Network Rail studies into future long-distance rail demand in Britain are forecasting significant growth based on national economic and social trends and relative costs . The approach is explained in a draft report on long-distance travel that will inform capacity planning for Network Rail’s regulatory control period 6 (2019/20-2023/24) and beyond. The market study is the first of four to be prepared, with the other three covering regional urban passenger demand; London & South East...

Kassel is a German city of 200,000 people, lying 150 kilometres north of Frankfurt and just over an hour away on the high-speed Deutsche Bahn ICE train from Frankfurt Airport station. In a league table of German cities ranked by economic development, conducted by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research and published in the magazine Wirtschaftswoche (Economic Weekly), Kassel has emerged as the most dynamic place in the entire country. That means not the top-performing city – more...

According to National Rail’s Journey Planner, a simple trip in the Greater London area from Watford Junction to Woking requires two mainline trains and an Underground ride. First, there is a Midland Mainline (or London Overground)train to London Euston, followed by a transfer to London Underground’s Northern Line to Waterloo, followed by a second transfer at Waterloo to a Southwest Trains service to Woking. This journey requires coordinating three train schedules, passing through up...

D espite having historically one of the most comprehensive of the world’s urban and commuter rail systems, London has been playing catch up to Paris, and indeed other cities with S-Bahn-type railways, on its rail network development. While Paris has a mature cross city rail network in the form of its five RER lines, and is now moving on to developing its Grand Paris Express network of orbital super metro lines, London is trying to do both at once, and coming from a long way behind....

Biting the bullet on expensive, transformational, railway schemes is something that mainland European governments have been good at, as exemplified by the development of national high speed rail networks in various countries. But in France attention has turned to capital city Paris, and bullets haven’t come much bigger and faster than that of Grand Paris Express, a plan to revolutionise urban railways there, with a price tag to match. Spiralling costs and delays in estimated completion...

Though Paris and London have attracted attention by developing their regional heavy rail networks to supplement existing tube/metro lines through new cross-city tunnels, they are not the only cities who have taken their city railways beyond the traditional model of large stations at surface level. Elsewhere in Europe Vienna is replacing its South terminal station with a new central Hauptbahnhof station which will link together the routes which converge on Vienna, including international...

The majority of the world’s population now live in urban areas. That point was reached in 2008, according to official UN statistics, as the continuing migration from the countryside and population growth within metropolitan areas have combined to  change the way the majority of the world’s citizens live. 3.3 billion of us now live in urban areas. In 1950 there was just one city of over 10m people – New York. Now there are 27, and experts believe that by the end of 2015,...

T There’s little disagreement that electrification is the best power system for most railways. But what should be done about branch lines where the business case might not be as clear as that for mainline railway electrification? Without it, through trains from the mainline need to be diesel powered even while travelling the majority of their time under the wires – and diesel trains are less efficient and less reliable than electric ones. Two contrasting approaches in the UK give...

Any rail journey involving interchange across London is potentially a problem to explain to travellers. It is likely that business is lost to rail because users are baffled by proposed journey times that are longer than they often are in reality, and because the convenience of a high-frequency service is undersold by giving specific connecting times when they are not needed. It is amongst the unaddressed issues on the National Rail website. Generous margins may protect the train companies from...

While waiting for a train I often inspect the promotional material and timetables on display at a station. It’s a simple check on what the railway has to offer. This nerdish activity can tell us something more general about weaknesses in the railway’s provision of information and how it perceives is the best way to present the available travel options.  Moreover, unless the industry thinks through the information it is providing, such weaknesses are all too likely to be...

Across the transport sector there are certain individuals whose activities stand out either as beyond the significance of their own specific role within an organisation, or for introducing new ideas from an inventive technological or entrepreneurial standpoint. In an era of rapid change to the way transport services are managed, marketed and paid for it is not surprising that a group of such people feature amongst our power list. Elaine Rosscraig, Stagecoach’s head of bus customer...

A group of fifty leading senior executives and managers form this year’s New Transit UK passenger transport providers Power List. There are several changes from last year as new appointments have lifted individuals into positions of greater responsibility and others have moved out. Four of the most senior UK passenger transport group heads are featured in our overall top 12 people listing on the previous pages- David Martin at Arriva, Sir Brian Souter at Stagecoach, Tim O’Toole at...

David Higgins, Chief Executive of Network Rail Why is he on the list? Higgins is the leader of Britain’s rail infrastructure company, about to be on the receiving end of the UK Government’s enthusiasm for infrastructure projects, and with freedom to innovate and experiment What kind of year has he had? Good. Alliancing with train operators has shown the potential for better working practices without the need for vertical integration where train operators might have taken on some...

Extending the proposed London-West Midlands high-speed rail line on to Manchester and Leeds will drive regeneration and transform travel patterns, says the UK Government, which sees the project as a cornerstone of its bid to kick start economic growth and modernise British transport infrastructure. All the political heavyweights in the Coalition were on hand to unveil the phase two extensions of the existing project to open Britain’s second high-speed rail line from London to Birmingham...

Crossrail 2, the plan for a new south-west to north-east line under London, is to be promoted as a regional rail scheme rather than a London-focused metro. Business lobby group London First, Transport for London and Network Rail have all been examining the options for the project which has been on and off the drawing board for more than half a century. It was once known as the Chelsea-Hackney link, living in the same scheme pool as the Victoria Line crossing London from Brixton to Walthamstow...

Advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal has appointed the former chief executive of Network Rail to spearhead a push in transport and infrastructure as it believes the sectors “have not woken up” to the threat of the financial crisis. Iain Coucher (pictured) becomes a Managing Director in its London office to head its transport and infrastructure-focused business across Europe. In addition to his time as chief executive at Network Rail, Coucher also served as chief executive of...

Like dinosaurs, a lot of people in public transport still remain wedded to a vision comprising a number of discrete modes.  The one they are concerned with themselves is the important one, of course- be it bus, rail or tram for example, and the rest have their acknowledged, but inferior, little world - with even a space maybe reserved in the mobility mix for active travel (foot and bike), boat and plane. But join them up as a seamless boundary-less offer, never!  You can’t mix...

Network Rail Consulting, the international consultancy arm of Network Rail, has appointed Keith Ludeman (pictured) to its four man board. Ludeman, 62 retired last year as group chief executive of Go-Ahead. Since then he has also served as a non-executive director of Network Rail. Network Rail Consulting was established last year to harness the extensive range of skills and experience within the group to offer British expertise overseas, and be an international ambassador for Britain’s...

Non-stop interchange One of the things that most spoils high speed rail is the need for trains to make intermediate stops. The faster the train’s design speed, the greater the penalty for stopping. While it’s no problem on a low speed rural branch line for a local train stop at a station, the amount of time it takes to decelerate a high speed train from 200mph to 0mph, and then back again, makes a huge addition to its journey time, which could otherwise be offered for end-to-end...

The concept of coach-train, or Car à Haut Niveau de Service (CHNS), is being explored as an interurban public transport solution in several locations in mainland Europe. But there are some agitators who believe that even the schemes proposed so far have barely scratched the surface of the potential for coaches. Leading the charge is transport data management company ITO World’s chief executive officer Peter Miller, who runs the Coachways UK blog, which is a focus for ideas in the...

A potential contradiction lies at the heart of current developments in heavily used urban public transport:  Capacity versus comfort. To be popular, and play its part in the functioning of cities, most practitioners would agree that public transport in cities should be attracting motorists from their use of private cars, by providing a high quality alternative. To be cost effective however, particularly at peak times, each vehicle also needs to shift high volumes of people. The balancing...

Step outside many European urban railway stations, and the first thing a passenger often encounters is the platforms of a tram stop, ensuring swift and efficient dispersal of passengers from the station. Increasingly it’s not only trams which run through these mini terminals. As trams and buses both run on roads, and low floor buses are intended to call at shallow platforms (or footways as they are often better known), it should not be a problem for all the local passenger transport...

I t might be a conventional heavy rail infrastructure operator, but Britain’s Network Rail has been doing some very unconventional thinking about what sort of vehicles could run passenger services on its tracks. Railways don’t have to be operated by trains, it acknowledges. Blended mode technologies like guided buses and tram-trains might be just as appropriate, and even trains themselves might operate differently to today’s conventional understanding. Network Rail’s...

Success in a nice problem to have, but finding the best solution to the problem of a lack of capacity in the face of rising passenger numbers can prove challenging. A number of rapid transit systems across Europe are facing that challenge in different ways. Introducing Bus Rapid Transit has a record of building the market by changing perceptions of conventional bus services, and in the UK, the Cambridgeshire guided busway opened last year has proved a real hit. It carried its one-millionth...

An on board train system from Clearsy  has been designed to measure the distance between the platform and the train before installing a gap-bridging system as well as authorising it and deploying it. The gap-filler is a mobile platform filling the space between the train and the platform edge to help passengers with reduced mobility. GAPS comprises lasers which scan the edge of the platform and receive the data to check whether or not the platform is compatible with the gap filler. It then...

M ost public transit users in urban areas do not just take individual bus and rail services. They use “the system.” And that means alighting from a metro or rail station and connecting to a bus to complete a journey, or vice versa. It’s a regular activity but not always easy. How many cities make this process logical, convenient and user-friendly with wayfinding signage from the station exit directing people to the bus stop, with appropriate maps and supporting information to...

Public transport needs to focus on its core asset: the network, and make visible to users and potential users the true extent and stability of the system available. The vehicles that run the services are transitory and the network is invisible, so perceived as less substantial and stable over time than it actually is. A key is to make the hubs the showcase for the system - the places where vehicles pick up and people can connect with the system: bus stops, stations and interchanges. High...

Public address and voice alarm specialist ATEÏS-Group have switched their UK activities away from ATEÏS UK to a new partner and distributor Fuzion. The new Walton on Thames based agents are professionals in audio distribution and system design including after-sales service and support, with almost 20 years of experience in the professional audio field. Fuzion’s drafting and rack-building facilities enable them to provide service from the drawing board to final commissioning....

We’ve all been stuck on a station platform or at a bus-stop at one time or another, and there’s nothing more frustrating than having no idea about when your transport is actually going to turn up. Recent research carried out by Passenger Focus showed getting this information during delays is passengers’ fifth highest priority for improvement, behind the most obvious needs of value for money, punctuality, frequency and being able to get a seat. That’s why we have spent...

The digital revolution has unlocked a rush of new information systems that offer diverse ways of putting both encyclopaedic and highly specific rail and bus service information in front of users. But by their very diversity and variety such messages risk being overlooked in the resultant potential ‘information overload’. Sometimes, a single simple overriding ‘alert’ or ‘announcement’ needs to get through above the rest. The basic means to do this - the public...