Twelve carriage trains part 3: Why East Hills line needs 12 carriage trains

My last blog post anticipated the possibility of why over the next 30 years, the East Hills line, like current plans for the Western line, will need the 50% capacity boost offered by 12 carriage trains (running independently of Revesby all stops trains).

A number of people have said this is overkill.  I'm not sure if they have looked at what the Department of Planning want to do out in the southwest.

The following maps would make it obvious why a dedicated 20 train per hour, 12 carriage train service from the South and West of East Hills and Glenfield is going to be needed over the next 30 years:

There is the Southwest growth centre:

Then there is the Glenfield to Macarthur priority urban renewal corridor:

And then if the above weren't enough, then this:

Anyone who looks at the scale of new housing to be released out in the southwest and doesn't think 12 carriage trains going from these areas onto the East Hills line and then to Central must be assuming all the people living here can just drive instead...

Twelve carriage trains part 2: Future option for East Hills/Macarthur line?

I am one of many bloggers who are guilty of toying with the idea of joining the Airport line to Sydney Metro.  However, on reflection about the implications of 12 carriage trains for the Sydney network, joining the Airport line to Sydney Metro will not only be disruptive in the short term, it will also be detrimental over the longer term (30yrs+).

This is because of:

1. Loss of opportunity provided by Sydney Metro capacity to establish new branches to other parts of Sydney to the south (Gary Glazebrook made this point recently & I think it is a very good point).  Note also the Airport line PPP doesn't expire until 2030, so compensation would be payable to private owners if shutdown and conversion of the line happens before then.

2. The impact on operations of the Inner West line. At present, the two are natural partners and are connected via the City Circle. Disconnect the airport line, and then where would inner west all stops trains go? They can only feed into East Hills line, which is less good a match. Why? This leads me to the next point....

3. Longer term (with growth of housing in the Southwest), commuter style trains like East Hills line will be need the massive (50%) capacity increment and be converted into 12 carriage trains and these trains can't service the inner west line. Think this won't be happen/never be needed? Well it's happening already on the Western Line, as explained in the previous post.  This then leads to the next point...

4. Airport line does not need any new/additional CBD access via Sydney Metro. It's current CBD access by the city circle is more than adequate. The problem is that it needs to share this access with East Hills line trains. That may be the case if East Hills uses 8 carriage trains. But if they are converted to 12 carriage trains, then Airport line will have city circle (anticlockwise) all to itself.

OK, what about the issue of trains terminating at Central... is that going to be a problem. I don't think so.... as shown below, only 25% (60 trains out of 240 trains per hour) will terminate at Central. The rest will continue to CBD, with multiple interchange possibilities along both the Western and the East Hill lines.

Sydney Metro = 60 tph

Western/North Shore lines = 70 tph
- West main tracks: 30 tph (8 carriage "equivalents", all terminate at Sydney terminal)
- West suburban tracks: 20 tph
- North Shore: 20 tph

Inner West/Airport/Revesby = 40 tph
- West local tracks: 20 tph
- Revesby/Airport: 20tph

East Hills, Illawarra & ESR = 70 tph
- ESR: 20tph
- Illawarra: 20tph
- East Hills: 30tph (8 carriage "equivalents", all terminate at Sydney terminal)

Total capacity of all the above is 240 trains per hour. Note if East Hills line feeds into city circle instead of terminating at Sydney terminal, then the 30tph extra capacity is lost and system capacity is only 210 tph.

Is 25% of trains terminating at Central too much? I don't think so. It's just the right number, as suggested by the following CBD station exit data:

Central: 21k exits (8am-9am)
Town H: 23k exits (8am-9am)
Wynyard: 22k exits (8am-9am)
Martin place & eastern CC: 18k exits (8a-9am)
ie: Central station exits = 21 / (21+23+22+18) = 25% of all CBD station exits

5. Does Inner west & Airport/Revesby need 20tph? They probably need 8-10tph at present, but in 30yrs with Sydney's population at 8 million people and the trend towards high density apartment living in the inner city, I can easily see them needing 20 tph or more, in which case it is time to convert Inner West & Airport into a metro line and resignal for 30tph.

