Scottish Planning Assessment Part 2 - summary report

Scottish Planning Assessment: Part 2 Summary Report

ISBN 1 906006 07 5

This report is also available in PDF format.

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Arup was appointed by the then Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) in April 2005 to provide the SRA and Scottish Executive (SE) with a Scottish Planning Assessment (SPA). The assessment followed the Regional Planning Assessment process that had been applied by the SRA to examine options for the medium to longer term development of the railway in various English Regions.

The Regional Planning Assessment was developed as a key component of the SRA’s planning framework. The framework was first published in the SRA’s 2003 "Network Utilisation Strategy", which aimed to align rail planning with national and regional priorities and objectives to avoid rail becoming too focussed on its own internal industry objectives. The Regional Planning Assessment had a key role in achieving this alignment by ensuring the medium to longer term plan for the railway reflected, where appropriate, the policies and priorities in relevant spatial and economic strategies.

The SPA has examined the whole of Scotland as well as examining the flows of freight and passenger transport by rail across the border with England. This allowed the potentially competing demands of suburban passenger, longer distance passenger, freight and cross-border services to be considered explicitly.

Figure 1.1: Scotland, showing the six planning assessment regions and the major rail links

1.2 Role of SPA in Scottish Rail Strategy Development

The SE intends to produce a long-term Rail Strategy, setting out Ministerial priorities, which will be a critical input to and component of a new high-level National Transport Strategy. Network Rail (NR) has begun work on producing a Scottish Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS), covering the short — medium term planning horizon to 2015, which will consider options for making best use of the current network and investment options for enhancing the network, in line with emerging Ministerial priorities from the Rail Strategy. The SPA will contribute towards the development of the Rail Strategy (and, by implication, the RUS). The SPA will provide information to inform the development of the railway over the longer term through to 2026, taking account of the strategic implications on the railway’s future role and focus of future policy, patterns of land-use and economic development, and developments on the wider transport network. Over a similar timescale, NR and First ScotRail (FSR) are also producing a Joint Performance Improvement Plan. The SE has co-ordinated these different workstreams to ensure that the shorter-term measures are developed in a manner that complements longer-term strategic priorities. A public consultation on the Rail Strategy has also been undertaken to ensure that issues raised by Scottish stakeholders and the wider public are considered within the development of the Rail Strategy

These separate planning activities will inform the SE to specify the High Level Output Statement (HLOS) for the next regulatory control period in the rail industry, detailing the outputs that the SE wish to buy from Network Rail in Scotland and the likely funding available for the review period. The Rail Strategy will be a key supporting document to the HLOS, as it will set out the future direction of the railway for a much longer timeframe than the next regulatory control period.

1.3 Purpose of the Part 2 Report

This Part 2 Report summarises the final conclusions arising from the SPA. It is supported by our Part 2 Technical Analysis Report, which identifies a set of prioritised interventions in different resource scenarios with a clear objective-led justification for their selection. We draw from our strategic analysis of rail in the period to 2026, particularly the key policy objectives that the railway will need to support and the resulting implications for rail’s future role and strategic focus. The SPA adopts the following principles:

• Analysis at a strategic level;
• Provide an overview of the key issues and pressures expected to arise on the railway;
• Project the most pressing and most likely emerging problems in meeting those issues and pressures;
• Suggest schemes that should be investigated which may resolve those issues;
• Acknowledge that many schemes are inter-dependent and would need to be considered as a package or a sequential programme of steps; and
• Provide robust fall-back options if those studies produce negative outcomes, or the underlying forecasts on which the work is based are not realised, that would contribute towards resolving the identified issues.

1.4 Summary of Approach Used in Completing the SPA

Figure 1.2 illustrates the stages in the process used to complete the SPA and shows that this Part 2 Report presents the conclusions and output of our work. The figure provides an indication of the depth of technical analysis that underpins this report.

Figure 1.2: The SPA Process

Source — SRA: The Railway Planning Framework: Regional Planning Assessments, October 2003 Note: MMS refers to Multi-Modal Studies.

The earlier Part 1 Report¹ presented our conclusions from the first two stages of the process: During the second part of the SPA, we focussed on the following activities:

• Issues and Objectives: identifying the key objectives for rail in Scotland, as well as the main issues on the railway network that could affect their delivery.
• Option Generation: identifying, grouping and shortlisting a set of interventions that would address these issues and support the delivery of the identified key objectives.
• Assessment: assessing the shortlisted set of interventions using an Appraisal Summary Table based on Part 1 of the Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance.

This report uses the results of the Assessment to identify a future strategic direction for the development of the Scottish rail network that will support wider policy. Detailed specifics are avoided because our work is not based on detailed demand forecasting and appraisal. Instead, the focus is on identifying immediate or pressing priorities for intervention, and those which will emerge over the longer term. This provides a future strategy for rail. Future work will provide greater levels of detail and specification.

2 Issues and Objectives

This chapter reviews recent railway improvements delivered in Scotland and recent wider Scottish policy changes. The key purpose of this chapter is to present a strategic analysis of the key issues and pressures that will arise on the railway and to highlight their causes.

2.1 Recent Rail Improvements Delivered in Scotland

The Scottish Strategic Rail Study (SSRS) identified that investment in rail would result in significant growth in the use of rail by expanding the capability of the existing railway and developing new markets for rail. It tested different resource scenarios to examine what might be achieved by investment. It is important to note that the schemes identified did "not, in the round, represent an ‘optimal’ investment package". The SSRS used existing projects that were being promoted by stakeholders to examine the potential effect of investment on the demand for rail travel in the Central Belt and the North East of Scotland. Also, quality improvements that would make rail easier to use such as marketing initiatives, improvements to rolling stock and stations, and fares and ticketing initiatives were identified. The SSRS did not examine rail in the Highlands or the South West of Scotland.

Since March 2003, when the Final SSRS Report was published, there has been a period of growth and expansion for Scotland’s passenger railway. Most areas of the country have benefited from additional passenger services, train lengthening or improvements in the quality of service offered. The on-train environment has been improved by rolling stock refurbishment and replacement: station facilities and ticket issuing facilities have been enhanced and, most importantly, train service performance has improved significantly since the start of the First ScotRail franchise. The first in a series of planned line re-openings occurred in December 2005 when services were reinstated to Larkhall. This project has also improved frequencies from the south east to the north west of Glasgow through Glasgow Central Low Level and for commuters both on the Milngavie branch and towards Hamilton. It supports regeneration objectives in Lanarkshire, and has removed an important capacity constraint at Westerton.

It is important not to lose sight of the fact that much has been achieved by small scale changes. First ScotRail has already delivered significant components of its committed £40m investment in Scotland’s railways. These improvements have increased the capacity of passenger services and improved on-train quality and at stations. Whilst more is to be delivered there are some key achievements in the first year of the FSR franchise, some of which were begun by the previous franchisee. Some of the improvements have been delivered in partnership with and utilising funding from Network Rail and the Scottish Executive, for example, platform extensions and the procurement of additional trains.

Key achievements delivered

• Improved punctuality: train delays were reduced by 20% across Scotland in the first year of the franchise with certain routes achieving greater reductions.
• Increased capacity through train lengthening on a number of routes including Fife; Bathgate; Dunblane; Edinburgh to Glasgow via Shotts; Cumbernauld and East Kilbride (in addition to Edinburgh to Glasgow via Croy).
• New journey opportunities through introduction of new services including Larkhall — Milngavie, the new Invernet rail commuter services around Inverness, a new Glasgow commuter service from Arrochar and Tarbet by extending an existing train, and more Aberdeen to Inverurie trains.
• Acceleration of certain services such as the first service from Aberdeen to Edinburgh and a fast early morning service to Edinburgh from Dundee.
• New ticketing and fares on some routes.
• Improvements to station facilities including cycle facilities at all stations and investment in ticket gates, CCTV equipment, more modern ticket vending machines and shelters.
• An improved on-train environment through the introduction of modern Turbostar trains on inter-urban services and certain commuter routes in the Central Belt, improvements to catering on Inverness services and refurbishment of trains on Edinburgh — North Berwick services.
• Improving customer satisfaction, particularly with train service performance.

Freight conveyed by rail has also continued to grow. Rail is beginning to emerge as an alternative to the use of road on the trunk haul of the logistics chain, with major transport companies such as WH Malcolm using rail.

This is a continuation of a long term trend that has seen a renaissance in the use of rail in Scotland. There have been a number of line re-openings since the 1980s (such as the highly successful Bathgate route, Newcraighall, and extension of services from Airdrie to Drumgelloch), and the ScotRail identity and brand has been firmly established. The previous National Express ScotRail franchise delivered a number of significant improvements, including increasing frequency from 2 to 4 trains per hour on Glasgow to Edinburgh services via Croy.

2.2 Recent Policy Changes

Since March 2003, a number of policy documents have been issued which have implications for the development of both the rail network and transport planning as a whole:

• National Planning Framework for Scotland (2004);
• Scotland's Transport Future — the Transport White Paper (June 2004);
• The Way Forward: Framework for Economic Development in Scotland (June 2004);
• Framework for Economic Development in Scotland (updated September 2004);
• A Smart, Successful Scotland — the enterprise strategy (revised November 2004);
• Scottish Executive Infrastructure Improvement Plan (2005);
• Modernising the Planning System — the planning white paper (June 2005) (formalised City Region plan proposals).

