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| Croydon Tramlink - The Interview | | ||
Croydon Tramlink is the first street-running tramway and light rail system in the Greater London conurbation in the modern era. It is a project which has attracted the highest private sector contribution so far and, with a three line network from day one will provide a very significant improvement to the area's public transport infrastructure. Tramtrack Croydon Limited has been keeping a fairly low profile whilst they've got on with the job of building this major new system - now, with opening only seven months away they've given their first major interview to Bob Tarr, LRTA Secretary General covering all the main aspects of project.
 Bob Dorey |  Peter Hendy |
The Consortium:
RJT: Public-private partnerships which are used in the U.K. these days for new light rail projects seem to be a maze of inter-connected companies so who's who, and who does what, in Tramlink?
Bob Dorey: Well, the concession company is Tramtrack Croydon Limited (TCL) , we've got a 99 year concession awarded by London Transport (LT) under the Private Finance Initiative, and we're owned by six other companies including Amey PLC and Sir Robert McAlpine, who apart from being shareholders, are responsible in joint venture for total system delivery. The third shareholder is Bombardier ProRail and again, apart from being shareholders, they are sub-contractors to Amey and McAlpine for delivery of the trams and they are also sub-contractors to our operators for maintenance of the trams. Which brings us to the fourth shareholder, which is CentreWest Limited, a subsidiary of First Group, and our operator will be Tram Operations Limited, which is a subsidiary of CentreWest. So that's four of the shareholders, and the two other shareholders are Royal Bank of Scotland and 3i PLC and both of those, apart from being shareholders, are lenders to TCL.
Public Relations:
RJT: Some people seem to think that, at the moment, the consortium and its operator and even London Transport and Croydon Council seem to be keeping their heads down, relatively, on the public relations front. Is this so, and if so, is it going to carry on being so, or what?
Bob Dorey: I don't think it is so. London Transport's role in this, apart from having awarded the concession, has been to manage the utilities' diversions. The London Borough of Croydon has actually taken a lead role in publicising what is going on, in managing an information shop in the town centre, which has a wealth of information about the system, in producing leaflets and magazines for school children and a wealth of other information material. To the extent that we get perhaps a couple of critical letters each week in the local press, which is not all that surprising, if they warrant a response that is also undertaken by the London Borough of Croydon. And that was part of the understanding with them, that they were, during this difficult phase for local people, where we are causing some disruption and concern, that the London Borough of Croydon should take the lead role. In terms of routine day-to-day information our contractors are involved in that process all the time, and wherever they are about to do works which will have a direct effect on a particular group of local people then they inform them and so on. We also - Croydon Council, the construction companies and TCL - undertake a whole host of local speaking engagements to explain and describe the project and deal with local issues and local questions, so I don't think it is true to say that in total the project has had that kind of low profile but we did decide as TCL that we weren't going to promote publicly the benefits of Tramlink for three years - that people would get fed up with that - it would all be about jam tomorrow and that there was a right time to start that kind of promotion, and that initially it would be linked to specific things happening that people would see. So that last September when we had the first tram arrive we made a big public show of that with local politicians and others from all four boroughs, pretty good press coverage, even national TV coverage. We made a big issue about it because it was a positive event which people would recognise as a positive event. It's difficult to promote holes in the road, but you can promote positive things.
Peter Hendy: I think that, so far, it's worked well - we have nothing but praise for Croydon Council, who have been supportive and are in a better position to be supportive because they obviously have a role in long term economic development. I think they've done a very good job. We've been very mindful of some of the previous schemes where the building phase hasn't gone so smoothly and, as Bob says, the decision that we wouldn't promise jam tomorrow for three years has been proved to be the right one.
RJT: So, you are now in sight of the opening date, so how does your PR programme go from now on then?
Peter Hendy: We are going to move on a phase this Spring and Summer, for example, towards the start of the Summer the operating company will take on a role alongside the Council in the shop in Croydon as a preliminary to running it as part of the operating system when it opens.
Bob Dorey: As the TCL Board, we are considering early next month the whole promotion and marketing strategy. Some of it will be event related and some of it is dependent upon us having firmer knowledge than we currently have about what fares will be charged and how we fit into the bus network which is being reorganised.
