Opinion

To maximise the economic benefits of HS2, it’s the last 0.5km that counts.

Chris Pownall, Systra

We must start planning around proposed HS2 stations now if we are to reap all the potential economic benefits, says Systra’s Rail Consulting Director Chris Pownall.

How long is 0.5km? If that 0.5km involves hauling yourself and your luggage along a crowded pavement by a congested road, the answer could be ‘too long’.

As HS2 moves from the ‘if’ to the ‘how’, one of the most urgent issues facing us is getting travellers from other trains, buses, cars,  bikes and foot onto HS2. This means developing access strategies which will cover everything from constructing new local transport networks, to remodelling and enhancing the urban environments around stations, to considering how people will use personal technology to access and pay for seamless transport links in the future.

Light rail networks such as Nottingham and the Midland Metro had to address similar transport and urban integration issues to HS2, albeit on a smaller, regional scale.

To optimise the number of people who want to travel on HS2 – and in turn, the impact on the local businesses and economy - the connecting journey between one form of transport and another must be smooth, fast and stress-free.

Successful station design focuses on people and requires co-operation and compromise among design professionals: civil, mechanical and electrical engineers, architects, urban planners and transport operators.

Each HS2 station location has its own set of challenges in serving the local and sub-regional catchment areas. Finding the right solution will require collaboration between HS2 and local authorities, many of whom have already started to engage in this challenge.  One-size-fits-all solutions will not work.

We can look to examples in the UK of overlaying new provision on existing networks.  South Eastern’s successful development of the HS1 service highlights some of the economic development benefits of fast rail connections and provides some pointers on handling commercial ticketing arrangements with connections into other services.

Light rail networks such as Nottingham and the Midland Metro had to address similar transport and urban integration issues to HS2, albeit on a smaller, regional scale.

The regenerative impact can spread out far beyond the immediate areas around stations, and benefit people beyond those who actually use the High Speed services.

And as last month’s [NOVEMBER] Independent Transport Commission report, Understanding the Spatial Effects of High Speed Rail, identified, there are imaginative overseas examples to draw on.  In Lodz – Poland’s ‘Manchester’ – a new station building will integrate two stations into one to create an efficient interchange between the new high speed line and regional railways. 

In West Kowloon, Hong Kong, the high speed station required detailed transport and urban planning to integrate the new and existing networks. In both cases, everyone using the termini – not just high speed rail users - benefit.

Quantifying the economic benefits of varying locations and strategies is complex. Our current work for HS2 involves sophisticated modelling to examine the many different scenarios, looking at the impact of station locations on the use of the service and how that feeds into the resulting local and wider economic benefits.

If we get this right, HS2 really does have the potential to re-balance economic power between the North and South. The regenerative impact can spread out far beyond the immediate areas around stations, and benefit people beyond those who actually use the High Speed services.  But to do that, planning and design must reach out too, and look at the bigger picture.