The National Planning Framework and Scottish Planning Guidance emphasises an integrated approach to transport and land-use planning as essential to delivering plan-led growth and regeneration. This is particularly important with regard to policy emphasis on the economic importance of the City Regions, sustainable transport, promoting social inclusion, and delivering plan-led growth and regeneration. Rail has a role to play supporting policy within the transport network where population or employment densities are high; playing to the mode’s natural strengths.

2.3 Conclusions from Baselining and Drivers of Change

Our Part 1 Report presented the Baseline position in Scotland and defined the future Drivers of Change and their implications in terms of the capacity of the railway to carry growth in passenger and freight demand, the adequacy of the railway in terms of the level or availability of services and the accessibility of services (including their integration with other modes of transport).

2.3.1 Current Nature of Scotland and Recent Trends

Beyond the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness, Scotland is generally sparsely populated. Overall, the population is decreasing across the country with modest increases in the south east offset by significant decreases elsewhere.

Employment is naturally highest in the cities, as are wages. Employment shows significant decline in many areas outside the Central Belt, highlighting the shift from a manufacturing based economy to a primarily service sector based economy. Nevertheless, Glasgow remains an important manufacturing centre in the UK. In short, the cities and their hinterlands (the City Regions) are the drivers of growth across the country.

2.3.2 Current Performance of Scotland’s Rail and Transport Network

Rail forms an important part of Scotland’s transport network with some 66.1 million journeys in 2003/04. Just over two thirds of these were on the Glasgow suburban rail network. 95% of the passenger services in Scotland are operated through First ScotRail with the remainder provided by GNER, Virgin West Coast and Virgin Cross Country.

Freight is also important, particularly for the movement of coal. This is a critical factor in the Central Belt rail network capacity and on lines in south west Scotland. There has been long term growth in inter-modal traffic to / from deep sea container ports in England.

The two main foci for passenger rail services are Edinburgh and Glasgow. There is also significant demand for cross-border travel along both the East and West Coast Main Lines. The majority of journeys to Edinburgh and Glasgow are journeys of less than 50km. By contrast, the majority of trips to Aberdeen are in excess of 100km. Passenger demand is concentrated: 10% of stations in Scotland generate 70% of demand. Some passenger overcrowding occurs: on the Fife Circle, the electric services from Ayrshire into Glasgow via Paisley Gilmour Street and certain diesel services into Glasgow including the Stirling corridor. A very small number of peak hour Edinburgh — Glasgow services via Croy also experience overcrowding.

There are a number of operational constraints on the existing railway, including line speeds, track layout, signalling restrictions, the structure of the timetable and numerous sections of single track. Looking at journey times and considering interchange penalties, commuting by rail has journey time advantages. However, on longer distance inter-urban passenger journeys (except between Edinburgh and Glasgow), road remains more attractive than the rail product.

The roles of rail within the wider transport network in Scotland are:

• supporting Edinburgh’s economic success by enabling a skilled workforce from a wide catchment to commute into the city centre;
• supporting Glasgow’s economy by enabling significant levels of commuting into the city centre;
• providing an inter-urban rail service that links Edinburgh and Glasgow city centres thereby providing important economic and social connectivity between Scotland’s two major cities;
• contributing to connecting the economies and societies of regional centres such as Aberdeen, Inverness and Dundee to the Central Belt;
• providing links to the major cities and economies of England, through fast, inter-urban passenger services and the movement of large volumes of trainload and bulk freight;
• providing a critical link in the supply chain for the Scottish power generation industry;
• helping to address peripherality by providing lifeline rail services to rural areas in the Highlands and the South West (including connections to ferry services) and by providing certain freight services; and
• supporting tourism by providing cross-border links and services to popular tourist destinations in the Highlands.

In fulfilling these roles in Scotland, rail presently focuses on the following transport markets:

• High density commuter flows into Scotland’s two principal cities;
• Inter-urban, city centre to city centre travel by passengers between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and to a lesser extent between these cities and Aberdeen and Inverness;
• Less time sensitive, longer distance cross-border travellers (tourists) and those travelling to locations in the north and Midlands of England where rail is time competitive;
• The movement of imported coal by trainload from Hunterston to Longannet power station (and Cockenzie), and cross-border to coal-fired power stations in England;
• The movement of Scottish opencast coal by trainload from the Central Belt to coal-fired power stations in England;
• The movement of deep sea containers between Mossend and Coatbridge and the major container ports in the South and East of England; and
• An emerging market for the movement of freight using intermodal swap bodies on trunk flows within the logistics chain.

There are certain important markets that rail presently does not serve particularly well, including air passenger travel to airports (with the exception of Prestwick), the majority of commuting into regional centres, inter-urban travellers outside of the Central Belt and certain time sensitive cross-border travellers who presently fly to destinations in England and Wales.

Rail is strongest where it serves passenger or freight flows if volumes and densities are high, such as commuting into major centres, inter-urban routes and flows of bulk freight. The railway in Scotland has important strengths today, which are:

• an extensive network of commuter services around and into Glasgow (the busiest suburban network outside of London);
• the recent development (over the last twenty years) of a commuter network into Central Edinburgh from the main and emerging locations of housing;
• a competitive Glasgow — Edinburgh inter-urban rail service in terms of journey time, frequency and quality when compared to the congested road and motorway network;
• providing good cross-border passenger and freight links;
• the ability to move large quantities of bulk and trainload freight economically and effectively within Scotland and to England and Wales; and
• although the rural railways in the north and south west of Scotland are heavily dependent on financial support, they deliver wider social benefits.

However, some important weaknesses limit opportunities to make best use of the network, these are:

• insufficient capacity on sections of the rail network that are already busy across the Central Belt: key pinchpoints constrain the opportunity for frequency increases;
• services connecting Aberdeen and Inverness to Edinburgh and Glasgow in terms of its journey time, frequency, arrival times and quality when compared to alternative modes;
• rail access to parts of Edinburgh is limited: frequent bus services off-set this impact;
• a lack of rail access to Glasgow and Edinburgh airports;
• the development of rail services incrementally over time has led to some role confusion
• a lack of space at station car parks;
• poorly timed interchange at critical hubs such as Inverness and Carlisle;
• a lack of capacity on the Glasgow South Western (GSW) route for Anglo-Scottish coal traffic; and
• poor integration with other public transport modes, and competition rather than collaboration in the levels of service provision on more lightly used routes.

The SPA has a central assumption that train service performance will continue to improve and be maintained. This seems realistic given FSR’s achievements in reducing delays since the start of the franchise. We have not considered performance further, other than identifying where planned increases to the quantum of train services necessitates providing additional infrastructure or signalling to maintain acceptable performance levels. The Atkins report undertaken for the SRA in 2003 considered it unlikely that progress towards a High Speed Line would result in completion of a service between Scotland and London before 2026. On that basis, for the purposes of this report, it was assumed that there would be no North — South High Speed Line in Britain implemented by 2026.

2.3.3 The Scottish Minister’s Committed Schemes for Rail

• Larkhall — Milngavie (opened in December 2005);
• reinstatement of Stirling — Alloa — Kincardine route (due to open in autumn 2007);
• Waverley Infrastructure Works (due to be completed in November 2007);
• reinstatement of Airdrie — Bathgate with associated track improvements;
• Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (EARL);
• Glasgow Airport Rail Link (GARL); and
• Borders Railway.

In summary, the seven committed schemes will:

• provide more effective routing for certain freight services and release capacity for passenger services across the Forth Rail Bridge;
• link Glasgow and Edinburgh airports to a much larger hinterland by public transport, so facilitating their anticipated growth and helping to suppress growth in car trips;
• enable further commuting into Edinburgh from existing stations and areas not presently served by rail, increasing the skilled workforce labour accessible to the capital; and
• encourage further commuting by rail into and across Glasgow, increasing rail’s role in supporting Glasgow’s economy and future regeneration.

The SPA assumed that all of these schemes were delivered by 2010 and examined their impact on demand and crowding. We identified that the schemes will not address all the overcrowding problems affecting routes into Edinburgh and Glasgow. EARL may actually increase load factors on certain trains. In addition, Scottish Ministers are committed to implementing two tram lines in Edinburgh to Edinburgh Airport and Granton / Leith that are likely to increase the relative importance of Haymarket as a destination (or interchange) in Edinburgh. Furthermore, the SPA assumes that FSR introduces all of its franchise commitments by 2011; a significant proportion of which have already been delivered.

2.3.4 Future Drivers of Change in Scotland

The City Regions are expected to drive growth in Scotland, which is expected to continue to undergo important economic and demographic change. These changes will have important implications for transport in terms of commuting and inter-urban journeys, as well as the movements of freight required to support the City Regions. The most substantial economic and population growth will be in Edinburgh and across the South East region, driven by the projected continued growth and success of the Edinburgh economy. Significant population growth is forecast in the south-east. These changes are supported by plan policies, which seek to deliver expansion in many of these areas. Such towns will increasingly support and benefit from Edinburgh-based employment through commuting. Demand for travel will also increase significantly as a result of the major expansion of Edinburgh Airport.

