London Theme Park HS1 congestion

[Sad Sprinter]

Apparently, HS1 has raised concerns about overcrowding in the event the proposed London Theme Park at Swanscombe is built.

I find this surprising would HS1 really not be able to cope with the extra patronage even at weekends? Besides, even if overcrowding was a problem couldn't more fast classic services just be reinstated to supplement HS1?

This does lead to an interesting discussion of how to increase HS1 capacity in the longer term, especially at St. Pancras where putting in extra platforms will be a near-impossible task.

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/la...oss-st-pancras-station-hs1-claims-06-05-2021/

London Theme Park would require major upgrade at Kings Cross St Pancras station, HS1 claims​

06 May, 2021 By Rob Horgan



HS1 Ltd has joined the list of transport operators objecting to plans for a £3.5bn theme park in the Swanscombe peninsular in Kent.
In its submission to the Planning Inspectorate, HS1 Ltd concludes that the high speed rail line between London and Kent would become overwhelmed by the additional passengers using the service to access the proposed London Resorts Theme Park.
In particular, HS1 Ltd said that a major upgrade of Kings Cross St Pancras station would be required, including the construction of additional platforms.
“As a critical piece of national infrastructure and under our Concession Agreement obligations HS1 must also seek to protect its infrastructure from the potential risks that this development poses,” HS1 Ltd’s submission states.
“Therefore, for the reasons set out in this representation, HS1 objects to the application in its current form”.
It adds: “The increased demand for rail transport generated by the Project is likely to require additional platform capacity at St Pancras International station and additional stabling for up to five trains on the Railway. […]



“St Pancras International is a Grade 1 Listed station with limited room for expansion. The provision of such platform capacity will therefore be extremely hard to accommodate and a feasibility study will be required to understand whether this is possible.
“The provision of additional platform capacity at St Pancras International is likely to be of fundamental importance in terms of the Promoter achieving their predicted rail mode share.
“Despite this, St Pancras International is not included within the Development Consent Order limits and no assessment of any effects on the station has been carried out in the Environmental Statement.
“[…] As such, there can be no certainty that they can or will be delivered if the Project receives development consent. HS1 considers that the Application should not be examined further until these problems have been rectified.”


CGI of what London Resorts Theme Park may look like

Network Rail and Transport for London (TfL) have both previously raised concerns that transport infrastructure in London and Kent would be overwhelmed under the current plans for the theme park.





TfL warned that the Elizabeth line and Dartford Crossing could be “chocked” as well as the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels.


London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH) submitted its formal planning application for the theme park in January.


The proposed London Resort comprises two theme parks covering an area of 465ha in Swancombe, Kent. If approved, work could start next year with the opening of the first theme parks in 2024. The second would follow in 2029.

 

[30907]

As you point out, it is about capacity at STP, which has not been addressed in the application, rather than of the route itself. (The classic route also has capacity issues!)

 

[adrock1976]

May I ask how on earth is this a London theme park?

When I did geography at school many years ago, Swanscombe is in the county of Kent, and not London or Greater London.

 

[Starmill]

May I ask how on earth is this a London theme park?

When I did geography at school many years ago, Swanscombe is in the county of Kent, and not London or Greater London.

I believe it is a reference to the name chosen for the proposed park by its developers, "London Resort". Echoes of London Southend Airport, and the others.

 

[Bald Rick]

May I ask how on earth is this a London theme park?

When I did geography at school many years ago, Swanscombe is in the county of Kent, and not London or Greater London.

Same as London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted...

 

[adrock1976]

I believe it is a reference to the name chosen for the proposed park by its developers, "London Resort". Echoes of London Southend Airport, and the others.

Same as London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted...

Thanks both.

The cynic in me says that it seems an opportunity to make plenty of money by inserting "London" as a prefix.

 

[30907]

Same as London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted...

See also Disneyland Paris at Marne-la-Vallée which is in Seine-et-Marne - a département two away from Paris. Of course 75 Paris is much smaller than Greater London.

 

[NoRoute]

Have I understood this correctly, a railway is objecting to a development because it will result in too many passengers using its services?

I think this response is absolutely bizarre, most businesses would be jumping for joy faced with the prospect of a significant increase in demand for their service, they'd be thinking about how they could meet it, the potential for expanding their capacity or even raising their prices to capitalise on the extra demand. It's an opportunity, they should be asking how can they lay on extra services or capacity, or if that isn't possible, how could they adjust pricing to smooth the demand and raise utilisation of the ones they have, ticketing schemes to work with the theme park to optimise things.

Given the uncertain future of the railways with the shift to homeworking, I would have thought this is an opportunity it should be grabbing with both hands.

 

[Bald Rick]

Have I understood this correctly, a railway is objecting to a development because it will result in too many passengers using its services?