[Further note: see projections for 2024 patronage - the innerwest line will be one of the most congested lines in the whole rail network]

Twelve carriage trains part 1: West Main line to get 50% higher capacity?

I've already posted abut the $19m budgeted for Western Sydney light rail, which is disappointing given it's been as much as 12 months since all the $400m, $600m, and $1 billion announcements were made.  I was hoping by now that TfNSW would have been budgeting for the procurement phase in the next 12 months, rather than another year of the planning phase, but given Sydney Metro has been in "planning" for even longer and is only getting $50m this coming year, it does seem overall that these budget amounts are just very preliminary funds and that big ticket procurement announcements will still be coming in the near future.

However, time to move on and look at the other announcements, which includes:
* $36 for SRF2 (Sydney's Rail Future stage 2)
* $94 million "to continue procurement of the next-generation intercity train fleet"

These are significant amounts, so what is going to happen with these initiatives?  The NSW Infrastructure 2014 update to the State Infrastructure Strategy provides some tantalising clues - perhaps more clues than what the secretive TfNSW wanted us to know:

From page 27:

Infrastructure NSW supports the Government’s plans to accommodate growth in rail demand through the implementation of Stage 2 of Sydney’s Rail Future (SRF2). Infrastructure NSW considers that the SRF2 program is being planned thoroughly, has strategic merit and – subject to detailed business case development of its constituent projects – should be a priority for additional investment in Sydney’s rail network. Infrastructure NSW recommends reserving $1.0 billion from the Rebuilding NSW initiative to accelerate the SRF2 program, including the Western Sydney Rail Upgrade Program.

From page 33:

Stage 2 of Sydney’s Rail Future (SRF2), which encompasses the Western Sydney Rail Upgrade Program and procurement of new Intercity rolling stock, focuses on providing greater capacity for the rail network, reducing overcrowding, network capacity constraints, and operational complexity at key points on the network. It is also designed to integrate the North West and South West Rail Links into the wider network. Stages 4 and 5 of Sydney’s Rail Future focus on the extension of the Rapid Transit System to the CBD and Sydney’s south west and south, through the construction of a second Harbour Crossing and a western extension to Bankstown – collectively referred to as ‘Sydney Rapid Transit’. 

Delivering network efficiencies: Sydney’s Rail Future Stage 2

SRF2 features a number of separate projects at varying stages of development for implementation over the next decade. The key elements of the program include:

• The Western Sydney Rail Upgrade Program, which includes:
– the T1 Corridor Infrastructure Program, which targets capacity constraints on the Western and Northern Lines (representing 30 per cent of all Sydney rail journeys) by upgrading traction supply, amplifying track and lengthening platforms on the corridor. Demand is forecast to grow faster for the T1 rail lines than for the rail network as a whole – Advanced Train Control, an integrated system for signalling, train protection and train control that focuses on increasing service frequencies and capacity on parts of the network.
• New rolling stock for Intercity services to replace ageing trains and deliver improved reliability and resilience. 

The Western Sydney Rail Upgrade Program will deliver civil and electrical infrastructure on the T1 corridor to enable longer (12 car) Intercity trains to operate and to improve the separation of Intercity and suburban services, increasing capacity west of Strathfield. This is intended to complement the Sydney Rapid Transit project, which is Transport for NSW’s preferred option for addressing constraints between Strathfield and the Sydney CBD. In conjunction with Sydney Rapid Transit, the SRF2 program, as currently costed, has an indicative benefit- cost ratio of 1.6. 

Did you see that?  I have highlighted in yellow above "enable longer (12 car) intercity trains".  Infrastructure NSW has divulged some of the internal evaluations being done by TfNSW on initiatives like 12 carriage trains for the Western Line.  This specific detail is something TfNSW have not disclosed in any of their glossy brochures or in fact that their Sydney Metro community consultation staff seem to be aware of.  Yet it seems to be in advanced planning stages, with Infrastructure NSW indicating the business case is sound with a high ratio of benefit to cost.

