EARL/S2/06/4/A EDINBURGH AIRPORT RAILWAY LINK BILL COMMITTEE AGENDA 4Th Meeting, 2006
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EARL/S2/06/4/A EDINBURGH AIRPORT RAILWAY LINK BILL COMMITTEE AGENDA 4th Meeting, 2006 (Session 2) Tuesday 13 June 2006 The Committee will meet at 10.00 am in Committee Room 6 1. Oral evidence on the general principles of the Bill: The Committee will take evidence from–– Panel 1 Neil Renilson, Chief Executive, and Bill Campbell, Operations Director, Transport Edinburgh; Andrew Mellors, Deputy Managing Director and Steve Montgomery, Operations and Safety Director, First ScotRail. Panel 2 Graeme Malcolm, Transportation Manager and Wendy McCorriston, Planning Officer, West Lothian Council; Keith Rimmer, Head of Transport, City Development Department, The City of Edinburgh Council. Panel 3 Peter Spinney, Scottish Chairman and Bruce Young, Lothian Co-ordinator, Association of British Drivers. Panel 4 Tom Hart, Vice President, Scottish Association for Public Transport (SAPT); Colin Howden, Director and David Spaven, Chair, TRANSform Scotland. Panel 5 EARL/S2/06/4/A John David Ede, Householder 2. Edinburgh Airport Rail Link Bill (in private): The Committee will consider the oral evidence taken at agenda item 1. 3. Oral evidence on the general principles of the Bill: The Committee will take evidence from–– Panel 6 Promoter witnesses–– Susan Clark, Project Director, tie Ltd Paul McCartney, Associate Economist, Halcrow Trond Haugen, Transportation Manager, Fife Council and Chair of SESTRAN Rail Group John Inman, Strategy Manager (Planning), City of Edinburgh Council Marwan AL-Azzawi, Principal Transport Planner, Scott Wilson Railways Gary Coutts, Railway Engineering Manager, Scott Wilson Railways Alan Somerville, Commercial Manager (Heavy Rail), tie Ltd. Jane Sutherland Clerk to the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link Bill Committee 85209 Room T2.60 Scottish Parliament EH99 1EP [email protected] EARL/S2/06/4/A The following papers are attached for this meeting— Agenda item 1 Written evidence from Virgin Trains, Transport Edinburgh Ltd and EARL/S2/06/3/1 First ScotRail and additional written evidence from Scottish Association for Public Transport (SAPT) in advance of providing oral evidence In addition to the above documents, the following documents whilst not being committee papers, will be relevant to the meeting’s proceedings–– Agenda item 1 First Scotrail written evidence EA(P)26 West Lothian Council written evidence EA(P)10 The City of Edinburgh Council written evidence EA(P)05 Association of British Drivers written evidence EA(P)13 Scottish Association for Public Transport (SAPT) written evidence EA(P)03 TRANSform Scotland written evidence EA(P)19 John David Ede Objection No. 10 All objections can be found using this weblink: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/edinburghAirLinkBill/inquiries /ea-objections.htm All Preliminary Stage written evidence can be found using this weblink: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/edinburghAirLinkBill/inquiries /ea-written-evid.htm All Preliminary Stage written evidence from the promoter (tie Ltd) can be found using this weblink: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/edinburghAirLinkBill/inquiries /ea-prom-written-evid.htm EARL/S2/06/4/1 EDINBURGH AIRPORT RAIL LINK BILL COMMITTEE Written Evidence received from Virgin Trains, Transport Edinburgh Ltd, First ScotRail and addition written evidence from Scottish Association for Public Transport (SAPT) Background 1. At its meeting on 23 May 2006, the Committee agreed a timetable for its consideration of the Bill at Preliminary Stage, which included those witnesses from whom it would like to take oral and additional written evidence. 2. The Committee agreed to write to Virgin Trains to invite them to give written evidence on the operational attractiveness of Virgin Trains using the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link. 3. Written evidence has been received from Virgin Trains and this is attached in Annexe A. 4. The Committee also agreed to invite Transport Edinburgh Ltd and First ScotRail to give oral evidence at the meeting to be held on 13 June 2006 and to invite them to provide written evidence. 5. Written evidence has been received from Transport Edinburgh Ltd and this is attached in Annexe B. 6. Written evidence has been received from First ScotRail and this is attached at Annexe C. 7. The Scottish Association for Public Transport have submitted additional written evidence in advance of providing oral evidence and this is attached at Annexe D. Private Bills Unit June 2006 1 EARL/S2/06/4/1 Annexe A The Scottish Parliament Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (EARL) Bill Committee The Response of Virgin Trains 1. The invitation to respond to the committee is welcomed by Virgin Trains. 