Transwatch “Fact Sheet” No

Transwatch “Fact Sheet” No. 1 - Capacity

Compares the alleged capacity of Waterloo with theoretical assumptions for roads on converted railways. He claims that the 50,000 rail passengers at Waterloo “could all find seats in 1,000 50-seat coaches – sufficient for one lane of a motor road managed in a way that avoids congestion”.

Where did he get his “50,000 passengers”? Almost certainly from Brigadier Lloyd’s presentation to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1955. BR ‘Facts & Figures, 1980’ stated that, in 1976, Waterloo was handling 76,000 commuters. SouthWest Trains now report 88,000 commuters! So he would need 1760 buses even if all were fully loaded.

Ø Managed roads would be a first! They do not exist, how can he say what their capacity would be?

Ø What needs to be managed to avoid road congestion is road traffic which enters a road system at any point without warning. It is unrestricted, uncontrolled & unmanaged traffic which is the cause of congestion. Why do conversionists look to creating more road space when they haven’t grasped this rudimentary fact?

Ø Conversionists always insist that all passengers would transfer to buses, eschewing cars, when the evidence of every closure is the reverse. The reason is that using cars would bring gridlock.

Ø There are 184 destinations (up to a range of 172 miles) served from Waterloo, requiring a 6-storey terminal based on the Transwatch article in Journal of the Institute of Economic Affairs (Volume 24, June 2004) which envisages 30 bays per storey. On the same basis as the cramped Liverpool Street scheme that he praised, it would be an eighth of a mile long & take two years to build. The time taken for passengers to get to a bus platform would be much greater than going to one of the current 21 rail platforms on one level. These problems are ignored, as is the time for buses to pass up & down ramps to upper storeys and discharge incoming passengers. The problem of conflict of bus and passenger is not comprehended by Withrington. The picture becomes worse because Conversionists promised that passengers would travel direct to their town or village & even their own street, and not be tied to the location of an existing station. Adopting their arithmetical practices, one just thinks of a suitable multiplier, and 184 becomes, say, 920 to every town/village and, say, 18,000 to serve every street direct. If buses merely went to each town/village & then meandered round streets, journey times would be unpredictable & prolonged. It should not be assumed that planning permission would be given by local authorities for multi story terminals, even when a protected building is not involved.

Ø He makes the classic error of the amateur in assuming that the passengers are equally distributed over the 184 destinations and arrive at Waterloo in nicely packaged groups of 50 per destination within the space of a few minutes. Some buses will take much longer to fill than others.

Ø He envisages buses departing indiscrimately from their respective bays in his multi-million pound, multi-storey terminal which he says will replace railway terminals. Without liaison, they will inevitably conflict at ramps and exits. The margin between departures of his untimetabled buses will depart when full would vary significantly as the flow of passengers to the 184 destinations served by Waterloo will not fill equally quickly, it follows that congestion & conflict would be unavoidable.

Ø Each of the 1760 buses would have to leave this multi-story terminal every two seconds!

Ø At Vauxhall, these unregimented buses would conflict with the fleet based there. Together, they would be eclipsed by the thousands of buses starting from Clapham Jcn, plus the thousands originating at Victoria, and from the West London Line. The whole area of Clapham Jcn would be thrown into immediate gridlock as southbound bound buses tried to cross through the flat junction area to their respective exit roads and became entangled with the tens of thousands of buses travelling towards Waterloo, Victoria and West London with incoming passengers.

Ø He ignores the only study (by a committed conversionist) to consider a rail terminal (viz Liverpool Street), which he praises (see below & sheets 3 & 12). That study states that one line has 28,500 passengers in the peak hour (half of its commuters & none of its main line passengers). Replacing shorter peak trains by the longest used would increase that by 50%; improved signalling would double that. The part to become a bus terminal (trains would still use part of the station) must handle 9 times as many buses as Victoria bus station in half the area that bus station occupies. The Study shows that in the peak, one bus would depart every 9 seconds, crossing 28,500 departing passengers (plus an unspecified number of arriving passengers) on the level. No operator would consider it, the HSE would prohibit it. What he overlooks is that when the demand is for 28,500, railways cater for that number. It only makes economic sense for any transport operator to increase capacity to meet a known demand – not some paper figure culled from thin air to make an empty point.

Ø Experts say the Liverpool Street scheme bus fleet specified is under-estimated & not calculated by methods used by bus operators, as there is no timetable and no staff rosters. How they expect operators to roster drivers without timetables is a mystery. Unions would not accept it.

There may be some who think that the reference to 1000 (or, as we now see, at least 1760) buses at Waterloo represent the total fleet required to deal with its daily passengers. Not so:

Ø The number of buses required (even running at an improbable 60mph average, with a 5 minute turnround at each end) to give a 10 minute frequency to all destinations would be over double that; & for a 5 minute frequency up to 30 miles & 10 minutes thereafter two and a half times that number. Any worse frequency would be worse than trains. At best, 1760 buses would provide a 10 minute frequency up to 60 miles, and a 20 minute frequency beyond – if there were no problems. Having passengers hanging around for 20 minutes, without a timetable to warn them it would be a 20 minute wait would be a recipe to desert to the car. Many of those with an untimetabled 10 minute frequency would be dismayed - especially where they currently enjoy better frequencies – and timetabled - and do not have to walk so far. Of course, he will probably say that there would be escalators – not previously mentioned nor costed.