And now specific 2015 NSW Budget line items are provisioning a total of $130m for these initiatives.  Of course, readers of this blog would have already know about the 12 carriage trains from the post in December 2014, which looked at internal TfNSW documents demonstrating how 10 carriage Western line trains are some of the most cost effective measures available for increasing capacity.  As existing train lengths are 8 carriages, going up to 10 carriages is a 25% capacity increment and the platform lengthening needed was costed at under $300m for key stations along the Western line.  Now TfNSW are going even further and looking at increasing capacity by 50% with 12 carriage trains.  This should all fit neatly into the $1 billion allocated to SRF2 from poles and wires leasing funds.

Not what did Infrastructure NSW mean by "This is intended to complement the Sydney Rapid Transit project, which is Transport for NSW’s preferred option for addressing constraints between Strathfield and the Sydney CBD".   The problem with the 12 carriage trains is that they won't fit into the underground CBD stations as these are only 160m long and restricted to 8 carriage trains.  So these trains will need to terminate at Central station (which does have longer platforms at Sydney Terminal).  So what will people needing to go to Town Hall or Wynyard do?  My blog post speculating on the Sydney Metro design for new Central Station platforms provides an answer: they will likely be able to walk across or walk down to an immediately adjacent Sydney Metro platform and catch a Sydney Metro train from Bankstown into the CBD, which very conveniently will have high frequencies and plenty of spare capacity.

One interesting question would be whether these 12 carriage trains will be single deck or double deck?  Double deck seems to fit in better with the "three tier" strategy of differentiating between metro style services (providing faster acceleration and boarding) and commuter style services (providing more seats in double decks).  But there are fewer "off the shelf" double deck procurement options for rolling stock, so it could possibly end up as single deck if these prove to be easier to procure.  This will be an interesting decision to watch.

Chinese Infrastructure Investment: Paradigm change?

Two major developments caught my attention this week: firstly the signing of the Chinese-Australia free trade agreement on June 17, and secondly the publishing of a report by KPMG into Chinese investment in Australia.

KPMG's Demystifying China has highlighted the scale and concentration of Chinese property and infrastructure investment into Australia, with NSW receiving 72% of total Chinese investment and Sydney & Melbourne together getting more Chinese investment than London or New York individually.

What has intrigued me is the purchase of local infrastructure builder John Holland by CCCC (China Communications Construction Company).  Almost all of Sydney's most significant infrastructure under construction is being built by John Holland.  Sydney Metro Northwest?  Yep, John Holland.  WestConnex M4 East?  Yep, John Holland.  South East Light Rail? Ok, no, John Holland missed out or didn't want to take up the risks involved.  But they did construct the inner west light rail extension.  Southwest rail link?  Yep, John Holland.

Did CCCC buy John Holland to just take a "hands off" approach?  The timing and magnitude suggests not.  Firstly magnitude: at a cost of around $1 billion, this is a major investment for a company which has a market capitalisation in China of around $20 billion.  Then timing: the acquisition was announced a month after G20 in which a China-Australia free trade deal was announced.  Did this timing reflect the raising of the FIRB Chinese investment to $1 billion?  No, as CCCC is state owned and therefore would have required FIRB approval regardless - which they did ultimately receive.  I believe the timing of this deal reflects provision in the China-Australia free trade agreement for IFAs (Investment Facilitation Agreements).  I'm going to quote this excerpt from lawyers KWM to explain:

Under ChAFTA, certain infrastructure development projects which are majority or substantially owned by a Chinese enterprise will be able to operate under an Investment Facilitation Agreement (IFA). IFA’s streamline and relax Australia’s immigration law requirements. IFA’s will be permitted where a project has expected capital expenditure of A$150m (lower than the A$2bn and 1500 worker threshold for the Enterprise Migration Agreements allowed in the resources sector (including Roy Hill)).

IFAs will also apply to projects in a broader range of sectors including food and agribusiness, resources and energy, transport, telecommunications, power supply and generation, environment and tourism sectors.

IFAs will operate within the framework of Australia’s existing 457 visas and applicable laws, including work health and safety law and relevant Australian licensing, regulation and certification standards.  However, the IFA will allow a departure from skill requirements (to allow lower skilled workers foreign workers to work in Australia) and labour market testing requirements. IFA’s are designed to make it easier for foreign labour to be utilised on Chinese sponsored infrastructure projects while maintaining compliance with the safety net of minimum employment conditions provided for Australian employees.