Peter Hendy: There is a broad context issue because London is regulated, it's a well marketed, integrated ticketing network and this is part of it, so it's got to be carefully done and we are very keen to market the fact that Tramlink fits into a network.
Opening:
RJT: Perhaps we can explore that further in a minute, because it is a particularly interesting aspect that, unlike the other light rail systems in the U.K. outside London, you are in an integrated and regulated environment. Am I right in saying the opening date is November?
Bob Dorey: 4th November
RJT: Is that the whole system?
Bob Dorey: That's the planned opening date for the whole system.
RJT: So you're not going to open it in sections?
Bob Dorey: There is a possibility that we'll open part of it in advance of the rest of the system and I think there's no secret that if we are able to do so that part would be the Wimbledon branch.
RJT: One of the things I've said in my editorial column is that you might open before Midland Metro - that's a possibility isn't it?
Bob Dorey: They'd have to get quite a bit later than their recently announced date of 14 June - we won't beat the 14th June! We're not in a race to be first - we shall be very happy to be a success story.
Peter Hendy: That's the issue - On a broader front, all light rail schemes, because they are fairly major, have attracted their share of controversy and what we are concerned to do is to make this a real success so that people have a further example of real success.
Bob Dorey: It can be a success for light rail, it can be a success for the private finance initiative to an extent and there is also the possibility of extensions to the system, but we are concentrating on opening and operating the system satisfactorily because that's the best case for extending it - so we hope it will be a success in those terms as well.
Operating in a Regulated and Integrated environment:
RJT: Can we come back to this question that Tramlink is going to be operating in a regulated and integrated environment - which seems, hopefully, to be advantageous to it. What effect is this going to have on what services you run, their timing and frequency and so on - how much freedom have you got and how much control has London Transport got?
Peter Hendy: The concession which LT has awarded to TCL is in some respects very detailed indeed in terms of its outputs and rightly so because LT has a statutory responsibility to provide a system of public transport in London. The timetable that we are planning to run in some respects exceeds the basic specification and that's a reflection of our ability to tailor what we actually provide in practice to what we believe is the right level of service for the patronage that we expect to see. It may be difficult for people outside London to understand, but in terms of my experience of running buses in London we are already used to a situation in which LT takes a very close interest in the specification of the vehicles, the timetables, the fares to be charged - they tell you the fares to be charged. Tramlink is not quite the same as this in all respects but it is clearly closely specified, we expect to be monitored, both by LT and the operating company expects the concession company to monitor too and none of that's a problem in the environment that we're in.
RJT: Is Tramlink going to be as integrated into the rest of the London Transport services as, say, one of your bus services?
Bob Dorey: I would say yes, because the arrangement is and LT's clear intention is that they will organise bus services which are in general complementary to Tramlink rather than competing with it.
RJT: Does that mean that some bus services will cease?
Bob Dorey: LT has currently published for informal consultation its plans and they include, not many, but some services being curtailed where Tramlink takes over that role and redirecting those bus services to fill another need and also the introduction of specific bus feeder services in certain areas - principally New Addington.
Peter Hendy: Overall there isn't a substantial reduction in bus mileage in Croydon, but it is clearly being redirected, that's an opportunity and they are obliged to do that under the terms of LT's statutory responsibilities.
Ticketing and Feeder services:
RJT: What about ticketing? One of the things I hear is that Travelcard is going to be accepted but it won't be possible to buy a Travelcard on your system - is that right?
Bob Dorey: At the stops the machines can be enhanced to issue Travelcards - they were originally specified not to have encoding mechanisms, but we are currently in discussion with LT about the financing and I hope that by the day we open, or shortly afterwards it will be possible to buy Travelcards at the stops - even without our stops there is a high level of availability because they will, of course, continue to be available at all the many agents for the sale of Travelcards, such as newsagents, where people currently buy them.
Peter Hendy: It's important to understand that even without them being sold at the Tramlink stops this would be no net worsening of the situation because it isn't currently possible to buy Travelcards on buses and nearly all the rail stations which are being replaced by Tramlink were unstaffed and it wasn't possible to buy Travelcards at those rail stations either.
RJT: What about single journeys? I have heard it said that if someone is taking a single journey involving a bus and a tram trip they won't be able to get one ticket which will cover both?
