Infrastructure and Integration An Entrepreneur’s Viewpoint By Graham Nalty THE MAXIMIST Winning the Maximum Value from High Speed Rail

This is different from the viewpoints of; Transport Planners, Railway Engineers, Railway Operators and Time- tablers, DfT civil servants, Consultants It is a business led viewpoint It is an entrepreneur’s viewpoint

Strategic Imperatives of High Speed Rail I strongly support HSR doing those things that only HSR can do. High speed rail to replace air and car travel to reduce pollution High speed rail that is ‘inclusive’ by serving as many journey choices as possible London to Glasgow/Edinburgh in under 3 hours, from Birmingham in 2 hours 30 and from Manchester/Liverpool in under 2 hours Direct rail services from Midlands, Northern and Scottish cities to European cities with minimum security and immigration barriers Rail services to airports for long haul flights - with rail platforms at or under the air terminal, plus Heathrow to European cities/airports

High Speed Rail for Passengers or Piggy Back Lorries? Passenger high speed rail requires: Stations located in city centres as integral part of the existing station (Leeds) Stations to be through stations to promote onwards journeys (Antwerp, Bologna) Airport stations to be inside the airport terminal (Schipol, Paris CDG, Gatwick) High speed trains to travel beyond the limits of the high speed lines (Rennes, Brussels) Freight railways for piggy back lorries requires; European loading gauge Depots spatially remote from rail passenger platforms in large cities (Old Oak, Curzon Street) Intermediate depots located close to motorways (M6, M42 near Solihull, M1, A52 near Toton, M6, A500 Crewe Basford, M1. M18 near Meadowhall) Airport depots located remote from airport but close to motorways (Manchester airport)

Examples of Passenger and Piggy Back Rail Schemes Passenger high speed railway: TGV Atlantique High Speed UK Greengauge 21 London – Stansted – Cambridge – Nottingham – Sheffield – Leeds - Newcastle High speed railway more suitable for piggy back lorries HS2 – with many recent decisions supporting that viewpoint Crewe station proposal being moved from existing Crewe station to Basford offers better access for lorries to A500 and M6 Leeds station terminal platforms more suitable for conversion to lorry depot than through platforms in station.

The Choice of Station Location - 1 At the Sheffield HSR Summit held in February 2016, Henk Bouwman of the Independent Transport Commission suggested these principles. 1.The high speed rail station is the ‘Address’ of the city in the national context. Think About the 10 most iconic features of any city and the railway station would almost certainly be one of these. 2.A railway station is a ‘Place of Arrival’ and a ‘Place of Departure’. When you examine these requirements in detail, the requirements for ‘Departure’ can be very different from those for ‘Arrival’. The ideal station location is one that serves both as ‘Arrival’ and ‘Departure’

The Choice of Station Location - 2 The scores from the poll Birmingham New Street (18) – Curzon Street (13) Stoke Etruria (17) - Crewe Basford (6) Stoke (13) - Crewe (11) Nottingham (16) – Toton (8) Derby (15) – Toton (8) Sheffield Midland (17) – Meadowhall (11) Sheffield Victoria (16) – Meadowhall (11)

The Choice of Station Location - 3 In a Parliamentary answer by Transport Minister Robert Goodwill he stated “When recommending a station location HS2 Ltd. uses a number of criteria, including; engineering and construction feasibility; sustainability; demand considerations, including journey times; cost; and wider impacts”

The Choice of Station Location - 4 I find this confusing, with no order of priority, so I ask myself the question ‘How would an entrepreneurial rail promoter decide the locations for stations?’, ‘What are the most important considerations?’ 1.HSR is a business of providing transport. The first consideration of any business is the Customer. The station location that attracts the most passengers is the best 2.HSR requires large investment. The only real investor/shareholder is the Government, which can recoup its investment through increased tax from new jobs created. Station locations must reduce business costs, increase business opportunities and create the most jobs 3.Station locations will be most productive if the local authority and businesses invest. The station location must produce the best return from local investment 4.Only after the optimum station location has been chosen by these three principles, can other factors such as cost and engineering factors be taken into account. Putting the station is a sub- optimal location to save money is counter productive

A Opportunity for Growth The Office of Rail and Road produces annual statistics for the numbers of people entering and exiting every railway station Although larger populations cause higher numbers of people to use rail, there are other factors that a influence the number of station ‘entries and exits’. If we divide the station usage figure by population we get a measure of how successful a station location attracts passengers. By examination we can identify certain different categories of station Nodal network points on London to Scotland main lines show the highest usage per head of population at mean value of 32 (Newcastle, York, Doncaster, Preston etc). Other nodal points of the rail network show a higher than average rail usage per head at a mean value of 21 (Sheffield, Bristol, Cardiff, Southampton etc) Main line stations other than nodal network locations show a slightly lower than average rail usage of 12 (Nottingham, Bradford, Stoke on Trent, Telford) End of line cities where long distance services terminate show the lowest rail usage of 9.1 (Bournemouth, Plymouth, Swansea, Blackpool)

