quickly by rail?

Gatwick Airport plans to move the second runway 12 metres to the North to allow dual running with this shorter runway handling the smaller aircraft take offs releasing runway capacity to see it push from 46 million passengers to 70 million on completion of the runway and other linked works.

They have an ambitious plan to get over 50% of passengers and staff to the airport using public transport which is a significant concern when you look at the congestion on the local road networks and over reliance on the one railway line. We have discussed the potential through Crossrail 3 to provide a contingency route that would allow either surface or underground lines to remain open whilst work is carried out on the other line.

The airport has also contributed to bus service operations and supports a number of bus routes some of which work 24 hours per day. Naturally with the increase in demand from airport passengers and staff is likely that to achieve that success with staff bus schemes that additional routes will need extra funding to run extra services across a wider part of the day to achieve this goal.

Expanding the services offer by coach service providers like National Express, Flix, Megabus, Oxford City Link will also need to grow to support service enhancements including to coastal areas especially those receiving international students.  

Their masterplan available on their website is comprehensive and also includes upgrades to the local road layout. 

The airport provides a great range of destinations and has seen an increase in legacy routes that would have gone to Heathrow showing a clear drive to expand the offering available to passengers from airlines from around the world.

The biggest concern with Gatwick is the age of it’s terminals compared to other airports and with the evolving demographics change to the flights and changes to design specifications does Gatwick need to look at building at-least one new terminal as per the airport commission application prior to the pandemic?

Once opened would it be the right time to look at a dual taxiway cul-de-sac terminal to replace the North Terminal with more space for passengers to relax in before boarding the larger intercontinental flights that Gatwick now receives whilst also expanding it’s forecourts to also handle more buses closer to the terminal to promote public transport utilisation?

Personally, we believe that instead of looking at building within the current footprint the 2018 proposal with a new terminal and a later replacement terminal on the northern side of the site to replace both current terminals would present the best opportunity for Gatwick. These two new terminals would be of sufficient size to accommodate the future demands on the airport whilst improving the environmental performance of the buildings. It should however come with tougher night flight restrictions to allow local residents respite from the aircraft noise especially in the summer months when night flight numbers traditionally increase with the summer holiday flights.

Heathrow has similarly ambitious plans which will take considerable time to implement with terminals 1 & 3 demolished replaced by extended terminals 2 and 5.

A new runway to the North of the airport requiring significant road construction projects are also needed to meet these plans.

Included in this proposed Terminal 5 would gain a new wing and satellite gates and a new northern terminal will be constructed next to the shorthaul runway.

With a lot of work taking place at Manchester Airport including the dual taxi way cul-de-sacs between the piers, a great addition to the airfield operational stability, it is a time to look at developments like Manchester and other major world leading airports around the world to incorporate as many of the innovative technologies and ways of working that makes these airports so good.

The dual taxiway scheme is a great idea for airfield congestion reduction but also has the potential to increase the size of the terminal and more importantly the departure lounge which has the potential to improve seating availability an area that is monitored by the regulator.

It is great to see that the move is now towards remodelling and innovation (design concepts, energy efficiency, operational capacity being a few examples of the best layout of these new buildings.

With East Midlands being a major air freight hub I do wonder if part of Manston’s business model will be the encouragement of cargo only flights to also use this Kent airport to serve the south of England.

Should Manston look at being a cargo hub for the South a rail connection for passengers and freight should be a requirement of the planning permission.

Active travel includes a couple of methods including walking and cycling. 

In recent years we have seen challenges to both these groups pedestrians have seen an increase in delivery riders parking on pavements, vehicles drive through what is supposed to be pedestrian areas and way too many obstructions left on the pavements including rental bikes that do not require returning to a docking station. This is a significant challenge for disabled people, the mobility impaired and those with pushchairs. We need to ensure our pavements are a safe usable space for all users.

Cyclists, like the motorcyclists, have seen a surge in thefts of bikes and it is time for us to look at the best ways of managing secure parking facilities for these groups. 

The increase in active travel and bus usage is also presenting concerns especially around the floating bus stops where there has been several videos of pedestrians struggling to cross the cycle lanes due to cyclist not giving way even when roadsigns give pedestrians priority. The harm matrix puts pedestrians at the highest risk and it is important that whilst we look at ways to promote all forms of active travel and use of public transport that everyone considers the fact there are many people who are disabled and a number of these could be hidden disability such as hearing or visual impairments that may not be aware of others presence. The island bus stops are one of those areas that causes disabled and vulnerable groups significant worry.

We have seen the tragic incidents where vehicles have entered pedestrianised areas with devas consequences but this is not just about preventing these deliberate acts to cause harm but the risks to people through inappropriate vehicle access.

Anyone who has walked around Westminster will have been accustomed to barriers and posts to protect pedestrians from vehicles and during the larger events will be familiar with either permanent or temporary gates or raising bollards that will stop vehicles from entering areas of high pedestrian traffic. Why are we not using more of these to reduce the prolific driving of delivery vehicles into pedestrians plazas or cutting across pavements to avoid traffic?

The risk to pedestrians is high when vehicles come into pedestrianised areas including pavements now luckily in London seeing bollards put in place. However, this is only part of the story as often those without a disability will not understand the increased challenges faced by disabled people. If someone is deaf they may not hear a vehicle in an area they are not expecting to encounter them, if blind or partially sighted then you can not see them plus you have the added challenge of not hearing electric vehicles which tend to not omit any noise.

For those who are blind or are wheelchairs we can see examples of obstructions on pavements such as the food/grocery delivery drivers or the hire bikes that unlike the original scheme in London do not require returning to a docking station. These hire bikes have been at some locations abandoned across the pavement in large numbers with no consideration for those without visual or mobility challenges. Whilst naturally some users of these bikes will take the placement of bikes at the end of the ride into consideration of others how do we get change to encourage more consideration at the end of the journey. Docking stations for these bikes are great but limit capacity so what is the solution?

In terms of food delivery bikes why have councils after these bikes being around so much not introduced dedicated parking areas for these bikes riders? One MP Rebecca Paul is also keen to end the use of vehicles for commercial purposes if not holding a full licence for the vehicle to tackle this issue.

The gig economy also raises questions of how to service flats in town and city centres whilst keeping pavements clear for pedestrians too.

We need to review the provision of secure cycle storage in workplaces, town centres and at transport interchanges. However, this needs to also take into consideration bikes that are not standard whether this is tricycles and other mobility needs adjusted bikes.

At our railway stations we think it is important that we also provide secure cycle parking ideally indoors in well lite and CCTV covered areas. We are not saying we need to be as extreme as the large underground facility under the waterways infront of Amsterdam’s Central Station the concept is one that might be useful at larger more popular stations where the main entrance to the station needs to separate high cycle traffic from pedestrians including disabled people.

Where we see cycle hire scheme not requiring docking stations to be used we need to look at ways to promote the responsible placing of bikes at the end of the hire to reduce obstructions for families with young children, disabled individuals and those whose mobility is impaired requiring the use of dropped kerbs.