Some “Metro” suggestions for TfW’s Board & Welsh Government

I allowed myself a brief dystopian AI blog to start February 2025. Now it’s back to Metro and transport…and yes, I am going on and on; but someone needs to!

Today, some very capable people at Transport for Wales, under James Price’s leadership, are delivering a metro and a completely new train fleet and rail services for the whole of Wales; they are also starting to grapple with the enormous challenge of bus reform and multi-modal network and service integration. We have also seen some industry leading progress on capped tap-in/tap-out Pay As You Go (PAYG) on the Core Valley Lines (CVL). To go from heresy to actually building/operating a Metro in 15 years is very quick for a project of this scale. So, we have come a very long way, very quickly.

However, I am increasingly more interested in the things TfW and Welsh Government (WG) still need to do, and/or do better once we have finished the current phase of Metro. I am not satisfied with where we are and know we need to do more. The TfW board and Welsh Government should be cognisant of these issues as they come with difficult choices, funding challenges, institutional constraints and political implications. Some of those details I set out in my book, “How to build a Metro“

The issues that most vex me at the moment include:

• Revising the Train Service Requirements (TSR) for Metro. The TSR for the Metro was compromised at the outset (by me!) and has bequeathed us a sub optimal planned CVL service pattern. It really needs to be ripped up and something new put in place that reflects the features of the very best urban mass transit systems. I explain how that happened in this section of my book

• We are not matching capacity to latent demand as effectively as we could – and this directly impacts costs of operations, farebox and subsidy. There are clearly many issues/challenges and yes, infrastructure issues/constraints, but at the moment, if one looks at demography around the Core Valley Lines (CVL), we have some sections of the network (eg between Radyr and Pontypridd) with relatively low demand but with a very a high service frequency offering planned, and others with high demand but a very poor service offer (eg City and Coryton Lines)

• I am not sure everyone appreciates the essential “redline features” of the best in practice urban mass transit systems. These are “turn up and go” service frequencies (ideally 5/6tph – we have to view 4tph as a bare minimum), legibility (networks and services thereof need to be easy to understand), then easy interchange between more legible component services (cf London Underground, Manchester Metrolink, Newcastle Metro, etc).
  
  The stark reality is that in urban areas “no one waits 30 mins for a 15 min trip”. The fact that most of Cardiff’s Metro stations will not be getting Metro services is a major omission in the current programme that need to be addressed urgently. My original vision will remain fundamentally compromised without it.
  
  I covered the importance of service frequency, grids and network legibility in my book. I also covered how the above measures fit into the broader Cardiff Crossrail Phase 2 programme which also adda few more stations to the city and connects Crossrail to the west, which I estimate will add 2-3M to CVL annual passenger numbers .

• It’s not ideal, but one could certainly consider some skip stopping between Pontypridd and Radyr (where stations like Taffs Well, Treforest and Treforest Ind estate are currently planned to be served with 12tph!). A simplified 4tph service group offer could still provide 8tph to these stations, improve performance and reliability, and probably improve generalised journey times at the same time. This will make it easier to introduce the minimum 4tph on City and Coryton lines once the necessary infrastructure has been introduced (as well as further new stations). So, Cardiff West Junction enhancement and a loop on the Coryton line (for which passive provision via OLE gantry positioning has been provided).
  
  There are no doubt other options to better match capacity to latent demand and which can still provide the minimum 4tph at every CVL station (eg running a 2tph Treherbert-Aberdare service via Pontypridd – with a turnback – and dropping Pontypridd to Cardiff to 8tph)

• I don’t doubt that even with some further service pattern and timetable simplification, there may well still be a need to reverse some of the measures value engineered out earlier in the programme to improve reliability and resilience. So, a little more double tracking and more OLE – but this assessment must be made having first simplified the current timetable and service patterns

• CVL Network de-designation and tough choices. There are tough choices we have deliberately and possibly politically avoided. We have built and are going to be operating a more expensive CVL Metro network than it needs to be, with the only Light Rail Vehicles in the UK (probably anywhere) with guards involved in despatch operations on every service. Is this operationally and financially sustainable? PS – I cover network designation in this section and this section of my book “How to build a Metro”. This is worth a look as well re LR v HR. I also think the retention of Heavy Rail (HR) on the CVL has allowed perhaps a little too much HR thinking and culture to bleed into TfW’s corporate culture. See this short section from “How to build a Metro”.
  
