LONG DISTANCE RAIL SERVICES TO AIRPORTS

Transcription

1 LONG DISTANCE RAIL SERVICES TO AIRPORTS Roland Niblett Colin Buchanan and Partners 1. INTRODUCTION In 1995 the European Union commissioned the author's firm to carry out a study of the current state of long-distance rail services to airports. The main objective was to review best practice in terms of the services provided, interchange design, marketing and any other relevant issues. This would enable the EU to be in a better position to evaluate requests for funding for new rail access to airports. A further objective was to find out how far rail services could act as substitutes for short-hanl air services, which could release runway capacity at certain airports. This paper summadses the conclusions of the report to the EU. 2. BACKGROUND The rap~d increase in popularity of air travel is putting pressure on many airports around the world, not only on runway and terminal capacity, but also in terms of surface access. At most airports the majority of passengers and an even larger proportion of those who work at the airport, arrive by car. This has led inevitably to congestion on the road system around the airport, and at times complete paralysis. One answer is to build a new railway link to the airport, so that air passengers, airport employees and others having business at the airport have an alternative means of access which is both fast and reliable. Many such rail links have been built to air[ports all round the world in the past few years. The majority are short links to the nearest city centre, often achieved by extending an existing Meffo system which already pointed towards the airport. They are characterised by short trains at high frequencies, with low standards of passengers. At the other extreme are the long distance Inter-City type of service which calls at the airport on a much longer journey. Charles de Gaulle airport in Pads now has a TGV service to both Lille and Lyons and is a good example of its type. The European Uriion is particularly interested in what makes for success or otherwise in air/rail interchange, anticipating that it will receive requests for funding for new airport rail links in the nextfew years. The ELI commissioned a study of existing long-distance rail links to airports, which gave the author's firm a very useful insight into how these rail links are working at present.

2 Table 1 shows all the main airports in the world known to have rail links. The vast majority are in Europe, with a few in the United States and Japan. The number of airports with long-distance rail services is much smaller; only 10 at present. Partly this is because airport management see longer-distance rail services as more of a threat than a support, because they compete with some shorter-distance air services. For example the Paris-Lyons air service was decimated by the TGV service between those cities. But in time, as airport runway capacity becomes more scarce, small capacity aircraft will be forced out of the busier airports. It is these which are most often operated on routes for which long distance rail is a very satisfactory substitute. We can already see this happening in Britain, where there are now no services from any London airport to either Birmingham or East Midland airports; rail services via central London, even though they involve a change, are an adequate substitute. 2.1 Rail Services Most airport links to City Centres provide between two and four trains 'per hour. Although not surprisingly the busier airports tend to have more frequent services, this is by no means always the case. Heavy rail services are generally less frequent than rapid transit, but are faster because they do not stop at most intermediate stations. Three specific features of the services appear to be critical to potential users: Baggage handling, Passenger Information and Ticketing. Virtually the only airports which operate a comprehensive baggage forwarding system are in Switzerland. At Geneva and Zurich airports it is possible on payment of a fee of 20 Swiss francs per item of luggage, to have one's luggage transported directly between the aircraft and any major rai! station in Switzerland, though only about 7% of users of these airports use this facility. 2.2 Passenger Information A common feature of rail/air interchange is a lack of integrated rail/air passenger information. The reason appears to be that the rail operator and airport operator are unwilling to finance or co-ordinate the display of each others information in their areas of the interchange. The air terminals normaily only display airline information and the rail station rail information. Again Switzerland is the exception, with a good mix of real time rail and air passenger information. On leaving immigration and entering the arrival hall at Zurich or Geneva airports, the first information presented to the passenger is real time rail information, immediately making the passenger aware of the rail interchange. On the rail concourse both rail and flight departures are displayed, enabling departing passengers (accessing the airport by rail) to see which gate they are leaving form. Those passengers that use the advance check-in facilities are able to proceed to the departure gate immediately.

3 2.3 Ticketing The image of a seamless transition from aircraft to train is not helped by having to buy separate tickets for each part of the journey, but this is mostly what happens at present. There are several reasons for this, including the high level of commission on.ticket sales charged by travel agents, and the difficulty of keeping in touch with large numbers of agents all round the world. In the case of rail connections to another town with an airport, the airline's own computer reservation systems definitely work against the railway. For example air passengers from Birmingham to Madrid will be advised to change planes at Paris rather than consider going by rail to London and by air from there to Madrid. 2.4 Traffic Table 2 shows the surface access mode split for a number of European airports. Car Taxi Bus Rall Other Amsterdam Berlin Tagel Brussels Cologne/Bonn Diasseldorf Frankfurt Geneva Hamburg London Gatwick London Heathrow London Stansted Manchester Munich Paris CDG Paris 0rly Zurich Table 2 shows that where there is a rail connection, the proportion of passengers using it to access the airport varies from 6% to 42%, with an average of some 22%. This is considerably higher than the bus modal split of those airports without a rail connection, which is only 13%. There are of course many variations between individual airports, which make direct comparison difficult, but nevertheless a target of rail catering for at least 25% of all airline passengers is reasonable. Table 3 gives a modal split figures for the employees.at some of the airports in Table 2. With the notable exception of D~sseldorf, the total public transport (rail and bus) share is much lower than for airline passengers. One of the mean reasons for this is the free ayallability of car parking spaces for employees at many airports.

