Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Official Report 466KB pdf

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Forth Crossing Bill: Stage 1

We come to the final item on our agenda today, which is the third evidence session in the committee’s scrutiny of the Forth Crossing Bill. During this meeting and the next one, we will examine the specific proposals in the bill to create a public transport corridor. Members and witnesses will be aware that the bill is being formally scrutinised by the Forth Crossing Bill Committee, which will be considering the wider issues and general principles of the bill. This committee, on the other hand, will be specifically considering the public transport aspects of the bill, and we will report to the Forth Crossing Bill Committee as it continues its consideration.

I welcome the witnesses who are joining us for this session: Tom Hart, vice-president of the Scottish Association for Public Transport; Lawrence Marshall, the chair of the ForthRight Alliance; George Mair, the director in Scotland of the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK; and Steve Walker, operations director for Stagecoach. I thank you all for joining us today, and for submitting written evidence. Do any of you want to make some brief opening remarks before members begin the questions?

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the committee.

The ForthRight Alliance is a coalition of various groups such as WWF and the RSPB—details of all the groups involved can be found on our website. Our objection to the Forth Crossing Bill is on the Forth Crossing Bill Committee’s website.

The main reason for my coming to the meeting is, of course, to discuss the public transport use of what will be the denuded old bridge when—I should say if—the new bridge opens. It is a fact that buses account for less than 0.75 per cent of the current bridge’s traffic. It has been projected that, when it opens in 2016-17, there will be 92,000 vehicles a day—representing a 40 per cent increase in traffic—on the new bridge, which will just be a dual carriageway bridge, and only 300 buses a day on the old bridge. The old bridge will therefore be hugely denuded. Basically, it will take less than 0.5 per cent of current traffic and less than a third of 1 per cent of projected traffic on the new bridge. There will, of course, be maintenance costs for the old bridge—the bearings in the main expansion joints have to be renewed, for example. Therefore, there will be huge expenditure to create what will be, in effect, the most expensive bus lane in the world, and our view is that that is not credible or sustainable. People will queue up on the new bridge, look across and see the old bridge effectively empty. There will be enormous pressure to release back the dormant capacity on the existing bridge to general traffic, or at least to general traffic except for heavy goods vehicles, and we will end up with the ability to carry 150,000 vehicles a day across the Forth compared with the 65,000 or 66,000 vehicles that are currently carried on the existing bridge. That is our fear. There can be no possible public transport increase on the existing bridge that will mitigate the loss of 99.5 or 99.6 per cent of its traffic.

15:30

I thank the committee for the invitation to give evidence. We will do our best to put across the views of public transport operators on the proposals relating to the transport corridor. We are not technically competent to comment on the need for a new crossing. Given the considerable costs that are involved, we trust that the committees and the Government will take all relevant matters into consideration in reaching final conclusions. However, on the basis that the new bridge will proceed, the industry welcomes the emphasis that is being placed on public transport policies, although we have reservations that perhaps not enough is being done early enough to maximise modal shift and help reduce emissions further. We will attempt to elaborate on those points as we go through the proceedings.

We have to start from first principles. Where do we want to be in 10 years or so? Do we want a 40 per cent increase in general traffic across the estuary at Queensferry? Do we want a declining share of public transport in terms of the modal split? Do we want increasing congestion on the road networks, which will largely remain similar to today’s, apart from the extra capacity on the new bridge and the wee bit of surrounding road? The answer to all that is surely no. We do not want a 40 per cent increase in traffic and we do not want the extra carbon emissions that will come with that. We must therefore consider first principles. We must also consider Government policies. At one time, we were talking about traffic reduction, or traffic stabilisation at least, but the Government is now planning for a 40 per cent increase in traffic.

Once we get our first principles right, then we should decide on our transport policy. The policies on the road crossing at Queensferry have largely been driven by panic and short-term populism; they have not been drive by policy per se. The Scottish Parliament has been all over the shop on the issue. I bear the scars of that to an extent from when I was convener of the Forth Estuary Transport Authority. We really need to say, “This is where we want to go. How do we get there?” Frankly, creating an extra bridge with a 40 per cent increase in traffic on it and denuding the current bridge of virtually all its traffic does not make sense. For sure, buses will get a free run across it, but where are they going to go once they get across the bridge? The City of Edinburgh Council will not welcome all those buses coming into Edinburgh, or into the city centre at least.

We therefore must ask whether what is proposed is the best use of public resources, because we are not talking about a cheap scheme here; we are talking about more than £2 billion of public expenditure. I would ask MSPs across Scotland whether they would prefer some of that money to be spent on schemes in their constituencies, rather than on an unnecessary bridge that will only exacerbate the problem rather than help.

I ask Tom Hart to comment first, and then Lawrence Marshall. After that, we will go back to the specific public transfer measures.

The figures that I quoted were from Transport Scotland’s Forth replacement crossing team and the exhibitions that went round.

We understand that.

I did not make them up; they are the Forth replacement crossing team’s figures.

If we project forward to 2017, the annual average daily traffic level without the scheme would be 83,000 vehicles on the existing bridge—so an increase from about 66,000 is projected anyway on the existing bridge—and, with the new bridge, the team predicts an annual average daily traffic level of 92,000 vehicles. That is where the figures come from.

We have written to Transport Scotland and have had a couple of meetings with John Howison and his team. Although they have now put in the link from Admiralty back to Ferrytoll, the junctions around Ferrytoll still show delays and congestion in the area for cars and buses. It is important that we get not only the buses but the cars to the park-and-ride facility so that car drivers regard it as a viable option.

We have had an input into the range of bus improvement measures that the south east of Scotland transport partnership has proposed. We support fully the range of options that it included in its response to the committee in a previous evidence-taking session.

What is your view on buses using the hard shoulders on the new Forth crossing when the existing Forth road bridge is closed? Are you concerned about the impact that broken-down vehicles on a hard shoulder would have on the smooth operation of bus services?

No, not really. If the odd car breaks down at the side of the road, buses will just pull into the flow of traffic and then move back on to the hard shoulder. We just want the bus to keep moving for as much of the route as possible.

From our involvement in the proposal for buses to run along the hard shoulder of the M77, we know that there are structural issues. However, in building something new, it would be possible to build in the appropriate structure to deal with those. Such proposals have been shown to work in other parts of the UK and in Europe. Yes, difficulties will come up, but we can get on and deal with them.

