Track changes?

Commuters whizzing from city to city, freight taking the low-carbon route by train… whatever long-term future we see for rail, the thinking must start now. Christian Wolmar compares scenarios for 2040.

It’s not a bad assumption that taking the train is greener than jumping in a car or catching a plane. The maths certainly show that railways have a ‘natural advantage’ over other forms of transport in terms of carbon dioxide emissions per passenger mile – about half the impact of the motorist, and a quarter that of the plane traveller.

But will it always be that way? As car manufacturers develop new technologies and airlines start to trial alternative fuels, how will the rail industry stay ahead of the game on sustainability?

Eager to understand its own performance in the face of change, the Sustainable Rail Programme, facilitated by Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), held a series of workshops on the future for the rail industry over the next 30 years. The results were four contrasting scenarios [see box] that should help identify the actions the industry should initiate today to position itself as a sustainable sector in 2040.

To inject some rigour into the blue-sky thinking, the exercise looked in particular at two variables: whether the government drives whole journey planning, or competition, between different modes of transport; and whether people travel more, or less, in tomorrow’s society.

This created some pretty diverse scenarios. Cloud Zero, for example, implies low growth for the economy. In this world, personal carbon limits have radically influenced the way people travel. The overall ‘travel pie’ may be smaller but rail freight is an overall winner in terms of its share.

In a second scenario, Homeward Bound, people again travel less – and work at home more. A taxation system favouring less carbon-intensive modes encourages people to opt for high-capacity, electrified railways rather than flying abroad for holidays. Although overall UK travel falls, it is likely that the proportion of people travelling by train will increase – as might ‘rail miles’ in absolute terms.

But if increased investment and innovative technology help realise the integrated transport vision so beloved of policy makers today, we could see a scenario like Grand Projects. Here, increased policy intervention and travel mean business passengers travel between major cities on high-speed lines and get real-time travel information via mobile phone. Higher ticket prices would help recoup the cost of infrastructure and new technologies such as GPS.

In a more competitive framework that doesn’t favour whole journey planning, it is buses and coaches, aided by low-emission technology, that are able to offer cheap and low-carbon travel to passengers. Rail may fail to keep pace with the green advances in cars, but its real strength lies in offering congestion relief, particularly to commuters. In this Gold Stars future, carbon and resource metrics are important but disputed, leading to a culture of claim and counter-claim between competing travel modes.

“The scenarios are deliberately designed to be extreme – to help flush out what specific policies would be needed to get to a particular solution,” explains Len Porter, RSSB’s chief executive. They don’t represent cast iron predictions of the future, but instead give an idea of the sort of challenges that lie ahead, and so inform better decision-making.

Despite their contrasting nature, they do all send out the clear message that transport will rise up the political agenda, energy issues will become ever more crucial, and sustainability an even greater consideration for policy makers. They demonstrate comprehensively that the rail industry cannot be complacent about the future. To retain and even increase its existing share of the ‘travel pie’ will require both the right actions from within the industry and support from government.

8 October 2008

Christian Wolmar