The key recommendations were addressed to the industry as a whole - to look at how costs were reduced overseas, and to establish a centre of procurement excellence to advise on best practice.
Enter UK Tram, a trade body that already existed but which was reconstituted to enable it to tackle this new mission, talking with a ‘single voice’ to Government and statutory bodies. It is funded by the industry itself and by the Department for Transport. Its General Manager is James Hammett.
“We have to lobby for light rail with ministers, with Local Enterprise Partnerships. We need to make sure everyone is aware of the benefits light rail can bring,” he says.
So what’s the prize for getting it right?
“Better integrated transport, making journeys easier for people, less pollution by moving that many people with one vehicle in one go. When you get it right, it is hugely rewarding.”
Picking up the point about sharing good (and bad) practice, Hammett adds: “We have an owners and authorities group that is the current owner of the systems. They guide new potential owners on not ‘falling down some of the holes’ that they have previously. They advise on what’s worked for them - what’s been good, what’s not been very good, what they would do differently.
“All the time the industry is changing, so it’s about making sure they are not looking at a model from a few years ago that may not work today. All the systems we have in the UK, if you look at them in fine detail, they are all different. But they all have the same common problems in terms of day-to-day operation and maintenance. A lot of things are still the same, the knowledge will be useful.”
Are people nervous about light rail?
“There have been some bad experiences, and people are cautious. But you have to look at the success stories. We can learn from those that weren’t done quite so well - but even those have turned into success stories in the end. As long as people learn from the mistakes, and that’s what we are here to do.”
UK Tram also looks enviously towards the continent, where Mayors are empowered to make decisions and costs are not all tagged to a system’s development. However, its efforts are geared towards finding other solutions that would contribute towards bringing down the initial capital outlay. It has established a research base at the former MoD depot at Long Marston, and recently ran a competition called Low Impact Light Rail, as a result of which 15 projects have been awarded funding for further study.
According to Hammett, these include developing lightweight track sections that could avoid the need to move utilities altogether, but which could be lifted out for access when required. Catenary could also be made lighter and less obtrusive.
“Birmingham has done a good job of making it lightweight on the city centre extension - it’s not obtrusive on the skyline. There are steps to make that even better in the future,” he says.
Indeed, the Midland Metro will dispense with overhead wires altogether for some sections of its future extensions, taking advantage of new battery technology to power the vehicles. Meanwhile, two of the system’s retired trams are bound for Long Marston, to be used on a test track where these and other innovations can be properly trialled.
Says Hammett: “A decade from now there will be at least another couple of systems in the UK, I am confident of that. There are some cities well down the line looking at possibilities. And while this is going on, the current systems we have are expanding - Birmingham has ten years’ worth of work on new extensions.”
Remarkably, the West Midlands isn’t just home to one team pushing the envelope of light rail, but two. Joseph, who also believes that emerging technology will guide light rail’s story in the future, cites the work being done by the Warwick Manufacturing Group. This is an academic department of Warwick University, working with industry partners with a focus on low carbon mobility. In recent years it has applied its research to road transport, including how to make vehicles lighter and propulsion systems cleaner.
“About four years ago we became aware of what we call very light rail and people trying to work in the area, like the Parry People Mover at Stourbridge,” says Programme Director Nick Mallinson.
The PPM is a lightweight vehicle currently in use as part of a unique ‘in franchise’ trial on the short Stourbridge Town branch. Since its introduction a Sunday service has been operated and passenger figures have risen substantially.
Mallinson explains: “We thought this was an area where we could start transferring technology from road-based vehicles into rail. Typically rail vehicles are heavy, and there is a focus on electrification that brings costs with it. We were saying there must be a way of ‘lightweighting’ the vehicles, and if they can be self-propelled so you don’t need the overhead electrics, then we can make a contribution there.”