Having to look at the challenges of meeting increased demand is a far more exciting prospect than continually having to look at how to deliver a registered service that is continually stuck in traffic. If we could get the bus priority lanes and other things right, people could then turn their minds to the commercial opportunities that will arise from the new crossing.

It would be unfair to say that we do not have direct communication with Transport Scotland—we do in relation to a number of projects. For this project, as for others, we have done a lot of work with the regional transport partnership to come up with a package of measures that we think are correct and need to be introduced early to encourage modal shift, before work on the bridge is started or complete. The bottom line is that communication can always be improved. If we can improve our communication with Transport Scotland, we will.

There is potential to increase bus usage across the bridge, which is still rising. That takes us back to the question of the invisible bridge that is never mentioned—the rail bridge—which carries significantly more passengers than are carried by buses. That number has been increasing. Why is no representative of ScotRail here? Part of the solution could be to improve rail services. There is room to step up the frequency of services or length of trains. It is significant that another Government priority is the Gogar tram-rail interchange and multimodal ticketing, which offers important new opportunities for people to use rail to access west Edinburgh and to go from west Edinburgh to Fife and the north. That is not mentioned in the background papers, but it is another major Government initiative. We seem to have fragmented thinking and are not looking at the Forth crossing in a true multimodal manner or in relation to the climate change and energy agendas.

Irrespective of climate change arguments, we will run out of oil, which will become much more expensive. A fortnight ago, Richard Branson said that he is planning for a 50 per cent rise in aircraft fuel prices in the next five years. That is bound to have an influence on what we do. There is a strong case for buses to retain a better share of the market for traditional supplies. The Scottish Government’s rail electrification plan initially emphasises the links between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but the strategic projects review made it clear that the plan includes extending electrification to Fife and up to Aberdeen and, eventually, Inverness. Should we spend money on that more quickly, instead of spending £2 billion on the new Forth crossing, for a route that has near-stable road traffic?

It was based on the existing proposals.

So that is not a scenario that you are planning for and you do not foresee that happening. I would have assumed that, as a private company, you would have thought about that and planned for it.

No. Even in light of the problems that have been foreseen with job losses in the banks and so on, we are continuing to see the Edinburgh corridor grow, and long may that continue.

The issue is not that there might not be an absolute increase in the number of buses carrying people across the Forth at Queensferry. The issue is that the number of cars coming across will be even greater. As George Mair pointed out earlier, according to Transport Scotland, the modal share for buses is going to go from 10 per cent in 2005 down to 5 per cent in 2022. The SEStran figures that Shirley-Anne Somerville just quoted are perfectly understandable in that context.

We have to ask how we encourage people. The buses are much better. The Stagecoach buses coming across from Fife are lovely—leather seats, wi-fi, five-minute frequency, and so on—but how can we encourage people to use them when the idea of jumping into the car and listening to the radio is really quite appealing?

16:00

That is my next question—how do you encourage modal shift? Mr Marshall can have the first go at that one.

There is no silver bullet. However, I note that the Scottish Parliament rejected variable road user charging, which involves charging people more at the peak period, particularly if they come across—as 80 per cent do, according to George Mair’s figures—in single-occupant vehicles. High-occupancy vehicle lanes are well known in the world of transport, and the idea of charging people more at peak times and if they travel by themselves is well known to public transport operators.

If you use the railway bridge from Fife, for instance, you will probably pay 80 to 90 per cent more during the peak period to come in from Dunfermline, Inverkeithing or Kirkcaldy than you would pay at off-peak times. Variable charging is widely used, and people experience it every day when they travel across the Forth.

It is not a silver bullet but, as we have seen, the provision of better-quality trains and buses does not by itself encourage people to use public transport. It helps, but we need a pricing mechanism to provide an extra boost.

For clarification, my figures on the drop in bus usage were based on the initial proposals by Transport Scotland, which did not include significant additional bus priority measures or additional park-and-choose facilities.

We have a fairly robust industry, and when we work hard with partners—whether in local or national Government—on this type of project, we probably get the package right. If we get the quality of the bus service, the park-and-ride and park-and-choose facilities and the bus priority measures right, and if we ensure that the journey is quick, we can demonstrate a growth in patronage. Ferrytoll is a great example of that on our doorstep. Lothian Buses invested heavily in its fleet prior to the problems and difficulties that it encountered due to the tram works, and it too experienced growth in patronage.

We have to work within the road space environs that the local authority or national Government give us. We need to supply the right product at the right price, along with swifter journey times and the type of initiatives that Tom Hart mentioned. In general, where those things are happening in Scotland and further afield in the UK, more people are using public transport.

I do not have anything to add to what George Mair has said.

Tom Hart talked about park and rides. Ferrytoll is a case in point. It started off as a park and ride, but many people now use it as a hub or interchange to make connections from intercity coaches. On the point about one-car families, a number of people get dropped off at Ferrytoll and a lot of car sharing goes on there, too. It is more than just a bespoke park and ride.

There has been a lot of emphasis on commuting and the bridges. I represent the Highlands and Islands. People use public transport, but they often have to use cars because of the lack of public transport. Has any of that been factored into your thinking about the public transport impact of the new bridge?

Megabus and Citylink vehicles call in at Ferrytoll. A number of people from further up north are now using them as a way to get across to the airport. People from Fife who want to go north use Ferrytoll as a hub to connect on to the intercity coaches.

I understand that, but the number must be small compared with the number of commuters. How small is the number and is it growing in any significant way that will affect the overall picture? I want to get into perspective the number of people from further north who are using Ferrytoll.

We are supportive of the package of bus and rail measures that SEStran proposed in its response. The CPT is on the bus forum. Being a new kid on the block, I have forgotten the name of the other body whose meetings we attend with SEStran. We have had involvement in the development of those projects, which include the new bus and rail-based park-and-choose sites at Halbeath and Rosyth; the provision of high-quality, high-speed access to and from the existing bridge for buses, including extensive priority measures from the north and the south, on the M90, the A90, the M8, the M9 and the M9 spur to the A8000; the use of active intelligence systems to assist with bus prioritisation; the provision of high-quality bus interchanges for Queensferry and Echline, which have good access for pedestrians and cyclists as well as cars; and general improvements to bus and rail services. Through our involvement in SEStran, we have been involved in discussions on that package of initiatives.

From an operator’s point of view, our involvement has been more with Fife Council, which feeds into SEStran. We echo the support for those projects and would like to see them come to fruition sooner rather than later.

