Developing Rail in the Liverpool City Region …Supporting Growth in the Sub-Regional, Regional and National Economies



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Gaps and challenges


Despite these positive trends, there remain some very significant challenges for the LCR. The LCR underperforms compared to others with noticeably lower levels of employment, productivity and business formation. In comparison to the national average, the Strategic Economic Plan for LCR1 cites a deficit of 18,500 businesses and 90,000 jobs and a gap of £8.5bn GVA. The region needs, and can readily accommodate, significant inward investment to rebalance and revitalise its economy. But the current rate of “wins” is inadequate, and the resources and structures in place to attract inward investment are insufficient to the task. Improving the capability of transport infrastructure (especially rail) is a key enabler to attracting inward investment and developing indigenous business.

      1. Distribution and logistics


For close to a decade the LCR has recognised the importance of its port, airport, road, rail and logistics assets that extend out across the whole LCR – in combination these represent a strategically important freight and growth opportunity for the UK as a whole. The SUPERPORT initiative sets out to address this opportunity. It brings together projects, investment and activity across and beyond LCR to develop a multimodal freight hub to rival such international locations as New York, Dubai and Singapore. The vision for SUPERPORT is to bring together and integrate the strengths of the Ports, Airports and Freight Community to create a SUPERPORT for freight and passenger operations within the LCR that will become a key driver of its economy. It will create the most effective and cost efficient environment for freight cargo logistics and passenger transit in the UK. The initiative has already been successful in attracting investment from some of the world’s biggest businesses. When it opens in 2015 Liverpool2 will become the UK’s most centrally located deep water container terminal. Currently 90% of deep sea cargo enters the UK via the South, when 50% of the UK container market is actually closer to Liverpool (this is imbalance is further highlighted by the example of Indian trade illustrated in Figure 5). With the added capacity of Liverpool2, the expanded port facilities of Liverpool will have the potential to remove over 100 million lorry-miles per year2 from congested roads in the South East.

Figure 5: Indian trade entering the UK region

SUPERPORT has the potential to profoundly reshape the UK’s transport distribution and logistics networks, creating cost-efficient and carbon-efficient supply chains. An effective rail freight distribution capability will be essential to realise the potential of SUPERPORT, but this will require investment to provide new connections and additional capacity and capability in the rail network. A direct HS2 connection to Liverpool could help to provide this much needed capacity.

      1. Passenger Rail


The LCR has an extensive passenger rail network, including an underground network that penetrates the heart of Liverpool city centre. Lime Street main line station provides a terminus for regional passenger rail services operating to and from the east and for all longer distance services. Recent investment in the station frontage has created a fine gateway for rail passengers arriving in the heart of Liverpool. However, the rail system has some inherent weaknesses that will need to be addressed in order to provide the fully effective and efficient transportation system necessary to attract inward investors to the region and to support the travel growth that is anticipated to follow. These fall into three categories: capacity, connectivity and quality.

Capacity


    • Much of the rolling stock deployed in the region is of insufficient capacity to accommodate peak levels of demand, resulting in potentially cramped and crowded conditions for commuters, although the North West electrification programme, will support the provision of more capacity on some services into Lime Street.

    • City centre stations, such as Liverpool Central station suffer congestion not only during the weekday peak periods, but also at weekends given the major flows generated by city centre retailing and major events (e.g. football, concerts, festivals, etc.).

    • Track and signalling layouts are a major constraint to increasing the frequency of passenger train services and to providing additional paths to accommodate new rail freight services.

Connectivity


    • Liverpool’s connectivity to London and other core/key city regions in terms of direct passenger train services compares unfavourably with peer group cities. The Northern Hub infrastructure scheme in Manchester will provide some welcome improvements, but there remains a considerable opportunity for improving the network of services operating to and from Liverpool.

    • The lack of compatible rail infrastructure (including W10 structure gauge to accommodate modern deep sea containers) and rail-linked facilities limits the ability for rail to service the region’s industries.

    • While much improved at some stations, there is further need to improve and enhance the integration of rail with other transport modes: with bus, with local walking and cycling routes and through the provision of additional park and ride facilities.

Quality


    • The rolling stock on the Merseyrail Electrics network and also much of that deployed on other regional services is old and does not offer the quality or performance of more modern rolling stock that rail users now expect.

    • .

    • With aging infrastructure and rolling stock, performance could suffer leading to poor punctuality and unreliable services. Although at present it is one of the best performing networks in the country, without investment sustaining this would be at considerable risk.




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