Around Glasgow, the challenge is to reduce and reverse patterns population decline. Significant regeneration is planned for central and inner areas of Glasgow, with forecast employment and economic growth. Household changes in suburban and commuter areas, will have important implications for transport. The future economic competitiveness of Glasgow will depend on its ability to attract and retain a skilled workforce, and its transport connections to other cities.

In Aberdeen there is a need to diversify the economy away from North Sea oil and gas production, whilst in Dundee there is a need to attract and foster investment in growth sectors, following the decline of traditional industries. Inverness is likely to continue to grow as a major business and services hub. An important factor in the future success of these cities will be the quality of connections to the economically important Central Belt.

The main freight markets may change after 2016 due to changes in the factors affecting the demand for the movement of key commodities such as coal and containers. The announcement by Scottish Power in February 2006 to fit flue gas desulphurisation equipment to Longannet is a positive development.

2.3.5 The Implications of Change for the Rail Networks

Rail’s role will increase in importance, especially on the corridors most affected by future change. Plan-led housing and employment growth in Central Scotland will complement rail’s natural advantage in providing fast connections for centre-to-centre movements between the principal population centres, and for bringing high volumes of commuters into centres. Road congestion will continue to worsen, particularly in the Stirling, Glasgow and Edinburgh ‘motorway box’. For the purposes of this report, we agreed an assumption that there would be no road pricing over the life of the assessment.

The significant growth in air passenger numbers at Edinburgh and Glasgow Airports will be facilitated by the opening of EARL and GARL.

Growth will also be experienced at Prestwick, probably necessitating frequency improvements on services to Ayr. The rail capacity requirements of a proposed container port at Hunterston could also be significant.

In certain parts of the country, rail will not have sufficient capacity to meet the demand generated by the Drivers of Change. However, many routes do have sufficient capacity to accommodate demand growth. Our analysis indicated that growth in commuting by rail will continue, especially around Edinburgh and the Glasgow — Edinburgh routes. The committed rail projects will contribute to alleviating some pressure on the Glasgow suburban rail network. Crowding and congestion will particularly affect many of the radial routes around Edinburgh (especially to Fife and the airport) the Glasgow — Edinburgh via Croy route, and routes to Glasgow from Stirling and the Ayrshire coast.

2.4 Objectives

2.4.1 The Rationale for an Objectives-Led Approach

The main principle for the SPA is that it is based on an objectives-led approach. This avoided the starting point for the assessment being the long-list of rail scheme proposals and/or aspirations.

Such an approach could be pre-disposed towards specific interventions, which might not be optimal or appropriate in the context of relevant national and regional objectives set by policy. The benefits of an objectives-led approach are that it recognises the importance of transport in supporting wider policy objectives and provides a clear and robust framework for considering the merits of different outcomes and interventions (some of which may be non-rail solutions).

2.4.2 Key Objectives for Rail

For the purposes of the SPA, ‘objectives’ are defined as high-level aims or targets for the future. Objectives may be specific to a particular geographical area, and indicate in broad terms the outcome that will be achieved if the objective is met. Other objectives may be more thematic. The vital point is that these objectives should not pre-determine particular interventions; there may be a number of different means of achieving an objective. Using this approach, key thematic and spatial specific objectives were identified for rail in Scotland.

2.4.3 Tensions between Different Objectives

We identified where rail capacity may not be sufficient to accommodate future demand and where the rail network may not be adequate to support wider spatial and economic policy. These challenges threaten the delivery of the key objectives for rail and pose questions regarding the optimal future role and focus for rail in Scotland because of the inherent tensions between the different objectives:

• Should rail focus on commuting or providing inter-urban connections?
• If capacity is limited should rail then focus on fast or stopping services (and is further investment justified so it can do both, or are other modes of transport part of the solution)?
• What should be the balance of use of the network for passenger and freight services?
• Should new routes be opened or existing bottlenecks removed to enable the improvement of existing services?
• Should rail focus on the main City Regions and centres in Scotland and, if so, how should it serve smaller centres and rural areas?
• Should new stations be opened or should better integration with other modes be used to focus services and growth on existing stations?

2.4.4 Key Objectives for Rail in Scotland

Recognising the Baselining and the Drivers for Change, and building upon the areas where rail has a positive contribution to make (also the areas where rail may be regarded as weaker), a series of key objectives were proposed. These are a combination of thematic and spatially specific and relate directly to the recommended interventions set out below. The key objectives used in the SPA are:

• Support plan-led growth / regeneration; improve integration with land-use planning;
• Facilitate access to airports;
• Facilitate access to ports;
• Achieve more sustainable patterns of freight movements;
• Strengthen cross-border transport links;
• Improve integration between transport services and modes;
• Foster social inclusion by offering viable and affordable alternatives to the private car;
• Shift to more sustainable modes of transport;
• Reduce the harmful environmental impacts of travel;
• Promote tourism;
• Improve Glasgow — Edinburgh interaction / connectivity;
• Facilitate sustainable plan-led growth in Edinburgh, Fife, Lothians & Borders;
• Facilitate sustainable plan-led growth and regeneration in Glasgow, the Clyde Valley and Ayrshire;
• Strengthen economies and service provision in rural areas;
• Support role of Scottish cities as economic and service hubs and tourist centres; and
• Provide competitive links between the Central Belt and other Scottish cities.

2.4.5 Strategic Implications of Policy for Rail’s Future Role and Strategic Focus

A way of dealing with the tensions between the different objectives is to be reminded about the natural strength of rail. The nature of rail’s fixed asset base means that rail is most efficient and effective (or good) at focussing on high volume flows of passengers and freight, and routes with high densities of population or employment along them. Examples would include inter-urban travel between major cities, high density commuting flows, links to major airports and bulk flows of freight such as coal. By focussing on volume and density, rail’s role and strategic focus can be best defined. Otherwise there is a danger that rail tries to do everything and dilutes its effectiveness. This is important if best use is to be made of the Scottish rail network. If there is sufficient capacity, there may be scope to introduce local passenger rail services to complement the faster inter-urban passenger rail network. However, this must be subject to a rigorous financial and economic assessment taking account of the alternative opportunities to best use other modes. Buses tend to be a better solution to local public transport where volumes and densities are lower. If there is insufficient capacity, choices will need to be made to prioritise rail’s future role and strategic focus.

Taking account of the key objectives for rail, rail’s future optimal role and strategic focus is set out below.

• Enabling rail commuting on high volume routes into Edinburgh and Glasgow.
• Improving connectivity between Glasgow and Edinburgh by providing a fast, frequent, high quality service on the main route via Croy as well as utilising the other routes more effectively. Effective information provision on the different routes available to travellers between Scotland’s two major cities will be essential.
• Providing a competitive inter-urban rail product in terms of journey time, frequency, arrival times and quality between the Central Belt and Inverness, Aberdeen and other major cites and towns (particularly Perth and Dundee) to support the important economic role of the City Regions and to provide better links to the Central Belt.
• Enabling more sustainable commuting into regional centres where volumes and densities are sufficiently high.
• Enabling continued cross-border travel between Scotland and England (particularly the north) for journey lengths and purposes where rail is competitive compared to other modes on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) and West Coast Main Line (WCML) for journeys. The WCML upgrade will improve the competitive position of rail for longer journeys to the Midlands and London, given the line speed improvements.
• Linking Scotland to its major airports.
• Linking Scotland to its major ports and conveying high volumes and regular flows of freight. The rail connections to Hunterston are especially important and may become more so in the future should the container port proposal be implemented.
• Enabling continued travel from rural areas into regional centres where railways and stations presently exist, especially the network of rural routes serving Inverness from the Far North, the West Highlands and South West Scotland.

To achieve this requires best use of rail on the trunk journey, continuing to focus investment on flows with overall high volumes and densities, and integration with other modes and with spatial and economic strategies. Generally, rail should avoid focussing on lower volume flows and densities where it is less efficient and effective compared to other modes.

3 Option Generation and Assessment

3.1 Identification of Issues

Issues that could affect the delivery of the identified key objectives for rail were identified from earlier work during the study, as well as discussions with the SE, rail industry bodies, train operating companies, freight operating companies and other key stakeholders. The identification of issues was informed by: our analysis of the railway and wider transport network, the planning review and outputs from forecasting undertaken during Part 1.

Our analysis of the rail network evaluated the capability and capacity of the railway, including the present Capacity Utilisation Index, track layouts, signalling capability, platform lengths and numbers, passenger train frequencies, freight requirements, levels of on-train crowding, route performance and known pinchpoints (informed by Network Rail’s Central Scotland Capacity Review and the annual Business Plan). This analysis identified the capacity issues affecting each route and considered the implications of the seven committed rail schemes for each of them.

In the Part 1 Report, load factors were estimated for the current year for services radiating from Central Glasgow and Central Edinburgh. For each route, the modelled relationship between passenger volumes and capacity was compared against the observed values. Underlying travel growth, housing and employment forecasts from the Planning Review, airport growth and modal transfer from car to rail were combined to produce growth rate forecasts. Forecast load factors were produced for 2011 (to provide a new Do Minimum scenario inclusive of the Scottish Minister’s committed rail schemes), 2016 and 2026 to identify those routes with the highest growth rates and potential for congestion. We identified the issues causing congestion which together with the SRA’s analysis of the freight market we identified where additional capacity may be required in the future.