We have been involved in discussions with Transport Scotland about what is meant by strategic rapid transit. A lot more use could be made of the rail bridge by increasing frequencies on it. Also, at some point, bus corridors of a much higher quality may be wanted going into Fife and elsewhere. The last time we discussed the matter, Transport Scotland had not completed its assessment of whether the existing Forth road bridge could handle light rail without much adjustment or whether it would need significant extra spend compared with a busway. I think that Transport Scotland has now reported on that, but I have not yet been able to trace its report. That was seen as a longer-term issue, not something for the next decade.

I must be careful here. I need to look at my job description, because I am sure that somewhere or another it covers trams and light rail. It is worth bearing in mind, given the hard financial times that we find ourselves in, that very quickly and for a lot less cost the bus, in different formats, can achieve a great deal.

I see trams as a kind of Trojan horse; they are an add-on in the same way as the public transport use of the existing bridge is an add-on to the Forth crossing project. I do not see the proposal as being terribly credible. If we cannot get trams even to the airport, never mind Newbridge—we are getting trams to the airport, but it will take a while—I do not see trams going across to Fife in the lifetime of most people here, to be honest. I am also not sure that they are very attractive to people. People would be much better to get heavy rail to Gogar and interchange there on to a tram system, which would transport them more locally within Edinburgh, than to trundle, slide or glide, if you want, across the existing road bridge using a tram, because the stops would be more frequent. I think that people would rather interchange. In respect of their overall journey time, it would be much better to interchange than to extend trams into Fife and feed into Ferrytoll with buses and so on. I do not envisage that trams to Fife will be realised.

Perhaps some of that is a can of worms for another day.

And you are content with the proposals for the gyratory system within the park and ride.

You are starting to see a request for services feeding into Ferrytoll as a hub.

Yes, because services converge at Ferrytoll from various places in Fife and head across to Edinburgh. The park and ride was built up from all of those services feeding in to Ferrytoll and filling up any spare capacity there, rather than from bespoke park-and-ride services. A number of places in the UK have subsidised park-and-ride services because they are not as good a commercial opportunity. However, the Ferrytoll model has allowed us to provide more frequent services to places such as Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline and Glenrothes than we would have had if Ferrytoll did not exist. Buses that are going to Edinburgh come in to Ferrytoll with 20 or 30 people on them, fill up an extra 20 or 30 seats and form part of a seven or eight-minute corridor across to Edinburgh. We are also able to use those buses to allow people to interchange on to services to the airport, which run only as far as Inverkeithing. Those services do not head into Fife and split up; with the express network, it works extremely well.

Is there the potential for achieving similar or parallel synergies with developments at Rosyth or Halbeath?

You said that you had discussed issues surrounding those potential developments with local authorities and transport authorities. Is there an option for your company to become commercially involved in the development of those sites?

How is it going then, Steve?

As I have said, we try to keep the market under constant review and put on new links wherever necessary. The airport link, which was taken forward in partnership with Fife Council, was a bus route development grant-funded scheme that for the first three years was underpinned by the Scottish Government. The link has been more than successful and will, I hope, carry on into the future. We work very closely with Fife Council to ensure that every opportunity is taken for Fife and, indeed, even further upstream with our Megabus and Scottish Citylink services.

Do you have a clear understanding of how services will look once the new bridge is opened and the current bridge starts to be used as a bus corridor?

Not at the moment, because we are still trying to come to a clear understanding of how the road network will perform. As I said at the start, we have serious concerns about how buses and those in cars who want to access public transport will get to the bridge, never mind get across it. The same holds for the other side of the water. If the package of options is made attractive, people will make the modal shift. As Lawrence Marshall pointed out, those in cars will have to sit in the congestion on the new bridge, watching a single bus going across the old bridge every few minutes or so. If people see free-flowing bus and train services, they will think, “Maybe I should take the bus or train instead of sitting in this traffic. I’ll be able to read my newspaper, look at my e-mails or whatever.” We need to get the package right and make it attractive for people to switch.

As I said, there was a big debate over the matter, which led to the Department for Transport commissioning a report on whether these strategic transport models were fit for purpose. All of this dates back to the central Scotland transport corridor studies, which were started in the late 1990s and completed early this century. At that time, the forecasts for road traffic were falling from previous levels, but were still fairly high; the forecast for rail was that things might stay stable; but the forecast for bus was a continuing decline. I have questioned whether such forecasts can be validated against the actual information about what has been happening over the past five years; the trouble is, however, that such validation is very difficult, given how much trends have been changing.

I suspect that one of the reasons why questions have been raised is that in the model an assumption, say, of 2 per cent growth in gross national product results in an almost 2 per cent growth in car use. However, that is not what has happened. I have to say that Transport Scotland has told me that it is aware of some of the defects in the modelling. The other difficulty is that the model is based on predictions of employment and residential growth in various locations; however, what has been predicted does not happen or happens in a slightly different way, and that affects the forecast. The background papers that were produced prior to this meeting noted the expectation that employment growth in Fife will be weaker than was predicted previously, whereas employment growth will remain strong in Edinburgh, particularly to the south-east of the city and also towards Bathgate. More development is anticipated in that zone after 2017. That might explain why the forecast for vehicle crossings becomes much lower after 2017. I am not satisfied with the modelling outcomes. There will not have been 42 per cent growth between 2005 and 2017, on the basis of the evidence, and given that we are already nearly halfway there.

Models often influence decisions on investment at times when public finance is tight. We know that the situation has got worse, and I am not sure that that has been taken into account sufficiently. The additional Forth crossing is viewed as a good thing, but if people are asked whether they prefer it to other things being done elsewhere in Scotland, they might change their minds.

I have been making this argument for about 15 years. It applied in the case of the rural M74, too. Previous Administrations said that it was the thing that we needed to get the Scottish economy going, and they forecast very high traffic growth in that corridor, with a need for a three-lane motorway. Since that motorway opened, the level of traffic has been virtually stable and therefore way off what the modelling forecast. Furthermore, the Scottish economy has done better than it did in the previous decade. There are very big issues there, which we must consider.

I have asked Transport Scotland for more information in that regard, but it has not provided it. We have been discussing the holding of a seminar to consider the issues, which are particularly important when it comes to finding the finance and with regard to the climate change delivery programme. On the face of it, it seems surprising to predict 42 to 44 per cent growth from 2005 to 2017—that is in vehicle movements, not passengers. The figure changes to only 6 per cent in the next decade.

