Tram systems 'too costly and underused'

DadaKopf

Tram systems 'too costly and underused'

Excess of enthusiasm wastes millions, says watchdog

Andrew Clark, transport correspondent
Friday April 23, 2004
The Guardian

Millions of pounds of public money have been wasted on trams and light rail networks which cost too much to build and run half empty, according to the government's spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office today delivers a highly critical verdict on schemes such as Sheffield's Supertram, Birmingham's Midland Metro and Croydon's Tramlink, which are used by far fewer passengers than expected and have inadequate connections with other forms of transport.

Seven light rail networks have been built in Britain since 1980 at a total cost of £2.2bn, of which £1.2bn has come from the government.

Ministers are pushing for many more such schemes - the government's 10-year transport plan envisages 25 new lines by 2010.

But the NAO director, Keith Holden, said an excess of "civic pride" was causing local authorities to choose unnecessarily expensive rolling stock, using a wide variety of funding methods with varying degrees of efficiency.

"These systems are expensive to build and are getting more expensive," Mr Holden said. "There's more that can be done to get better value for money, given the amount of taxpayers' cash which goes into them."

Although the government provides grants for the construction of light rail networks, it expects them to be self-financing once they begin running. But networks in Birmingham, Manchester and Croydon lost £16m between them in 2002.

The watchdog said they were failing to attract customers because of a lack of coordination with other local transport services. Few of them offer through-ticketing or coordinated timetables with buses and mainline trains.

In some cases, park and ride schemes planned alongside stations have been scrapped to save money.

There was criticism of Sheffield's Supertram, which attracted 12 million passengers last year, against forecasts of 22 million.

The scheme was planned in the 80s to improve accessibility to several council estates. But the homes were demolished before trams finally began running in 1994.

Edward Leigh, the chairman of the public accounts committee in the Commons, said it was "astonishing" that the Department for Transport had not learned from successful tram systems in France and Germany.

"There are no through-ticketing arrangements, timetables are uncoordinated, and physical interchanges un friendly," Mr Leigh said. "It is little wonder that passengers have not been using trams to the degree expected and that reductions to road congestion have been minimal."

The NAO said schemes had delivered fast, frequent journeys for those who used them. But in some cases, private bus operators responded by slashing fares to undercut light rail.

The Passenger Transport Executives Group, which represents urban authorities, said this was fresh evidence of the need to bring buses back under public control and reverse the deregulation pushed forward by the Conservatives during the 80s.

A new Nottingham Express Transit system opened this year and a further 12 light rail lines are presently in development across Britain.

Plans include new networks in Leeds, Liverpool and Hampshire, and extensions to the systems in Manchester, Birmingham and the Docklands of London.

The government has agreed to commit funds of £1.4bn as part of its overall strategy of encouraging people to leave their cars at home and take public transport.

A Department for Transport spokesman said light rail use had jumped by 86% between 1997 and 2003. But he added: "Light rail is not cheap, nor is it the only way of improving public transport and reducing congestion in urban areas.

"In every case the government needs to be satisfied that schemes provide value for money."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1201433,00.html

I'm surprised this wasn't posted.

I think it's very likely the same thing may happen the Luas if through-ticketing and integration doesn't occur - which I think is unlikely given our current transport structure and lack of political will for anything other than privatisation.

I've seen the Croydon line, and I can vouch for its underuse. It looks cool, though. But I could never understand why Croydon needed it like we do.

Bee

Bet,cha the Luas will be over used! It is incapable of carrying the required amount of people Dublin needs to be carried to reduce traffic congestion.

I expect The Director of Traffic and his fellow travellers who have summarily failed to in any way decrease traffic congestion due to their total ineptitude will start to further emulate their UK counterparts and demand new stealth tax's like "congestion charges etc"

The Luas is a costly farce even before it comes into action.

Brown paper bags all around!

Bee

Winters

Originally posted by Bee
The Luas is a costly farce even before it comes into action.

Yea. Just like this "DART" it will be a total white elephant when it comes into service! What were they thinking :rolleyes:

bus77

They used to have a tram system years ago in dublin,
one of the reasons they got rid of it was because it was disrupting the traffic

whats that saying again?

those that forget the lessons of history....

Victor

Originally posted by Bee
demand new stealth tax's like "congestion charges etc"

Actually, they have discounted it for the moment and are going to encourage traffic away from the (very) city centre. And guess what? Congestion charges have worked in London and are to introduced elsewhere, including Stockholm.

