High Speed 2 benefits and journey times debated
As an engineer I have looked at projects and the benefits, financial and other, they deliver, and whether they are viable. Refurbishment of the rail network north of Birmingham scores highly on both a simple financial cost-benefit analysis and overwhelmingly when social factors are included. High Speed 2 doesn’t.
The predicted journey time, given by the official HS2 website, from London Euston to the Midlands hub is 51 minutes. There is a further time from the Midlands hub to Birmingham of 19 minutes. Allow five minutes to change trains and you have a saving of nine minutes over the present Euston-Birmingham train times.
There will be, according to the HS2 website, three trains an hour.
There are presently three fast trains an hour, so no change there.
Predictions of HS2’s cost have shown a consistent upwards trend. Predictions of journey times, particularly for the distant future when subsequent phases of the proposals are built, specifically through to Scotland, are also no more reliable.
The construction costs of the southern end of the HS2 route, including tunnelling in some of the most densely populated areas in the country, from Old Oak Common in west London through to Euston, could only be justified by a transport revolution.
HS2 isn’t that.
Lee Horwich, Ealing, London
HS2 brings capacity
HS2 will provide a quantum increase in capacity on the rail network and a step-change in journey times to create new business opportunities.
In the past twenty years, rail passenger travel has doubled and long-term projections are that this increase will continue. When phase one of HS2 is completed in 2026, it will relieve demand on the West Coast Mainline (WCML) which is almost at capacity. Phase two is the full Y network to Manchester and Leeds which will be completed in 2032. HS2 will then have doubled capacity on north-south inter-city routes. HS2 will then directly connect five of the UK’s ten major cities and offer significant journey time reductions to a further four major cities.
With long distance services diverted off the WCML (phase one) and East Coast Main Line (phase two) HS2 will also allow extra commuter trains to run on these routes. There are currently 11,300 seats on trains leaving London Euston during the peak period of which 5,500 are commuter services. When HS2 phase one opens, the number of commuter peak period seats is expected to increase to 13,100.
Thus, HS2 is about much more than the journey time to Birmingham. Indeed, when HS2 phase one opens only a third of its trains will terminate at Birmingham. The others will continue to Liverpool, Manchester and Scotland, offering significant journey-time reductions.
The business case for HS2 is complex as it is not possible to fully predict the benefits of the huge increase in connectivity from its transformation of the rail network. Throughout the world, high-speed rail has driven economic development. The Department for Transport published the detailed economic case for HS2 in 2013. This considers a range of options to derive Benefit to Cost ratios. 1% of these were low value for money (1 to 1.5 BCR); 20% were medium value for money (1.5 to 2.0 BCR) and 79% with high value for money (BCR over 2). Of these scenarios, the average benefits were £59.8 billion for transport user benefits and £12.3 billion for wider economic benefits.
The above shows that HS2 will indeed be a transport revolution.
David Shirres, Linlithgow, West Lothian
Careful driving saves fuel
I write regarding the letter about Dieselgate from John S Moore (PE November). Aeroengine manufacturers will adjust the control units on their engines to give the minimum fuel consumption/pollution levels at the optimum cruising speed of the airframe in which they are installed. Car engine makers are similarly obliged to provide such conditions at the specified test points set down by the regulations, which they duly did.
It is the regulations that are inadequate. I suspect VW did not contest this point as few non-engineers would accept this as an argument.
Since cars are driven in a variety of conditions not covered by the testing, it is claimed that most will not achieve the stated mpg figures.
From my observations, most drivers have little idea how to drive economically. I frequently exceed the mpg claims for my diesel car by applying techniques I learned in my youth when travelling as an in-car observer on the Mobil Economy Runs in the 1960s. They do not involve driving at 45mph everywhere, though I am careful to avoid exceeding speed limits.
Tim Norris, Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire
Where are the ethics in this?
In your October issue you published your 8 Questions on ethics. The good concepts expressed there, and the support you obtained for ethical behaviour amongst engineers, were welcome.
But in your November letters I did not enjoy reading the concept expressed by John S Moore that Volkswagen did a great job in devising a system to pass emissions tests and also give “good” performance plus bad emissions when not being emissions tested.
It is clear that our government requires emissions tests to assess whether or not an engine meets the required standard when in normal use.