Nodal Interchange Statistical Theory For example, Doncaster has a higher rail usage figure per person than Sheffield If the introduction of high speed rail changed the shape of the rail network so that Sheffield occupied Doncaster’s place as a nodal point of the London to Scotland route, the rail usage at Sheffield would increase and at Doncaster would decrease As Sheffield is a much larger than Doncaster, the increase in rail usage at Sheffield would be much greater than the decrease at Doncaster, giving an overall increase in rail passengers This opportunity is very attractive to entrepreneurs

How Much Growth? At this stage figures are little better than educated guesses, and there will be many secondary effects that will influence results either way If a high speed rail line caused Sheffield city centre station to be a network nodal point on the London to Scotland route, this could add at least 2 millions passengers to rail If a new east coast high speed line were built via Stansted, Cambridge, Nottingham and Sheffield as per Greengauge 21 submission to the National Infrastructure Commission, this could add at least 3 million rail passengers If the HS2 interchange between Birmingham and Manchester were to be moved from the rather poor choice of a parkway south of Crewe to the proposed Etruria site in Stoke on Trent, this could add 5 million new rail passengers But we all tend to think along traditional lines so what would be the three most desirable station locations between Stoke and Glasgow for an entrepreneur?

People Fill Trains The largest intermediate points, assuming that a route via Manchester would add too much to the journey time are: Liverpool 1.4 million Preston 0.15 m Blackburn 0.15m Bolton 0.15m Warrington 0.15m Crewe 0.1m Chester 0.1m Wigan 0.1m Carlisle 0.1m Crewe hub at Basford 0.0m An underground through station below the Lime Street terminus might be expensive, the but the extra passenger numbers would be astronomical – and this is exactly what our European neighbours have done at Antwerp and Bologna.

Public Opinion – Sheffield or Meadowhall HS2 Ltd prefers Meadowhall as the HS2 station for the Sheffield area HS2 case rests on discredited BCA based on unachievable interchange times and mathematically impossible journey time difference Sheffield City Council and Sheffield Chamber of Commerce want a city centre station A city centre station will generate three times as many HS2 generated new jobs AS at Meadowhall, not only in Sheffield, but also in Barnsley and Rotherham Local news media polls show 80% and 86% in favour of a city centre HS2 station The President of Sheffield Chamber has written to the Chancellor and Transport Secretary to call for an independent economic review into the decision on station location

The View of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce “our focus has been to get consensus within both government and the local LEP and Combined Authority to conduct a final review of all locations around five key principles, namely - Maximising the economic impact of HS2 for Sheffield City Region - Delivering HS3 fast trains between northern city centres - Future proofing integration of HS2 and HS3 - Alignment with Sheffield City Region's strategic economic plan - Driving demand and increasing ticket sales” Richard Wright, Executive Director, Sheffield Chamber

Stoke Etruria or Crewe Basford? Stoke Etruria is a brownfield site - Crewe Basford is greenfield site Stoke Etruria is attractive to service businesses with high GVA. Stoke Etruria can be highly successful without HS2, but so much better with it.. Stoke Etruria is close industries that help businesses grow – Finance– Legal – Marketing and Graphic Design. Crewe Basford likely to attract road-based commercial development prior to HS2 – not rail NW England needs- investment in its existing population centres – not a new town at Basford HS2 station in Stoke can generate substantially more new jobs than Crewe Nodal Interchange Statistical Theory shows that a Stoke HS2 interchange increases rail use to 10m A HS2 parkway station at Basford could reduce rail use to 3m Case for HS2 interchange at Stoke Etruria over Crewe Basford much greater than Sheffield over Meadowhall

East Midlands NIC report on North hints at developing Nottingham – Sheffield links Leics rail strategy - 57% of HS2 benefits lost by Toton change of train Notts CC want HS2 30 min B’ham service EMC report highlights benefits of direct Nottingham – Leeds via HS2

Copy the North in the Midlands National Infrastructure Commission Report on the North – EXCELLENT Leeds – Manchester – Sheffield – Leeds > 30 minute journey times Replicate the same in the Midlands HS3 – Liverpool – Manchester – Leeds/Sheffield – Hull HS4 – Liverpool – Stoke – Derby – Nottingham milesminutesShort termPost HS2 SheffieldNottingham LiverpoolStoke NottinghamStoke StokeLeicester LeicesterCoventry2348/ LeicesterNorthampton

The Life Cycle of High Speed Rail Projects Aspirations – Users - Campaigners - Railfuture –Passenger Focus Ambitions – City and County local government – LEPs - Business Articulation – TfL, TfN, Midlands Connect, Scotland, Wales Assimilation and Integration – National Infrastructure Commission Action and Delivery – Network Rail – HS2 Ltd. Application – Train Operating Companies Appreciation – Rail users – job seekers – mobile workers

Summary 1.A high speed rail for passengers fit for passengers, not trucks 2.Stations located for the passenger’s benefit not the promoter’s 3.Routes chosen to serve the greatest numbers of people 4.These are the views of the Maximist 5.Thank you. I will be happy to answer questions