We used the results of our Planning Review and the SRA’s analysis of the freight market to identify where current passenger and freight service levels may not be adequate to support future plan led changes. Again, our analysis of the rail network was used to identify the barriers to improving service provision.

3.2 Generation of Long List of Interventions

A long list of potential interventions was generated to address the main issues identified; each intervention was chosen because it could potentially overcome one or more issues.

Potential Intervention Generation Means

• Optioneering analysis by the Arup team to identify potential solutions based on our experience of rail strategy and planning in Scotland and elsewhere;
• Discussions with Network Rail and solutions presented in their Central Scotland Capacity Review;
• Consultation with First ScotRail; and
• Existing identified potential schemes and other aspirations of local authorities and regional stakeholders (Appendix B of our Part 1 Report).

SRA Guidance issued in draft in July 2004 proposed a structure to identify interventions within Planning Assessment covering eight generic types of intervention. These were:

• connectivity and market access;
• journey times;
• capacity — trains;
• capacity — infrastructure;
• usage of whole route;
• usage of stations;
• freight capacity providing additional paths; and
• freight capability (gauge).

From these generic interventions, we grouped interventions into a long list covering:

• better use of capacity through service planning;
• changes to rolling stock;
• changes to the physical network; and
• interventions in other modes (or schemes not affecting railway operations).

The level of available detail for different interventions varied significantly. Where there was little or no information publicly available to appraise a particular scheme, we applied prudent estimates (including appropriate levels of optimism bias for schemes at a very early stage of development) of the likely impact, benchmarked against similar interventions.

3.3 Completion of Interventions Shortlisting

A qualitative approach was used to develop a shortlist of interventions. Each of the interventions in the long list was assessed based on the following questions.

• Does the intervention threaten delivery of specific key objectives for rail in Scotland?
• Is the intervention deliverable from an operational and technical viewpoint?
• Is there likely to be a robust business case (assessed from a qualitative viewpoint)?
• What would be the magnitude of the intervention’s capital costs?
• Is the intervention a unique solution to the issue(s) that it was selected to address?

The sifting (or initial appraisal) of the long list of interventions is presented in Appendix A of the Part 2 Technical Report. In preparing the shortlist, some of the interventions were packaged to make subsequent assessment manageable and to reflect the fact that they were the same type of intervention.

3.4 Assessment of Interventions

The SRA approach to assessing interventions uses an Appraisal Summary Table (AST) closely based on the Part 1 AST in the Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) incorporating:

• a description including promoter, background information on its context and the source of the intervention;
• indicative financial impact (critical for assignment to a funding scenario);
• the planning objectives that the scheme would support;
• an appraisal of implementability from technical, operational, financial and public response perspectives; and
• predominantly qualitative appraisal against the five objectives for transport set by Scottish Ministers in Scotland’s Transport Future.

An AST was completed for each shortlisted intervention to assess its value for money, deliverability and affordability:

• Value for money was assessed by comparing the results of the appraisal of the intervention against the Scottish Minister’s five objectives for transport with the indicative financial impact (particularly costs to the public sector).
• Deliverability was assessed using the results of the implementability appraisal. This was important for determining a realistic timescale for implementing an intervention, as well as ensuring there were not likely to be insurmountable difficulties in delivery, especially for interventions requiring significant infrastructure or rolling stock.
• Affordability was assessed in order to assign interventions to the two different funding scenarios, as we discuss further below.

The full results of the assessment of interventions can be found in the ASTs presented in the Part 2 Technical Report.

3.5 Packaging Interventions into Scenarios

A key outcome of earlier SRA-led Planning Assessments is the identification of a framework of interventions prioritised according to their value for money and ease of delivery. The framework used took account of the funding / resource constraints surrounding the railway. It distinguished between interventions that were affordable and should be prioritised within the current funding regime and other interventions that were not presently affordable but which should be considered should further resources become available. This approach enabled clear explanation of the impact of differing levels of resources / funding availability on the future contribution that rail could make to the delivery of wider policy objectives. Within both funding scenarios, interventions were prioritised according to the results of the assessment of interventions.

Assuming implementation of the committed schemes, two resource scenarios were defined reflecting different levels of resources or funds available to the Scottish railway industry:

• Interventions were allocated to Scenario A if they have:
  • no requirement for annual revenue support / subsidy;
  • no capital costs unless the intervention appears financially viable; i.e. the operating surplus would fund the intervention’s capital cost over a typical appraisal period; and
  • a confirmed (legal agreement) third party funding commitment.

The advantage of this scenario is that it makes it clear what rail could achieve if no further investment was made in major projects after 2010 and the potential contribution that rail could make to wider Scottish objectives.

• Scenario B assumes a greater availability of resource and funding: this could arise from higher government spending, more third party funding or lower rail industry costs.

We used the results from the assessment of interventions and these definitions to allocate interventions to the appropriate resource scenario. We then used the implementability appraisal from each AST and our earlier Drivers of Change analysis to identify when interventions would be required on a route and any events on which they were dependent (such as delivery of plan-led housing development in an area). After discussions with the SE, we prioritised interventions in each resource scenario according to whether they would be required immediately, in the short — medium term (effectively the period up to 2016) or the medium — longer term (the period beyond 2016).

4 Findings and Generic Interventions

During the SPA, it became apparent that there are a number of generic issues on the Scottish rail network that are not spatially or route specific. Most of these issues are current and need action today, or they will threaten realisation of certain of the key policy objectives identified for rail. Only a few of the issues will emerge in the future. The conclusions presented in this chapter provide an important context for the spatially and route specific analysis provided in subsequent chapters.

4.1 Issues Created by the Key Objectives for Rail

There are a number of key objectives which create issues that are generic across much of the Scottish rail network:

• Improving integration between transport services and modes.
• Fostering social inclusion by offering viable and affordable alternatives to the private car.
• Shifting to more sustainable modes of transport.
• Reducing the harmful environmental impacts of travel.
• Supporting plan-led growth and improved integration with land-use planning.
• Supporting roles of Scottish cities as economic hubs.

The SPA analysis showed that the objectives relating to integration, social inclusion and sustainability are too often compromised across the Scottish railway by issues such as limited availability of car parking, poor integration with other modes and the quality of station facilities especially at interchange stations. The capacity and access issues also threaten rail’s ability to support plan-led growth and support the role of the City Regions as the drivers of economic growth. Faced with a lack of capacity passengers are pushed towards the road alternative. As road congestion worsens in the future, this may increasingly threaten the economic performance of the City Regions and the delivery of plan-led growth. Consequently, it is important to resolve issues that prevent access to the railway that do not need significant new investment.

There are a number of areas of plan-led growth that do not have direct access to the railway. The SPA is generally not the appropriate mechanism to evaluate a large number of station proposals. Instead, the SPA needs to provide strategic guidance for handling these proposals in the future. The SE has inherited the SRA’s policy guidance relating to new stations. Much of this is fit for purpose for Scotland: it takes account of operational issues and route capacity, as well as the trade-off between trip generation from new stations and loss of demand due to longer journey times for existing passengers. Nevertheless, a key theme in the identified future role and focus for rail is the provision of competitive inter-urban journey times. Equally important is the need to continue to provide access from rural areas to regional centres. This suggests a different emphasis to future new stations guidance in Scotland on inter-urban routes compared to rural routes. Additional station calls on fast inter-urban services may jeopardise rail’s role in providing fast connections between cities because stops slow down services and tie up line capacity unless they serve a development of sufficient density to generate the volumes to justify an additional stop. In comparison, on rural routes, one or two new stations may actually contribute to the viability of the route and provide important social inclusion benefits to the communities served. The importance of sufficient densities and volumes should not be lost, although the magnitude may be different on each route. The comparative strengths of rail compared to other modes should also be considered where there is a realistic alternative provision of public transport, such as bus or coach.

Other generic issues that could compromise rail’s ability to meet the objectives listed above include rolling stock quality, peak train service capacity and capacity bottlenecks.