Whilst not quite bringing Chinese-level wage & employment conditions into Australia, IFAs will allow John Holland to keep Australia's construction unions at bay and prevent them from using heavy handed industrial relations tactics to hold hostage major infrastructure projects.  This is good news for Sydney's infrastructure deepening, as well as good news if China can transfer it's High Speed Rail cost advantages through to Australia by it's newly acquired Australian subsidiary.

With $28 trillion in savings, China could make HSR commercially viable in Australia by packaging financing with cost effective construction.  Parramatta to CBD express rail is another potential project that could be amenable to a Chinese financing and construction package.  Parramatta express rail and HSR would dramatically reshape the Australian landscape.  Canberra will become a satellite suburb of Sydney.  Airlines (and airports) could lose a chunk of their patronage.  Whilst it's not yet time to be buying property in the Sydney-Canberra corridor, I am keenly awaiting further developments on this front.

Olympic Corridor part 5: $19m in 2015 budget down from $400m last year

Last year, the the NSW Budget set aside $400m to commence planning and work on a Parramatta light rail route.  It is doubtful that much, if any of the $400m has since been spent.

This year, it appears that $19m has been set aside for further planning...  So what's been the progress in 12 months?  It seems like all that has happened is $400m has gone down to $19m, and instead of considering 10 possible routes, it is probably down to a choice between two routes: Parramatta to Macquarie Park via Carlingford vs Parramatta to Strathfield via Olympic Park.

So what's been going on?  Has TfNSW sat on it's hands for 12 months?... probably not, given the leaks and rumours that Parramatta to Olympic Park was the preferred route.  Has there been political interference?  Possibly.  Is extra time required to firm up the private sector contribution towards construction costs?  Another possibility.  Are TfNSW waiting for the remaining $600m contribution from electricity leasing, which is not yet on the NSW Budget.  Yet another possibility.

I think it's time for Andrew Constance to give us more clarity on what's going on with Parramatta light rail.  This blog has made no secret of it's preference for the Olympic route, possibly with a spur line to Carlingford if this could be built cheaply within the existing heavy rail corridor:

This blog put forward at least 8 reasons for why it believes the Olympic Corridor is the right choice.  But the "big picture vision" reason is the inherent geospatial logic in linking up four of the seven centres that in future could form a "Manhattan"-like corridor for Central Sydney:

Parramatta Council seems to have similar ideas, if it's proposal to merge with a number of other council territories are anything to go by.  A combined Parramatta, Olympic Park, Rhodes and Macquarie Park could possibly rival Sydney's CBD in terms of employment and office space (this is something to tally up and look at in more detail in a future post).  Bringing all these centres under one council would allow more rational planning, that matches up employment growth and transport within Western Sydney.  In contrast, the current fragmented approach has resulted in an rigged playing field, that advantages Macquarie Park over other centres, all due to a historical anomaly that exempts Macquarie Park from the parking levy paid by all other major Sydney employment centres.

Olympic Corridor part 4: renewal area map released by NSW Planning

The NSW Department of Planning placeholder (mentioned in Part 2 of this blog) finally has a link.

On it is a map showing Parramatta joined to the Olympic peninsular and to Rhodes in a dashed line.  Interestingly, the dashed line goes up to Rydalmere and Dundas and then ends there, and also the dashed line includes Strathfield train station.  What's missing?  Some precincts being renewed as part of UrbanGrowth's New Parramatta Road project.

The combination of Parramatta to the Olympic corridor within one dashed renewal area that also includes Westmead is all pointing towards the rumoured Parramatta-Olympic-Strathfield light rail route, with an extension west to Westmead via Cumberland hospital grounds and also a spur line running to Rhodes/Wentworth Point and also another spur line running along the Carlingford heavy rail corridor, likely ending at Carlingford.

Olympic Corridor part 3: High bus patronage = not white elephant!

Hills Shire and Parramatta City Council claim that the Olympic Park light rail route would be a "white elephant" for the 300 days per year when there are no special events.  Well, someone must have forgotten to tell TfNSW that.

