Wouldn’t that be just the ticket! Bring it on I say! With legacy bus services in some places shrinking to the point of non existence and in this time of increasing concern over the health of our planet it’s most definitely time to rethink how we humans get about.
But before I move on let’s get one thing out of the way first. Are we or are we not looking at a Rapid Transit System? Well to be honest I’m really not sure it matters that much. Even if a few minutes get shaved off journey times here and there it makes little difference to the typical journey experience which will include other elements such as walking/cycling or driving to and from the park and ride etc. What matters far more to the average traveller (in no particular order) is punctuality, reliability, frequency, distance to the nearest stop, convenience, cost and comfort. So from this point on I have dropped the RTS epithet in favour of the acronym IPTS. Put simply - an integrated public transit system - rapid or not.
So it’s good to see plans for a new IPTS for north Essex beginning to emerge through the latest contribution by the NEAs to their local plan examination process entitled “From Vision to Plan”.
The prospect of our existing north Essex towns, several villages and the new GC’s all interconnected with Stansted airport by a network of - well, with the exception of one section, we're not really sure yet other than to say it won’t be a tracked tram system since the cost for that would be way out of everybody’s ball park.
In any case tracked tram technology is about to be superseded by trackless tram technology, a much more affordable solution and a certain candidate for the north Essex scheme. The mere idea of trackless articulated clean energy vehicles plying their way from Wivenhoe in the east to our local international airport to the west and calling at all points in between not only gets the juices running but also brings a measure of relief that, in transport terms at least, our small corner of Essex is responding to the increasing environmental challenges that all of humanity is most undoubtedly set to face.
But hold on a minute. On second thoughts is there perhaps a bit too much vision here and not enough plan? Do we find ourselves more in a land of good intentions rather than one of tangible substance? Having studied this proposal in some detail I fear that this may very much be the case. Could it be that the dream is already just that - a dream?
It’s not that I think an IPTS project shouldn’t go ahead in north Essex, quite the opposite. I think it is the only responsible way for us to proceed. My concern is much more to do with the fact that what is in reality a very modest and wholly inadequate proposition has been hyped to the point of being hopelessly oversold with the consequence that expectations are being set at entirely unrealistic levels. As the US presidential hopeful Walter Mondale said in 1984 of his opponent’s policies, when it comes to the NEA’s IPTS proposal “Where’s the Beef”.
In the early eighties I worked and lived in Zurich. Even back then I never took the car into the city. There was a tram stop within a few minutes walk regardless of where you lived and a tram arrived every 8 minutes or so during the day. Fares were affordable, tickets were easily obtained (via newsagent kiosks etc) and the system relied on a trust arrangement whereby users canceled their tickets as they rode the network. Even in those days no cash was collected on the vehicles.
My point is that Zurich’s tram system did not arrive or reach its undoubted high level of patronage overnight. Building it was an ongoing process lasting many decades and that process is still continuing to this day. The city’s commitment to this project has not wavered in all that time. Zurich is undoubtedly equipped with the means but it has still taken over 100 years to build its IPTS (to use the modern parlance) such that it has reached the ubiquitous position it enjoys today.
Coupled with a deliberate policy that disadvantages the car such as surrendering road space for tram routes, a traffic light phase just for trams, pedestrian only interchange plazas (see photo) that require cars to take convoluted diversions, reduction of on street parking spaces and charging high prices for those that remain, Zurich’s IPTS boasts a clean energy modal share that we in our provincial towns and cities can only dream of. This has made travelling by tram the overriding choice for passengers entering and moving around the city.
Zurich, a city twice the size of Colchester which increases to 1.4m people when its environs are included, boasts some of the cleanest city air in Europe showing what can be achieved when clear and coherent objectives are set and a plan established to realise them. Zurich is of course far from being alone in providing such a mature and comprehensive IPTS.
I do not for one moment doubt the sincerity of the proponents of the initiative now before us. My problem is that we seem to have been presented with a report that amounts to little more than a collection of ideas and suggestions rather than any coherent plan for tackling the huge challenge before us being the morphing of our legacy transport infrastructure into something that meets the aspirations and expectations of today’s travellers and the environmental challenges that lay ahead.
What we are being asked to consider is a proposal for a local development plan that will take us up to 2033, that is a mere 17 years before the deadline set by the Paris Climate Agreement for reaching equilibrium in our net carbon emissions. Given Zurich's example this is precious little time to get an effective IPTS established. Despite such time constraint the proposal before us appears to be a wooly and confused proposition based on immature and sketchy details with far too many routing alternatives, no clear implementation plan or timetable and the briefest suggestion as to how it might get paid for.
Is this really a proposal meant to secure a sea change in the 21st century travel habits of north Essex man borne out of a conviction that future travel must be rendered environmentally sustainable? Or is it more to do with, as seems much more likely, an attempt to make the credentials of the propounded GCs project stack up?