4.2 Recommended Interventions

• Strengthening of peak services to ensure maximum achievable capacity is provided. FSR has already implemented some train lengthening: further gaps in maximum capacity should be identified. It is recommended that train lengthening be introduced in parallel with a revision of fares to encourage shoulder peak travel. The intervention will require careful appraisal to trade-off the cost of additional rolling stock against the economic benefits resulting from train lengthening and the contribution of discounting shoulder peak travel to encourage more rail users.
• Improving integration with other modes. In the short term, this is likely to focus on additional car parking, possibly with some complementary development of strategic park and ride sites around the major City Regions and on the edge of the Central Belt motorways. Clear business cases will need to be produced for each investment, but additional car parking is normally one of the most economically efficient and financially viable ways of promoting rail travel. Our analysis showed that it is one of the key barriers to access to the rail network. In a few instances there may be scope for provision of dedicated bus feeders where surrounding population densities are well suited. Other solutions, such as rail taxis, may be more efficient for rural rail heads.
• Improving rolling stock. A rolling stock policy should be developed today to enable future improvements in quality. FSR has delivered many improvements; in the future, more could be done to enhance the inter-urban product. Projects including EARL could allow a cascade of rolling stock which could then be used to enhance on-train quality on other routes. Future replacement of the electric multiple unit fleet in Glasgow when it reaches life expiry creates further opportunities for providing better rolling stock.
• Improved station quality. Station quality is also important and could be guaranteed by defining a minimum set of standards for different categories of stations in Scotland. This could cover passenger information, waiting facilities, ticket retailing, security and information on connecting bus routes. It is recommended that a number of key interchanges be significantly enhanced in terms of information provision and waiting facilities. These would encompass key interchanges on the inter-urban network such as Inverness, Perth and Dundee.
• A revised new stations policy. This would enable the evaluation of new station proposals in a consistent manner that reflected the role of rail on different routes in Scotland. This is being developed by Network Rail on behalf of both DfT and Transport Scotland.
• Small scale, incremental capacity improvements. Small scale infrastructure schemes were identified that could provide capacity and performance benefits. Our experience is that it is possible to identify business cases for small-scale infrastructure schemes that will enhance performance.

4.3 The Consequences of Not Intervening

There are significant consequences of not delivering these interventions. These recommendations are very much the enablers for future interventions. If there is not good integration with car and other modes, this will be a barrier to rail travel. It will also lead to significant motorway and road congestion in the future (remembering that the SPA assumed no road pricing as a basis for analysis). This will threaten rail’s ability to contribute to objectives surrounding sustainability, the environment and integration between modes of transport. If the on-train environment and stations are not welcoming then passengers are likely to choose other modes. Stations that are not perceived as secure will also exclude certain sections of society from rail travel.

5 Geographic Interventions

Each of these interventions would require business case appraisal and may require some amendment to their scope in light of the appraisal results. It would be good practice to compare their net benefits to improvements to the existing routes while developing the outline business case, while being cognisant of the wider economic impacts associated with supporting plan-led growth by developing other rail corridors.

5.1 Edinburgh — Glasgow Routes

5.1.1 Context

The SPA’s analysis assumes the delivery of the seven schemes to which the Scottish Ministers are committed. These include diverting two of the 4tph on the route via Croy and Falkirk High between Edinburgh and Glasgow via EARL to Edinburgh Airport, and the 4tph operating between Edinburgh and Glasgow via Airdrie and Bathgate. These will provide important new links to both Glasgow and Edinburgh to connect areas of future plan-led housing growth around Armadale and in the Livingston area.

The route via Shotts is a critical freight corridor for the transit of imported low-sulphur coal from the west coast Port of Hunterston to English coal-fired power stations via the ECML. There is a lack of an alternative route for Anglo-Scottish rail freight flow due to inadequate existing capacity on the more direct route via the Glasgow South Western route via Kilmarnock and Dumfries to Carlisle and south to Yorkshire via the Settle/Carlisle route.

5.1.2 Issues Created by the Key Objectives for Rail

The Glasgow — Edinburgh routes could contribute to achieving the following key objectives:

• support plan-led growth and regeneration;
• facilitate access to airports (via EARL and GARL);
• facilitate access to ports (Hunterston traffic using the Shotts route);
• improve Glasgow — Edinburgh interaction and connectivity; and
• strengthen the role of Scottish cities as economic and service hubs.

Overcrowding on a small number of peak hour services on the existing route via Croy and Falkirk High is caused by the concentration of peak hour demand. This compromises rail’s ability to support Glasgow and Edinburgh’s important economic roles in the Scottish economy, as well as support plan-led growth along the corridor. This situation would worsen once EARL opens due to traffic growth at Edinburgh Airport and passengers travelling to it.

Capacity constraints also prevent the Shotts and, to a lesser extent, the Carstairs route being developed as alternative Edinburgh to Glasgow routes. The Shotts service patterns have evolved from services stopping at intermediate stations that generate little demand, making end-to-end running times unattractive. This in turn constrains the ability of rail to support plan-led growth; a particular issue in West Lothian for the Shotts route. Use of the Shotts route by Anglo-Scottish coal traffic is a further constraint.

The focus for travel to Edinburgh from Glasgow is Queen Street High Level station with the route via Croy and Falkirk High being successfully improved and marketed. In contrast, services via the Shotts and Carstairs routes use Glasgow Central High Level station, offering the opportunity to provide an attractive direct inter-urban connection to Edinburgh with just one change of train from the routes radiating to the south west of Glasgow

5.1.3 Recommended Interventions to Address Pressing Issues

The Croy and Falkirk High route experiences some overcrowding, but it is also the only route between Edinburgh and Glasgow that offers a car-competitive product, both in terms of frequency and journey time. The crowding difficulties affecting this route are likely to worsen, unless improvements are delivered. It was not possible to make a robust case to increase capacity on the Croy route through either train lengthening or improved frequencies. Alternative solutions were therefore identified.

• Shoulder peak pricing — the Part 1 report identified that several Edinburgh to Glasgow services currently have spare capacity and incentivising some passengers through lower fares to re-time their journey would make better use of existing capacity. The services via Croy generally operate as 6-car units throughout the peak, but the implementation of shoulder peak pricing must be supported by a train service pattern with the maximum (6-car) formations operating.
• Improved communication and marketing of route options for travel between Glasgow and Edinburgh would encourage travellers to use the service closest to their home (such as Airdrie — Bathgate and the other improvements listed below), rather than to park and ride at intermediate stations on the route via Croy and Falkirk High. This could be supported by changes to the fares structure on certain routes to promote travel by routes other than those via Croy to relieve peak-hour crowding.
• Improvements in the frequency of the Cumbernauld — Glasgow route including electrification would reduce the requirement to park and ride from Croy, in response to the enhanced rail service from Cumbernauld. This would relieve the growth of peak hour crowding into Glasgow. In the future the service could be extended towards Falkirk Grahamston if it were justified by plan-led demand growth (it is not clear as yet if a new proposed park and ride station at Allandale would be viable).
• Introduction of 2tph semi-fast service on the Shotts route. The opportunity to establish an attractive inter-urban 2 tph semi-fast service taking about an hour between Glasgow Central and Edinburgh could serve Uddingston (providing important connections to Glasgow suburban services towards Motherwell), Shotts, West Calder, Livingston South and Haymarket. During the peak it could be supplemented by one or more additional stopping services.

5.1.4 Recommended Interventions to Address Emerging Future Issues

Plan-led growth, together with the policy objective of improving the interaction and connectivity between Edinburgh and Glasgow, will create an emerging need for interventions to develop further railway services between the two cities and areas of plan-led housing growth in between them. The Airdrie — Bathgate project will make a significant contribution.

• Upgrade of the capacity of the GSW route for rail-borne coal traffic: Diversion of Anglo-Scottish coal traffic to the GSW will facilitate passenger frequency improvements on the Shotts route and release capacity on other routes such as from Ayr to Glasgow and around Edinburgh to the ECML. Increased coal traffic through Hunterston would bring the need for this intervention forward.
• Introduction of an hourly fast service via Carstairs. Improvements to the Shotts route will increase Edinburgh — Glasgow train service frequencies to 10tph. If it were possible to release further capacity at Glasgow Central then it would be attractive to establish an hourly service via Carstairs. With a similar journey time to the Shotts route of about an hour this will offer 3tph from Glasgow Central catchment, which is a more attractive frequency. This could also provide wider connectivity to the Ayrshire coast from Edinburgh.

5.1.5 The Consequences of Not Intervening

5.2 Other Inter-Urban Routes

5.2.1 Context

For the purposes of the SPA these were defined as the routes from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Aberdeen via Dundee and Inverness via Perth, as well as services between Aberdeen and Inverness. Part of this network is also important for freight: coal will continue to be conveyed from the Port of Hunterston to Longannet coal-fired power station via the reopened Stirling — Alloa — Kincardine route. The trend towards greater use of rail on the logistics trunk flow combined with recent authorisation to clear the loading gauge of route to the north east of Scotland from Mossend for high-cube deep sea containers, indicates a growing use of parts of the inter-urban network by intermodal freight.

5.2.2 Issues Created by the Key Objectives for Rail

With the importance attached to City Regions in current Scottish spatial and economic policy, inter-urban links from the Central Belt to other Scottish towns and cities could contribute to achieving a number of the key objectives for rail:

• Facilitating access to airports; directly via EARL and indirectly via Glasgow and GARL.
• Supporting plan-led growth and regeneration.
• Achieving more sustainable patterns of freight movement (both for coal and intermodal, as well as other emerging traffic such as biomass for electricity generation).
• Achieving a shift to more sustainable transport.
• Promoting tourism.

It is critical that rail contributes to these key objectives and fulfils its important strategic role with regard to linking Scotland’s cities effectively. Both our own analysis and discussion with stakeholders, such as the Scottish CBI, identified that the inter-urban product on these routes is not always car competitive in terms of journey time, frequency, morning arrival times and on-board quality. This will constrain the ability of rail to cater for forecast demand growth identified during the SPA, despite improvements already achieved by First Scotrail.