2. Virgin Trains is the trading name for the two cross-border passenger franchises operated by Virgin Rail Group, which is jointly owned by Virgin (51 per cent) and Perth-based Stagecoach Group (49 per cent). Virgin CrossCountry trains run on the Edinburgh/Forth Bridge section of the East Coast Main Line past Edinburgh Airport, on Aberdeen/Edinburgh, Aberdeen/Birmingham, Dundee-Bournemouth, Dundee-Birmingham and Penzance-Dundee routes. In addition to long-distance customers, these trains also cater for Dundee and Fife commuters who travel daily to and from work in Edinburgh. There are also Virgin CrossCountry trains calling at Haymarket on services between Edinburgh and English destinations via Carlisle, and hourly services from Edinburgh Waverley to Birmingham and beyond which operate over the East Coast Main Line between Edinburgh and York. Virgin West Coast operates between Glasgow Central and London Euston on the West Coast Main Line, plus one train a day in each direction between Edinburgh Waverley, Haymarket and London Euston. 3. The CrossCountry franchise, which is Great Britain’s only truly national passenger train operation, is to be re-mapped by the Department for Transport (DfT), who will invite tenders for a new CrossCountry franchise as part of restructuring to reduce four franchises through the English Midlands to three from November 2007. The former Strategic Rail Authority thinned out services north of Edinburgh on the current CrossCountry franchise in 2003, after a previous increase, but supported the maintenance of enhanced frequencies between Edinburgh, Birmingham and beyond. The West Coast franchise continues until 2012. Both franchises have been run by Virgin Trains since 1997. 4. Virgin Trains invested more than £1 billion in a fleet of high-speed Voyager diesel trains to transform CrossCountry, which now caters for more than 20 million passenger journeys a year, compared to 10.6 million in 1994/95. Scotland has played a significant part in this success, thanks to a substantial increase in the number of cross-border trains south of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and recruitment of high-calibre staff in Edinburgh and elsewhere to join the excellent people who chose to become part of the CrossCountry team before privatisation. Their dedication to continuing to improve service standards and win more customers will be supported by Virgin in a strong bid to secure the new franchise. CrossCountry has the potential for further growth, and that could include operation via a new station at Edinburgh Airport if the opportunity to do that is included in the new CrossCountry franchise. Scottish Ministers will have a say on the Scottish elements of the new franchise but final specification and invitation 2 EARL/S2/06/4/1 to tender will come from the DfT. A possible model is the current First ScotRail franchise which includes provision for potential services on new tracks serving new or reopened stations to be introduced during the period of operation of the franchise. 5. The 44 “Super Voyagers” in the Voyager fleet can tilt to reduce journey times by running at higher speeds than conventional trains on curvaceous routes equipped for tilt – so far only the West Coast Main Line and a pilot stretch between Oxford and Banbury on the Thames Valley line. These trains, together with the 34 non-tilt Voyagers, have the technical capability to serve the proposed new airport station. They produce clean enough emissions to meet required standards and have sufficient power to accelerate rapidly, even up the gradients out of the planned sub-surface station, to minimise the amount of time necessary to divert through the airport. Alternatively, such trains could be used on fast services to Dundee and Aberdeen bypassing the airport while other services call at the airport instead. (It is known that new rolling stock with greater acceleration than the current diesels used on internal Scottish services is being considered, partly to help offset the marginal extra time required to serve the airport station.) 6. The significance of the EARL scheme is that it would convert Edinburgh Airport into Scotland’s Airport, by offering direct trains from and to all of Scotland’s cities and several other important towns. This would benefit tourism, making much of Scotland readily accessible in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner to visitors who fly in from overseas. Economic benefits can be expected to spread as far as the Highlands as a result of easier access for other international business in addition to tourism. 7. If the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link merely encouraged more people to fly between Scotland and London and Birmingham, that would be counter- productive to the environmental case. As cross-border train operators, we clearly prefer to see people catching a train in Edinburgh to go all the way to English destinations, rather than getting off the train to catch a plane. However, we accept that there is a positive prospect that linking Edinburgh Airport more easily with much of the rest of Scotland by rail would be an incentive for greater concentration of international flights at this airport due to its enlarged catchment. This may reduce the need for interlining via Heathrow and other English airports, thus supplementing the benefits of future cross-border rail improvements in reducing demand for flights between Scotland and London.