Centro Coventry connectivity crackpottery
In yesterday’s blogpost, I mentioned Centro’s bizarre proposals for mitigating West Midlands HS2 disconnectivity. The Coventry Telegraph’s Martin Bagot has also covered the story.
COVENTRY could get a tram service to link directly to the new HS2 station near the NEC.
Centro will consider plans for a metro service from the city to the Birmingham station on the high speed rail network.
A tram is one option to allow the city to benefit from the £32 billion rail project which has faced fierce opposition from action groups in Warwickshire.
Any tram would run eight miles along the existing West Coast Main Line transport corridor, before diverting off to the HS2 station.
The West Midlands regional transport body said options considered by its HS2 Local Connectivity Group include:
* A tram service from the city.
* A direct rail service from Coventry with a spur to the HS2 station.
* A shuttle service of “sprint buses” direct to the HS2 station.
[...] Centro chief executive Geoff Inskip said: “Our challenge is to get the best from HS2 for people throughout the West Midlands.
This means ensuring local and regional services connect seamlessly with the high-speed rail network so that everyone benefits.
“We know that using this capacity for more passenger and freight trains – and working hard to deliver schemes such as a direct link to Coventry from HS2 – will bring 22,000 jobs and increase economic activity by £1.5 billion per year.”
The only West Midlands rail capacity “freed up” by HS2 would be on the Birmingham — Coventry route (because Centro says it expects the existing Birmingham — Coventry — London rail services to be reduced from three to two an hour).
In Centro’s connectivity vision, what would that freed capacity be used for?
Um, apparently, to run a tram-train — or heavy rail shuttle — from Coventry station to Bickenhill HS2. This is so weird, you couldn’t make it up. What’s the construction cost of the Spur? What kind of service frequency could operate from Coventry to a Bickenhill HS2 Spur station?
For the HS2 Spur frequency to be any good, the Coventry — Birmingham line would likely end up with *less capacity* than it has now. Who at Centro is responsible for these crackpot ideas?
[...] provide a better connection for all of 1,100 people a day. Oh, and anyone from the Black Country or Coventry who wants to get the HS2, should come in on a tram (average speed ~30 [...]
Centro’s attack on West Midlands connectivity « beleben
December 4, 2012 at 3:01 pm
[...] Not to be outdone, the end of 2012 has seen Centro touting cable cars in Birmingham city centre and tram-trains running between Bickenhill and Coventry along the West Coast rail [...]
Christmas every day « beleben
December 22, 2012 at 6:09 pm
If the concept was properly implemented the need (and the undeclared additional costs) for such interventions would disappear.
The ‘concept’ of delivering the least wasted time travelling is well understood and explained in a Dutch Rail review of their cycle hire scheme, which correctly identifies the ways to eliminate the time of least value spent on all journeys.
The time of least value and productivity is that spent waiting on a platform, which rapidly aggregates when the traveller has to change from walking to local bus/tram and then again to faster train, and repeat that cascade at the end of the journey. Direct access to a through service can easily cut 15-20 minutes from the overall journey time by eliminating the connection allowances.
The low value time of waiting is closely followed by the time that an individual has to spend moving themselves to, or between each public transport mode. London rail commuters are embracing the bicycle in this respect, as it is not uncommon to find those able to cut 60 minutes from the overall door to desk time spent each day and a similar amount from the return trip – this typically on a 110-180 minute commuter journey using car/walk-rail-tube/bus.
As Beleben and others have proved at length, for the vast majority of journeys the claimed ‘benefit’ of making one element of the journey very quickly is rapidly negated by the very low value time racking up as the travellers make their way to the very limited number of stopping points. As the HS2 concept is proposed 50% or more of the overall journey time for a typical user will be spent very unproductively in an actual and perceived way waiting for a connection or walking/driving to the interchange point.
t was the clear commercial imperative of placing the railway stations right where the mass population needed to start their journey that saw the London & Birmingham Railway abandoning Curzon Street, the G&SW closing Bridge Street in Glasgow and crossing the Clyde to Central, and Bricklayers Arms closing as a passenger station in favour of London Bridge, and beyond to Cannon Street, Blackfriars and Charing Cross, and even Nine Elms to Waterloo.
I’m also slightly puzzled by the Greengauge 21 ‘journey times’ map. over 10 years ago the Edinburgh-London (393 miles) time of 3h 59 minutes was offered with one stop and we have Glasgow-London (401 miles) in 4h 08m also with one stop but a couple of quite severe speed restrictions. Excise the limitations of Morpeth – Newcastle – York and the claimed HS2 time should be achievable with current trains and technology, likewise for Motherwell – Carlisle – Preston – Crewe – Stafford, and Watford a similar number of lesser slacks at Carstairs, Penrith Oxenholme, Wigan, Warrington etc, and 3h 30 – 3h 40 begins to look achievable with the existing kit and some clear focussed work, already averaging 105 mph stop to stop between London and Preston (approx 210 miles), and some ECML timetabling at over 110mph Average speed stop to stop.
Capacity wise one only needs to observe that substantial lengths of current 2-track railway which is running of former 4-track formations, and the substantial amount of the high speed Berne Gauge route abandoned in 50 years ago which still has track on it, or a useable corridor in place.
Dave H
December 31, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Thank you for your comments Dave. Like West Yorkshire ‘Metro’ and the West Midlands ‘Centro’, South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive are now talking about the need for a ‘connectivity package’ for HS2 in their area — but they don’t seem to know exactly what it is supposed to do, what form it would take, or what it would cost. The need for ‘connectivity packages’ arises from HS2′s reliance on a very small number of access points (and not necessarily corresponding with existing nodes).
beleben
January 2, 2013 at 3:30 pm