Role confusion was also identified as an issue on these services. It arose from the dichotomy of providing a fast inter-urban service between the Central Belt and other Scottish cities and continuing to serve local stations on these routes. This was seen as a critical barrier to rail contributing to providing adequate transport connections between the City Regions to support their critical economic role in the country.

Some other important issues were also identified:

• Poor service frequencies and slow journey times between Perth and Edinburgh.
• Poor interchange to the Far North and Kyle routes at Inverness due to the poor service frequencies to the Highland capital from the Central Belt increasing peripherality.
• Future growth in demand for local travel stimulated by plan-led housing growth around Inverness, Aberdeen and Dundee as well as between Aberdeen and Inverness.
• Capacity issues caused by an increasing future demand for the movement of freight caused by growth in intermodal traffic to the north east of Scotland.

5.2.3 Recommended Interventions to Address Pressing Issues

The most pressing issue, given the policy emphasis to facilitate the economic success in the City Regions, is to resolve the role conflict on the inter-urban network between providing fast, inter-urban journey times and serving smaller, intermediate stations. This would achieve a more car-competitive rail product in terms of journey time, frequency, morning arrival times and on-board quality. Two of the committed schemes for rail (the upgrade of Edinburgh Waverley station and the diversion of Longannet coal traffic from the Forth Bridge) will release two additional hourly train paths into Edinburgh from Fife via the Forth Bridge. This is an important enabler for improving inter-urban rail services.

• Improving the inter-urban product to Aberdeen and Inverness would represent a recast of existing inter-urban services to provide accelerated hourly services operated by high quality rolling stock. This is a critical component of the improvement since business travellers are more likely to use the train if they can work on it which requires communication and power supply facilities for laptops and other mobile equipment. Delivery would also require investment to remove infrastructure constraints and increase line speed in certain areas.
• Revised stopping patterns on Aberdeen — Glasgow / Edinburgh services would mean that services to Edinburgh would only call at the principal stations north of Dundee with a skip stopping pattern serving intermediate locations. Edinburgh services would run fast south of Dundee outside the peak period, whilst Glasgow services would call at Perth and Stirling. One of the additional hourly paths into Edinburgh could be used to introduce a new hourly Dundee to Edinburgh semi-fast service: Dundee would therefore become an important interchange on the network, so improvements in its station facilities would be required.
• Introduction of an hourly skip stop service between Perth and Inverness would improve the competitiveness of the rail service versus the A9, and have the added benefit of reducing interchange time to rural services to the north of Inverness. This would use the second additional hourly path into Edinburgh.
• Responding to increasing demand for travel into Dundee city centre by improving bus services on the Carnoustie — Dundee corridor. Our analysis indicated that a new Perth - Dundee — Arbroath stopping service is unlikely to be either affordable or competitive with the parallel bus corridor which better serves existing residential locations. Good interchange in terms of information and timing between bus and rail would be required at Dundee and Carnoustie.

5.2.4 Recommended Interventions to Address Emerging Future Issues

• Improvements to service frequencies between Aberdeen and Inverness. The introduction of an hourly service between Aberdeen and Inverness would improve access to each city from the intermediate towns on the route which are identified for future plan-led housing growth.
• Introduction of a cross-Aberdeen service between existing stations. Extending services south of Aberdeen to Stonehaven from Inverness and extending Central Belt inter-urban services to Inverurie would provide a 2tph cross-Aberdeen service.
• Introduction of a further additional hourly commuter service from Perth to Edinburgh. The introduction of this intervention would be dependent on plan-led housing growth in Perth and Fife encouraging more commuting to Edinburgh and would complement the introduction of an hourly service from Inverness to the Central Belt.

5.2.5 The Consequences of Not Intervening

5.3 Anglo-Scottish Routes

5.3.1 Context

Hourly passenger services from Edinburgh to London on the ECML are provided by GNER, with some services extended northwards to Aberdeen and Inverness: there are additional peak services and hourly Virgin Cross Country services to the North of England and onwards via the Midlands southwards.

The majority of rolling stock is new or refurbished; new Pendolino rolling stock has been introduced on WCML services from Glasgow to London operated by Virgin West Coast, with GNER has recently refurbishing its electric train fleets. These are supplemented by hourly Virgin Cross Country services operating on the WCML via Carstairs. The WCML from Edinburgh is an important freight route since it can accommodate high-cube, deep sea containers.

5.3.2 Issues Created by the Key Objectives for Rail

These routes have an important role in strengthening cross-border transport links as well as:

• achieving more sustainable patterns of freight movement;
• facilitating access to ports;
• encouraging a shift to more sustainable travel patterns; and
• reducing the harmful impact of travel.

These routes also have a role in enabling travel from the rural areas of southern Scotland into regional centres. There is pressure from local communities for more stations and local services on both the lines. Rail’s competitiveness for Anglo-Scottish travel declines with distance southwards from Scotland due to the relative journey times of rail and air. Thus, any aspirations for local stations are likely to require separate local services. There are few opportunities for developing additional local stations because of the present mix of services on the WCML and ECML. With no commitment to reducing journey times on the ECML, this will continue to leave Edinburgh-London journey times by rail relatively uncompetitive to air.

Poor passenger service frequency and timing of services on the GSW leads to long interchange times at Carlisle, which discourages passengers. In contrast there is an opportunity for local passenger service enhancement on the ECML after the closure of Cockenzie power station. Dunbar and Lockerbie stations have a key role as gateways.

5.3.3 Recommended Interventions to Address Pressing Issues

The most pressing issue on the Anglo-Scottish routes is increasing capacity to enable the GSW to convey more coal traffic. Also important is the need to improve services to rail head stations on the ECML and WCML:

• Capacity enhancements on the GSW could unlock capacity for freight and should be combined with a revision of the timetable to deliver a regular two-hourly passenger service between Carlisle and Glasgow Central via Kilmarnock.

5.3.4 Recommended Interventions to Address Emerging Future Issues

Upgrading the WCML will deliver a journey time from Glasgow to London that will be close to being air competitive. Journey time improvements for the ECML could also improve the competitiveness of rail versus air.

5.3.5 The Consequences of Not Intervening

5.4 Edinburgh Suburban Network

5.4.1 Context

The network of local services around Edinburgh has grown in recent years in response to the success of the city’s economy and housing growth in the surrounding area. The Edinburgh suburban network includes the routes to North Berwick, Fife, Stirling / Dunblane, Bathgate and Newcraighall. This network will benefit from four of the committed schemes: the Waverley railway line to Tweedbank serving the central Borders; the extension to Glasgow and increase in frequency of Bathgate services, the additional capacity arising from Edinburgh Waverley enhancement and the diversion of Longannet coal traffic from the Forth Bridge to the Stirling — Alloa — Kincardine route.

5.4.2 Issues Created by the Key Objectives for Rail

Edinburgh’s suburban network could support plan-led growth in Edinburgh, Fife, the Lothians and the Borders (essential for connecting the successful Edinburgh economy to a wide catchment of potential employees) thereby strengthening the role of Edinburgh as an economic and service hub, as well as a tourist centre. Other objectives include:

• facilitating access to Edinburgh Airport using EARL;
• fostering social inclusion through viable and affordable alternatives to the private car; and
• improving integration between rail and other transport modes.

Our analysis indicated that there would be some issues that rail will need to overcome if it was to contribute to fulfilling the identified objectives. The most important of these is an emerging crowding problem on peak services from Fife. Demand forecasts suggest that crowding will also emerge on the Bathgate route as a result of the frequency improvements arising from the extension to Airdrie and Glasgow: this is also likely to be an issue on the Waverley route.

Significant areas of plan-led housing growth in Fife and Clackmannanshire lack a direct rail connection. Furthermore, there are presently constraints to improving weekday service frequencies to North Berwick to serve plan-led housing growth: these will largely be removed after closure of the Cockenzie power station and the cessation of coal trains.

The movement of freight across Edinburgh, particularly coal traffic to England from the Port of Hunterston and Scottish opencast mines, creates further capacity and performance issues around Edinburgh. Increases to the capacity of the GSW will ease this constraint. There may also be growth in freight traffic to Fife associated with expansion of opencast mining and the possible location of a biomass power generation plant in the area.

5.4.3 Recommended Interventions to Address Pressing Issues

The committed schemes will collectively deliver significant benefits and our proposed interventions seek to address gaps between those schemes. The most pressing issue for rail around Edinburgh is to support plan-led growth and enable rail to move people into the city centre and airport for employment, business and leisure purposes. Rail has a critical role to play as the local road network becomes more congested. The most important is ensuring that peak trains operate at the maximum possible train length. The strategic interventions identified are assumed to be implemented in parallel with interventions on the inter-urban network to Aberdeen and Inverness.

• Restructuring of the timetable through Fife to create more capacity. The new hourly Dundee — Edinburgh semi-fast service will provide additional capacity to the principal Fife stations with its separation from the Aberdeen inter-urban service. It is recommended that local services to Fife be restructured away from the present circular train service. This could deliver an improvement to timetable reliability.

• Operating one additional service to the east of Edinburgh after closure of Cockenzie power station. The closure of Cockenzie will free an hourly train path to the east of Edinburgh. This train path could be used to increase frequencies to North Berwick to 2tph (as are operated at the weekend at present), or alternatively, the introduction of a local service to Dunbar. Additional line capacity may be required depending on the level of other freight traffic using this part of the ECML at the time of implementation. The comparison of services between Dunbar and North Berwick should form part of the business case development to deploy this capacity.