The assumptions that you have used to calculate cross-Forth passenger volumes by 2017 require a number of projects to be in place that are arguably unlikely to be in place by then, for example the introduction of a high-priority vehicle lane on the current Forth road bridge within 12 months and an early extension of the Edinburgh tramline to Newbridge. Have you done any calculations according to a scenario in which none of those projects is in place?

So let us be clear: you are talking about a scenario in which there would be, for example, a dedicated bus lane on the current Forth bridge but no additional crossing.

I will argue, in evidence that is nearly ready to go to the Forth Crossing Bill Committee, that that needs to be evaluated. We will say more about that in that evidence.

There is a range of things that can be done. Improved pricing is one thing—consideration of fares and integrated ticketing—and another is avoiding the problems that arise if the park and ride is too close to the bridge. We could take the pressure further back by, for example, having something at Halbeath and adding a rail facility at Rosyth.

You highlight a number of public transport infrastructure projects, principally from the strategic transport projects review, that may impact on cross-Forth traffic after 2017. Given current and future financial constraints, do you consider it likely that any of the projects will be completed in the medium or longer term?

I misunderstood the first part of the question.

The measures that we have in place at the moment, while not perfect, ease people’s use of Ferrytoll and public transport. We currently have the bus and car lane into Ferrytoll, and we have access right to the start of the bridge. The bridge backs up because of the traffic coming on at Inverkeithing, Admiralty and so on—that sends shockwaves up the network. What is there at the moment is probably better, because if one lane is used for high-occupancy vehicles and another is used for single-occupant vehicles, congestion will simply build up further back up the route. The gyratory down at Ferrytoll tends to clog up once there is a problem on the bridge. I am cautious about the suggestion that we split traffic on the current bridge into one high-occupancy lane and one single-occupant lane.



16:45

I have a question for Mr Marshall and ForthRight Alliance. We have already heard a number of suggestions for public transport improvements. Your written evidence shows clearly that you are opposed to the Forth crossing. However, assuming that it is built, what public transport improvements would you like to see introduced, in addition to those that we have heard about?

If the bridge is built, the existing bridge will be a bus lane and will give buses a fantastic, congestion-free trip across the Forth. In that case, there will need to be as much bus priority, park and ride and park and choose as possible, both north and south of the estuary. I would also like some investment to be made in the railway network, as the railway has the capacity to carry more people. It already has good capture for central Edinburgh journeys, but there are ways of extending the scope of rail both within the city and in Fife, into Clackmannanshire and so on. I would expect to see some expansion of railway services, as well as the Halbeath to Ferrytoll new fast railway, which is a strategic transport projects review project and would benefit Rob Gibson’s constituents by giving a fast journey time beyond Fife, up to Perth, Inverness, Dundee and Aberdeen.

I return to the point that, if the new bridge is built, the bus lane on the existing bridge will have been bought at huge cost, not just to the taxpayers of Scotland but to other areas of Scotland where people want transport projects such as bypasses and park-and-ride schemes. Those projects will not happen, or will not happen for some time, because we will have spent the money on the new bridge. That money cannot be spent on some of the rail and bus improvement measures that I have just outlined.

Presumably you agree with Tom Hart, who argued that some of those public transport improvements should happen in the short term, regardless of any decision about an additional bridge.

That is true. For me, the question has always been, how can we increase the number of bus journeys and so on when the bridge is already full up at peak periods? The capacity of a dual carriageway is 3,000 vehicles an hour. The only way of increasing the number of bus journeys is to create a disincentive for people who travel by car at the moment, to free up a bit of the road space. That is difficult, because we do not have the means to have variable charging, which would give people more incentive to switch to multi-occupant vehicles—buses or trains—from cars, which are low-occupancy vehicles. Because cars take up so much road space, it is difficult to see how, in the interim, people can get across the estuary more easily by bus. We can have bus lines on either side, but we cannot put a bus lane on the existing bridge.

The bridge is not congested—traffic flows freely on it. The problems are caused by traffic heading north, feeding in from the M9 and the A90 as they merge, and from Inverkeithing and the Admiralty junction. The main focus of the new crossing is to keep traffic flowing. The only way in which it is proposed to do that is by stopping traffic merging in, by using ramp metering. In Glasgow, where traffic was prevented from feeding into the M8, the local roads clogged up. The problem is not congestion on the bridge but congestion before it.

Thank you for the opportunity to give evidence. I was involved in the debates about the Forth crossing in the 1990s, so I am familiar with the history of the various proposals. I emphasise, however, that the critical issues will be raised with the Forth Crossing Bill Committee and the Finance Committee, and the association is submitting separate evidence on those issues.

Since we sent written evidence to the committee, we have received additional information from Fife Council on rail and bus patronage across the Forth at peak periods. I can make that information available to the committee or I can answer questions on it.

I listened to the minister talking earlier about transport models. He said that he thought that the road modelling is reasonable, but rail usage had been underforecasted in rail models. Just yesterday, the Department for Transport received a quite critical report on the appraisal of the models that are used in England. That report concluded that many models are not fit for purpose and that they are often bad at taking into account measures that would encourage more public transport use and the impacts of pricing changes. The committee should note that that report has just been produced. It ties in with our argument that, for the past decade, road traffic growth in Scotland has been considerably below previous estimates, whereas growth in rail traffic has been higher. Buses have also done well in the Forth corridor.

The main initial point that I want to make is that, although the committee is considering the public transport aspects of the Forth Crossing Bill, no new bridge will be available until 2017 at the earliest. A programme for public transport and car-sharing development is needed now, but that seems to be missing from the bill, as is mention of the Forth railway bridge, which is the main means of providing passenger transport across the Forth at the moment. Such an approach to an important issue seems rather unreasonable.

I ask for general comments on the Scottish Government’s proposal that the current Forth road bridge should be simply a public transport corridor. The written evidence from the Scottish Association for Passenger Transport states:

“Even a doubling of bus traffic ... will still amount to less than 2% of ... vehicle movements. The existing Forth Road Bridge will, therefore, be effectively empty”.

Lawrence Marshall described that situation. The submission goes on to describe the political pressure that could arise to open the existing bridge at least to car users. I ask the operators whether the statistics about the likely use of the existing bridge are accurate. Also, is the proposal to use the existing bridge as a public transport corridor for the long term credible, or can we consider it as only today’s commitment and not tomorrow’s?