I think this response is absolutely bizarre, most businesses would be jumping for joy faced with the prospect of a significant increase in demand for their service, they'd be thinking about how they could meet it, the potential for expanding their capacity or even raising their prices to capitalise on the extra demand. It's an opportunity, they should be asking how can they lay on extra services or capacity, or if that isn't possible, how could they adjust pricing to smooth the demand and raise utilisation of the ones they have, ticketing schemes to work with the theme park to optimise things.

Given the uncertain future of the railways with the shift to homeworking, I would have thought this is an opportunity it should be grabbing with both hands.

Most businesses aren’t capital heavy, and largely funded by the taxpayer.

Being extreme (and making the numbers up) - if the theme park developers are expecting 50,000 visitors a day, most of whom would turn up in a two hour window in the morning, and depart in a two hour window in the evening, and the line can take 10,000 passengers an hour, there would be no choice but to object as it would completely trash your business.

 

[NoRoute]

Most businesses aren’t capital heavy, and largely funded by the taxpayer.

Many businesses are capital heavy and extra demand for their product is beneficial because it allows them to raise the utilisation of their capacity, so earning more money, or if capacity can't be increased, allows them to raise the price of their product, again earning more money. For any business, more demand for their product is almost always good.

Most businesses are not funded by the taxpayer, if they can't get the customers through the door then ultimately they go bankrupt and the people who manage them have to find something else to do. Having lots more potential customers is a nice problem to have.

Being extreme (and making the numbers up) - if the theme park developers are expecting 50,000 visitors a day, most of whom would turn up in a two hour window in the morning, and depart in a two hour window in the evening, and the line can take 10,000 passengers an hour, there would be no choice but to object as it would completely trash your business.

How would that extra demand trash the business? I'm struggling to think of a railway company, route or a station which faced financial problems because it was too busy. I'm sure we can all point to loads of railway companies, routes and stations which closed because too few people used them, but ones which were too popular ?

Think about it entrepreneurially, suddenly there's more demand, so the need for any discounting of tickets to fill capacity goes, there's potential for selling more tickets at full prices or even raising prices during those peak periods. You can introduce pricing incentives to spread the peak, encourage people to travel after the morning and evening rush hour to spread that loading, work with the theme park to bundle off-peak rail travel with entry tickets.

 

[Wolfie]

May I ask how on earth is this a London theme park?

When I did geography at school many years ago, Swanscombe is in the county of Kent, and not London or Greater London.

Like London Stansted airport, London Gatwick airport, London Luton airport.....

Rats Bald Rick beat me to it - read the whole thread first!

 

[Bald Rick]

Think about it entrepreneurially, suddenly there's more demand, so the need for any discounting of tickets to fill capacity goes, there's potential for selling more tickets at full prices or even raising prices during those peak periods.

Fares are regulated, to protect existing passengers.

How would that extra demand trash the business?

Because to cater for it (in this hypothetical example) means spending billions of taxpayers money on new lines.


Being more realistic, if, say, the theme park was proposing to route all the passengers via one station, and that station wasn’t capable of handling them, who should pay for the upgrades to that station, and who should take the financial risk for those upgrades in the event that the theme park didn’t happen or didn’t deliver the number of expected passengers?

 

[telstarbox]

What sort of modal share are they looking at? The site is just off the M25 and the A2 so I'd be surprised if everyone came by train.

 

[NoRoute]

Fares are regulated, to protect existing passengers.

Most fares aren't regulated but regulation of season tickets could be retained because most visitors will be buying advanced tickets for one-off day trips. If demand for travel goes up and can't be accommodated with existing infrastructure or rolling stock, then either those fares need to rise to suppress the extra demand, or they need to rise to increase revenues to fund extra capacity. Either way demand has changed, so prices need to change. But either way, the amount of revenue the railway can raise has gone up, there's more money to fund services or less public subsidy needed.

Because to cater for it (in this hypothetical example) means spending billions of taxpayers money on new lines.

But railways aren't forced to carry passengers, they have control over ticket sales and pricing and if it really was so uneconomic to carry extra passengers then they would need to adjust their ticket prices and sales to manage demand. That is what every other business does, looking at its costs, its sales volumes, its profit margin, using its production or servicing capacity and adjusting.

Being more realistic, if, say, the theme park was proposing to route all the passengers via one station, and that station wasn’t capable of handling them, who should pay for the upgrades to that station, and who should take the financial risk for those upgrades in the event that the theme park didn’t happen or didn’t deliver the number of expected passengers?

Then the railway needs to apply some demand management, limiting the number of tickets it sells to manage demand on those services before deciding whether there's sufficient demand to justify upgrading the station.

Did you have a chance to think about which railways or stations have closed because of too many passengers, can you think of any?

 

[Bald Rick]

What sort of modal share are they looking at? The site is just off the M25 and the A2 so I'd be surprised if everyone came by train.

Their DCO application doesn’t say, at a quick glance. But they are majoring on using Ebbsfleet as a hub.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 May 2021 ==

Most fares aren't regulated but regulation of season tickets

The types of fares that would be used tothis place are very much regulated (off peak returns).