5.4.4 Recommended Interventions to Address Emerging Future Issues

Continuing plan-led growth around Edinburgh will necessitate the examination of further rail improvements to provide more capacity and ensure areas of housing development have adequate rail access to Edinburgh city centre: These are medium to long term interventions.

• Provision of an additional hourly commuter service from Perth to Edinburgh would provide additional commuting capacity from the principal stations in Fife into Edinburgh, and should consider using services operating with the maximum train length.

There are also emerging issues associated with freight on this part of the network, which may require intervention in the future. Freight growth is likely to materialise from the development of opencast mining in Fife where there are still significant coal reserves available, increased inter-modal traffic to the north east of Scotland and the possible development of a biomass generation plant in Fife. Intervention would be required to ensure the proposals for passenger services described above are compatible with freight growth and that key capacity bottlenecks are removed.

5.4.5 The Consequences of Not Intervening

5.5 Glasgow Suburban Network

5.5.1 Context

Some two thirds of rail journeys in Scotland are made on this part of the network.

The South West routes radiate from Glasgow Central High Level station and serve Ayrshire and Inverclyde as well as Prestwick airport and the Ayrshire coast branches to Largs (including the branch to Hunterston) and Ardrossan via Saltcoats. The route to Kilmarnock is the northern end of the GSW and includes the branch to East Kilbride and the link across from Kilmarnock to Ayr and Troon. The Inverclyde routes serve Gourock and Wemyss Bay via Port Glasgow.

The North routes serve the north west (Milngavie, Dalmuir, Helensburgh and Balloch) from both Central and Queen Street Low Level stations, the routes east from Glasgow Queen Street Low Level to Springburn, Airdrie, Bathgate and Edinburgh (from 2010) and the diesel routes north from Queen Street High Level to Maryhill, Cumbernauld and Stirling.

The South East routes radiate from Glasgow Central High and Low Level stations. These cover the routes from the High Level station around the Cathcart Circle and to Whifflet and from the Low Level Station to Motherwell, Lanark, Hamilton and Larkhall.

5.5.2 Issues Created by the Key Objectives for Rail

The Glasgow suburban network supports plan-led growth and regeneration in Glasgow, the Clyde Valley and Ayrshire. It also helps strengthen the role of Glasgow as an economic and service hub and tourist centre. The suburban network also facilitates access to airports (Glasgow International via GARL and Prestwick via Ayr services) and ports (principally Hunterston). Other relevant key objectives for rail include:

• fostering social inclusion by offering viable and affordable alternatives to the private car;
• improving integration between rail and other transport modes; and
• achieving more sustainable patterns of freight movement.

The most important issue facing the network is the crowding pressures on the South West routes. GARL will relieve crowding from Paisley Gilmour Street to Glasgow Central. However, planned housing growth combined with planned air passenger growth at Prestwick Airport will increase crowding pressures on the South West routes overall. Suburban shift out of Glasgow to areas of plan-led housing development such as Stewarton, Kilmarnock, Helensburgh and Balloch will increase the demand for commuting and leisure travel into Central Glasgow. Plan-led housing growth will place similar pressures on the corridor north to Stirling, where there are capacity constraints on increasing frequencies into Glasgow Queen Street High Level station. The redevelopment of Ravenscraig will place particular pressure on the South East routes into Glasgow Central Low Level station.

The development of Port of Hunterston as a container port will place further demands on the network, as will further opencast mines in Ayrshire and the possible biomass generation plant in South Ayrshire. The intervention to enhance GSW capacity discussed earlier will help alleviate some of this pressure by providing an alternative route for Anglo-Scottish coal traffic. The expected growth in intermodal traffic will place pressures on Mossend and Coatbridge terminals.

Most routes in Glasgow have a frequency of 4tph, which effectively provides a "turn up and go" service for passengers. However, there is poor cross-Glasgow interchange between Queen Street and Central stations in Central Glasgow. There is a risk of performance worsening due to the increasing number of trains passing through a number of known constraints on the Central Glasgow rail network. This reduces the availability of capacity to enable recovery from initial cause of delay and may increase the risk of further reactionary delay to the original incident.

5.5.3 Recommended Interventions to Address Pressing Issues

The most pressing issues on the Glasgow suburban network relate to crowding, which arises from the inadequacies in the railway’s service pattern, capacity and infrastructure that constrain its ability to respond to plan-led housing growth in the commuter catchment and the growth of the Central Glasgow economy as it diversifies to be more service-sector based economy.

During our analysis, we did examine other options for dealing with crowding that we are not recommending:

• Operate fewer but longer trains across the network. This would reduce the availability of services for those not owning a car and could therefore jeopardise the important social inclusion objective set for rail.
• Use fleet replacement to deploy higher density rolling stock on inner sub-services. However, present rolling stock diagramming leads to units working both inner and outer suburban services in a typical day and such rolling stock would not be suitable for the longer distance services. There may be an opportunity to use fleet replacement to allow 4-car trains to be introduced on the Ayr route to support plan led housing growth, and the expansion of Prestwick Airport.
• Making best use of capacity on the Ayr route to operate an additional hourly service. Plan-led housing growth and the expansion of Prestwick Airport make this the most pressing intervention in Glasgow. It is relatively straightforward to implement as it only requires timetable restructuring rather than additional infrastructure. Station improvements at Prestwick would complement this frequency increase (the airport has about 30% use of rail by air passengers). When fleet replacement is due consideration should be given to replacing 3-car electric multiple units with 4-car sets to further increase capacity to the Ayrshire coast. The need for this would be dependent on the delivery of additional housing and growth in air passenger throughput at Prestwick.
• Increased service frequencies to Kilmarnock. To support plan-led housing growth it is essential to increase frequencies to Kilmarnock on the route via Barrhead from the current hourly. This is another important priority in Glasgow after improvements to the Ayrshire coast services. Increasing capacity between Kilmarnock and Barrhead would allow 2tph per hour to operate all day from Glasgow. Platform capacity would need to be released at Glasgow Central High Level. Discussions with NR and other stakeholders suggested the best solution to achieve this would be to electrify and divert Whifflet services from the High to Low Level station.

The improved service to Kilmarnock would also benefit both the rural route to Girvan and Stranraer and passenger services to Carlisle. One of the hourly services would be extended via Kilmarnock and Troon to Girvan, which is another location of plan-led housing development in Ayrshire and would be the interchange for a bus connection to the relocated Stena ferry port at Cairnryan. Services extended south to Stranraer could be retimed to suit market demand, and would simplify the timetable for services to Girvan / Stranraer. Timetabled connections at Kilmarnock station, along with improvements to the station facilities, would encourage interchange to the 2-hourly service southwards to Carlisle on the GSW route.

• Train lengthening to Stirling. Extending the platforms at Bishopbriggs would allow 6-car trains to operate on the route to Stirling. The additional capacity would support plan-led growth on this corridor, and could support plan-led growth on this corridor. The eventual cessation of Hunterston — Longannet coal traffic may provide a further opportunity to improve timetable robustness and potentially increase frequencies should further capacity be required.
• Improvements to the Cumbernauld service. The 2tph service to Cumbernauld leads some passengers to use Croy and the more frequent inter-urban service to Glasgow. It would be possible to electrify and divert these services to Queen Street Low Level station; having the benefit of enabling improvements to other services using Queen Street; principally to Stirling. This would require a chord at Garngad and removal of the single-lead junction at Bellgrove. Diversion would enable frequencies to be increased to 4tph with the services turning back using a turnback facility near Charing Cross station.

Another option could be to connect the Cumbernauld services to the Helensburgh / Balloch services limiting performance risk. The benefit from improving Cumbernauld services would be to relieve crowding on Edinburgh — Glasgow services from Croy, improve access to the city centre from the Cumbernauld corridor and free capacity at the High Level station for additional services on other routes or to improve train service performance. Consideration could be given to extending these services north of Cumbernauld in the future to a possible park and ride site at Allandale.

• Diversion of Whifflet services from Glasgow Central High Level. This is important to release capacity at Glasgow Central High Level for the improvements to Kilmarnock services and to the Shotts route. There is sufficient capacity for these services to reach the Low Level station but would need to turn back to the west of the station either at Exhibition Centre or Anderston. The intervention would also improve access to Central Glasgow from the Whifflet corridor and would enable electric haulage of trains from the Port of Hunterston to Coatbridge Freightliner terminal.

5.5.4 Recommended Interventions to Address Emerging Future Issues

Emerging future issues on the Glasgow suburban network centre on continuing to cope with demand growth arising from plan-led growth and freight growth. The construction of a new housing and employment development on Ravenscraig is also an issue, but prioritisation of interventions to accommodate its implications for rail will depend on the timing of its implementation.