Bee

Originally posted by Victor
Actually, they ahve discounted it for the moment and are going to encourage traffic away from the (very) city centre. And guess what? Congestion charges have worked in London and are to introduced elsewhere, including Stockholm.

:rolleyes:

A congestion charge for Dublin? Why does DCC’s failed “traffic engineers” and other FF/PD stealth tax seeking lackeys slavishly follow the UK in all of their ideas? Only DCC would consider such an unsuitable proposal for Dublin as being a good idea. I am sure the Director of Traffic said it should be implemented as well but as he has done nothing for traffic flow so you would expect that. Traffic management in Dublin has been run incredibly badly from the top down and it should have been taken out of the hands of DCC long ago due to their constant screw- ups and failure to get the city moving.

London’s congestion charge has decreased traffic from central London (a city with an excellent public transport infrastructure that does not exist in Dublin! Remember that the majority of Dublin drivers using their cars for commuting is because there is simply no other option).

Some traffic reduced in a central area but at what cost to London? These are Westminster’s city council own survey figures

— 68.9% of respondents feel the charge has had a negative impact on their business.
— 62% oppose extending the charging zone westwards.
— 27.7% of businesses are considering relocating outside of the zone

The cost to London of Mayor Livingstone’s congestion tax is becoming increasingly clear.

It is no surprise that charging people £5 Sterling to drive into the congestion charge zone has deterred people from coming into central London. The £5 payment is only part of the story as the hassle factor of the charge combined with people’s fear of receiving fines has caused many people to give central London a wide berth. This is having a major economic cost on business, especially small shops and restaurants
A major department store, the John Lewis Partnership announced that it was commissioning a review of the economic impact the congestion charge is having on its business, as they have found that sales at their Oxford Street store (for the six months since the scheme’s introduction) had fallen by 7% while those outside the zone had risen by 1.7%.

This latest evidence comes on top of the negative effect already highlighted by many other major central London businesses including those represented by the Bond Street Association. Evidence from the London Chamber of Commerce showed that a quarter of retailers within the zone are planning to relocate and two-thirds of shops blamed the charge for falling revenues. The Federation of Small Businesses found that the cost combined with the ceaseless administrative burden of the charge was forcing some small businesses to either leave central London or closedown.
Needless to say the promised benefits to London are vanishing. Londoner’s were miss- sold the scheme on the basis that additional funds would be raised for investment in London’s public transport. Initially the Mayor (Red Ken) claimed that the scheme would raise £200million a year but this was cut to £121million by February and has since dropped to just £66 million.

Unfortunately folk baying for congestion charges and keeping motorists out of Dublin forget about who pays their wages and the entirely negative impact on the economy of Dublin a new stealth tax would create

Anyone who thinks Dubliner’s need more stealth taxes without resolving the current traffic problems, many created by DCC, need their heads examined

Bee

Victor

Off-topic, but ...

Originally posted by Victor
Actually, they have discounted it for the moment

Originally posted by Bee
A congestion charge for Dublin? Why does DCC’s failed “traffic engineers” and other FF/PD stealth tax seeking lackeys slavishly follow the UK in all of their ideas?

:rolleyes: They aren't. As I said, they have discounted the idea.

Bee I can only assume you are either (a) terminally stupid and / or (b) trolling. Either way, considered yourself on notice for a ban if this style of posting continues.

Bee

Do you get off on insulting girls Victor?

I'm surprised this wasn't posted.

DadaKopf why be surprised? Apparently the posts on this board are either censored or removed if it is not very pro public transport

Bee

West Briton

Personally, I'd consider it a bit odd if the purpose of a commuting and transport board was to ideologically oppose investment in public transport and promote more gridlock in private cars.

BrianD

Bee, Luas is a costly project and delivered late. Having said that, it will be an overnight success. The tram ways serve well established urban areas unlike some new tram systems in the UK that have been built as part of urban regeneration projects. It will be years before these regenerated areas have the populations to make the trams there break even.

I reserve judgement on whether luas will be profitable for Connex who will operate it. It seems that public transport everywhere has difficulty in making money. In melbourne, where there is a big population and its trams are a symbol of the city - one of the two private operators of trams has pulled out. This is only a couple of years since the trams went from public to private operation.

Eurorunner

England provides poor direction when it comes to public transport/public transport systems. When it comes to this sort of things, we should be looking towards the examples set by our european neighbours ie. france, germany, holland, belgium...

