Will flights from London to Edinburgh and Glasgow all but disappear with HS2?

They say that politics is about lies, damn lies and statistics, and you would expect some pretty outlandish claims to be made about any major civil engineering project. So claims that HS2 will end the north-south divide, provide 1,000,000 jobs and cure cancer can probably be taken with a few pinches of salt.

Yet you would still expect the overall business case for the scheme to make economic sense and the basic figures to add up. In my opinion the main attraction of high-speed rail is the ability it has to offer an alternative to wasteful short-haul flights, so it would be natural to review the case based on the extent to whether or not it lives up to that potential, even if promoters claim that other priorities such as relieving track capacity are more prominent.

I have no issue with the idea that high-speed rail can offer a viable alternative to flying, as it has already done so in many busy transport corridors, especially Tokyo to Nagoya and Osaka; Paris to Lyon and Marseille or Barcelona to Madrid. However, in all of these cases, flight routes still exist, even if their overall slice of the pie has been diminished.

So when I read that the Department of Transport claimed 6,000,000 passengers each year would be transferred from air to rail as a result of HS2, I was more than a little sceptical. Firstly, this figure was based on projections that the market would grow, when the number of domestic flights taken within the UK has actually been steadily shrinking since 2005. This information is readily available and openly published by the Civil Aviation Authority, so there is no excuse for the Department For Transport (DFT) to have fudged their figures so badly.

Even more outlandish was the suggestion that somehow all passengers travelling between London and Scotland would automatically migrate onto train services, despite the overall cut in journey times only being around an hour at best, and even this only being possible after the second phase of HS2 had opened.

In the updated engineering report, the DFT admit that they got their numbers wrong, and that the market for flights from London to Scotland would actually only be around 4.5 million passengers per year, but that a whopping 81% would transfer from plane to train.

How many?

Yes, I repeat 81% of the market for passenger travel between London and Scotland would be taken by the train -- roughly a complete reversal of the current situation.

Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, given that journey times will be shorter and that train fares don't include any hidden extras, surely that 81% is perfectly reasonable? Given that the price of aviation fuel is also unlikely to fall, I can't imagine many people disputing that statement in principle. Yet, how can the train can reach such a high proportion? The DFT is clearly bending the truth, but the question is how have they come up with such figures?

Consider:According to a rail industry journal, based on figures from April 2011, Edinburgh has the largest rail market share for London to Scotland traffic at 27%. Meanwhile Newcastle, with a fastest journey time of 2 hrs 37 minutes and a typical journey of 3 hrs had around 65% of the market. This share will have risen further, now that easyJet no longer operate flights from London to Newcastle. The TGV journey between Paris and Marseille is also around three hours, and based on current TGV service patterns and flights to Marseille, market share is around 75%.

Consider:

1. Base figures on faster journeys:
   
   It might be reasonable to claim that high-speed rail could take up to 80% of the market, but only if a journey time of around three hours could be delivered. Time savings from phase 1 will be negligible, and no trains to Edinburgh will run anyway, whereas after phase 2, a saving of around 40 minutes will be provided to Manchester and Leeds. The so-called "Y" will hook on to both the East Coast and West Coast Main lines, with services planned to run up via Carlisle to both Edinburgh and Glasgow.
   
   A total time saving of around 45 minutes would appear realistic between Glasgow/Edinburgh and London, or one hour at a push, if a few stops were removed (but don't tell Lake District hotel owners about that). So clearly there is still a substantial exaggeration of the benefits, based on what can only be described as a false prospectus. Are the DFT really no better than your local used-car salesman?
   
   
2. Go the distance, but don't include extra costs:
   
   Perhaps a larger share of the market could be attained if a high-speed rail service ran all the way on new tracks as far as Edinburgh and Glasgow, potentially providing a journey time as low as 2 1/2 hours.
   
   In my opinion, this move would make the whole project vastly more attractive, but it is not what is being proposed. There is also the huge political question of who would pay for such a line, given the prospect of Scottish independence. Should Scotland only pay as far as Berwick or Gretna Green, or should they make a much bigger contribution, as they will be the main beneficiaries of a line stretching further north?
   
   This question can, of course, only be answered after a vote on the question of independence itself. The Scottish government have estimated that the cost of this line is in the region of £15 billion, and on that basis, it still looks like reasonable value for money, considering that the distance from London to Edinburgh is roughly double the distance from London to Manchester.
   
   Logically, as the track heads north, it should have fewer obstacles to contend with, although the Lake District is still going to present a challenge if that route is taken. Considering that the government keeps on trying to regulate low-cost airlines which add-on extra charges to the booking process, HS2 would need some considerable extra costs in order to meet the market share claimed. Will the DfT become even worse at adding on extras than Ryanair?
   
   
3. Forgotten Cities:
   
   A more likely explanation for how the DFT reached their 81% figure is that they have simply forgotten about the existence of Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness. Currently, flights between these cities and London already make up 20% of the overall market for flights between London and Scotland.
   
   HS2 in it's current guise will take hardly any of the market share from Aberdeen and Inverness, and even if, as claimed, the market for overall travel between the Central Belt and London balloons, you are still left with a sizeable chunk for these northern cities which will not give way to a modal split change.

Of course, the years to come may see the train take an even larger market share if fuel prices and flight taxes continue to rise. However, to reach the 81% quoted figure, rail market share to Edinburgh and Glasgow would need to be above 90%, still hard to imagine without a train journey well below three hours.The TGV can attain this market share between Lyon and Paris, but only with a journey time of 2 hours, and only by serving the main airports in both cities.

Another difference between London and other existing markets served by high-speed rail is that London airports are incredibly diverse. For example, Heathrow handles large volumes of transfer traffic from domestic shuttle flights onto long-haul services not offered from elsewhere in the UK. Those passengers are unlikely to transfer to HS2, considering that the case for a spur to Heathrow is also incredibly weak (see blogs below)

Meanwhile, London City airport offers flights to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee aimed primarily at the business user. These would surely be the last to switch over, as City Airport is located so close to London's two main business districts.

flights from Gatwick, Stansted and Luton would be more likely to suffer as they are very price sensitive, but they still serve their own catchment areas in ways that rail, whether high-speed or not, does not do so well -- for example Stansted for Cambridge and northeast London, Gatwick for Brighton and south London or Luton for Milton Keynes and northwest London.

Low-cost airlines can still offer excellent entry-level fares, something that isn't so readily available in France for example, where there are no low-cost flights to Lyon or Marseille from Paris because Air France have a virtual monopoly.

Clearly, the 81% statistic is massively overstated at best and a deliberate lie at worst. Maybe someone is hoping that they can just take a metal version of Pinocchio and plonk him down under the departures board at Euston station. If he keeps on repeating phrases like " HS2 business plan makes sense, HS2 is good value for money, HS2 will end the north-south divide, all domestic flights will be switched on the HS2, and so on", his nose might just stretch long enough to reach as far as Edinburgh, and the trains can glide on top of it.

It may be a small part of the overall picture, but this is the market I know best. If I can’t trust the figures in this arena, why should I trust any of the others?