Present
Anthony Smith – HATF (Chair)
Mark Frost – HATF (Independent Technical Advisor)
Polyvios Polyviou – Business LDN (Programme Director, Transport)
Peter Bradley – UK Coach Operators Association (UKCOA) (Managing Director)
Nigel Wicking – Airline Operators Committee (Chief Executive)
Keith McNally – Confederation of Passenger Transport (Operations Director)
Christian Wolmar – London Cycling Campaign (Trustee)
Paul Millin – Heathrow Strategic Planning Group (HSPG) (Chair, Transport Subgroup)
Alan Tilly – Hillingdon Council (Transport Planning and Development Team Manager)
Peter Fisher – National Highways (Head of 3rd Party Infrastructure)
Shamal Ratnayaka – Transport for London (Aviation Strategy Lead)
Dan Philips – Senior Transport Planner (Arup)
Stephen Bennett – Director, Transport Consulting (Arup)
Steven Costello – Director (Heathrow Rail) – Agenda Item 4 only
Heather Morgan – Group Head Place, Protection and Prosperity (Spelthorne Borough Council) –
Agenda Item 4 only
Sophie Chapman – HAL (Surface Access Director)
Tim Leech – HAL (Head of Strategy and Sponsorship, Surface Access)
Tim Wells – HAL (Sustainable Travel & Policy Lead)
Simi Kullar – HAL (Sustainable Travel Manager)
Lucas Taylor – HAL (Sustainable Travel Manager)
Apologies
Wayne King – Unite the Union (Regional Secretary)
Matthew Furniss – Surrey County Council
Jo Grew – Network Rail (Industry Programme Director (Heathrow & TVA))
Liz Garlinge – Highways England (Strategic Projects Director)
Live Actions
Action 5:
Look at type of taxis arriving at airport, e.g. electric/fossil fuel split.
Update: HAL working through data privacy process to unlock access to automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) data.
Owner: TW, HAL
Date opened: 27/09/2023
Target completion date: Dec 2024
Action 12
HAL to cover agenda item on cargo
Update: HAL will look into this
Owner: HAL
Date opened: 11/06/2023
Target completion date: Dec 2024
1. Welcome and Introductions
The Chair, Anthony Smith (AS), welcomed attendees to the third Board meeting of
2024.
AS provided an update on activity since March Board meeting:
- Cycle tour of Heathrow perimeter roads was carried out with HAL colleagues and Christian Wolmar (CW) looking at the existing cycle provision around the
- Heathrow campus and noting areas that currently have live projects to deliver improvements.
- Tour with Roger Green (Local Community Forum Chair) looking at airport parking related issues impacting the local community including a tour of the
- Authorised Vehicle Area (AVA) and Taxi Feeder Park (TFP). AS noted the improvements the AVA requires to make it more attractive to private hire drivers.
- The Parking Special Interest Group (SIG) continues, and AS is looking forward to further progress on outstanding actions at the next meeting on 11th July.
Action Updates
Catchment Analysis – update provided within June HATF Board
Taxi split – HAL is progressing with a Data Privacy Impact Assessment to unlock access to ANPR data which can be used to understand type of taxis arriving at airport
Mark Frost (MF) has been working with Christopher Bates from National Highways to explore opportunities to better coordinate and fund delivery of active travel infrastructure across the sub-region. National Highways have indicated that there is appetite to explore a further bid to their designated fund programme as part of the next Roads Investment Strategy. Peter Fisher (PF) confirmed that conversations had taken place with follow ups planned for July. This is being looked at.
2. HAL Update
Sophie Chapman (SC) provided a Heathrow update:
- Passenger numbers continue to increase, with 7.2million passengers in May. Whilst this puts pressure on operational functions, performance remains reasonable for now and this is shown by steady satisfaction levels. It will be interesting to see the impact on surface access metrics over the next few months to understand where increasing numbers may result in stress points occurring on the network.
- Nigel Wicking (NW): we still have not recovered to pre-Covid staffing levels, however this could also be down to some suspected inefficiencies pre-covid. Airlines predict record number of passengers this year and this will continue to rise in coming years, whilst having the same number of air traffic movements as a consequence of higher load factors and larger planes.
