High-speed rail holds key to attracting air travellers

There is “significant scope” to attract many more passengers to rail from short-haul flights, with modal shift of the 16,700 daily domestic air passengers crucial to meeting the UK’s 2050 net-zero target.

That’s the conclusion of a report by independent consortium Greengauge 21 for the High Speed Rail Group (HSRG), which represents companies with an interest in high-speed rail.

Greengauge 21 says expanding and integrating the national highspeed rail network, to access the increasing number of international high-speed routes, will be key to this shift. It will also help deliver the UK’s ‘levelling up’ ambitions by strengthening connectivity of major cities across the regions.

The detailed 39-page report, How to win air travellers to rail, estimates that if all domestic air passengers transferred to rail, they would fill 20 trains per day each way. It recommends a four-step plan:

More Lumo-style limited-stop, long-distance rail services.

Use HS2 capacity to turbocharge modal shift.

Move more international travellers to rail.

Properly connect Britain’s two high-speed rail networks.

“By considering pre-HS2 and post-HS2 timescales and the geographies, it becomes increasingly clear the essential role high-speed rail will play in facilitating this shift,” said report author, HSRG Board Director Jim Steer.

“Imagine starting a journey in Manchester or Birmingham, and through the proper integration of high-speed services, being able to make a journey to Amsterdam. Today this is an airline market of 2.1 million passengers per annum. Imagine the convenience of rail and significant carbon savings to be made.”

With London-Scotland accounting for 57% of domestic air travel, more limited-stop long-distance trains are needed to compete, by offering point-to-point services.

Steer says Lumo’s LondonEdinburgh route shows the way, and that adding London-Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen are the next steps on today’s capacity-restricted network.

A Lumo-style service on the north-east to south-west axis, connecting Cardiff/Bristol with Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh, would avoid intermediate stations on congested parts of the network and speed up journey times. The new plan to extend HS2 from Birmingham to Nottingham will speed up NE-SW services by 1hr 30 mins.

HS2 provides the scope to make a bigger impact. Rail’s share of the London-Scotland travel market could leap to 75% if, alongside HS2, services are speeded up north of Crewe.

With HS1 across Kent and the Channel Tunnel having capacity, London services could be extended to cities within the 1,000km distance band for single-day travel (currently 26 million air passengers). This would include Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Zurich, Geneva, Bordeaux, Nice and Barcelona.

The final step is to properly connect Britain’s two high-speed rail networks.

Once HS2 is open, a Javelin-style service could run over the West Coast Main Line to connect with international services, delivering passengers directly to border controls at HS1 stations.

This means that passengers from the North and Midlands could avoid the off-putting three-quarters of a mile gap between Euston (HS2) and St Pancras (HS1) stations.

Report at www.rail-leaders.com