The report states that in developing the IPTS, in addition to serving the GC's, it should bring about an “enduring modal shift towards sustainable modes in existing settlements” (my emphasis). Whilst this is a laudable objective it is nevertheless the case that few residents in the said established settlements will have convenient access to the IPTS as proposed. More specifically, very few will find a service stop within walking distance of their home and/or their place of work.
Even when fully built out the GCs will contribute some 41,000 new homes to the north Essex area, a mere fraction of the total housing base. It follows that there can be no meaningful shift to a more sustainable mode of transportation within the north Essex area as a whole without giving practical and convenient access to the majority of those users located elsewhere in the established urban settlements, primarily Colchester and Braintree. Even if the IPTS as proposed were to meet every expectation set for it by this report, realistic or otherwise, one route through Colchester or Braintree, however welcome and however effective in itself, is simply not going to cut it.
This brings us to the recent HIF award given to CBC for the development of a “RTS” connecting the TCBGC to Colchester and its north station. This is welcome news but we should not get too carried away. Today there are 68 legacy bus routes serving Colchester. The vast majority serve the town and its environs with a few travelling further afield. Two services already take in the University, the starting point for the proposed RTS. One new route through the town, however well patronised, is going to have little impact in achieving the “enduring modal shift” called for by the report.
Studies show that bus usage nationally continues to decline although I cannot speak for Colchester or Braintree. At the same time car ownership continues to grow and road improvement schemes continue to attract large amounts of state investment. This is brought into stark relief in the recent HIF award where the larger part of the spend will be on a new relief road.
According to said award the proposed RTS will be based on bus rapid transit technology (BRT). This implementation requires segregated busways usually located in the centre of the road. This is necessary in order to provide for bus priority at junctions.
The said roadway must therefore be of sufficient width to cater for both buses and private vehicles travelling side by side and even wider at bus stops since these need pedestrian islands to cater for waiting passengers. I have not had the opportunity to see the plans for this scheme but it begs the question as to whether the roads in Colcheter are of sufficient width for this arrangement to work.
I fully accept that a BRT solution does represent a step change in the provision of a public transit service and that it has the potential to engender a significant shift in modal terms. However this depends entirely on how it is implemented.
The HIF application document is clear in stating that the chosen BRT route will be a mixture of segregated and shared sections but we don't know in what proportions these might be. Until we have a better understanding as to the proposed route detail it is not possible to determine how the service is likely to perform as compared to say using a private car or riding a legacy bus service.
What we can say at this time is that there seems to be no evidence of any intention to expand this service in the largest urban conurbation in north Essex beyond this initial route. With 68 legacy services also operating in the town one must ask how the call for a meaningful modal shift in the existing settlements might be met with just this one modest initiative.
It is a simple truth that travelling by public transport has to become a much more attractive proposition if it is to become the mode of choice on the part of a sufficient percentage of the travelling public in north Essex. It is certainly the case that the newest articulated buses with their state-of-the-art ticketing systems and digital timetabling offer a much improved package over legacy services but it still comes down to a bus that is sharing much of it route with private vehicles especially in town centres. Much more will be needed including both new infrastructure that prioritises public modes of transport as well as measures to discourage car use in our towns. We will need both the carrot and the stick if a meaningful shift in traveller behaviour is to be achieved.
Mercurially, this report makes next to no mention of any engagement with the various bus operators that run services in the north Essex area. We have a public/private operating model for the delivery of our bus services with the bulk of them being operated by private sector companies. Can we really take seriously such a report when these companies, several of whom are substantial FTSE 100/250 businesses in their own right (Aviva, First, Go Ahead, etc) and who have a wealth of experience in operating these services have not been consulted?
It is a reasonable assumption that, as our bus operators run our services today they will be the entities running them in the future. They have as much interest as their users in developing said services going forward with the express objective of substantially increasing the percentage of journeys taken on state-of-the-art clean energy public service vehicles. Why then do we see no evidence of any contribution from them in this report save for a low level enquiry of just one operator with respect to the very narrow issue of one aspect of revenue generation.
The Bus Services Act of 2017 was introduced specifically for the purpose of making it easier for transport authorities to work with bus operators and passenger groups for the purpose of improving existing bus services and developing new ones in order to meet the challenges we face both in our metropolitan areas and in the countryside and to reverse the decline in bus usage. Why then does this report not make a single reference to the said Bus Services Act?
Given recent developments it seems a safe proposition for us to discount any future IPTS infrastructure based on rails simply due to its lack of competitiveness. This means that whatever type of vehicle is selected for the north Essex IPTS it is certain to be a modern variant on the ubiquitous omnibus and that includes the emerging so-called trackless tram technology. It is therefore not credible that a report into the future of public transit systems such as the one we are now presented with and which seeks to inform the inspector with regard to the new local plan can be taken seriously without there having been a meaningful contribution from bus operators and passenger groups.
The inspector was specific in his 8 June letter. His preemptive advice was that “Discussions also need to be held with potential operators so that they are involved in the process of developing the proposals.” His unequivocal directive seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
Aside from the users of an IPTS and society in general the biggest beneficiaries of a successful modal switch to public transport services will be the bus operators. They stand to make major gains from what would be a substantial increase in revenues that will be bound to cause their stock to rise. This makes a new IPTS a positive business proposition capable of attracting investment. This is the obvious place to start looking for the capital needed for the development of an IPTS project. Why then does the report not consider this obvious source of funding?