The industry supports the proposal to retain the current Forth road bridge for public transport. Currently, there are about 425 bus movements per day over the bridge. We are pleased with the proposal, but a range of other issues need to be considered. Like dropping a stone into a pool, the effects will ripple beyond the bridge. It is great that buses will get over the bridge quickly, but we need to think about how to address the issues at either end. We reckon that, in 2005, about 10 per cent of the peak-period cross-Forth trips were made by bus. Transport Scotland’s projections suggest that that will drop to 5 per cent by 2022, which is clearly unacceptable. That is why we think that a range of initiatives need to be considered as part of the public transport corridor package.

The present approach is topsy-turvy. The main recent developments have been improved use of public transport, but there has not been much action on car sharing. Government policy is to make the best use of existing assets. That should include the Forth railway bridge, which has a great deal of spare capacity—extra rolling stock is needed, but we do not need an extra bridge. Therefore, given the overall Government objectives, including the climate change and energy agendas, the immediate emphasis should be on making the best use of the existing crossings.



It is rather unrealistic to consider the detailed public transport proposals in the Forth Crossing Bill. We need to assess what we can do in the next six years, when there will not be a new bridge anyway, and beyond to continue the evident momentum, which is that people are no longer using cars more often. People are always surprised when that is said, but it is taken straight from the official Scottish transport statistics that are published every year. People are already choosing to use public transport more often, despite fares often being quite high, in preference to using their cars. The number of cars has been going up much faster than car usage. That is a very relevant factor that is missing from all the bill’s background papers. In addition, I find it totally surprising that there is virtually no mention of the Forth railway bridge, given that we are supposed to be doing a multimodal study.

I think that Lawrence Marshall was referring to the estimate in the bill’s background papers, which was based on the modelling, of traffic growth of 44 per cent between 2005 and 2017. However, I suggested that there are now serious doubts about the validity of that modelling: there is a problem when we compare it with what actually happened between 2005 and 2009, because there was nothing like the growth that would take us to the figure of 42 or 44 per cent. Incidentally, the figures refer to vehicle movements and not to estimates of passenger movements. Interestingly, in the background papers Transport Scotland forecasts only 6 per cent further growth in the decade from 2017 to 2027. Why is there therefore such an emphasis on massive spending on a project that will not be ready for six years, while other areas of spending are going to be cut sharply?

I had a letter from John Swinney just over a year ago, in which he said that the minimum cuts from capital budgets would be £350 million, but could go up to £460 million per year from other projects. Given the worsening of the public finances since then, the figures are likely to be higher if you insist on continuing with the bridge.

Our input has been with Fife Council. We have not had a great deal of input into the overall design of the project.

The problem that we foresee from some of the modelling that Fife Council has shown us is that there will be a lot of congestion on some of the local Fife roads that lead on to the bridge. From what we have seen and heard, the focus seems to be on keeping the bridge traffic moving, come what may. The ramp metering and traffic management systems to stop other traffic getting on to the bridge at peak times will keep the bridge traffic moving, but will traffic at Admiralty and further up at Halbeath on the local roads keep moving? We are concerned about that, not only for our buses that come across the bridge, but for the local buses that run from one side of Fife to the other. From the modelling that it has seen, Fife Council shares our concerns.

Did you not have the opportunity to discuss those concerns with Transport Scotland before the development of the proposals?

Is there an argument for having dedicated bus lanes on the new bridge, either as well as or instead of what is being proposed?

15:45

I think that for some routes there will be no alternative but to use the new bridge. Whether we should go as far as to say that the new bridge should have single bus lanes is an issue that we would need to think through. For example, people who are heading to West Lothian or the airport will probably need to use the new bridge to complete their journey.

As Tom Hart said earlier, we should not wait till the new bridge comes on stream before trying to change people’s attitudes. We could argue till we were blue in the face about whether the statistics are right or wrong, but I firmly believe that the alternatives need to be put in place in advance of the construction of the new bridge. Arguably, if we are to go ahead with the new bridge, those alternatives should be in place before the work starts so that we can begin to convince people of the need to change and of how they can do that. For example, if we went ahead with the park-and-ride sites at Rosyth and Halbeath and if those achieved an 80 per cent pick-up rate, it is estimated that we could reduce the number of cross-Forth single trips by something like 1 million journeys. That would make a huge impact. If we could replicate the success of Ferrytoll, we would give people real options.

No.

It is suggested that the hard shoulder might be used when high winds prevent buses from crossing the existing Forth road bridge. I have not seen information on how many days that happens, but I think that it is a relatively rare event. There are opportunities to provide better wind controls around the towers on the existing bridge. Again, the rail service is virtually unaffected by high winds.

On capacity, we can look at the commitment from the bus operators and councils that are involved in Ferrytoll. As usage of Ferrytoll has grown over the past 10 years, capacity has grown with it. The frequency of day-time services into Edinburgh is now every five minutes during the peak and every seven or eight minutes off peak. If the demand exists, bus operators will match that demand.

In addition, Ferrytoll now serves not only Edinburgh but other destinations, with opportunities opening up for journeys to places such as Edinburgh airport and Livingston. As George Mair pointed out, places such as Edinburgh airport and Livingston will not be accessed easily by using the old bridge; people will probably need to use the new crossing to access those places because the old bridge will provide no direct route to them.

The committee’s role is to look at transport planning and infrastructure, so I cannot answer that question. However, I have another question for the panel. In written evidence, the City of Edinburgh Council states that the Forth crossing will result in increased traffic levels. What impact might that have on cross-Forth bus traffic?

We have suggested that measures be built in before the new bridge is completed, so that people have the option to convert journeys to public transport. We understand that something like 80 per cent of traffic on the current bridge consists of single-occupant cars. We need to put in place facilities at Halbeath and Rosyth and the other public transport measures that SEStran outlined in its submission, to address the issues of links to different areas and so on that Tom Hart raised. Unless we put such measures in place beforehand and encourage some of the 80 per cent of users who are in single-occupant cars to convert to rail or other forms of public transport at new park-and-ride facilities, traffic levels will increase. We must convince people that there is another option. That option must be available and slick, must work and must give people a swift journey. If we deliver that, we will get modal shift.

I agree with Tom Hart. The issue is not just about getting across the bridge but about the corridor into Edinburgh. Even when people get across the bridge, they are faced with the greenways, which convince a lot of people to switch to public transport. The trains are free flowing anyway. I disagree with SEStran’s figures. From a financial point of view, and as a bus operator, I hope that it is not true anyway.