Ø He overlooks that the trains provide inter-station services for passengers travelling between the other 183 stations. His 1000 buses would not pick at these up, because he plans for them to run non-stop to a single destination and then provide a return service to Waterloo. Hence he would require many thousands more buses for that traffic. The average bus load leaving Waterloo would be below 50. It is inconceivable that passengers would not complain if held for a few minutes more.

Ø No previous ‘conversion’ of a section of railway has taken place until long after its low volume of rural traffic has been transferred to road or other rail routes.

In his “Fact” Sheet 1, he states: ‘it is said that Victoria bus station could handle 50,000 passengers per hour’.

Ø By whom ‘it is said’ is not disclosed. Victoria bus station’s management had no knowledge of the claim. Its peak hour departures are 39 buses: under 2,000 passengers per hour. One must not compare what railways are actually handling with what road may be able to handle in unspecified circumstances!

Ø Less than half of Liverpool Street station is shown (in the conversionist study) to be handling 28,500 in a peak hour in an area half the size of Victoria coach station, which currently handles about 2500 in one hour. Buses have to reverse out of bays & then go forward, delaying other movements. Trains drive equally as fast in reverse.

In this “Fact” Sheet, he envisages Waterloo converted to three-storey bus station to cope with the 33 buses each.

Ø Each terminal would take about a year or more to build, during which time, buses would have to terminate in congested streets, which would also have to cope with thousands of lorries arriving with materials for reconstruction! Three storeys would be inadequate for some locations.

Transwatch web site has a copy of a paper to the SRA. It states: ‘At Euston ……. 60,000 passengers alight all day. They could all sit in 3,000 coaches, each only 40% full’.

The naive may think that this means Euston’s daily workload could be handled by a fleet of 3000 vehicles. Not so. It depends on the round trip journey time which is completely unknown. When he says “sit” that should be taken literally – because not all would get to their destination that day.

Working through a railway timetable & map revealed that passengers travel from Euston to over 600 stations (I stopped counting at 601). Their promise to run a bus direct to every destination without stopping or intermediate calls means that a bus terminal at Euston would require platforms for 600+ buses. The Transwatch concept of 30 per storey means a 20-storey bus terminal. Again their promise to run to more destinations means that 600 is the starting figure. Multiply by five at least to get a ballpark figure.

Transwatch may now claim that each bus platform could serve more than one destination. He has never said that. However, the greater the number of destinations per platform – the wider & longer it needs to be, and problems would arise when more than one bus tried to park together at the same platform, there being no timetable to segregate them.

He treats 200,000 miles as ‘ghost’ roads, although almost all traffic originates on them.

Ø Without them, there would be no traffic.

Ø Without them to offer diversionary routes when endemic motorway accidents occur, daily delays would be intolerable.

Ø Virtually all hauliers & bus operators have premises on them. In contrast, all rural railways are counted.

Ø Converted routes would have thousands of right turns causing accidents & delays.

Ø Elsewhere, he claims that these roads are merely access to enable lorries to get to motorways & trunk roads. This is nonsense. Millions of tons goes on single carriageway roads throughout & never gets near a trunk road, nor would it get near to 10,000 miles of railways converted to roads, as a study of a UK map reveals.

Ø For decades, bridges on ghost roads have been strengthened to accommodate HGVs – they are adequate for other vehicles.

He introduces a photo to show apparent waste of railways, but does not say when it was taken.

Ø It may have been Christmas or due to a bomb warning, strike, engineering work, etc. It may have been blocked because a lorry driven by a sleepy driver fell onto the track.

Ø My book ‘Railway Conversion – the impractical dream’ includes photos of waste space on m-ways & dual carriageways which were not as a result of the above mentioned situations.

Ø Richard Turner, Chief Executive, FTA said (Daily Telegraph 14.2.07): "there is plenty of road capacity if we better organise the way we live, work and distribute goods to maximise its use. An example from my industry would be to change the law so that more lorries deliver at night, rather than being forced into peak-hour traffic".

Ø Road transport has 22 times as much route mileage (and even more lane-mileage) as railways for a claimed 8-10 times as much traffic.

Other opinions

In an open letter to LTT (Local Transport Today) Withrington asked if ‘the word of (USA transport official) Don Morin is not good enough for me’. Until I see Morin’s Report I cannot comment, and he has never revealed its location. Having seen how conversionists selectively quoted from reports and media, I do not accept any extracts. An enclosure to one Conversion League Paper referred to “What the experts say”. Without exception, they were not transport experts, and every quotation included ellipsis, which when examined changed the context completely (see my book pages 77 & 78). Withrington has had to admit that crucial statements he attributed to two sources were wrong. Despite trying the USA embassy and USA transport magazines, the report cannot be located.

(see also Capacity and Terminals on this web site)

‘Fact Sheet 1’ is worthless.

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