Bob Dorey: On the specific bus feeder services it is likely that they will be able to buy a through ticket but normal bus to tram transfer will require two tickets just as bus-to-bus does now.
Peter Hendy: A lot of the issues are about how the London Transport fares and ticketing system currently works. We have in mind to offer through ticketing to parts of the national rail network, which is not currently available, but bus-to-bus ticketing has never, recently, been available in London and Tramlink will be no different from that, except for the dedicated feeder bus services.
Bob Dorey: What will be significantly better I believe will be that for Tramlink journeys that in the past would have involved more than one bus, passengers will pay a single Tramlink fare.
RJT: So how many of these dedicated feeder services will there be?
Peter Hendy: There are three planned currently.
RJT: Are these going to be shown on the maps etc as an integral part of Tramlink?
Bob Dorey: Yes, we haven't decided yet how we are going to represent them, but we certainly will be showing them as part of the Tramlink system. We, of course, will not be managing those bus services - LT will be - but we shall be wanting to influence the performance of them as much as we can do.
Fares Structure:
RJT: What about the fares structure then? I believe you haven't yet announced it? When will you be doing so?
Bob Dorey: As soon as we have agreement with London Transport as to what it should be - that's not ducking it, we are actually in their hands on this.
RJT: So LT can actually control ..... Bob Dorey: Yes - they determine our fares. RJT: And that puts you in a somewhat different position to the other U.K. light rail schemes? Bob Dorey: Yes, it does. Peter Hendy: You may have seen some speculation that LT might introduce a flat fares scheme for buses outside central London and, of course, were they to do that the relationship with the fares charged for the Tramlink system would have to reflect that. Of course, there has to be a very close relationship, and there is quite a lot to discuss, because Tramlink allows quite long through journeys, which is against the trend of recent bus route revisions which has generally been to shorten bus routes for increased reliability. Now in a flat fare environment we clearly have quite a lot of talking with LT about what the relationship is.
Bob Dorey: The assumption has always been that we would have a fare system that is related to the existing fare zones through which we will operate and the assumption has always been - publicly announced - that Tramlink fares would be at a slight premium compared with bus fares and this, to me has a logic, and everybody involved has seen the logic of that and in most cases people could choose to take a longer journey in time by bus if that premium was important to them.
RJT: That principle seems to be recognised in the other systems... A large percentage of your passengers are going to be Travelcard holders aren't they? Bob Dorey: Or concessionary pass holders. The assumption done from the original analysis 3 or 4 years ago was that 60% would be pass-holders of one kind or another, with non-cash fares - principally Travelcard and what is now called the Freedom Pass.
RJT: You're not going to have conductors? Just ‘hit-squads' of ticket inspectors? And machines at every stop? Bob Dorey: Yes - and at least two machines at every stop - and closed circuit TV - to look at the machines! These are large robust machines - similar in size and scale to the Manchester machines and in contrast to the size and scale of the machines which were in Sheffield.
Patronage:
RJT: How many passengers are you expecting to carry? Bob Dorey: More than 20m per year, after a build-up of eighteen months to two years. And that's related to a peak three hour usage of more than 20,000. What you have to recognise about Croydon Tramlink is that it will be doing at least two quite different jobs - it will be feeding people into the London commuter network, which should give it a very high peak usage, and very high value, but it is also serving important local traffic objectives - Croydon town centre is, in itself, important, as is Wimbledon town centre, and to a slightly lesser extent, Beckenham is a destination in its own right, so it's doing at least those two separate jobs. So we do expect high concentrations in the peak and we expect significant off-peak and significant two-way flows.
Peter Hendy: And it creates some very good orbital links, where historically the bus has been quite slow. RJT: And it should get a lot of people out of cars? Do you have a projection of how many car journeys might be replaced by Tramlink journeys?
Bob Dorey: We believe up to 10% of our passenger journeys will replace car trips.
Peter Hendy: We expect the system to contribute substantially to the economic development of, particularly Croydon and the other towns, and really you can't be anything but optimistic about that - Croydon, were it not part of Greater London, would be a substantial sized city in its own right and is an important economic centre - there's no doubt that this is one of the reasons why Croydon Council has been so consistent in its support for this scheme over the last 10 or 12 years despite political changes.