  As a precursor to a future change in network designation, Crossrail Phase 2, presents the opportunity for new lower cost local tram-train services linking Penarth, Central, Cardiff Bay, Coryon and Caerphilly. I don’t see why we can’t explore the option of allocating an average of 0.5 guards per tram-train by using roving customer service staff (as is common on most LR systems) for these more local and shorter services (and far less prone to Anti-Social Behaviour, which I know is an issue on some parts of the CVL network).
  
  Now I don’t mind that WG have made these decisions re: network designation, staffing protocols, service patterns, etc. What I don’t think is acceptable is pretending such choices have not been made and that we “cant afford” to operate more rail when there are clearly options open to us that can reduce tram-train operating costs and improve farebox.

• As I set out in my book, we also need to get away from the rail v bus debate, and the “bus is inherently less costly to operate” fallacy. One needs to compare the outputs to make a meaningful comparison, and set out how many buses would be required to deliver the same capacity and reliability as the rail option.  For example, to deliver the same output as an additional 2tph on the City and Coryton lines in Cardiff (so as 2*tram-trains could be an additional 1000 people an hour) you would need to run up to 15 buses an hour on congested roads to deliver the same capacity  –  which operationally is more costly (15 buses, 15 bus drivers vs 2 tram drivers and 2 guards!) and less reliable and attractive given the lack of segregation/prioritisation afforded buses (Yes we need more bus lanes!).
  
  PS I also think we need to stop trying to compare rail v bus using averages on an all Wales basis. This is not helpful and can lead to poor decision making. Much better to compare routes & services, irrespective of mode, on a more granular basis give the huge range on costs, revenues and subsidies associated with different services (bus and rail across Wales). For example the costs, farebox and subsidy to operate services on the Heart of Wales line are enormously different from those for the Core Valley Lines (esp. post Metro). To combine them as part of an average for rail in Wales helps no one and will result in poor decision making. Same applies when comparing bus service in urban Cardiff with rural services. We need much more granular management accounting of cost, PAX, farebox, subsidy, etc

• Following from that example, I think the aim of multi-modal Integration is perhaps a little misunderstood. This is as much a cultural and organisational challenge as it is a network/service planning one. No-one outside London has any real experience of multi modal transport and operational planning since the deregulation of buses in the 1980s. This cuts across network design, fares, ticketing, information, etc and requires for me a different mind-set than we typically see from current operators (rail and bus). This most impacts how we think about the post bus reform bus networks.
  
  We need to be thinking where applicable (so urban bus services covering the same geography as rail services) of using local bus as the feeder or capillary service and the rail a higher capacity backbone or artery of a regional public transport system. This offers the potential of much more efficient deployment of vehicle Kms, and help us get away from situations where in some circumstance we have sub optimal bus services competing with sub optimal rail service – and both in receipt of public subsidy. For one example of how bus and rail can work together synergistically, look at the Newcastle Metro of the early 1980s.
  
  I also think we need to be mindful that those with the most skills, capability and experience re rail or bus operations may not be the same as those best suited to integrated transport planning…

• As important is that the Metro system must aim to be frictionless, a key feature of which is capped, contactless, Pay as You Go (PAYG). TfW are making great progress in this direction with tap in/tap out PAYG now available on all Metro CVL services; Cardiff Bus also has this capability. So, we are moving in the right direction – but with Bus Reform this needs to be multi modal and this is the next big challenge. In that context, we need to simplify fare structure and no I don’t think these should ever be free. See this section of my book and this discussion on a recent Podcast. I also think we should levy a charge for the over 60 “free” bus pass and direct the resource to making it easier and less costly for young people to use public transport to access work and education? Something for Welsh Government and our politicians to ponder? PS seems WG budget politics has helped here and there is now a commitment to a £1 bus fare for all those under 21…just the over 60s to deal with now!

