M4 (Wales) Relief Services

[Rhydgaled]

With the new first minister in the Welsh Assembly having (thankfully) called a halt to the second M4 around Newport, what are the main flows of traffic through the Brynglas tunnels at peak times and what public transport services could be introduced to attract modal shift away from the M4?

Would massive improvements to the Ebbw Vale line services (including 2tph from Newport, alternating between Abertillery and Ebbw Vale services) and/or new Cardiff-Hereford stoppers to serve a new station at Caerleon be a good option? Or openning up the Newport - Machen freight line to passenger services and extending it to join up with the Rhymney line? Or would it be better to target long-distance traffic on the M4, with more and faster trains from west of Cardiff into Wales' capital to link up with increased services to Bristol and Cheltenham? I know that additional services (and electrification) beyond the planned 2tph additional Paddington-Bristol on Filton Bank are awaiting remodelling closer to Temple Meads, but an idea I've had for an interim measure. Once electrification to Cardiff is complete (this year, hopefully) bring in some of the EMUs coming off lease elsewhere (eg. 458s or 379s) to run a Cardiff - Bristol Parkway service, with connections into Temple Meads available on the new GWR services. This new service would also be a reaction to the removal of the Severn Bridge tolls, and would be diverted to Temple Meads instead of Bristol Parkway once the infrustructure allows it.

Another idea (ideally done alongside the extra Cardiff-Bristol service, which would possibly allow removal of one or two stops from the Cardiff-Portsmouth) would be to divert the existing Taunton-Cardiff services to Cheltenham/Worcester via Yate and Gloucester. The Bristol-Cardiff path from the Tauntons could then be transfered to the Wales & Borders franchise and extended to Swansea.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

This debate has also opened up some discussion on the Port Talbot - end of the M4 at Pont Abraham , which in terms of peak congestion , is getting worse , with around 500 houses planned for the Penllergaer area. The Mark Berry suggestions for a Swansea Metro , and or better use of the parallel and underused Swansea District line have not got very far, if anywhere.

So issues at both ends , and any rail "solutions" or benefits may yet come out from a multi-modal study. Cannot help thinking this more than the immediate Brynglas Tunnels area - but the whole road corridor from the Seven crossings to the end of the M4.

 

[squizzler]

Don't forget the freight! Massive potential for goods to shift from lorries for the haul into and out of south Wales with wagons used for the last mile.

Road user pricing could be part of the solution. One way of doing this is to introduce motoring tolls on the bridges over the river Severn.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Don't forget the freight! Massive potential for goods to shift from lorries for the haul into and out of south Wales with wagons used for the last mile.

Road user pricing could be part of the solution. One way of doing this is to introduce motoring tolls on the bridges over the river Severn.

You mean re-introduce tolls over the Severn Crossings ! -

I was wondering whether the site of the Ford Engine Plant - served by rail and in a convenient location for the A48 etc , and avoiding Cardiff congestion might make a decent rail freight terminal , a great shame to lose the infrastructure. (not to mention the plant - but that is another story)

 

[squizzler]

You mean re-introduce tolls over the Severn Crossings !

Yes, but with most other so-called innovations we see nowadays, you give it a fancy new name and launch it as if it were a brand new thing. So you don't call it a bridge toll, you call it a congestion charge, or clean air fee. Just like how internet retail is just a reinvention of the mail order we always had.

Speaking of which, I understood that Amazon (a US mail order firm - see what I did there!) had built a massive warehouse in south Wales. We are all told that, whilst private motoring has peaked, the use of all these vans to deliver stuff that people buy has resulted in an Indian summer for light vehicle use. Presumably the flip side of this coin is that these warehouses are now big enough to justify a rail siding, which would just take congestion back where it would have been before? Some progress, huh

 

[PeterC]

It is easy to look at a busy road and say that the traffic should be going by rail. However you need to consider the journeys being undertaken.
Freight needs consistent trainload flows not wagonload or smaller deliveries from multiple suppliers around the country.
Passengers need to get to their destinations. If you have a big enough flow to points on the railway you can intercept traffic with the carrot of a park & ride service and a suitable stick in road or parking charges. However if people are heading for out of town business parks they are more likely to stick with driving than wait for a bus or taxi for the last 5 or 10 miles.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

It is easy to look at a busy road and say that the traffic should be going by rail. However you need to consider the journeys being undertaken.
Freight needs consistent trainload flows not wagonload or smaller deliveries from multiple suppliers around the country.
Passengers need to get to their destinations. If you have a big enough flow to points on the railway you can intercept traffic with the carrot of a park & ride service and a suitable stick in road or parking charges. However if people are heading for out of town business parks they are more likely to stick with driving than wait for a bus or taxi for the last 5 or 10 miles.