Instead It is suggested that developers will provide funding for the IPTS via S106. And yet it is in large measure the inadequacies of the S106 system of providing for infrastructure that has brought us to this point in the first place. This labour intensive time consuming case-by-case after-the-fact bartering system has been shown to be not fit for purpose time and time again and has been severely criticised repeatedly by our councils as the reason that essential infrastructure is not being provided in a timely manner when answering the Government’s relentless call for new housing.
The report also suggests further visits to the housing infrastructure fund perhaps more in hope than expectation. This fund has been 3 times over subscribed and is now closed. It is not known whether the Government plans to announce any further rounds. No reliance can be placed on either of these potential sources of funding and clearly such an ethereal approach to raising money is fundamentally inadequate when it comes to the need to commit to such a vital and long term project.
Again the inspector recognised this shortcoming in the NEA’s previous submission. In his 8 June letter he directed that “…. both a realistic range of costs for the RTS, and the sources from which those costs will be met, need to be identified.” (my emphasis)
Citing the S106 system, so readily disparaged by planning authorities and the lottery that is the HIF as the principally identified sources of funding for the proposed IPTS renders the NEA’s proposals entirely untenable.
Deciding to install an IPTS, however well intentioned, is a high risk venture made more risky by the very long gestation periods involved. Circumstances change. Governments come and go as does the capital grant funding that only they can provide. We only have to look at what is happening to HS2 to understand the perils that can befall any public project no matter how prestigious it may be.
Whilst it is obviously not possible to provide an assured open ended source of funding over the life of such an extended project as an IPTS, a committed private/public partnership between bus operators and our local transport authority as facilitated by the Bus Services Act could be used to establish an investment vehicle based on commercially viable principles. This would be tasked with finding the capital investment (this could be grants, loans, bonds, equity, etc) required to gradually build up the IPTS infrastructure over an extended timeframe. This arrangement or something like it has to be the minimum that will satisfy the inspector that the required funding will likely be forthcoming over the life of the project.
The NEA’s proposal is particularly disappointing given that public transport in general is on the cusp of the most exciting technological revolution in decades namely the imminent arrival of the trackless semi-autonomous battery driven electric tram, a public service vehicle with all the advantages of a tram but with few of its disadvantages.
By far and away its biggest advantage is the lack of any need for the highly disruptive impact and the ruinous cost of installing the rails. A pair of dashed lines painted on the road surface is all that is required thereby slashing installation costs to a small fraction of what they would otherwise be. Yes the NEA’s proposals include the deployment of trackless trams but only after 2033 and after significant investment has been incurred in more buses.
Like all local authorities the NEAs are legally obligated to take on their share of the UK's commitment to delivering a carbon neutral economy by 2050. This is arguably now the biggest consideration for local authorities when making decisions including those concerning transportation. After other offset measures have been taken into consideration the NEAs must decide the level of modal shift it will take in order to bring their transport policies into line with national policy.
The only way this can be achieved is by taking an holistic approach. This has most obviously not been the case so far judging by the overblown attention given to the GCs project at the expense of those residing in the "existing settlements" It's time for the GC tail to cease wagging the IPTS dog.
Without further ado we must set out our stall as we want it to be in 2050 and build a plan for getting us there. It's going to be a long haul but as Zurich and many other European cities and towns have shown, it is eminently possible. Little by little year on year the infrastructure can be assembled so that eventually the great majority of the population will have access to an environmentally viable IPTS.
Of course success will depend on much more than delivering the infrastructure. Branding, value for money, quality of service, user perception, etc, will all have to play their part but above all, getting the message over that our travelling habits must change or we may be inconvenienced by something much worse will be what drives this programme forward.
The Garden Communities Charter makes reference to “a step change in integrated and sustainable transport system for the North Essex area”. However, based on the NEA's current proposals the chances of such a system being realised have been seriously compromised by a singular lack of coherence in what is being proposed and which simply fails to meet the criticisms levelled by the inspector in his 8 June letter. Sadly I fear the NEAs have not yet done nearly enough to allay those concerns and that the inspector will find himself obliged to reject these re-hashed proposals for a second time.
The future beckons. It’s a future in which we will be required to use much less energy and cut down on our production of the gases that harm the atmosphere causing the planet to warm uncontrollably. Today transport is right up there as one of the main culprits. We need courage, imagination and a dogged determination to provide a transportation facility capable of meeting this challenge.
Such a solution must be accessible to all, not just for those fortunate enough to live in new planned developments. It must be commercially, technologically and environmentally viable. It must be adventurous and deliver a solution that is seen as the mode of choice by the many and one they can be proud of.
Get your act together NEAs. Show us you mean business and come up with a transport plan that's fit for purpose and that the majority, if not all of us, can believe in.