With over 1600ha of potential urban renewal area, Olympic Park has barely begin the scratch the surface of it's long term potential, and yet already it has very high bus use intensity.  To get an idea of the size of how big 1600ha is, it is bigger than the sum of all of the following put together: Macquarie Park corridor (300ha), Norwest (200ha), Green square (20ha), Bays Precinct (80ha), and Sydney CBD + Redfern corridor (300ha).  Even throwing in North Sydney, Chatswood and St Leonards and the Olympic Park corridor is still bigger.  This 1600ha is located near the geographic centre of Sydney, with underutilised green and open space and riverfrontage.  It's weakness that has prevented it realising all this potential has been insufficient rail transport services, with a Lidcombe rail shuttle being the only weekday access service.

Last week, over 300 new bus services were initiated by TfNSW between Strathfield and Olympic park, accounting for all the additional bus services in the Inner West and nearly half of all new bus services added across Sydney:



Patronage of Strathfield to Olympic Park bus services is now so high during weekdays, that in peak hour buses services are running every 3-5 minutes.  In contrast, Parramatta to Macquarie Park station has only one half the bus frequency of Strathfield to Olympic Park, with patronage only sufficient to justify direct bus services every 10 minutes:

Parramatta Council and Hills Shire should come clean and acknowledge they are just advocating for their residents in Carlingford rather than being truly concerned about getting transport working effectively Sydney-wide.  Strathfield to Olympic Park has double the bus use intensity of Parramatta to Macquarie Park, and light rail conversion should focus on routes where bus use intensity is highest.  Claims about "white elephants" are lies and hyperbole.

Olympic Corridor part 2: Dept Planning to announce further priority precincts?

At present, there have been two announced Olympic Corridor priority precincts: Wentworth Point and Carter St.  However, a new web page on the www.planning.nsw.gov.au website currently only has a place-holder and does not link through to these two announced priority precincts:

Olympic Corridor part 1: Strathfield light rail terminus

It appears Parramatta-Olympic Park-Strathfield is the preferred Western Sydney light rail route, with possible formal announcement of this in the upcoming NSW Budget.

Interchange with Strathfield would be crucial to the efficiency of the eastern end of the light rail line, so how could it work?  First, let's look at existing Strathfield council plans for bus interchange at Strathfield station.  Buses essentially will enter into an underground complex, with buses comprising the middle level of the complex (an underground concourse connecting the station to Strathfield Plaza is situated above and a commuter park and ride is situated below):

Could the light rail also enter the interchange at the same level as the buses?  Probably not.  The bus interchange is located on the southern side of Strathfield station whereas light rail will approach from the north (and may not even get as far as the station).  At the northern side of the station, Leicester Ave is the major road and unfortunately there is significant conflict between pedestrian access to the station and through-traffic.  Leicester Ave comes to a round-about which occupies a valley which permits Leicester Ave to thread beneath the railway line.  I've previously envisaged a pedestrian only green open space being built over this roundabout, to separate out pedestrians walking to the station from cars driving through:

Parking Levy policy and Urban Amenity

The previous post advocated inclusion of Macquarie Park into the Parking Levy Act list of leviable districts.  It is an anomaly of history and the recency of the development of Macquarie Park that has resulted in it being the one major Sydney employment centre which is not subject to the levy.

Competitive Neutrality
In contrast, North Sydney is subjected to the highest tier levy of $2200 per parking space per year yet it is broadly comparable to Macquarie Park in terms of quantum of office space and employment intensity (approximately 800,000sqm each):

The Sydney CBD is the other Tier 1 district.  A Tier 2 rate of $800 per year applies to smaller employment centres like Bondi Junction, Parramatta and Chatswood.  North Sydney and Macquarie Park are competing centres for office based, knowledge worker employment and it is a distortion of the competitive playing field if North Sydney is subject to the Tier 1 rate whilst Macquarie Park is left out all together.  The absence of a levy on Macquarie Park has resulted in higher returns to property owners and consequently higher levels of development at Macquarie Park, at the expense of of Parramatta, Chatswood and North Sydney.  As seen in the above table, the rent per square metre at Macquarie Park remains significantly below these other centres partly because of it's exemption from the parking space levy, which at a parking ratio of 1 parking space per 40sqm office space would be $56sqm (at the Tier 1 levy rate).  Hence, the addition of the parking levy would result in Macquarie Park's rents rising from 321psqm to approximately 380psqm, bringing it closer to it's nearest competitors at Chatswood and St Leonards.

