Jonathan Tyler of Passenger Transport Networks talks HS2

As the Labour Party seems just as split as the Conservatives about HS2, with Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham calling for land to be protected so the scheme can be resurrected at a later date, what does York’s own rail expert Jonathan Tyler have to say on the matter?

Jonathan is a Green Party activist, who in 2015 stood for the party in York Central, gaining ten per cent of the vote, finishing fourth and well behind his friend Rachael Maskell MP.

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His career was in both the railways and academia joining British Rail as a traffic apprentice in 1961 and later a BR-sponsored university lecturer on transport at the University of Birmingham.

Since 2000, he has run the consultancy Passenger Transport Networks, with him inspired by how Switzerland integrates it timetables so they start and finish on the hour or half-hour and are easily understood by users.

More recently, he has critiqued HS2 from a ‘Green’ perspective, with him keen to spread the word be from letters to the Guardian (as he wrote last week) to being interviewed on the Daily Telegraph 'Planet Normal' podcast with Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan.

Jonathan believes HS2, as previously planned, was the wrong project in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Britain he argues, has its large towns and cities close together so unlike places like France and China who have high speed rail, as there is less need for them, especially as fast enough links typically existed already.

This, he says, was confirmed in the Eddington Report in 2006, which saw the then Blair government looking at transport issues and how economic growth could be boosted.

Jonathan said: “Moreover building a new HS line in a crowded country would be difficult and expensive, especially if it were designed for very high speeds and therefore needed to be straight and hence to require tunnelling.”

This was made worse by creating a separate HS2 company which focused on the largest cities and did not work with other rail operators.

“In 2010, Britain needed a comprehensive plan to upgrade the classic network and instead it got a vanity project which suited developers and engineers and the superficial campaign that simply wanted to keep up with other countries,” he continued.

Early plans included links with Heathrow and HS1, which serves the Channel Tunnel, but were soon abandoned. Rebuilding Euston satisfactorily is “proving a nightmare” as shown by the possibility the high speed line would not even extend as far into London towards it.

Jonathan said: “The waste and cost of changes is enormous, and the long timescale to realise benefits is borderline ludicrous (I wish the Northern Mayors had recognised this).  With sadness I conclude that the entire project should be closed down now.”

However, if there was bit of HS2 that might work, that was the leg to Leeds, which the politicians scrapped first, in November 2021.

Jonathan said: “The Leeds leg offered the largest improvement over existing services and relatively modest build costs.  Doubts began to arise, particularly regarding achieving integration with the existing station in Leeds, while the East Coast Main Line was demonstrating how good a classic line could be. 

“Then, it began to be realised that the idea of developing a station to serve a large new town and commercial centre on the former marshalling-yard site at Toton between Nottingham and Derby would not give those Cities a good service.  When economies had to be made it was just the first available sacrifice, even though this lowered the benefit / cost ratio dangerously near to 1.0.”

It all confirmed, Jonathan explained, that improving local networks around northern cities offered better value, something which was a clear theme of a conference in York in 2016, leading to a report he co-authored with fellow transport expert Professor Tony May of the York Civic Trust, which was subsequently ignored by the government.

Jonathan cites the cost of ambitions for a 400 kph network, which needs straight lines and much tunnelling and screening to minimise visual intrusion and assuage Buckinghamshire sensitivities. Then, there is the cost of the track and signalling for safe running at that speed.

And with ‘Net Zero’ in mind, he continued: “Even an electric railway has huge energy demands (they rise in proportion to the square of the speed), and it is doubtful whether enough use would be won from air and cars for reduced CO2 emissions ever to pay back the carbon embedded in constructing the line. 

“It was never clearly established that large-scale capture from other modes would occur to sustain a business case, too much of which was based on the notional benefits of extra travel stimulated by the new line.”

Despite Rishi Sunak announcing schemes like a Leeds tram or a new Bradford station, Jonathan sees these as ‘political sweeteners’ put together in a hurry. This is because they involve Northern levelling up funds going towards two new stations in Somerset, and schemes not being ready, such as Haxby even approved before its business case is judged.

“It is not the ideal site and unless the two train operators can commit to a half-hourly frequency it could be pointless and irrelevant to York's traffic problems,” he said.

Furthermore, the government did not consider the impact of lower fares, better timetables, building new trains or buying out obsolete working practices. Its plans may also disrupt the strategic plans of Network Rail and GBR, while “diverting rail funds to road building is in contempt of the urgent need to cut road traffic.”

And then we have Britain’s planning system to consider, which is less of an issue in Europe and China, where public sensitivities matter less.

“However, I think we have made trouble for ourselves by having for years planned each mode independently, not having consistent objectives and ignoring gross distortions in the 'market' because users are not confronted with the true costs of their trips. 

“Other European countries have long-term planning processes that are effective because they are coherent, based on widespread civic participation, including for funding, and cross-party and thus introduce stability.”

Meanwhile, the Treasury and the Department of Transport has been pushing for the closure of ticket offices, which Jonathan sees as a “monstrous intervention.”

“It is driven by misleading statistics and fads about 'digitalisation'.  The industry is too dependent on Department for Transport to have had the courage to strangle it at birth.

“It is going to end in tears: the consultation can only conclude that most of the plans should be withdrawn until we have much-simplified fares and more helpful machines, better provision for welcoming and looking after the less able and schemes to turn stations into community hubs (where tickets are sold as just one activity), in which case either the Government will retreat humiliated or it will overrule Transport Focus and London TravelWatch, and there will surely be a rebellion - just as a General Election approaches.”

“I am of course an advocate of integrated, multi-modal public transport and therefore want a much-improved bus network complementing our railway.  I am presently working on ideas for the Combined Authority of York and North Yorkshire to consider when its transport remit starts next May (see references at https://integratedtransport.org.uk/).

Johnathan admits to having no special powers but is keen to take every opportunity to make his case.

“I have made the submission to the Commons Inquiry (on HS2) and live in hope of being called to give oral evidence, I shall be active during the Mayoral campaign, and I try to get the Labour Party to adopt radical policies through my friendship with Rachael Maskell.”

He added: “Britain could have first-class public transport.  We must go for it to make up for the years lost on HS2.”