• Further capacity and frequency improvements on the route to the Ayrshire coast. Assuming plan-led housing development continues to be delivered and Prestwick airport passenger numbers grow as planned there may be need for some further additional capacity on the route to the Ayrshire coast (even with replacement of 3-car electric multiple units with 4-car sets) A further hourly service to Ayr (2tph extra compared with the current timetable) would require some additional infrastructure and improved signalling headways between Paisley and Kilwinning. The extra capacity required depends on the level of future imported coal traffic destined for using this route from the Port of Hunterston and the plans to build a container terminal.
• Serving the new Ravenscraig development. There are a number of options for a new station to serve this settlement: the most likely site is on the route to Wishaw but this is only served by 1tph which would be insufficient for rail to contribute to the settlement’s transport needs. However, this could be increased to 3tph if the 2tph to Whifflet from Glasgow were extended to Wishaw via the new station site. Effective deployment of rolling stock could be used to strengthen the busiest trains. It may be possible to divert them to Glasgow Central Low Level and onto Exhibition Centre or Anderston giving excellent access to the city centre from the new settlement.
• Conversion of south Glasgow suburban lines to light rail. The implementation could offer a cost effective solution to improve service quality and frequency, given the various capacity constraints affecting the routes. This intervention could also allow trains to be diverted from Glasgow Central High Level, and the spare platform capacity could be used to accommodate other service improvements.
• Provision of additional capacity at Mossend and Coatbridge. The level of growth of Anglo-Scottish and Channel Tunnel intermodal traffic may necessitate additional capacity at the reception sidings at Mossend terminal and within Coatbridge terminal.

5.5.5 The Consequences of Not Intervening

5.6 Rural Routes

5.6.1 Background

There are two groups of rural routes in Scotland:

• The rural routes in the Highlands comprising the West Highland line from Glasgow Queen Street to Oban and Fort William / Mallaig and the routes north of Inverness to the Far North (Wick and Thurso) and the Kyle of Lochalsh; and
• the route south of Ayr to Stranraer via Girvan.

Train frequencies are low on all of these routes, with only three trains per day on the routes in the Highlands and a few more to Stranraer in its current role as a ferry terminal for services to Ireland. On all of the routes, end to end journey times are slow compared to car. Whilst the routes are reliant on subsidy, innovative ideas developed by the Highlands Rail Partnership have identified new passenger markets to grow revenue.

5.6.2 Issues Created by the Key Objectives for Rail

The main objective for the rural railway in Scotland where it has survived is to foster social inclusion by offering viable and affordable alternatives to the private car. In the Highlands, a relatively high percentage of rail users do not have access to a car and thus the railway is a vital lifeline to facilitate social inclusion of this section of the rural community. The rural railway fulfils another key objective which is to strengthen economies and service provision in rural areas by providing a means of access to regional centres such as Inverness, Ayr and Fort William. These objectives will not change in the future.

In addition the rural railway has an important contribution to the Scottish economy by promoting tourism. Some routes, such as to Kyle of Lochalsh and from Fort William to Mallaig are tourist attractions in their own right and connect to ferry services to the Scottish Islands, and the route to Stranraer provides an important connection to Stena ferry services to Northern Ireland. The rural railway also supports the role of cities such as Inverness and Glasgow as economic and service hubs, as well as being tourist centres.

The main issue on the rural railway is the competitiveness of journey times; the Far North line is simply 30% longer in distance from Inverness to Wick than the equivalent road distance. Furthermore, train departure and arrival times are not always attractive although the Highland Rail Partnership has promoted some changes and there are now commuter services from Lairg into Inverness and Arrochar and Tarbet into Glasgow each morning. Long single track sections make running additional services challenging. The cost of the rural railway is driven heavily by the resource base. Services tend to be targeted on core markets making it difficult to afford marginal services that may offer benefits.

More positively, there are some areas of plan-led growth adjacent to the rural railway. The success of Inverness is leading to plan-led housing and industrial development north of the city along the Cromarty Firth. The new Invernet services introduced in December 2005 are a response to this development. There is also plan-led housing growth around Girvan and Stranraer, which increases the importance of addressing the poor rail journey times from these locations to Ayr and Glasgow.

In south west Scotland, the relocation of Stena ferry operations from Stranraer to Cairnryan provides an opportunity to recast the timetable to Stranraer. It is presently driven by the ferry timetable and does not always meet the requirements of local passengers. When combined with the new town centre station in Stranraer with its bus interchange this should increase the catchment and attractiveness of rail on this corridor.

A bus shuttle will operate from Cairnryan to Girvan to connect with train services. The proposed hourly service described in the last chapter should provide a good connection for this service as well as providing a more regular interval service pattern for passengers seeking to travel to Prestwick Airport from this part of Scotland.

5.6.3 Recommended Interventions to Address Pressing Issues

There are few issues requiring immediate intervention on the rural railway, particularly since the recent expansion of the Invernet services around Inverness. Further small scale incremental changes (such as those introduced by the Highlands Rail Partnership) seem to be the most effective strategy for developing the market for rail services.

This model could be transferred to the Stranraer route now that the timetable is soon to be freed from the constraints of the Stena ferry timetable. On both routes there may be opportunities to reduce costs by applying lessons learnt from Community Rail in England and Wales. The scope for potential savings in maintenance costs should be balanced with the requirement for freight access. This is a particular issue south of Girvan on the route to Stranraer due to the expansion of opencast mining and the possible development of biomass power generation in South Ayrshire.

On certain parts of the Highlands network there may be scope to introduce coach services as part of the rail franchise. This provides a lower cost solution to improving frequencies than additional trains and can be targeted to serve part or all of a route. Such coaches could be operated to complement rail departure times and could be branded as part of the franchise: tickets would be valid on both bus and coach.

5.6.4 Recommended Interventions to Address Emerging Future Issues

The most likely area for growth is around Inverness, especially along the Cromarty Firth where plan-led growth is focussed, but beyond this it is unclear where growth will place pressure on the rural railway. The level of development and its proximity to the railway will drive the need to review rail frequencies. The "Room for Growth" study is examining opportunities for medium to longer term enhancement and the potential drivers of changes that would necessitate capacity expansion should identify small-scale timetable change or capacity enhancements that would deliver real benefits for the rural railway in the Highlands.

5.6.5 The Consequences of Not Intervening

6 Conclusions and Next Steps

There have been significant changes in the Scottish rail sector. Scottish Ministers have now committed to the delivery of seven rail projects, one of which was opened at the end of 2005. In parallel, First ScotRail has delivered improvements that have enhanced the performance and quality of railway services, delivering more capacity on certain routes, while rail freight has continued to expand.

Furthermore, Scotland’s spatial and economic policy has been updated and important priorities have been set for transport. An important role has been set for rail in supporting the development of Scotland’s City Regions, facilitating plan-led growth and regeneration, and contributing to an inclusive, sustainable transport system.

Scottish Ministers intend to use their new powers under the Railways Act 2005 to produce a rail strategy for Scotland, this SPA provides part of the evidence base for that strategy.

6.1 The Strategic Implications of Policy

Rail’s is naturally strong and most efficient and effective when it focuses on high volume flows of passengers and freight, and routes with high densities of population or employment along them. This is because of rail’s fixed and costly asset base.

By focussing on volume and density, rail’s role and strategic focus can be best defined. Otherwise there is a danger that rail tries to do everything and dilutes its effectiveness. This is important if best use is to be made of the Scottish rail network. If there is insufficient capacity to cater for all demands on a stretch of railway, choices will need to be made to prioritise rail’s future role and strategic focus. The implication of policy, when combined with rail’s natural strength in carrying high volumes and supporting high densities, is that rail’s future optimum role and strategic focus should be as follows:

6.2 Pressing Issues and Interventions

A number of pressing issues were identified in the last ten chapters that need to be addressed by early intervention. The resulting list of interventions are summarised below and should be the priority for development into implementable projects or timetable changes: each requires further development to fully evaluate their contribution to the overall transport objectives

• A set of generic interventions to:
  • address peak overcrowding in the short term by ensuring maximum train lengths are operated in the peak, on the busiest services and fares encourage shoulder peak travel;
  • improve integration with other modes through enhanced car parking and better interchange to other modes such as bus;
  • improve the on-train environment when rolling stock refurbishment or replacement creates an opportunity;
  • improve station quality by defining minimum standards for all stations and enhancing key interchange stations;
  • revise new stations policy to provide clear guidance to promoters and evaluators of new stations and which recognises the strategic role and focus for rail on different types of services and routes; and
  • deliver small-scale, improvements to deliver capacity and performance benefits and to unlock known bottlenecks on the network.
• A set of specific interventions, of which the most important are:

6.3 Longer Term Emerging Issues and Interventions

Another set of issues were identified which are likely to emerge in the future or are dependent on growth have some degree of uncertainty, an event of which there is still some uncertainty. These issues need to be logged and built into rail strategy, but do not require immediate scheme development.

6.4 Recognition of Longer Term Emerging Issues Within the Rail Strategy for Scotland

The Rail Strategy for Scotland will be based on a number of sources of evidence including the SPA, the NR RUS and the written consultation exercise on the Rail Strategy. It is hoped the conclusions presented in this report and the evidence in its associated Part 2 Technical Analysis Report, as well as our earlier Part 1 Report will be useful for the development of the Strategy. It is important that the strategy focuses on the role of rail in Scotland and that the links are clearly shown from taking action to address the most pressing issues to recognising the emerging issues in the future and their relative importance.