The quality of public transport vehicles has improved. People can now work as they travel across, as there is wi-fi on the buses. Hopefully, that will encourage people to continue to have a stress-free journey once they have parked their car or made their way by bus down to the interchanges.

I am not sure about the context in which SEStran made that statement, and whether it was based on the existing proposals or on its scenario and whether the initiatives that it has suggested have been picked up.

You are talking about the reintroduction of tolls in some form.

Tolls would help to pay for a lot of measures. FETA was considering the provision of a bus lane across the existing bridge on the pedestrian walkways, but that was not possible because of crash-worthiness standards and so on. We helped to provide the extra capacity at Ferrytoll.

To reinforce my earlier point, the data from the past 10 years make it clear that people are already deciding to use public transport rather than cars. That has been the case despite the fact that there are still several inducements for people to use the car rather than public transport. The incentives are running the wrong way, but if they are changed, there is big potential for further growth in public transport. That is what people will prefer, as it offers other benefits at the same time.

I have a word of caution about park and ride. There is certainly a case for expanding it, but a number of households do not have a car, or have only one car available, which may be used elsewhere. The issue has arisen during SAPT discussions; park and ride should not come at the expense of considering how we develop feeders to the park-and-ride hubs or to rail stations. In many cases, people could walk to those facilities, if we had enough of them. That issue tends to get forgotten. You think that park and ride is the big solution, but it has some difficulties. It is not totally cost free; you need to get the land and spend on it. If the facility is multistorey, it gets worse.

A lot has been made of commuting, but there are still a huge number of people who, between 10 o’clock and 12 o’clock, are looking to use Ferrytoll to get buses across to Edinburgh—they do not want to drive into Edinburgh, because they find that getting the bus is a lot less stressful. The peak at Ferrytoll tends to be between 10 and 12.

When I got the extra data from Fife Council, which were really about travel within Fife and across the Forth, I asked whether the council could tell how many trips were coming from beyond Fife—from further north. Its answer, which is more or less what I expected, was that about 5 per cent come from further north, but they are taking longer trips. The package for the Forth crossing for which the Scottish Association for Public Transport argues assumes that there is already an hourly train service to Perth and a half-hourly service to Dundee. There are plans in the strategic transport projects review to speed up services to Aberdeen and Inverness. Increasingly, I see people using rail for longer trips, particularly if attractive fares are available for families rather than just for people who travel on their own. In the future, the journey times will be better than those by car and the fares should be lower than the petrol costs.

SEStran conducted various corridor studies in the early 2000s. One of the SITCo—SEStran integrated transport corridor—studies was done at Queensferry. All the figures that Robert Gibson is after are in a diagram in that study that shows the figures for people going north and south—32 per cent of people were going to north Edinburgh, 16 per cent to south Edinburgh, 16 per cent to the city centre and 30 per cent to West Lothian and wherever. All the figures were in that study, including those on people from the north, although it may be six or seven years since it was undertaken. I guess that most of the figures are available for people who come from furth of Fife.

I have a final question about an issue that has already been discussed, but I just want to ensure, for completeness, that we address the cross-Forth public transport strategy, a draft of which SEStran presented to the committee in its submission for our most recent meeting. Will you talk the committee through what involvement you have had in the development of that strategy and your thoughts on where it is at the moment?

It is hugely important that those things are brought forward. If we do not do that, we will be in great danger of not encouraging modal shift. People will see the new bridge as the driving force for them to remain in their cars, listening to their radios, as Lawrence Marshall has suggested. We need to start working on that now, by saying to people, “We need to change, guys.”

The industry has been working on a greener journeys programme that is sponsored by the four big operating companies in the UK. There is a real feeling among the general population that things will have to change, and there might be a greater acceptance now of decisions that were seen as impossible at one point. Now, people are starting to think that they have to change and are asking how they can contribute by reducing their carbon footprint. The kind of things that we are talking about will help, but they need to be done before the comfort of a new bridge comes along. If we fail in that, we will fail overall.

Work on the Halbeath and Rosyth park-and-ride facilities was already being undertaken by ourselves, Fife Council and other partners prior to the new crossing even being talked about. A lot of work has been done, and the biggest problem is funding—who funds the work and how.

SEStran, Fife Council and the City of Edinburgh Council also argued strongly for those measures. I am hearing that there is a sense of urgency about this part of the programme. Does anybody else want to add anything on that?

I will sound like a stuck gramophone record, but if there is a single message to give to the committee, it is that there should be a strong emphasis on the need for a public transport and car sharing programme for the next six years. Hopefully, beyond that, the share of public transport will continue to increase because the overall climate—prices and so on—is changing.

I may sound like a slightly different stuck gramophone record. I am keen to see modal splits in favour of public transport because we are really about transporting people, not pieces of tin or metal, across the estuary. Buses are far more efficient than cars at carrying people. The poster at bus stops shows 20 or 30 cars taking up the whole street when the same number of people could be carried by just one bus. We should be encouraging public transport.

However, no increase in the use of the existing crossing by public transport could ever justify the expenditure of more than £2 billion and the denuding of the existing bridge of more than 90 per cent of its traffic. It is not a viable or even justifiable use of public expenditure to achieve a new but clogged-up bridge and an old bridge that is so severely unclogged that it looks empty but, when people get off the bridge at either side, the road is clogged up again. That would be like someone having an arterial bypass without any of the other problems with their body being sorted out.

The CPT has had no involvement in that initiative.

And you still have concerns about the phasing of the work other than the gyratory and about getting into Ferrytoll.

Yes, we have concerns about getting turned from Ferrytoll even when the work is completed.

Yes. Survey work was done back in November. The survey is a joint piece of work between ourselves and Fife Council, which, from memory, is undertaken every three years. It gives people the opportunity to comment on the overall package at Ferrytoll and the range of services. We use that document. Services to Livingston and to the airport have all come on board as a result of feedback from customers.

We have heard a lot about the benefit for passengers of park and ride. Is park and ride a good business opportunity for an operator such as Stagecoach? Is the Ferrytoll park and ride a good thing to be involved in, from Stagecoach’s point of view?

We are working with Fife Council on that sort of basis.

The Halbeath project could become a depot as well as a park-and-ride area. That is being considered at the moment. From the Ferrytoll point of view, we did not put the infrastructure there, but we manage and operate it—we provide our staff there, at no cost to the council. The council maintains the premises, but we ensure that it is staffed and that it operates as it does.

We hope that it will not displace buses.

Or displace passengers who would otherwise have been on a bus.