- Peter Bradley (PB): what is the business vs leisure spilt? NW: Business travel still has not grown back, but seen rise in premium leisure, which may impact mode of transport used to access the airport.
- NW: There are more domestic passengers using the airport (as a proportion of all passengers) now then there were pre-pandemic. We are seeing more congestion, especially in CTA, which has a knock-on impact for colleagues and passengers
- MF: where are these passengers coming from? NW: we do not have data for this, but mostly London based, especially with Elizabeth line making it easier to reach the airport
- Polyvios Polyviou (PP): has the Electronic Travel Authorisation had an impact? NW: no, as it is currently limited to a few Middle Eastern countries.
Mode share & Public Transport Catchment
- Public transport mode share for April 2024 was 44.5% with MAA of 44.5% – just short of the 2026 target in the Surface Access Strategy of 45%
- SC noted that we currently have no other big-ticket items such as Elizabeth Line to significantly increase public transport mode share, so we are moving focus to bus and coach capacity. We currently have a project going through governance looking to making such improvements including at Central Bus Station.
- Mode share splits are similar for the last few months.
- Public transport catchment: we have achieved the target of 1.5-hour journey time, whilst the 3-hour catchment is still yet to be achieved, currently at 9% increase, compared to the target of 12%. Heathrow has less control over the 3-hour catchment due to distance from the airport. PP: do you plan to increase the 1.5hour target? SC: we are yet to decide on this.
Passenger Satisfaction
SC: Kiss and fly passenger satisfaction remains high but has dropped. This could be due to congestion or the roll up short stay charge increase, as the Terminal Drop Off Charge remains unchanged. Elizabeth Line satisfaction has fallen which could be due to recent disruption.
PP: is there a difference by age groups?
Tim Leech (TL): Yes, younger travellers usually travel on public transport due to being greener or cheaper, or where they are located it is better served by public transport.
PB: has Elizabeth Line reached capacity sooner than targets that were set out, is this impacting satisfaction? Shamal Ratnayaka (SR): TfL colleagues are looking into this, to ensure there is clarity on capacity issues, noting TfL have also secured some additional investment from central government for new train sets.
Carbon and sustainability projects
Surface access projects are progressing including working with TfL on pantograph charging for Electric buses in the Central Bus Station.
Alan Tilly (AT): Are you aware of EV buses having worse manoeuvrability, as TfL have mentioned this to us. This has required changes to highway alignments in Hillingdon.
TL: thanks for this intel, we will take this onboard.
MF: at what point do we start to worry about specific mode falling below satisfaction due to squeezing of capacity? What are the theoretical capacity limits for each mode?
SC: we need to do a piece of work on this, such as train capacities or availability of car parking spaces at peak times as demand on surface access grows in line with increasing passenger numbers.
Board members asked for HAL to cover an agenda item on cargo in a future HATF board meeting.
3. Heathrow’s New Business Strategy
SC set out the new Heathrow Business Strategy that has been launched recently – see
slides for summary:
- New focus is more on value for customers – this does not just mean passengers, but all customers (airlines, retailers, surface access operators etc).
- AS: is there an agreed definition of customers, as this can often be a grey area? SC: yes, anyone interacting with Heathrow who pays money, such as airlines, passengers, retailers, restaurants and surface access customers.
- NW: we need to be aware that the third runway plans that were being explored pre-pandemic are not currently being progressed, so in the meantime a focus by HAL on effective operations, and maintenance of existing infrastructure is key if passenger (and wider customer) expectations are to be met
Southern Access Rail
Heathrow Southern Rail and Spelthorne Light Rail – report from Arup
Stephen Bennett (SB) introduced the work that Arup have undertaken looking into comparing Heathrow Southern Rail’s (HSR) heavy rail proposal and Spelthorne Borough Council’s (SBC) light rail schemes, both intended to improve access to the airport by rail, particularly from the south.
Dan Philips (DP) from Arup explained the engagement undertaken, outcomes and recommendations of work carried out:
The comparison framework was agreed with HAL, HATF and HSPG.