4 Car Public Transport Other Amsterdam Cologne/Bonn Dilsseldorf Frankfurt Hamburg Heathrow 81 I 1 8 Manchester The Role of the Airlines In 1982 the German airline Lufthansa introduced the first airline-operated rail service in the world. It was styled like an air service with stewards and free meals, and ran between Diisseldorf and Frankfurt airports, calling at Koln and Bonn. (See Map 1) The four trains per day were limited to airline passengers only. A second service, between Frankfurt airport and Stuttgart, started in Because of the short platforms at Dtisseldorf airport station, which was designed for S-Balm trains, the trains used by Luffhansa (leased from DBAG) had only 140 seats. But it proved difficult even to fill these; load factors were only about 40%, and in 1993 Luffhansa handed it over to DBAG. They quickly abandoned the short section between Dtisseldorf airport and Dtisseldorf Central stations - this part of the journey now has to be done by S-Bahn. Similarly the exclusively airline features of the Lufthansa service have been dropped. Instead airline passengers to Franlffurt now use a normal DBAG, InterCity type train service from Dtisseldorf central, but they have the advantage of a much more frequent service of eighteen trains per day, rather than'four. Alitalia have had a somewhat similar experience with their operation of rail services for their own passengers, between Rome's Fiumicino Airport and both Florence and Naples. Both services were operated twice a day non-stop, and were for Alitalia passengers only. However in 1994 after only two years of operation, Alitalia'ceased operation of these routes, because of the high leasing and operating costs and relatively lowpatronage. Instead, a more frequent local rail service is now operated form Fiumicino to Rome City Centre though there is still only one train per 'hour direct to Rome's main rail terminal, where trains to other parts of Italy start. There are therefore no airline-operated rail services at all at the present time, and the conclusion seems to be that airlines are unable to make a commercial success of operating rail services. It is not possible to provide an adequate frequency of long distance rail service to an airport on the basis of airline passengers alone. 2.6 Case Studies Two particular airports are worth looking at in a bit more detail to see how the rail/air interface Works. Charles de Gaulle Airport, one of two serving the city lies about 20kms north-east of the centre of Paris, to which it is linked by an RER line. But it also lies on a recently opened north-south rail line which by-passes Paris, and which currently carries about seven TGV trains per day in each direction. Future plans will see this number more than double when links to the Sud-Onest and Onest lines are

5 complete (Map 2). A magnificent new interchange station was opened in 1994 at which both TGV and RER trains call. But although this interchange is close to Terminal 2 of the airport, and the future Terminal 3, it is at least 2km from Terminal 1 (Map 3). This gap is currently bridged by shuttle buses, but 1996 should see a peoplemover system doing this job. The interchange itself is on five separate levels, as follows: 5 Buses, coaches, private cars 4 Airport information, business centre, hotel entrance 3 People-mover 2 SNCF book office, shops, restaurants 1 TGV and RER trains. After only one year in operation the interchange is now used by about 1.8 million passengers per year, with a further 4.4 million using the RER station at Terminal 1. Patronage of the new interchange will undoubtedly increase in the future, and the target of 25% of air passengers using rail is likely to be exceeded. However, certain features of the interchange, particularly the long horizontal distances between the rail and air terminals will make it difficult to achieve very high market penetration by rail services. Sehipol Airport, Amsterdam catered for 23 million passengers in 1994, and is growing at over 10% per year. It was linked to the rail network in 1975 and now has no less than fourteen train departures per hour to destinations throughout the Netherlands. The rail operation at Schipol, unlike that at Charles de GauUe, is based entirely on a conventional network, with a mix of suburban and InterCity types of trains. This is made possible by the fact that Schipol lies near the centre of a dense network of routes serving the main urban centres of the 'Randstat', i.e. Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam and Utrecht. The airport station is location in a new building situation close to all three airport terminals. Walking times from train platform to airport te.rnainal are only about three minutes. The station has six platforms which is sufficient to allow for the future operation of the proposed THALYS trains service between Amsterdam and Paris, which will add still further to the range and speed of rail services available at Schipol. The current surface access modal split of air passengers is 25% by rail. The authorities at Schipol aim to increase this to 50% by the year This will only be possible if the current high levels of train services are further improved to serve an even larger number of destinations. 2.7 Success Factors Experience shows that dedicated airport rail links cannot usually be provided economically except at the very busiest airports, or by the imposition of very high fare levels (as is the case with Heathrow Express). However, by combining airport passengers and other passengers in the same trains, a more frequent service can be

6 provided, but it is obviously important that the average speed of service is not reduced by too many intermediate stops, as happens with the Piccadilly Line service to Heathrow. It is very much easier to operate a rail network serving many different places if, as at Gatwick, Schipol and Zurich, the airport station lies on a through line, and not a dead-end. Longer distance trains do not have to reverse and the costs of operating the trains can be shared between airport and non-airport passengers. But experience so far at Lyons, where there is an airport station served by only four TGV trains in each direction per day, is that a reasonable frequency of service is also an essential ingredient of success. So to conclude, it seems that the most successful airport rail links must combine the following features: Fast, frequent service Range of destinations Short and easy interchange between train and aircraft Real-time passenger information system. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Author wishes to thank Railway Gazette International for their help in compiling Table 1.

7 .P~ 0 ~ "~ ~ ~ ~.~ ~. ~ + m r.. ) f: e~ 0 ~.~.~ ~ ~ 0

8 0 ~-~ 8 = = ~ " ~ '~ o = ~ cd :> o5 o~ ~ 0 r'~ o 0 0 ca~ o o._ ~co 0 ~ "~ ~ o o..=c~ 0 0 ~-,

9 li ~> II o~ 0 ~. ~,- *-, ~ o o, ~ o = ~ o = -.. o ~ ~ : z = ~ ~ II " ~ - = ~ ~ ' ~ g o o ' ~ o.. * ~-~ xl,~ '~1" ~'~ ~ 0 P~- O 0 0 ~ --~