Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on 27 October (HL11342), what were the forecast effects of (1) the Elizabeth Line, and (2) Worcestershire Parkway Station prior to their opening; and what are the latest measured effects of those schemes.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The forecast effects and latest measured effects of the Elizabeth Line are set out in two post-opening evaluation reports published in 2024 and 2025. Both reports can be found on the Transport for London website.
In summary, the evaluation evidence finds that the Elizabeth Line has had positive impact on both employment growth and housing growth, although the impacts have not been uniform across all areas. The evaluation finds that between 2015 and 2023, employment growth around Elizabeth line stations consistently outperformed the total London average (25% growth around Elizabeth line stations compared to 14% in London). The growth in jobs and connectivity has been accompanied by a surge in housebuilding. 71,000 new homes have been delivered around Elizabeth line stations since 2015. By 2024, the residential property stock around inner London Elizabeth line stations increased by 19% compared to 10% for all inner London.
The forecast effects of the opening of the Worcestershire Parkway Station were expected to be: (i) reducing road congestion and road vehicle carbon emissions by reducing road vehicle usage; (ii) address Worcestershire's poor accessibility to and from London arising from the limited frequency and length of journey time of North Cotswold Line services; (iii) transform access to the rail network for Worcestershire passengers; and (iv) tackle Worcestershire's exclusion from the Cross Country network (Bristol-Birmingham-North West/North East).
No post-opening evaluation of Worcestershire Parkway Station has as yet been carried out. However, latest measured impacts of the station are assessed as:
Passenger numbers: Over 2 million journeys in five years, far exceeding forecasts.
Carbon impact: Achieved carbon neutrality within five years; saves ~1.8 million kgCO₂e annually.
Economic and transport role: Significant modal shift to rail, reducing congestion and supporting sustainable travel; demand strong enough to trigger plans for car park expansion and service enhancements.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on 27 October (HL11342), what has been the effect on projected housing growth and access to employment in the relevant areas of (1) the Elizabeth Line, and (2) Worcestershire Parkway Station.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The latest evidence on the effect of the Elizabeth Line on housing growth and access to employment can be found in the 2024 and 2025 post-opening evaluation reports. Both reports can be found on the Transport for London website.
In summary, the evaluation evidence finds that the Elizabeth Line has had positive impact on both employment growth and housing growth, although the impacts have not been uniform across all areas. The evaluation finds that between 2015 and 2023, employment growth around Elizabeth line stations consistently outperformed the total London average (25% growth around Elizabeth line stations compared to 14% in London). The growth in jobs and connectivity has been accompanied by a surge in housebuilding. 71,000 new homes have been delivered around Elizabeth line stations since 2015. By 2024, the residential property stock around inner London Elizabeth line stations increased by 19% compared to 10% for all inner London.
No post-opening evaluation of Worcestershire Parkway Station has as yet been carried out. However, the measured impact on housing and access to employment of the station are assessed as:
Housing: Strategic growth area planned for up to 10,000 homes and a new town centre; initial phase aims for 5,000 dwellings and 50 hectares of employment land by 2041.
Employment: Mixed-use development includes logistics and office space; Midlands Rail Hub proposals could add 140 weekly services, expanding access to jobs in Birmingham, Cardiff, and beyond.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on 27 October (HL11341), what delays faced by road users during the works were factored into the calculations of overall reduction in congestion and journey times.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
In line with the Department for Transport’s Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG) Unit A1.3, User and Provider Impacts, costs to existing transport users due to the construction of a road investment scheme are recorded in the appraisal. The impact of delays during construction and maintenance are estimated using the same transport models used to predict the overall traffic effects of the scheme. Bespoke software packages, as described in TAG, are used to value the delays to transport users using standard economic parameters.
The Transport Economic Efficiency (TEE) table, produced for all road investment schemes, allows for the user delays during construction and maintenance to be recorded alongside the travel time benefits of the road investment scheme, to ensure that the economic appraisal accounts for both the benefits and disbenefits for users of the road investment scheme.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on 16 October (HL10758), whether the Green Book Guidance and the Transport Analysis Guidance make allowance for large scale delays in the commissioning of new and road improvement schemes, and accidents associated with those schemes.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Transport appraisals informed by HM Treasury’s Green Book and DfT’s Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG) take account of delays in the commissioning of road schemes via a few mechanisms.
As set out in the Transport Business Case Guidance, the established business case process is designed to be flexible, and responsive to evidence that emerges throughout the duration of the proposal’s development. This includes reflecting emerging evidence on project timelines in the analysis that informs the economic dimension.
TAG contains detailed guidance on setting an appropriate appraisal period, running from the scheme opening date. We intend to include plans to expand this guidance to make it more helpful for promoters assessing potential changes in opening dates, as part of our upcoming Appraisal, Modelling and Evaluation Strategy (AMES), to be published early next year.
Where scheme delivery is expected to take longer, TAG also contains advice on how to appraise impacts to existing transport users that occur during the construction of schemes.
Regarding accidents, TAG contains extensive guidance and tools to assist promoters in assessing the likely accident and safety impacts associated with a scheme. As with all TAG methods, these approaches are kept under review, and updated with robust evidence where appropriate.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many of the buses purchased with government assistance under the Bus Service Improvement Plans are purchased from (1) UK manufacturers, and (2) China.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport provides funding to local transport authorities (LTAs) to support the delivery of their Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs). Decisions on how this funding is used to improve services for passengers are for local authorities to make. The majority of projects delivered by LTAs using capital BSIP funding are used on bus infrastructure, such as bus priority schemes. The Department does not track the manufacturers of buses procured using BSIP funding.