• There is an urgent need for our key political institutions and our wider development ecosystem to engage and adopt more fully “Transit Oriented Development” – this is where the Metro enables far bigger benefits than transport user and agglomeration benefits. In my view TOD should be the focus of the Corporate Joint Committees – less so the Regional Transport Plans. TfW could lead from the front on advocacy for a more overt TOD approach? I include a chapter on Transit Oriented Development in my book, and a Pontypridd focussed example in a recent blog

• Setting out the wider benefits of investment in public transport and active travel. A failing of decades of narrow HM Treasury focussed business case development has made it much more difficult to properly appraise and quantify wider benefits (and costs). For example, many of the externalities of car use are negative and such costs are deposited on society as a whole; yet the majority of externalities of Public Transport and Active Travel are positive but don’t always get reflected in business cases. I know the updated WelTAG goes some way in addressing this imbalance. However, I think WG/TfW need to continue this effort (and work with academic and other partners) in developing a more progressive appraisal and business case development framework. PS I include a chapter on cars and their externalities in, “How to build a Metro”. This recent paper, reviewing 18 years of data in Scotland, sets out the overwhelming benefits of more Active Travel

• That further work on Metro Central (ie Cardiff Central) is expanded to include a track component (this is a major missing in my view and is normal on all the other recent NR station enhancements). The Metro Central Programme needs a much closer interface with plans for Crossrail Phase 2 (including Cardiff West and Station Link) via formal Programme Board and Governance arrangements. The latter will have a material impact on the number of passengers using Central and where/how they arrive/depart/interchange. We should be thinking in terms of CVL handling circa 25M passengers per year by 2030.

• Be guarded with how one uses the outpoint of a transport model. As Paul Chase once told me, “Treat a model output as one would a weather forecast, it may promise sunshine but pack a coat just in case“! I expose the Value of Time catastrophe, offer broader thoughts on transport planning, as well as setting out the reality of having to make choices and compromises in my book. We should use socio-economic benchmarking to sense check model outputs. We also need to more overtly adopt the “define and provide” approach to transport planning Vs “predict and provide”

• Finally, as I have often found throughout my career, even the most passionately held convictions can be wrong. Most of us hold views and assert with certainty many things based on underlying assumptions we may not test enough. When challenging such conviction, I have found it is always more effective to expose the underlying assumptions…as it is these that are more susceptible to challenge and so revision. The rail industry and especially Heavy Rail is laden with many such assumptions. I cover some examples of how I dealt with such in the past here

I also did a podcast in December 2024 with Hiraeth – Welsh Politics that covered some of these issues – and others like car dependency, road user charging, transit-oriented development, rail enhancement funding, HS2 and Barnett, Bus Reform, Aberystwyth-Carmarthen, etc… Worth a listen perhaps; and happy to be challenged on any of my assertions and underlying assumptions.

Whilst there are individuals who do appreciate and understand these issues, it still appears to me that corporately, at least in part, TfW and WG struggle to address them. Not helped perhaps by the limits of funding and remits from governments prepared by officials and signed off by Ministers who may not always appreciate or even agree with these observations. PS this is democracy, it is imperfect and has inbuilt inefficiency…but is far more preferable than a techno-utopian authoritarian bureaucracy!

I believe it was Geraint Talfan Davies who famously called Wales “The land of the pulled punch”. That approach and an often-cosy consensus has not always served us well. We can and ought to be better. However, to do so, our systems need to accommodate a little more tension and challenge. As regards Metro and transport, I like to think I bring a degree of challenge as well as being an advocate for the effort and work of WG & TfW . PS I cover the value of “adding tension” in this section of “How to build a Metro”.

Hope this helps? Really, I do!