Victor

Originally posted by Bee
Do you get off on insulting girls Victor?

Big time. :rolleyes: Back on topic.

DadaKopf

Originally posted by Bee
Do you get off on insulting girls Victor?



DadaKopf why be surprised? Apparently the posts on this board are either censored or removed if it is not very pro public transport

Bee

Actually it's probably because drivers have a habit of trolling. Probably because they see any move to discourage people from driving and to encourage people to use public transport a vicious assault on their civil liberties and "right to drive".

But then, I like protecting my right to walk and cycle in cities safely but I don't go around insulting people.

Oh well, back on topic.

There was a letter in the Guardian in response to that article commenting that the journalist selectively cherrypicked data to fit his agenda.

Still, the fact that they're hemmoraging money is a concern.

Slice

I find the British report a bit narrow in its focus. Does the report take into account the increase in economic activity generated by trams or the increase in value of local property? I don't think the point of public transport is to make money. The Manchester tram network may have lost money since it was built but despite this the network has been vastly expanded to serve more areas than it was originally planned - I doubt that those planning its expansion would have sat down and collectively decided to lose millions of pounds for no benefits whatsoever.

Cars may have a right to go where they like but the harsh reality for those who drive them is that traffic is mostly caused by other cars and that busses and trams will always take priority.

Bee

Originally posted by Eurorunner
England provides poor direction when it comes to public transport/public transport systems. When it comes to this sort of things, we should be looking towards the examples set by our european neighbours ie. france, germany, holland, belgium...

Eurorunner,

You have it in one!

My main gripe with traffic management in Dublin is the way that DCC's Director of Traffic and friends slavishly follow the UK in all areas of traffic management no matter how bad it is.

There are multiple better traffic designs that DCC can learn from. Never mind cyclist safety engineering.

Obviously Dublin needs a balanced system and that includes cars. Remember very few want to sit in traffic jams but they simply must use their cars to get from A to B due to the poor infrastructure here mis-aligned with amateur traffic management.

Private enterprise that generates profit, that generates taxes to pay civil servants wages and Luas projects et al ( Before any one jumps on me, I am not slagging civil servants my own profession soaks up vast amounts of tax payers money!) need to use cars all over Dublin. Unfortunately any one who seeks a public transport system as the only answer without taking into account the required use of cars may as well join the "Critical Mass & Reclaim the streets" prats (paid undoubtably by Social Welfare)

The proble with the Luas is that it will be a success on the routes that it runs on whilst not catering for the majority that need to use it whilst contributing to traffic congestion by removing road space.

Dublin's central areas need a Metro not a Luas that costs too much carries too few people and bypasses urban areas.

Bee

BuffyBot

Luas that costs too much

Quite probable

carries too few people

It will actually carry quite a few people.

and bypasses urban areas.

Are we speaking about the same Luas the runs through areas like Tallaght, Hueston, Rialto, Dundrum, Milltown....?

BrianD

Dublin's central areas need a Metro not a Luas that costs too much carries too few people and bypasses urban areas.

If you think that the Luas is not cost-effective than why even suggest a Metro! If you take the central area as the Dublin City Council area then this area has a population of less than 0.6 million people. How many routes were considering to service this minute population?

Most of the traffic coming into the city centre area comes from beyond what would be considered the city limits (as a result of poor and corrupt planning people are pushed further). As I have stated on numerous occasions before, these people living in the sprawling suburbia will never be served effectively by any public transport system.

For a city with the population and density of Dublin trams provide the most effective means of transport within the city. The existing heavy rail system can be upgraded further to extend its catchment areas.

Forget the metro it is an uneccesary distraction and a waste of money. We need to find somebody who can build extra tram ways and some railways at considerably less money than the RPA.

Andrew Duffy

The above is an absolutely perfect summation of what needs to be done to modernise and improve Dublin's public transport.

John R

It sounds to me like a bunch of sweeping generalisations based upon little or no relevant information from someone who doesn't know much about the subject.

Andrew Duffy

Actually, it's exactly the opinion of the organisation that still just about manages to operate the railways in spite of half a century of financial neglect and political interference.

We need to find somebody who can build extra tram ways and some railways at considerably less money than the RPA.

That would be Irish Rail. That said, trams are expensive no matter what way you look at it - Barcelona's system came in more expensive than Dublin's per mile, and I would imagine wages are a lot lower there.

BrianD

Sounds like a bunch of sweeping generalisations

John, Who are you referring to with your remark.