Very fair point - "agglomeration" works with multiple transport modes ! (jargon alert)

As trainees for BR we did gruelling 12 hour shifts on the A74 - south of Carstairs - noting and trying to identify as far as possible road haulage flows that could go to rail. 1980. Not a succesfull experience I have to say. The night shift was a killer.

 

[Tom Quinne]

Don't forget the freight! Massive potential for goods to shift from lorries for the haul into and out of south Wales with wagons used for the last mile.

Road user pricing could be part of the solution. One way of doing this is to introduce motoring tolls on the bridges over the river Severn.

The roading of 30+ Tesco containers from Wentlogg to Magor doesn’t help the road traffic either, why a deal couldn’t of been struck with Tata to have a unloading pad in Llanwern is beyond me.

 

[Tom Quinne]

You mean re-introduce tolls over the Severn Crossings ! -

I was wondering whether the site of the Ford Engine Plant - served by rail and in a convenient location for the A48 etc , and avoiding Cardiff congestion might make a decent rail freight terminal , a great shame to lose the infrastructure. (not to mention the plant - but that is another story)

The level crossing outside the plant is restricted to 2100-0700 operation due to the very busy Road, also the connection onto the Vale of Glamorgan is via shunted operated ground frame. So unless your going to fully signal the connection and overcome the level crossing issue it’s a non starter.

 

[tiptoptaff]

The easiest and best solution is and was to authorise and build the road.

It would take a monumental change to attract a modal shift that would alleviate the congestion on the M4.
Also, a lot of that rail traffic is crewed out of Bristol, and we could all use a better commute to work.

 

[Tom Quinne]

The best thing I did was leave GWR (Bristol) the drive across from Wales into the M32 car park was a nightmare.

Why anyone would choose to drive vice train from Cardiff/Newport to Bristol in the morning rush is beyond me...but by the time you drive from home to the station, try and find on street parking (ha!) or pay a hefty sum each day or month to park in the station (again very limited at Newport especially) then wait for the train (might be lucky to get a seat) then travel across, then walk to your place of work driving probably looks quite attractive.

My commute to work now is 25 minutes door to door, 40 minutes with bad traffic by car.
By train it’s 50-70 minutes including the walk at the work end and drive at the home end.

 

[PartyOperator]

The easiest and best solution is and was to authorise and build the road.

It would take a monumental change to attract a modal shift that would alleviate the congestion on the M4.
Also, a lot of that rail traffic is crewed out of Bristol, and we could all use a better commute to work.

Building the road would just enable further road-oriented development until similar congestion occurs, making a reversal even harder. Plus it would probably worsen the congestion in Cardiff and Bristol. You’re right that a modal shift will be challenging to achieve, but doubling down on roads is just going to make the underlying problem worse and any eventual solution more challenging. Unless you want dead business parks, dead shopping centres and dead suburban housing estates to join the dead factories, dead mines and dead steelworks, now is the time to stop this unsustainable model of development.

 

[RLBH]

Speaking of which, I understood that Amazon (a US mail order firm - see what I did there!) had built a massive warehouse in south Wales.

Indeed, Sears - one of the big American department stores - had an impressive mail and phone order system, computerised logistics for next-day deliveries from their physical stores, an in-house banking division (so able to offer finance facilities), all in the mid-late 1990s, and I believe were just getting into online ordering. Then there was a change in management, which decided that all that nonsense about ordering from home and getting it delivered the next day was a distraction from their core business of physical stores. The delivery logistics system was scrapped, the banking arm sold off, and a gap in the market was created for Amazon to exploit just months later.

The easiest and best solution is and was to authorise and build the road.

The trick is, build new roads where appropriate - and build them as bypasses, not as 'development opportunities' with a farm of wrinkly tin sheds masquerading as retail and office spaces at every junction. In fact, don't have junctions. If the M4 must have a relief road around Newport, have it diverge east of the city, and merge back in west of the city, with nothing in between. Opportunities to induce demand are then limited, so the benefit of relieving congestion should be mostly realised.

 

[squizzler]

In fact, don't have junctions. If the M4 must have a relief road around Newport, have it diverge east of the city, and merge back in west of the city, with nothing in between. Opportunities to induce demand are then limited, so the benefit of relieving congestion should be mostly realised.

Good luck persuading people en route to tolerate that with no benefit to themselves. We saw how hard that can be with HS2 through open country, let alone the outskirts of Newport.

I still feel peak oil and driverless cars are known unknowns that will continue to repel smart money from highway projects till we know how these challenges might pan out.