The Government is committed to ensuring the UK remains a leader in bus manufacturing, and earlier this year launched the UK Bus Manufacturing Expert Panel. The Panel brings together industry experts and local leaders to achieve three key objectives of supporting growth in UK bus manufacturing, developing a pipeline of future bus orders and prioritising passenger-centric bus design.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on 16 October (HL10758), when assessing the benefits of new road schemes how long those benefits are expected to last, and how loss of benefits are accounted for if congestion reoccurs.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The approach recommended to assess benefits from road investment schemes is set out in DfT’s Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG), which is based on HMT’s Green Book Guidance. This sets out the best practice guidance on assessing and evaluating policies, programmes and projects. The guidance is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect new evidence.
How long benefits may last will be very much dependent on the nature of the scheme, the local area and the strategic objectives being sought. TAG recommends, therefore, that infrastructure schemes should do bespoke analysis using transport modelling. These models, such as the types described in TAG, allow benefits to be calculated based on various behavioural responses expected. For instance, where infrastructure improvements decrease the cost, time and inconvenience of using that infrastructure, transport users may decide to use that infrastructure, change their destinations or activities, or change their mode of travel.
TAG recommends an appraisal period that is linked to the life of the infrastructure asset. This allows accounting for the foreseeable costs and benefits over that time horizon, where they are expected to occur. The appraisal period is usually for 60 years after scheme opening, which is used reasonably consistently in the sector. Allowances may be made for infrastructure that is expected to have longer-lasting benefits and costs after 60 years. TAG recommends that, in such cases, the analysis may cover up to a 100-year appraisal period from scheme opening as a sensitivity test. This is the recommended treatment, since large uncertainty is a feature of the very-long-term, and costs and benefits are heavily discounted in this period.
The benefits of road travel, in particular transport user benefits, can indeed deteriorate for each road user as congestion reoccurs. TAG methods allow for this, utilising the modelling previously mentioned. The “counterfactual” position is important here. This is the state of transport conditions in the case where there is no investment. Benefits are counted across the entire transport network, including non-road travel. Even where the road in question may reach the levels of congestion seen today, benefits, albeit potentially weaker, are still expected to occur even over long-time horizons, when considering the operation of the whole network. For example, traffic may reroute from previous local bottlenecks, some decongestion on public transport services may occur, and so on. In the counterfactual, people would effectively see higher costs/time/inconvenience of reaching the destinations they desire, or indeed become ‘priced off’, the transport system providing them with lower access to opportunity. Again, local conditions are important in understanding the precise source of such benefits.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on 16 October (HL10758), how they assess the benefits of a new non-road transport project with a potential life of up to a century, what network benefits are accounted for in that assessment, and how new jobs and housing developments are included in such infrastructure planning.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
DfT assesses the benefits and costs of transport interventions using our published Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG), which is based on HMT’s Green Book Guidance. This covers a wide range of social, environmental and economic impacts of transport investment. We use transport models to understand how non-road interventions will interact with the existing network, and the pattern of passenger demand. This will reflect users changing their route or mode of travel to make use of the new project.
Our forecasts of travel demand, on which these appraisals are based, take account of the expected locations of housing and jobs in the future. For major schemes, we also model how land uses may change in response to the investment – for example, housing developments near new or improved railway stations. There is a significant body of evidence linking transport connectivity and jobs, which our appraisals take account of. Currently, this tends to be small component of appraised project benefits. We are undertaking research to improve how we predict and value transport’s impact on unemployment, which is likely to increase magnitude of these appraised benefits in deprived areas.
TAG recommends an appraisal period that is linked to the life of the infrastructure asset. This allows accounting for the foreseeable costs and benefits over that time horizon, where they are expected to occur. The appraisal period is usually for 60 years after scheme opening, which is used reasonably consistently in the sector. Allowances may be made for infrastructure that is expected to have longer-lasting benefits and costs after 60 years. TAG recommends that, in such cases, the analysis may cover up to a 100-year appraisal period from scheme opening as a sensitivity test. This is the recommended treatment, since large uncertainty is a feature of the very-long-term, and costs and benefits are heavily discounted in this period.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of current surface access arrangements between London and Heathrow, and whether these arrangements make the best use of available infrastructure capacity.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Heathrow Airport has a wide range of surface access infrastructure, including rail services through Heathrow Express and Elizabeth Line trains, underground services on the Picadilly line, a wide network of bus and coach connections as well as being close to the M25 and M4 motorways. This network supported 83.9 million passengers to access the airport in 2024.
The most recent Heathrow Surface Access Strategy covers 2022 – 2026 and sets out how Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) supports passengers, staff and freight to arrive at the airport, including the continued use of available infrastructure and sets out any new requirements. Any expansion proposals for Heathrow Airport are currently subject to the 2018 Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS), which sets out targets for increasing public transport mode share and reducing staff car journeys which the proposals will need to meet. These targets will be reviewed as part of any future ANPS review, and the department will engage with promoters of a third runway to ensure future surface access arrangements make effective use of capacity to the airport.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that third rail extension projects include financial assessments of safety concerns, to ensure compliance with the Office for Road and Rail.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
We expect Network Rail to undertake an assessment of the costs and benefits for all its schemes, including safety aspects.
It has been encouraging to see recently that the new Chief Inspector at ORR has not closed his mind to further extensions of third rail electrification.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they consider the current methods of assessing the benefits of major railway investment schemes, such as the recent proposals by Midland Connect, to be appropriate.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The approach recommended to assess benefits from rail investment schemes is set out in the Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG), which is based on HMT’s Green Book Guidance. Together, they set out the best practice guidance on assessing and evaluating policies, programmes and projects. The guidance is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect new evidence.
The Department has been working closely with the scheme promoters of Midlands Connect proposals to ensure that the analysis of benefits is appropriate and proportionate for the state it is at.