Railfuture member Phil Smart (pictured) considers why Network Rail’s ‘Improving Connectivity’ consultation document (front cover shown above) based on the Taktfarhplan used in Switzerland failed to attract the support it deserved.
The concept of standard pattern timetabling is known as a 'Taktfahrplan' in Switzerland. It has been promoted in Britain by timetabling expert Jonathan Tyler, who runs the Passenger Transport Networks consultancy and has spoken at Railfuture conferences on several occasions.
In late 2014 Network Rail published a draft document called ‘Improving Connectivity’ (IC), which set out the key principles of a long-term proposal to deliver substantially improved rail connectivity across Britain. Network Rail’s introduction said ‘”Achieving this requires a different approach to planning both the network capability and the train services which operate on it...challenges and trade-offs which would need to be made.” Almost a year later the proposal seems to be ‘sitting in a siding’.
Railfuture East Anglia member Phil Smart, who is a councillor and Portfolio Holder for Environment & Transport, suggests four key reasons why Network Rail’s document received a hostile reception among some, and to what extent Network Rail (NR) mishandled the whole consultation.
Firstly, he says, the document was itself a victim of poor pathing, coinciding as it did with the release of the Department for Transport (DfT) Rail executive ‘East Anglia Rail Franchise Consultation’. What did not help was that ‘IC’ contained a foreword by the DfT Rail Executive Managing Director suggesting that IC would be ‘brought to life’ as part of the forthcoming EA franchise. It was perhaps inevitable that its weaknesses attracted more attention than its strengths.
Secondly, IC did not follow the pattern of previous consultations with little prior notification given to stakeholders. This was in contrast to (another!) consultation by Network Rail on its ‘Anglia Route Study’ the previous month (Nov ’14). It was also apparent that the authors of IC were not a dedicated project team within NR, but members of its staff working in their spare time. It was perhaps not surprising that stakeholders became focussed on inconsistencies between the two.
Thirdly, whatever its merits it seemed to many that IC should have adopted a 4th and overriding principle. Having identified ‘major hubs’ in the East Anglia network it should have developed a service pattern between them that did not then require a change of trains en route. The prime example was Ipswich to Peterborough (for ECML) which relied on changing at Newmarket, an inconvenience bound to surrender even greater market share to the A14! It also overlooked the potential for additional platforms at Ipswich in favour of connecting at Stowmarket or Manningtree. Operational convenience seemed to carry more weight than passenger experience (or capital cost!).
Fourthly, its obsession with the avoidance of duplication read like a plan for cuts, “How do we do the same with less or more with the same”. It did not sit comfortably with stakeholder ambition for improved services and reduced overcrowding in a fast growing region. Poor though many local connections are, East Anglia’s biggest ‘connectivity’ problem is the lack of through services to other regions unless via London.
On a more welcome note, it did lend legitimacy to the notion of reinstating the west curve at Newmarket, which Railfuture has incorporated when developing its proposals for improved local and inter-regional connectivity, with minimal alterations to the present franchise map.