Would we use an airport train (as much as we say we would)?

Posted: December 14, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Airports & aviation | Tags: , , , , , , , | 48 Comments

Ground transport mode share for Melbourne Airport passengers (%) - data from Melbourne Airport

Yesterday’s post on the unreliability of predictions fits nicely with the latest round of calls for a rail line to the airport. The stimulus this time is a report in The Age last week on Melbourne Airport’s plans to upgrade freeway access and build a new terminal.

It set off a predictable and familiar landslide of calls for a train line. There were 141 comments on the article, virtually all of them advocating an airport train. I must say that I’ve hardly met a Melburnian who doesn’t think an airport train should be a high priority of any and all governments.

Some doubtless think others would use a train and thus, they imagine, reduce congestion on roads leading to the airport. But I expect most see themselves avoiding gridlock, punitive airport parking fees, or high taxi fares by using the train for most of their airport travel.

And yet if the train were built, there’s no doubt their prediction would prove to be enormously over-optimistic. Brisbane has a train from the CBD to the airport that carries just 5% of all travellers (another 3% come by bus). Sydney has a train too – it only carries 10% of all travellers (and a further 2% access the airport by bus). As Jarrett Walker observes, the political popularity of airport rail “is always several orders of magnitude above its actual ridership”.

Is there any reason to think that a train to Melbourne airport would increase public transport’s existing share of travel by a significantly greater amount than the trains have in these other cities?

Even without a train, Melbourne Airport already has a higher public transport mode share than either Sydney or Brisbane, with 14% of travellers accessing the terminal by bus. The former Government’s specification for a future airport train was a $16 fare, 20 minute trip time and 15 minute frequency. That’s much the same as SkyBus provides at present.

It’s true trains are generally more appealing than buses, but I can’t see that’s likely to lift public transport’s share significantly – certainly it hasn’t been enough in Brisbane and Sydney. It’s more likely it would cannibalise SkyBus and perhaps gain one or two additional percentage points of mode share.

If the latent demand for better public transport service between the airport and the CBD was as strong as readers of The Age think, then SkyBus – which offers the best frequencies and span of hours of any public transport service in Melbourne – should be doing much better than it is now (and it’s doing quite well).

It’s often argued that if an airport train were priced at a Zone 1-2 fare, it would attract higher patronage than SkyBus. That’s likely to be true, but it’s totally unrealistic – no Government is going to spend billions on an airport rail line and then subsidise its operations. And nor should it.

In any event, I doubt the increase in patronage would be anywhere near as dramatic as some assume. There is a host of reasons why the great majority of travellers would still prefer to drive or take a taxi than pay even a Zone 1-2 fare.

For example, most airport trips are to or from homes and workplaces in the suburbs – a taxi or a car is usually going to be more convenient than going to the local station and transferring to the airport service at Southern Cross. For many regular travellers, taxis and parking are cheap because they’re a business cost.

For tourists, it’s easy to justify a taxi for an occasional and important trip. Most tourists also travel with at least one other person, so in many cases that will improve the competitiveness of a taxi, or the long term car park, relative to public transport (I’ve elaborated on these reasons in previous posts – see Airports & aviation category in sidebar). Read the rest of this entry »

Will Rowville be a Clayton(s) rail line?

Posted: December 11, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Activity centres, Employment, Public transport | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Size of Clayton/Monash precinct (jobs) relative to the six designated suburban CADs

Sooner rather than later, the Baillieu Government is going to have to prove its credibility on public transport by making substantial progress on one of the rail lines it has promised. And I have an idea for where it should start.

The easiest candidate is the promised Avalon rail line because its cost is estimated at only $250 million. But as some commentators have pointed out, including me, this would almost inevitably be a jumbo white elephant. It could be a real political liability too.

If good sense prevails, the Federal Government will refuse to contribute to the project and the Government will be off the hook. The private operator might also refuse to contribute to a properly designed financial model.

The other promised rail lines – to Rowville, Doncaster and Melbourne Airport – are all subject to studies. They will all be very costly to build to an acceptable standard but it’s unlikely the electorate will be bothered by the fine print or the cost. It’s likely that as far as they’re concerned, a ‘promise’ is a promise.

I’ve indicated before that none of these lines, on the face of it, seem ready for the green light just yet (here, here and here). Unless new information is introduced or the projects are redefined, it seems to me that any objective study would have to conclude they won’t be ready for funding for some time, probably not until after 2020 (it wouldn’t be politic for any government to come out and say ‘no’ outright).

But I think the Government will have to show serious progress on at least one of these lines by the time of the next election. In my view, the preferred candidate should be the Rowville line, but in an amended form. Read the rest of this entry »

A Doncaster rail line – is this really what the Greens stand for?

Posted: October 25, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Public transport | Tags: , , , , , | 13 Comments

In my last post about the Green’s election manifesto, a Public transport plan for Melbourne’s east, I indicated I would take a closer look at the two new rail lines the party is proposing to finance – a line to Rowville and a line to Doncaster – with its nonexistent $6 billion.

I discussed the shortcomings of the Rowville line a few months ago when the Liberals also came out in favour of it (is there a winnable seat in the vicinity perhaps?), so here I’ll just concern myself with the proposed Doncaster line.

The Greens say a line is needed because Manningham is the only municipality in Melbourne without either a train line or a tram line. And they say a rail line was promised before – plans were drawn up in 1969 but never acted on.

I’m not impressed by this logic. Do we spend billions of dollars on infrastructure because some area is “entitled” to a track even if it’s not the best solution? Should we get the 1969 freeway plan because it’s a “broken” promise too?

I’d be more impressed if the Greens had provided some justification, but they haven’t. There’s no attempt to measure expected patronage and no indication of the possible economic benefits compared to other potential investments. Nor is there any indication of the annual operating cost and the ongoing subsidy that the line would require.

The proposal is that the line would run from the CBD via a tunnel under Carlton and Fitzroy to Victoria Park station on the Hurstbridge-Epping line. It would then run along the median of the Eastern Freeway (which was designed from the outset to take a rail line) until 1.5 km east of Bulleen Rd. At that point it would run underground to a new station at Doncaster.

There are some very serious questions that need to be asked about this proposal. Read the rest of this entry »