Luton Airport Parkway targets faster trains
LONDON Luton Airport Chief Executive Nick Barton is calling on the four shortlisted bidders for the new East Midlands franchise to commit to quadrupling the frequency of inter-city services calling at Luton Airport Parkway.
The station is currently served each hour by four to six local stopping services operated by Thameslink, but only one East Midlands Trains service between St Pancras International and Nottingham.
Barton argues that this makes LLA the only major London airport without a dedicated express-style service of four fast trains per hour to the capital. He hopes to rectify that through the refranchising process.
The Department for Transport is currently inviting responses to its consultation document for the new franchise, which commences in August 2019 ( RAIL 832).
In the LLA response, Barton will argue that this increased frequency of fast trains could be achieved at no additional cost - by re-timetabling more of the five hourly EMT services that currently depart from St Pancras International and take just 20 minutes to complete the 29-mile journey to Luton Airport Parkway, but which travel non-stop to destinations further north including Leicester, Derby and Sheffield.
According to a report compiled by LLA, having more trains call at Luton Airport Parkway would net £110 million of additional revenue for the new franchise operator.
It would also remove 70,000 cars per year from the nearby M1 motorway as people switch to rail - saving the equivalent of 500 tonnes of carbon emissions.
Speaking exclusively to RAIL, Barton said the improved connectivity was needed to keep pace with rising demand for air travel nationally, and to help the airport reach its annual passenger target of 18 million passengers by 2020.
The council-owned airport has also received planning permission to build a £200m one-mile-long mass passenger transit system linking Luton Airport Parkway with the airport, that could be operational by 2021.
“We will be submitting a detailed response to the consultation, as the importance of the airport for the region and the economy cannot be disputed. It is absolutely critical that we should be looking to maximise the reach of our airport,” said Barton.
“Enabling works have already begun on the mass transit connection to the airport, which will be a sensational improvement. But how will people get to Parkway? Thameslink is a
suburban service and you must trade connectivity for speed, so we are utterly convinced that more inter-city services will open up Luton Airport to the South East, East Midlands and the rest of the country, and put us on a par with the connectivity of other London airports and those in Europe.”
The East Midlands Rail Franchise Consultation documents published by the DfT in July propose that no fast inter-city services call at Luton Airport Parkway from 2019, but instead that additional stopping services will run to Corby once the Midland Main Line has been electrified north of Bedford. This is intended to improve journey times and reduce overcrowding on trains running to the capital from the East Midlands.
Barton added: “I haven’t seen that proposition, but we will seriously challenge it. We can’t find a bad reason to do this as it comes at no cost to Government, and brings in £110m of additional revenue for absolutely nothing.”
Peter Kennan, chairman of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry Transport Forum, told RAIL that he would also be responding to the consultation, but that he would support the DfT’s proposal to stop inter-city services calling at Luton Airport Parkway.
He argues that commuter flows need to be split from inter-city traffic in order to improve peak and maintain off-peak journey times on a congested Midland Main Line.
He added: “The pressure on capacity and the need to improve journey times all point to one conclusion, and that is that no inter-city services should call at Luton Airport Parkway. Connecting speedily into central London is vital for the economic prospects of Sheffield and the East Midlands.”