The migration of office employment away from Chatswood, St Leonards and North Sydney and to Macquarie Park in the past two decades has been to the detriment of public transport use, because (as seen in the previous post), Macquarie Park has rail mode share one half to one third of these competing employment centres.  It is also not a surprising correlated finding that the arterial roads in Macquarie Park are some of the most congested in Sydney.  So there are important wider public interests in ensuring competitive neutrality.

One concern would be the adverse impact on Macquarie Park property owners.  This could be ameliorated by offering them a higher degree of mixed use development rights (as much of Macquarie Park is currently zoned for commercial development only, which has lower profitability than residential development).  Again this will bring Macquarie Park onto a neutral playing field with other North Shore centres, where commercial development does have to compete to a greater extent against residential uses, and which are seeing high levels of residential conversion as a result.

Use of Proceeds to form Public-Private partnerships
There are approximately 30,000 off street parking spaces in the Macquarie Park corridor (not including the further 5000 parking spaces within Macquarie University grounds).   Applying the Tier 2 rate to Macquarie Park would raise about $24 million per annum, or applying the Tier 1 rate would raise about $66 million per annum.  These amounts are not insignificant, as $24 million is sufficient to service interest on an investment of $800 million (assuming 3%pa interest), and $66 million is sufficient to service interest on an investment of $2.2 billion... either sum could provide very significant infrastructure, including a light rail line from Parramatta to Macquarie Park.

This could either be done through a form of public-private partnership or by a debt guarantee provided by State or Federal government (that is repaid from the parking levy proceeds).  According to TfNSW, the Inner West Light Rail extensions and enhancements, the Southwest Rail Link and bus T-ways were amongst the projects funded through the parking space levy in the past:

Project Contribution to Southwest Rail Link	Contribution $38.53
Light Rail Extension to Lilyfield	$16.00m
Contribution towards the North - West Transitway	$50.00m
Jubilee Park Boardwalk Access and Remediation of Light Rail under bridges and viaducts	$4.14m

Rail patronage stats: Opal and Parkling Levy Implications

The Bureau of Transit Statistics last month released it's latest train travel stats package.  The headline conclusion from TfNSW's media release was that March 2015 overcrowding had been reduced despite an additional 6 million journeys to 310 million.  However, more interesting was the data on station barrier counts, which provides a more fine grain picture of on/off boardings at each station.  Unfortunately, this data is only available for 2013 (predating the introduction of Opal).

1.  Daily patronage statistics
The 2013 data shows a bit over 1.066 million NSW rail journeys per weekday.  To put this into context, the Hong Kong MTR, one of the busiest rail networks, has a daily patronage of 4.5 million for a city of 7 million (about one third larger than Greater Sydney/Central Coast/Newcastle/Wollongong).  However, HK MTR likely has an average journey distance of only half that of the 17km per journey average of Sydney Trains/NSW Trainlink, so in terms to total passenger kilometres, Sydney and it's peripheral cities comes much  closer to about half that of the MTR.  This is a pretty good outcome considering the greater car mode share in Sydney and it's peak hour commuter dominance versus the all day use seen in the MTR.

2. Peak hour statistics
The 3.5 hour AM peak (6am to 9:30am) accounts for about 33% of all journeys, the 3.5 hour afternoon peak (3pm to 3:30pm) and the 5 hour interpeak period 22%.  At the granularity of these 3-5 hour blocks, there is actually a well rounded day time distribution, and it is only in the final 7.5 hours of the evening that patronage drops right off to just 13%.  In contrast, my own personal experience of Hong Kong's MTR is that it is busy until very late into the evening, and this probably adds substantially to it's daily patronage.

Table 24 - Trip proportions by period of day
Period	%
AM peak (before 09:30)	33.0%
Interpeak (09:30 to 15:00)	21.8%
PM peak (15:00 to 18:30)	32.5%
Evening off peak (18:30 to 02:00)	12.7%
Total	100.0%