My final question is for George Mair, although other witnesses may wish to comment. What talks are taking place about the nature of cross-Forth services after the new bridge is open? Are you talking about how bus services across the Forth will be structured when the bridge is open?

It is not the role of CPT to get involved in commercial discussions on bus services. I am sorry that that does not answer your question, but we tend to leave the commercial discussions to the individual operator members, unless there is a request by an individual operator or a local authority.

I want to press Mr Hart on an issue that he has touched on already. In your written evidence, you question Transport Scotland’s estimates of the number of vehicles crossing the Forth by 2017. Why do you consider those estimates to be incorrect? What impact might those possible errors have had on plans for cross-Forth public transport provision?

I am aware that an independent audit of about 30 models from different parts of the UK—but not Scotland—resulted in a number of defects being found in some of them. I became aware of that only today, while reading a transport magazine on the train on the way through to Edinburgh. Presumably, you were aware of such issues earlier. Was that foremost in your mind when you sent the committee your written evidence, as the reason for casting doubt on Transport Scotland’s projections?

I agree that there are technical issues that need to be considered. On the other hand, the proposal could offer significant benefits without high capital cost. It is unclear from the Transport Scotland documentation how many of the cars that cross at the peak are single occupancy. I suspect that at least half of them—perhaps more—fall into that category. The bus operators may have more information on the issue. Shifting even 5 per cent of the people concerned into multi-occupant vehicles or public transport would ease the problem. The high-occupancy lane to which I referred was for buses, selected HGVs and multi-occupant vehicles, including multi-occupant cars. There would be an extended approach lane, so that people could get on to the lane, and a significant penalty if they entered when they were not entitled to do so. The other lane would remain open for any vehicle.

There is a problem with the proposal. If there are road works, everyone will leave it to the last minute to feed into the lane in which they should be. In my view, the proposal would just increase congestion.

I agree that there would be problems for at least a fortnight. However, with good publicity beforehand, good marking and extra officials to ensure that people who did not obey the rules faced penalties quickly, the arrangement would give smoother operation.

You have made your point clearly. As members have no final questions for the witnesses, I thank them for taking the time to answer our questions. The committee will continue its inquiry for a short period before reporting. Its report will be available on the Parliament’s website.

I remind members that tomorrow at 1.30 we will receive an informal briefing in committee room 5 from the UK Committee on Climate Change. I apologise to those members who cannot make it.

Meeting closed at 16:51.

The figure is probably nearer to 400 buses a day using the bridge. However, whatever happens with the public transport corridor—for example, if buses have to use the new crossing—we need to consider the wider problems. Those are not about crossing the estuary, but about getting to the bridge on either side of the estuary. As an operator, that is what we are concerned about. Currently, we have links from Admiralty junction down to Ferrytoll and then greenways up to the mouth of the bridge and on the other side of the bridge. We have concerns about the proposed road layout on either side of the bridge.

There is a contradiction between what Lawrence Marshall says and what Tom Hart says. Mr Hart said that statistics suggest that there is less car use, but Mr Marshall asserts that there is going to be more car use. We have to resolve that contradiction before we take any more comments about whether car use will increase. Can we resolve that just now?

You, and others, will have opportunities to go into some of the wider issues on traffic modelling, the costs of the bridge and the correctness or otherwise of the decision when you speak to the hybrid bill committee; MSPs will have that opportunity when the bill is debated in the Parliament. The remit of this inquiry is the public transport elements of the bill, so I will move back to that and ask a question about the bus priority measures that are proposed at either end of the public transport corridor, which Steve Walker mentioned. Has sufficient detail been forthcoming from the Government or Transport Scotland on those proposals? Have they been worked up in association or co-operation with public transport operators? Is there satisfaction with the proposals as they stand?

The other concern that we have for bus travel from the south to the north is that we have not seen any evidence on whether it will be quicker for buses to come off at Dalmeny and access the old bridge or to stay on the A90 and head across the new bridge. We have seen no modelling or information on the considered journey times for either route.

So you have no concerns.

The policy memorandum states that the new Forth crossing

“will not provide a step change increase in the capacity of the route: increased travel demand for movement across the Forth will need to be met by improved public transport.”

Do you consider that scenario likely? Do bus operators have the capacity to carry such a large number of new passengers?

You refer to commercial opportunities. Steve Walker said that there had been no direct conversations with Transport Scotland. My colleagues and I are concerned about the lack of planning between operators and Transport Scotland. Is that a barrier to long-term planning for services?

At the moment, Ferrytoll is running at about 700 cars a day, with space for 1,024. There are a lot of issues with car parking in the roads surrounding Inverkeithing railway station. There is limited capacity there for people to park their cars and go across on public transport. Rail and bus will be available at Rosyth park and choose. The initial proposal for Halbeath is for buses, but there will be an opportunity in the future to use rail from there as well. If we continue to encourage cars to go across the bridge into Edinburgh, we will put even more pressure on the Edinburgh network.

SEStran’s evidence last week indicated that the proportion of cross-Forth bus journeys will fall substantially following the opening of the new Forth crossing and that it could take several years to return to current levels. Do you agree with that view and, if so, what do you think can be done to prevent it from happening?

My quick answer is that I do not agree. That highlights the issue that I hope the committee will comment on. We need an action programme for the next six years to make sure that that does not happen, and we have to continue to act on such a programme in future. People are quite happy to use improved public transport, if the ticketing system is right and if it is faster than using their cars. It is possible to achieve that.

Well, I am not sure how SEStran has calculated its figures. Steve Walker has already said that that would be an extremely disappointing scenario, but it could be addressed by tackling the issues early on and converting people with the best that the industry can offer through bringing new ideas and suggestions on how we operate services, and encouraging greater use of rail. I hope that that would have a positive impact.

I appreciate that, but I am asking specifically whether your solution to my question on modal shift would involve the reintroduction of some sort of toll.

That option has to be considered. We need to be rational about the use of public resources and where we spend our money. At present, we are heading in the wrong direction, as we are providing more blacktop for cars. The buses might get passage across the estuary itself, but the surrounding road network will be clogged up with the increase in traffic. Hardware alone will not do the job; the software issues have to be considered.

You mentioned other incentives to encourage people towards modal shift. I presume that you were talking about other tax measures and about where you think that the incentives are wrong. Are those measures reserved? Could the Scottish Government introduce them? We are interested in encouraging modal shift in general, but it would be helpful if you could point out any specific measures that are within the powers of this Parliament.