 

[tiptoptaff]

Good luck persuading people en route to tolerate that with no benefit to themselves. We saw how hard that can be with HS2 through open country, let alone the outskirts of Newport.

I still feel peak oil and driverless cars are known unknowns that will continue to repel smart money from highway projects till we know how these challenges might pan out.

In this case, it was pressure from people out of area that got this scrapped. It was very well supported in Newport

 

[RLBH]

Good luck persuading people en route to tolerate that with no benefit to themselves. We saw how hard that can be with HS2 through open country, let alone the outskirts of Newport.

This is of course the problem with the British planning system - it allows short-term and local interests to overrule long-term national strategy. In more areas than just rail, or indeed just transport.

 

[Dr Day]

In response to the OP.

As much of the problem is the use of the M4 for short local one-junction journeys, on top of national strategic journeys, I would suggest a good starting point would be major investment in local buses and bus priority around Newport.

If we are only looking at rail schemes, then there were a number of ideas in some of the earlier South Wales Metro proposals for high frequency (4 tph) new passenger services with new stations on the relief lines between Cardiff and Severn Tunnel Junction which could be explored, along with the tram-train principles planned for the Cardiff Valleys being applied around Newport to extend the 'rail' network (preferably on segregated alignments rather than shared with traffic) closer to where people actually live or want to go. Not sure what is happening with Cardiff Parkway, or Llanwern, but they should help, as will (I believe committed) frequency and journey time enhancements by TfW Rail on the Chepstow/Ebbw Vale/Maesteg routes.

I would expect rail already has a high market share for journeys between Cardiff centre, Newport station area, and the Temple Meads/Filton Abbey Wood/Parkway areas of Bristol, so to make rail attractive for more door-to-door journeys elsewhere it needs to have access points (ie new stations) closer to the doors at both ends, and/or better parking/cycling/frequent bus connections.

 

[Rhydgaled]

This debate has also opened up some discussion on the Port Talbot - end of the M4 at Pont Abraham , which in terms of peak congestion , is getting worse , with around 500 houses planned for the Penllergaer area. The Mark Berry suggestions for a Swansea Metro , and or better use of the parallel and underused Swansea District line have not got very far, if anywhere.

So issues at both ends , and any rail "solutions" or benefits may yet come out from a multi-modal study. Cannot help thinking this more than the immediate Brynglas Tunnels area - but the whole road corridor from the Seven crossings to the end of the M4.

There are certainly lots of issues. One of my questions here is whether focusing on the Swansea area and the Swansea District Line, to capture traffic joining the M4 further west, would have more of an impact on M4 congestion at Brynglas than something like Ebbw Vale - Newport services? Obviously in an ideal world all angles would be targeted but with limited resources you can't do it all, or at least not all at once. So what gives the biggest modal shift for the smallest investment (I think timeframe for construction/implementation is perhaps a better metric for 'investment' than actual financial cost for the purpose of this discussion)?

Don't forget the freight! Massive potential for goods to shift from lorries for the haul into and out of south Wales with wagons used for the last mile.

Well done for pointing that out; I was thinking very much 'inside the box' with the 'box' being passenger transport. Would targeting lorries have a greater impact on congestion than targeting passenger services?

whilst private motoring has peaked, the use of all these vans to deliver stuff that people buy has resulted in an Indian summer for light vehicle use. Presumably the flip side of this coin is that these warehouses are now big enough to justify a rail siding, which would just take congestion back where it would have been before? Some progress, huh

Pushing my thinking towards the edge of 'the box', I wonder how many vans are equivalent to a HGV in carrying capacity and what the total weight of said light goods vehicles is compared to a HGV? Rather than unload a HGV (used on a trunk haul) into vans for local distribution would it be sensible to use vans for the trunk hauls? Initially that seems like it would increase fuel consumption, BUT a van is smaller than a HGV and can fit on a rail wagon. Motorail as a means of freight distribution anyone? I don't know if the numbers stack up to actually reduce emmisions overall, would it work?

It is easy to look at a busy road and say that the traffic should be going by rail. However you need to consider the journeys being undertaken.
Freight needs consistent trainload flows not wagonload or smaller deliveries from multiple suppliers around the country.
Passengers need to get to their destinations. If you have a big enough flow to points on the railway you can intercept traffic with the carrot of a park & ride service and a suitable stick in road or parking charges. However if people are heading for out of town business parks they are more likely to stick with driving than wait for a bus or taxi for the last 5 or 10 miles.

That's another of the reasons I started this topic; I don't know what the journeys being undertaken on the M4 through the Brynglas tunnels are. Are there a few origin-destination pairs which make up a fair proportion of the traffic?