RJT: I think Croydon is the biggest centre, other than London, in the whole of the south-east of England isn't it? Peter Hendy: Yes, it is. Bob Dorey: Certainly the biggest commercial centre in the south-east outside London and with a population of 320,000, the largest population of any London Borough .
The Overhead Line Equipment
RJT: Can I just move on to the overhead line equipment (OHLE) which there seems to have been ripples of concern about recently, and indeed I've just spent a couple of hours looking at what's happening in Croydon town centre. One of the things which most perplexes me, I must say, is why you do not appear to be attaching the overhead to buildings which the Act gives you powers to do.
Bob Dorey: Well, we are!
RJT: Well you don't seem to be doing much of it, on the basis of the numbers of massive masts I've just seen?
Bob Dorey: Where it can be attached to buildings, that's what we are doing. I don't know how many £1 cheques I've signed for the right to do that, which, as you rightly say the Act gives us power to do, and we are doing it.
RJT: Why aren't you doing it everywhere in the town centre?
Bob Dorey: It can't be done everywhere
RJT: You have got some massive masts Bob Dorey: Yes, we have.
RJT: It looks as if nothing has been learnt from Phase 1 of Manchester Metrolink where the number and size of poles in the city centre and their environmental intrusiveness didn't help the cause of light rail in Britain?
Bob Dorey: Let's state what some of the principles are. The principle is that we do have powers to fix the overhead to buildings and we are using those powers, so where that can be done to meet requirements that's what we shall do. We haven't put poles where we could fix to buildings and if you think about it it wouldn't be in our interests or our contractors' interests because poles are actually very expensive and one of the biggest problems in the town centre was finding right locations to put the poles in any case. So we are certainly not putting poles where we could attach to buildings.
RJT: I gather that you have actually agreed to replace some of these large RSJ masts?
Bob Dorey: No.
RJT: I have a Press Release here from the Mid-Croydon Conservation Area Advisory Panel which says “it has now been agreed that the H-section stanchions in Church Street will be removed and replaced by poles”.
Bob Dorey: No. RJT: That's not right? Bob Dorey: No. Let's take you a stage towards that. There are the circular section poles, which are being used in the area adjacent to the almshouses and part of the conservation area. This is in locations where Croydon Council has said that this type of pole must be used. I believe Croydon Council now think that wasn't as comprehensive as they would have liked and we have been asked what are the implications of replacing some of the H-section masts with circular poles in the conservation area. I'm not at all keen that we should potentially jeopardise the programme and the pole placing and overhead is on the critical path, but we shall respond to Croydon when we have assessed it.
RJT: O.K. I understand that, but quite apart from the issue of whether more fixings to buildings couldn't have been achieved it does seem, on the face of it, that these H-section masts are real ‘belt and braces'.
Peter Hendy: The project has had a number of stages and one of the stages that wasn't very public but was very critical was the point at which London Transport wanted to appoint a preferred bidder but felt unable to do so because it didn't think it would get enough money from government to make the scheme viable - that was in early 1996. Around Easter 1996 we were sent away to discuss with LT and Croydon Council modifications to the scheme which would make it affordable by the public sector bearing in mind it required a huge public sector grant and one of things that came up at that time was the question of what poles should be used and that's where a lot of the H-section girders came from.
RJT: So that was on the basis of cost-saving was it? Peter Hendy: Yes.
RJT: The thing that's actually surprising is that that these massive girders are actually cheaper than putting up slender poles...
Peter Hendy: We have to trust the judgement of the people who have to construct it. I'm sure they must be otherwise there wouldn't have been any reason not to use round poles. I think from that point of view, whatever you do there is a cost issue - I mean there is a massive public grant going into this and there were some very tight moments in the pursuit of the project and it nearly didn't go ahead at all, so really if you look at it in that context if it's a choice between no project and a project which has H-section poles it's obvious what the right decision for light rail has to be.
In part 2: TCL's Technical Manager, Jim Snowdon, joins the discussion on the overhead line equipment and other technical topics covered include grassed track, leaf fall, rail types and skid resistant construction. Bob Dorey and Peter Hendy also talk about Tramlink's vehicles, the capacity of the system and how it may be enhanced, developments and extensions, how vehicles and equipment will be replaced in the 99 years of the concession and other topics. Don't miss it!
Bob Tarr,
Secretary General, LRTA
This article was previously published in
Modern Railways
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