Independent Review of Cross River Rail Table of contents 1 Executive Summary ..................................................................................... 5 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 5 1.2 The Problem .................................................................................................. 5 1.3 Options .......................................................................................................... 6 1.4 Interim solutions ............................................................................................. 6 1.5 Longer term solutions .................................................................................... 8 1 .5.1 Cross River Rail as a solution .................................................................................. 8 1.5.2 Other long-term solutions ......................................................................................... 8 1.6 Conclusions ................................................................................................... 9 1.7 Recommendations ....................................................................................... 10 2 Introduction ................................................................................................ 11 2.1 State Government priorities ......................................................................... 11 2.2 Scope of this review ..................................................................................... 11 2.3 Review methodology .................................................................................... 11 2.4 Limitations of this review .............................................................................. 12 2.5 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................... 12 3 Planning Context for Cross River Rail ..................................................... 13 3.1 South east Queensland land use and transport plans ................................. 13 3.2 Planning for Brisbane's Inner City ................................................................ 15 4 Transport Demand ..................................................................................... 16 4.1 Travel Modal Considerations ....................................................................... 16 4.2 Travel Demand ............................................................................................ 16 4.3 Public Transport Demand ............................................................................ 17 4.4 Fares and Growth ........................................................................................ 18 4.5 Rail Patronage ............................................................................................. 19 4.6 Population and employment forecasts ......................................................... 24 4.7 Transport modelling (Cross River Rail) ........................................................ 26 4.8 Summary ..................................................................................................... 27 5 Capacity ...................................................................................................... 28 5.1 Bus System Capacity ................................................................................... 28 5.1.1 Vehicle capacity and operations .............................................................................28 5.1.2 Road and busway capacity ..................................................................................... 29 5.1.3 Platform capacity ....................................................................................................32 5.1.4 Summary ................................................................................................................33 5.2 Rail System Capacity ................................................................................... 33 5.2.1 South east Queensland rail network ....................................................................... 33 5.2.2 Vehicle Capacity and Operations ............................................................................34 5.2.3 Track capacity ........................................................................................................35 5.2.4 Sectorisation of the Citytrain network ...................................................................... 39 13 June 2012 Page 2 of 83 Independent Review of Cross River Rail 5.2.5 Platform Capacity ...................................................................................................40 5.2.6 Reliability ................................................................................................................40 5.2.7 Summary ................................................................................................................41 6 Confirmation of the problem ..................................................................... 42 7 Consideration of Interim Rail Capacity Options ...................................... 43 7.1 Assessment of Interim Options .................................................................... 43 7 .1.1 Rei iabi lity and Safety Context ................................................................................ .43 7.2 Queensland Rail reliability performance ...................................................... 46 7.3 Growth forecast assumptions and historical context .................................... 46 8 Assessment of initiatives .......................................................................... 49 8.1 More shoulder-peak rail services and more express services outside the peak ............................................................................................................. 49 8.1.1 Impact of this initiative ........................................................................................... .49 8.1.2 Capacity opportunity ............................................................................................... 50 8.1.3 Assessment of peak spreading trends on the current network ................................ 51 8.2 Revising seating arrangements on trains to increase capacity .................... 52 8.2.1 Capacity benefit ......................................................................................................55 8.3 Minor signalling upgrades to improve safety, reliability and reduce headways ·····················································································································56 8.4 Short starter turn back .................................................................................. 56 8.5 Real time information to advise passengers of crowding and influence them to change to a different service .................................................................... 57 8.6 Removal of XPT paths from the peak period ............................................... 57 8.7 Improve station and platform management to increase throughput ............. 58 8.8 Extra bus services on the highest demand north-south routes .................... 58 8.9 Off peak pricing incentives ........................................................................... 59 8.1 0 Staggered work times .................................................................................. 59 8.11 Summary of review: Short to Medium term initiatives .................................. 59 9 Consideration of Alternative Options to Cross River Rail ..................... 62 9.1 Strategic transport options ........................................................................... 62 9.2 Strategic heavy rail options .......................................................................... 64 9.2.1 Inner City Rail Capacity Study ................................................................................64 9.2.2 Cross River Rail detailed feasibility ......................................................................... 64 9.2.3 The Cleveland Solution ...........................................................................................72 10 Cross River Rail ......................................................................................... 75 10.1 General overview ......................................................................................... 75 10.2 Business Case Analysis ............................................................................... 75 10.2.1 The Alternative Option ............................................................................................ 75 10.2.2 The North-South Option (Cross River Rail) ............................................................. 76 11 Conclusions ............................................................................................... 80 12 Recommendations ..................................................................................... 81 13June2012 Page 3 of 83 Independent Review of Cross River Rail 13 Appendix one - References ....................................................................... 82 14 Appendix two- Acronyms ........................................................................ 83 13 June 2012 Page 4 of 83 Independent Review of Cross River Rail 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Introduction The State Government commissioned an expert panel to review the Cross River Rail project. The expert panel consists of: • Mr Michael Scanlan, Independent Consultant • Mr Scott Lennon, Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Economics