Fuel tax and licences are reserved at present, although the case has been made for looking at that. Many things are not reserved, such as pricing on the road system—apart from fuel tax. Parking policies are certainly not reserved. Developing effective smart-card ticketing makes it easier to change between modes. Some of the newer ticketing has the problem that it involves a delay when passengers board the bus, which is unfortunate. We want minimum delays from ticketing for bus operations. It is no good having a bus priority route when there is a hold-up at the bus stop to handle ticketing.

Yes, but who are those people? I am talking about folk from Inverness or Aberdeen. Are they the people who are leaving their cars at Ferrytoll?

That sounds very out of date to me.

As an association, we have not had a great deal of involvement with SEStran. We have been to some meetings that it called, but our involvement with the partnership has not been intensive.

We have been more involved in various studies in west Edinburgh relating to Gogar, the airport and the new business gateway at Ingliston, which could give rise to quite a number of additional trips. The consultants were asked to prepare their plans on the basis that 50 per cent of trips in that area—and between that area and points to the north and west or along the Edinburgh bypass—would be by public transport and active travel. They have done so, which of course has reduced the traffic growth projections, which are considerably below what they would have been if it had been assumed that public transport use would decline. From memory, active travel accounts for up to about 15 per cent of trips if we are talking about very short trips, but it depends on the length of trip. The rate obviously falls if we are talking about longer trips.

I take it that all of you want to see the infrastructure schemes that Mr Mair just listed taken forward sooner rather than later. Is there anything that you want to add in relation to that list?

16:15

Thank you for that comparison. My other question is a bit different. What involvement have your organisations had in project 25 in the strategic transport projects review—the light rapid transit between Edinburgh and Fife?

None.

I have a couple of questions for Stagecoach. First, what plans do you have to ensure the continued smooth operation of the Ferrytoll park-and-ride site during the construction of the new Forth crossing?

We have been involved in discussions about that with the planners in Fife Council. It was initially proposed that the Ferrytoll gyratory and the upgrade of Ferrytoll would be done before any work started. That might have changed since, but I am not sure. Certainly, too many buses are running through Ferrytoll in the morning peak; it needs to have a bigger bus turning circle and the new plans take that into account. We are happy with the phased work for that. The sooner that that gets put into place, the better.

So there are two things. Would you like to see some of the work outwith Ferrytoll but nearby carried out before the main works?

We would like to see the work that we are talking about for Ferrytoll done as soon as possible.

Yes, although we have concerns about getting to it.

Have you consulted existing and potential bus passengers on how services could be improved once you have a free run, as it were, at the bridge?

Yes. The number of local services and the fact that Megabus and Citylink all call in there mean that it is now more of a bus station than a park and ride. Over and above that, there is also the car sharing and everything else that goes on.

Yes. Rosyth is probably more of a rail park and choose, with local services feeding in to get people to the rail station. The bus stop is right next to the rail area, but Fife Council sees Rosyth more as a rail interchange than a bus interchange. However, the option will still be there.

Halbeath really moves the Ferrytoll model further upstream. There are a number of opportunities with local services feeding past that point on to the express network. It allows many more connections to become available to the residents of Fife, not only from the park-and-ride point of view.

Are you investing your own money in those developments?

Stagecoach sponsored the hovercraft trial across the Forth. Is there potential for the hovercraft service to operate almost as a park and ride? Could it displace buses from the Forth crossing?

We hope that it will enhance options for people to make the change from the car. We are going through planning on both sides of the water—Portobello and Fife—for the terminal and the parking area in Fife. Once we have been through planning, we hope to get the green light and the crafts will be commissioned. Eighteen months down the line, we hope to have a hovercraft service as well as the range of other public transport options across the Forth.

Have any of your member companies been involved in such discussions?

16:30

I know that Steve Walker has been involved in some discussions and that First Scotland East has had a number of discussions about the proposed interchange for Queensferry. That said, although I know that discussions are on-going with operators in different parts of the country, the fact is that we tend to step back from any commercial discussions.

That was a listing of possible measures, some of which I would view as being more important than others. We have touched on the tram extension, which I think is most unlikely. Bus improvements and conventional rail improvements would be better.

One of the issues regarding rail is securing orders for the appropriate rolling stock. At present the DFT policy is not to order any diesels but to expand electrification, thus releasing diesels to operate on lines that can only be diesel operated. If that process is fairly slow, there will be problems with getting the necessary rolling stock to expand services over the Forth bridge.

There is a case for a priority lane on the existing bridge. There are problems with doing that—mainly political problems—but it offers the best promise of reducing congestion and achieving a greater shift. The more that traffic flow can be reduced, the easier it is to handle quite large numbers on the one lane that is available for any type of traffic.

Some of them are relatively cheap, such as the reopening of the railway to Leven, where there is an expanding area of housing. That would cost nothing like the order of a new Forth crossing. Getting on the train to come through here, I noticed that either Fife Council or the south east of Scotland transport partnership—SEStran—was looking at the concept of adding a passenger service to the freight line that runs through Longannet from Dunfermline up to Stirling, possibly including a short new chord so that the service could run directly, without going to Dunfermline, over the Forth crossing.

Some of the projects are cheap. The project that could have a big impact on trip times, reduce rail congestion and get a smooth flow is the new rail link from the Ferrytoll area to Halbeath. That is costed in the strategic transport projects review at £100 million to £250 million, which is a big range but nothing like the £2 billion for the Forth crossing. That project would help to keep more local Fife traffic separate from trains that go further and faster to Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth and Inverness, so it would be worth looking at in a revision of the strategic transport projects review.

It has already been admitted that, because of the changing financial situation and because doubt has been cast on whether the projects would all be financed—they were talked about and put quite far into the future—it is time to take a more realistic look. I would advance some other elements, particularly project 24, which affects Glasgow and the west of Scotland. There is a case for advancing that into the period up to 2017, which could be done incrementally, tailoring the projects beyond it.

This is a question probably to Mr Walker in the first instance. We have heard Mr Hart’s suggestion about a high-occupancy vehicle lane on the current bridge. Would that have any impact on the flow of traffic, be that bus or car, into Ferrytoll? You discussed earlier how important it is to have a free flow. Would there be an impact on your services? How would the two work together?

I will let you come in, Mr Hart, but Mr Walker spoke about the importance of free-flowing traffic to Ferrytoll. If we had a high-occupancy vehicle lane on the current bridge at peak times, when there is already congestion, would that have an impact on the free running into the park and ride?