Designing and implementing a system that gives a special emissions level for test purposes is unethical, and I imagine that the lawyers Moore refers to should be able to determine it as illegal.
I would like to know why the government is not prosecuting Volkswagen and other motor manufacturers.
Andrew Cormie, Maidenhead, Berkshire
A matter of interpretation
I am writing in support of Caspar Lucas and his plea for accuracy in contributions (Letters, PE November). As members of the institution, it is our duty under the code of conduct to uphold the dignity of the profession and behave with integrity and objectivity.
There are many letters on these pages where a few facts are interspersed amongst a lot of opinions, and it is not at all clear which is which!
An example is the letter from Paul Spare in the same issue where he quotes one fact from the 2016 Office for National Statistics (ONS) Digest of UK Energy Statistics (Dukes 2016) that consumption of petroleum products for energy rose by 2.9% between 2014 and 2015. The ONS notes that there has been an increase in the use of these products for energy, and comments that, while some of the change was for increased use in feedstock of petroleum products, much of the increase might be due to a reduction in the price of transport fuel. Spare then takes the jump to assuming that this is due to wasteful use of fuel by driving cars with bigger engines.
Table 3C on page 73 of Dukes 2016, Consumption of Biodiesel and Bioethanol, gives quite detailed figures of all transport fuel usage (both petroleum and bio) and shows that usage rose from
45.7 billion to 46.2 billion litres over 2014-15 – 0.5 billion litres. This figure includes private and commercial vehicles. Moreover, during this period the GDP of the UK grew from £1,792,976 million to £1,832,807 million (ONS dataset), or 2.2%.
If fuel usage had risen in line with GDP growth, it would have increased by
1 billion litres. So, far from car drivers being profligate, they have managed somehow to support a percentage increase in GDP substantially greater than the increase in fuel used, perhaps by a combination of better driving and more efficient vehicles!
If one takes the figures from 2007 (the last full year before the financial crash), by indexing fuel usage against GDP a steady increase in transport fuel efficiency is indicated.
Of course, my assumptions on the direct relationship between GDP and fuel usage might be inappropriate, and the input information could be a bit flawed… our government does revise official figures from time to time.
The main message is that: there are lies, damn lies and statistics; and it beholds us as engineers to uphold the standards of the profession by undertaking careful analysis and not trusting unsubstantiated comments – even from the Office for National Statistics!
Neil Cooper, Evesham, Worcestershire
Plus points of fracking
The 8 Questions survey about shale gas fracking mentions economic benefits and environmental risks (PE November). Why no mention of environmental benefits?
Most progress in reducing CO2 emissions in the UK and US has been achieved by gas replacing coal and oil. To do that, the UK has increasingly had to import liquefied natural gas. But the liquefaction process is energy-intensive, and the trade inevitably involves fugitive emissions and boil-off of methane, itself a significant contributor to global warming. Fracking offers us indigenous gas produced to equal or higher environmental standards than in countries supplying the world market.
Protesters against fracking see themselves as defenders of the earth, while achieving the opposite effect. Some local objections to fracking are justified, not least to the heavy traffic and quantities of water involved. But the group-think of the majority goes no further than the simplistic: gas is hydrocarbon so it must be bad.
John Cole, Yelverton, Devon
Backing the wrong project
I just wondered if I’m the only engineer who has a strong reservation about the Bloodhound project, from a number of aspects.
I regularly go into schools through Stemnet and talk to students about Stem and the opportunities in the engineering profession.
In the past five years I’ve been to school events and found a Bloodhound promotional stand and felt some embarrassment that this is a project being used to promote our profession to schoolchildren. There are much better projects, with useful social outcomes, and with fewer hazards, to promote the profession.
I note in the membership renewal letter that Jon Hilton is “looking forward” to the first Bloodhound trials next year, which has finally driven me to flag this up.
As a mainly retired engineer, and as a Guardian reader, maybe I represent a very small minority. I just wondered if you’d received similar concerns.
Bob Lindsey, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey
JCB to the rescue
I can vouch for the rough-and-ready nature of banger racing (My Engineering hobby, PE November).
I once saw a JCB bucket used to flatten a buckled race car floorpan. You wouldn’t think it would fit through
the rear side-window aperture, but in a banger track paddock a lot of things are made to fit.
Ken Strachan, Nuneaton, Warwickshire