Look at it from another perspective. This development will also generate a lot of car traffic. Who should pay for the road upgrades?

 

[Starmill]

Then the railway needs to apply some demand management, limiting the number of tickets it sells to manage demand on those services before deciding whether there's sufficient demand to justify upgrading the station.

If people are priced out of using the railway how are you proposing that they reach the theme park? Demand could be so great for such a short period of time that you may need to increase prices four or five fold in order to ration capacity. What might be the reputational effects?

 

[Horizon22]

Wasn't the intention for Crossrail to eventually extend to a station here?

 

[JKF]

Flows would be in the opposite direction of current peak commuting flows, surely that will be of significant benefit if they can manage capacity? Also Javalin sets are quite short, is there platform length to run longer trains or two units coupled? Obviously that would require purchase of more stock, but there would be a financial case for this.

 

[Bald Rick]

Also Javalin sets are quite short, is there platform length to run longer trains or two units coupled?

Most peak services already run as double sets.

 

[londonteacher]

May I ask how on earth is this a London theme park?

When I did geography at school many years ago, Swanscombe is in the county of Kent, and not London or Greater London.

It's 20 minutes away central London by HS1, the same as attractions in Greenwich as well as other even central London attractions. It may not geographically be in London but it's definitely closer and easier to get to than most attractions.

 

[stuu]

Did you have a chance to think about which railways or stations have closed because of too many passengers, can you think of any?

That's not the point. There are examples everywhere of projects to upgrade capacity because the lines or stations are overloaded. Victoria tube station used to be regularly closed because of overcrowding. The solution was spending hundreds of millions upgrading it.

St Pancras HS1 only has 3 platforms, and limited waiting space. There is also no obvious way to increase capacity that would come close to making a commercial return, so I can understand the objection.

 

[Ianno87]

St Pancras HS1 only has 3 platforms, and limited waiting space. There is also no obvious way to increase capacity that would come close to making a commercial return, so I can understand the objection.

The other angle to look at this is that the theme park benefits from the presence of HS1, making it attractive to reach. This should not be for "free" at the expense of taxpayers (as upgrades would, in effect, be an indirect taxpayer subsidy to the theme park).

 

[Bald Rick]

Did you have a chance to think about which railways or stations have closed because of too many passengers, can you think of any?

I have, personally, closed stations with too many passengers. Only on a temporary basis, obviously. But there comes a point when ‘temporary’ becomes ‘at the same time every day’.

 

[telstarbox]

Their DCO application doesn’t say, at a quick glance. But they are majoring on using Ebbsfleet as a hub.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 May 2021 ==



The types of fares that would be used tothis place are very much regulated (off peak returns).

Look at it from another perspective. This development will also generate a lot of car traffic. Who should pay for the road upgrades?

Ooh I've found it in the DCO docs (forgot it was a NSIP).

It's split over several documents but there are some numbers in the Transport Assessment. These don't show the interpeak hours when more guests might arrive and depart.





Source - https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/BC080001/BC080001-000428-6.2.9.1 ES Appendix 9.1 Transport Assessment (1 of 33).pdf

 

[HSTEd]

Unfortunately we don't have 360m platforms at St Pancras, or more 240m platforms.

Shortsightedness in HS1 construction strikes again

 

[Glenn1969]

Are they looking for an excuse to decline the resort's planning application due to access issues?

 

[Bald Rick]

Ooh I've found it in the DCO docs (forgot it was a NSIP).

It's split over several documents but there are some numbers in the Transport Assessment. These don't show the interpeak hours when more guests might arrive and depart.

View attachment 96151



Source - https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/BC080001/BC080001-000428-6.2.9.1 ES Appendix 9.1 Transport Assessment (1 of 33).pdf

Thanks for finding that.

I did see elsewhere in the docs that they expected around 40,000 visitors on a typical busy day, and up to 58,000 on the busiest. The numbers above are a fraction of that, and are presumably mostly staff.

 

[whoosh]

Didn't South Eastern run 8 trains per hour to Ebbsfleet during the Olympics? From 3 platforms at St Pancras?

12 trains per hour at certain times even? (From the same 3 platforms) Although these were at times of the day when Eurostar wasn't running.

More train sets needed maybe, but capacity at St Pancras? I don't buy it.

 

[HSTEd]

Didn't South Eastern run 8 trains per hour to Ebbsfleet during the Olympics? From 3 platforms at St Pancras?

That required people to, amongst other things, abandon the fiction that Eurostars were ever going to call at Stratford

 

[whoosh]

It did require people yes, but that was all across London, not just at St Pancras. More staff are generally required the more trains that are run or the more busy stations get.

I know Eurostars weren't ever going to call at Stratford, but during the Olympics in the late evening when Eurostar weren't taking up train paths on HS1, South Eastern ran 12 trains an hour from 3 platforms at St Pancras.