Tram ways are expensive and cause considerable disruption during construction.

In fairness to Irish RAil, their alternative proposal to the metro is an excellent plan and achievable in a relatively short time frame. Unfortunately it seems to be buried as it is not as sexy as the metro illusion that Brennan and other procrastinators are trying to create. From what I can understand the much vaunted metro only consists of line which may or may not link up with other tram or rail line in the city.

tricky D

Forget the metro it is an uneccesary distraction and a waste of money. We need to find somebody who can build extra tram ways

Eh, no.

Trams cost more per bum on seat than metro, about 3 times as much. This was on RTE the other night (sorry no ref). Trams are bad because they don't actually open up new routes, just mix incompatible traffic types on the same route causing conflict (red cow) or take over the route completely. This also makes them awkward to build as the sites are also dedicated to present traffic so construction rarely gets a good clear run, just gets bits done, bits done there - very wasteful.
.
The amount of rolling stock which can be utilised is far smaller as the route is not dedictated, unlike metro routes which can take trains up to every 3/4 mins like the Tube at rushhour. This makes tram capacity pretty poor.

While tunneling is obviously expensive it is only required for the few kms in the city centre.

Iirc the main costs in Ireland are for compensation. Luas spent 1.2m euro per property begob!

The only we reason we don't have a metro is because the Gov is far too stupid/self-interested to realise that they have to jump in at the deep end financially and politically. Financially it does cost, but our powers that be insist on taking cheaper options resulting in poor solutions and cut corners e.g. the red cow farce which they now realise that it will actually have to be done properly. Politically, the cost and disruption can cause big electoral hits especially if it crosses 3 Gov terms/2 elections.

Other problems with Luas include the RPA to some extent and employment of companies which send away to the continent for materials when they could get at 6 times cheaper and so much quicker - a 2/3hour spin down the naas rd/warehouse land and back as opposed to waiting 6 weeks for shipping from Italy lets say;-)

my 2.1cent
\r

BrianD

But what is this metro that is being proposed?? All I can see is one line to the airport. This will not be integrated into other lines and will be stand alone. There is a misleading perception out there that something akin to the Paris or Madrid undergrounds are being planned!

Irish Rail have an excellent plan which includes a new spur to the airport off an existing line. With new signalling and electrification we can quickly upgrade existing rail lines to serve more people more often.

Trams are suited to Dublin sized cities and idea for filling in the gaps between the heavy rail network.

Victor

Originally posted by tricky D
Luas spent 1.2m euro per property begob!

Are you sure that wasn't for one particular property, not an average over all properies? Linkies?

BrianD

Apparently they did have to spend almost €36 million on the Sandyford line to purchase "garden sheds" belonging to people who had encroached onto the old line. I'd imagine there was a few sites to bought on the city end of the tallaght end.

Andrew Duffy

The Red line involved demolition of buildings in St James' Hospital, the demolition of the entire south side of Arran Quay Terrace, and the CPO of some of the Hammond Lane distillery land. Probably cheaper than the dedicated heavy rail alignment of the Green line. Only in Ireland.

joolsveer

I can't believe that the "powers that be" are serious about public transport when the rolling stock on the Sandyford line can't be used on the Tallaght line (because of the length of the carriages) and the two lines do not meet. I have used tram systems in other cities e.g. Prague where the basic system is pretty ancient but seems to work because of the integration with other public transport. I don't thing the Luas will take many cars off the streets in its present form.

jd

Originally posted by joolsveer
I can't believe that the "powers that be" are serious about public transport when the rolling stock on the Sandyford line can't be used on the Tallaght line (because of the length of the carriages) .

You sure about this??? (links please)

BrianD

The rolling stock can't be exchanged between lines as they are unconnected at present. Unless they are physically lifted off and moved by truck from one line to another. If they were connected there would be no issue.

There is a difference between the Green and the Red line which has often been misinterpreted. The tracks [NOT THE GUAGE] on the Sandyford line are spaced further apart. This will allow upgrade to a metro type line should this happen in the future. This means that the trams could be replaced with metro trains. The Tallaght line has tracks spaced closer together. In any case as most of the Tallaght line runs on street it would not be possible to convert it to a metro line as easily as the Sandyford line.

Victor

Originally posted by joolsveer
I can't believe that the "powers that be" are serious about public transport when the rolling stock on the Sandyford line can't be used on the Tallaght line (because of the length of the carriages)

I have never heard anything about this. Want to inform us?