- Key risks were presented for both proposals. For HSR these include funding gap, track capacity on the wider network, and possibly the direct economic returns to Spelthorne when compared with the SLR proposal. For SLR the risks include the fact that there is currently no viable connection for a non-heavy rail option at Heathrow terminal 5, lack of direct connection to Central Terminal Area, and the lack of wider regional connections (and consequent lack of support for the proposal amongst that wider stakeholder group).
- DP provided 4 main conclusions following the research undertaken. noting that both schemes remain at an early stage of feasibility and require further development.
AS: have you looked into number of vehicles taken off highway for both schemes?
DP: no, we need a traffic model to understand this.
Brief Reflections from scheme promoters
Heather Morgan (SBC):
- Aware that there might be extra costs associated with incorporating the scheme into T5 infrastructure, but noted light rail is much cheaper than a heavy rail option.
- Via Staines, we can capture a lot of passengers coming from the south of the airport, and the interchange onto light rail will be quick and easy.
- SC: aren’t councillors concerned about light rail impact on Staines Moor? HM: We think the flexibility of light rail means that our scheme can entirely avoid the moor through both construction and operation. We believe there will be no impact on SSSI.
Steven Costello (HSR): we fully support Spelthorne BC’s wider objectives.
- We believe that our scheme provides same benefits as Spelthorne’s to their residents, plus a lot more due to wider regional connectivity. The extension of the Elizabeth Line to Staines in particular has huge transport and economic development benefits. The HSR scheme will also utilise existing airport infrastructure which has been safeguarded for heavy rail, making efficient use of previous investments.
- Our plans are more developed and have wide ranging stakeholder support.
SR: SLR is similar to JFK’s AirTrain system, which has some weaknesses because of the lack of integration with the wider network. These weaknesses mean that most people use taxi instead of public transport due to hassle of changing transport modes with luggage. Interchange penalties are real and they do need to be factored into the SLR proposal.
CW: Has previously written about southern access to Heathrow and believe the schemes do two different things and should not be compared against each other. HSR is a heavy rail scheme addressing wider regional connectivity to Heathrow (as well as providing significant benefits to Staines) and SLR is a local transport connectivity project.
TL: HAL is keen to make use of the existing infrastructure that we have at T5, instead of building a new station for light rail, which would be very difficult and expensive. We are very keen to have a connection to the existing Southern and Southwestern rail network to maximise the wider connectivity benefits for airport passengers.
SC: HAL is supportive of HSR as the heavy rail solution to delivering improved connectivity to the airport, and is currently working closely with them to progress the scheme.
AS: we should develop a collective HATF opinion on the next steps, including making representations to the DfT as appropriate. Further conversations with board members are to be had in the coming months, and an update provided at the September board meeting.
5. Heathrow Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) Update
DP provided an update on BSIP work to date:
- This is groundbreaking work – there is no other example of a BSIP covering such a wide geography and range of Local Transport Authorities.
- Stakeholder engagement has been carried out.
- Vision, context and themes have been set.
- Importance of interchange, connectivity and reliability have emerged as key themes
- Whilst the BSIP document states setting out targets is important, it could be difficult to make Heathrow specific targets, given such a wide range of actors responsible for delivering those. Monitoring will need to take place however so this needs to be considered further by stakeholders.
- Need to agree on the delivery approach. Engagement with LAs needs to increase. Ticketing system is confusing for customers, exploration of integrated zonal fares might be helpful.
- Boundaries are important to identify as well as collaboration and partnerships. Stronger collaboration increases chances of Department for Transport (DfT) funding to Local Authorities. DP noted that Heathrow has a positive relationship with bus operators.
6. Out of London Study
Simi Kullar (SK) presented the outline scope for Out of London study, as included in
the slides:
- Using existing data to understand the current provision of public transport
and active travel options from areas out of London. This will focus on today’s
situation and will pull together various strands of info into one useful report. - The scope will encompass both colleagues and passengers, in order to
understand travel demand for both. - KM: suggested making use of coach / bus operators passenger data that they
should be providing to you. - AS: consider renaming the study to avoid confusion
7. AOB
No AOB