It sounds remarkably odd as the Sandyford trams are made up essentially of a Tallaght tram with a splice section in the middle.

Winters

quote:

---

Originally posted by joolsveer
I can't believe that the "powers that be" are serious about public transport when the rolling stock on the Sandyford line can't be used on the Tallaght line (because of the length of the carriages)

---

Incorrect

The track gap on the Tallaght line is the standard LRT gap for the respective gauge and therefore the longer (40m) trams could operate without fault on the Tallaght (Red) line. In fact the platforms are all 50m long throughout the entire system to allow for extra tram units.

For example the track spacing on the Harcourt - St. Stephens Green section of the Green line has the same spacing as the on street running of the Red line.

As seen in the photo, a 40m tram traversing a standard Luas curve onway to Sandyford. Photo from www.allaboutbuses.com/luas

Hope you dont mind Gabriel

The reason that the Red line uses 30m units is becuase there is more interation with traffic ( More on-street running) and disection of major routes on the Tallaght (Red) line. However it is possible in the future that the 10m unit extensions could be bought AND operated on that line.

A similiar arguement/post is ongoing on the www.platform11.org message board.

Mark B OBO "Winters"

http://www.allaboutbuses.com/luas/pics/40422-ade.jpg

[Victor]Huge pic url.ed instead of img.ed

tricky D

Are you sure that wasn't for one particular property, not an average over all properies? Linkies?

Alas, no links yet as it was on the TV one evenin over the long weekend. Came across it by accident so will have to figure out which prog, tho it was something like 'The Week in Politics'.

The fella there said 320 properties @ average 1.2m per property, though this was for compensation in particular not just land acquisition which hadn't hit 100m for 210 properties in the most recent webpages (end 03) which I could dig up. Don't know what kind of breakdown is in the compensation but possibly costs like disruption, loss of business, access, legal and insurance.

Still it does sound very high, will check further
\r

Slice

There is no problem with track spacing on the Luas, even if they decide to ditch the metro this wouldn't present a problem for interchangability of the tram network. The only problem for interchangability at the moment is that the two lines don't connect - a decision motivated by the fact that shutting down Dawson Street, College Green, Westmoreland Street, O'Connell Bridge and O'Connell Street was at the time a politically sensative issue. That said, taking the Sandyford line underground towards St Stephens Green would have actually reduced capacity per hour - which kinda says quite alot about plans for a metro.

What I want to know is what will the two lines be called? To be honest I prefer the Tallaght Line and the Sandyford Line to 'Line A' and 'Line B' or the Red Line and Blue Line - those names tell me nothing about where they go and are quite confusing.

Victor

Originally posted by Slice
That said, taking the Sandyford line underground towards St Stephens Green would have actually reduced capacity per hour - which kinda says quite alot about plans for a metro.

Actually taking it underground would have increased capacity, because it wouldn't interact with other traffic. Why do you think it would reduce capacity? (It would marginally reduce aaccessibility, but this would have been more than offset by service improvement).

Victor

http://www.sbpost.ie/web/DocumentView/did-297898614-pageUrl--2FThe-Newspaper-2FSundays-Paper-2FNews.asp

Rail agency rejects report
02/05/04 00:00
By Ian Kehoe

The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) has said that a British report criticising the viability of tram and light rail networks is "not relevant to the Irish situation or to the Luas".

The report, compiled by the British National Audit Office, said vast sums of public money had been wasted on trams which had cost too much to develop and were running half empty. It added that light rail had not proven to be a viable form of public transport in Britain.

Seven light rail networks have been built in Britain since 1980 at a total cost of €3.2 billion, of which €1.7 billion has come from the taxpayer.

Tom Manning, public relations manager with the RPA, the Luas operators, said that the Luas bore no resemblance to the model of light rail system in operation in Britain. He said the Luas had been modelled on continental trams, which were "extremely successful".

"We studied the report in great detail and we would agreewithalotofwhatissaid. But we have an entirely different model here and we have learned from the mistakes in Britain," he said.

Slice

The tunnel that was planned to St Stephens Green would have only been able to accomodate trams the size of those on the Tallaght line - I think it may have something to do with the curvature and gradient of the tunnel.

Victor

Originally posted by Slice
I think it may have something to do with the curvature

The centre sections have less "curvature" than the longer end sections. In any case the tunnel would be almost straight.

Originally posted by Slice
gradient

You just up the engine size or remove the (unpowered) centre sections.