Building the road would just enable further road-oriented development until similar congestion occurs, making a reversal even harder. Plus it would probably worsen the congestion in Cardiff and Bristol. You’re right that a modal shift will be challenging to achieve, but doubling down on roads is just going to make the underlying problem worse and any eventual solution more challenging.

Well said. The more car traffic you induce, the harder getting that traffic onto public transport becomes. The sooner we start a serious campaign of modal shift, including measures to restrict road demand, the better.

As much of the problem is the use of the M4 for short local one-junction journeys, on top of national strategic journeys, I would suggest a good starting point would be major investment in local buses and bus priority around Newport.

Buses are a valid option for discussion; I didn't really expect them to come up here due to having much lower capacity than a train or tram but I suppose with enough bus lanes a very frequent service could be provided which could make a useful difference.

 

[Nick Ashwell]

In response to the OP.

As much of the problem is the use of the M4 for short local one-junction journeys, on top of national strategic journeys, I would suggest a good starting point would be major investment in local buses and bus priority around Newport.

You have to reduce bus fares for that to work, Newport Bus charge stupid fares, it's pretty much the same from Chepstow as getting the train yet takes an hour. The Severn Express is quicker and cheaper, despite being run by First not a publicly owned operator!

 

[Tom Quinne]

In response to the OP.

As much of the problem is the use of the M4 for short local one-junction journeys, on top of national strategic journeys, I would suggest a good starting point would be major investment in local buses and bus priority around Newport.

If we are only looking at rail schemes, then there were a number of ideas in some of the earlier South Wales Metro proposals for high frequency (4 tph) new passenger services with new stations on the relief lines between Cardiff and Severn Tunnel Junction which could be explored, along with the tram-train principles planned for the Cardiff Valleys being applied around Newport to extend the 'rail' network (preferably on segregated alignments rather than shared with traffic) closer to where people actually live or want to go. Not sure what is happening with Cardiff Parkway, or Llanwern, but they should help, as will (I believe committed) frequency and journey time enhancements by TfW Rail on the Chepstow/Ebbw Vale/Maesteg routes.

I would expect rail already has a high market share for journeys between Cardiff centre, Newport station area, and the Temple Meads/Filton Abbey Wood/Parkway areas of Bristol, so to make rail attractive for more door-to-door journeys elsewhere it needs to have access points (ie new stations) closer to the doors at both ends, and/or better parking/cycling/frequent bus connections.

I don’t see why residents of Newport should be pushed onto overpriced and unreliable buses just so people can get to Cardiff quicker.

The elephant in the room is the 50mph speed limits that cause miles of tail back all day, remove them and see the congestion disappear !

 

[krus_aragon]

I don’t see why residents of Newport should be pushed onto overpriced and unreliable buses just so people can get to Cardiff quicker.

I suspect that the "major investment in local buses and bus priority around Newport" that @Dr Day advocates would do something about the reliability of the buses, and hopefully the price too.

 

[Tom Quinne]

Bus lanes, oh goodie more congestion for those of us who won’t use buses as they are expensive, still unreliable, smelly, dirty, inconvenient for where we work or live.

 

[Dr Day]

I suspect that the "major investment in local buses and bus priority around Newport" that @Dr Day advocates would do something about the reliability of the buses, and hopefully the price too.

Yes, appreciate this is a rail forum, but before we get too carried away re-opening the Caerphilly-Machen freight line and building a tram/tram-train based Newport Metro, just suggesting a fairly significant (dare I say 'transformational') overhaul of the bus provision (including routes, frequencies, average journey times, fares as well as bus lanes) may well provide a more cost effective means of public transport taking some of the more local journeys off the M4 around Newport. The South Wales Metro is supposed to be multi-modal after all. Yes trains have potentially higher passenger carrying capacity and faster journey times, but only for those that want to get from station A to station B and can relatively easily access the station at either end.

 

[RLBH]

The elephant in the room is the 50mph speed limits that cause miles of tail back all day, remove them and see the congestion disappear !

Found the motorist!

Because braking distances are greater at higher speeds, you need more space between cars, and capacity drops. Peak safe operating capacity is reached at about 17.5mph, with 1,963 cars per lane per hour. At 50mph, you're down to 1,411cars per lane per hour; at 70mph, just 1,138 cars per lane per hour.

That's why speed limits are generally reduced under active traffic management schemes as congestion increases. The cars can get closer together, so while everything is moving slower, it's at least still moving.

Interesting observation - you could in theory safely run 105 trains per hour at 125mph if train drivers had the same awareness of upcoming hazards as the Highway Code assumes for motorists. Signalling infrastructure, and the railway's ethos of safety first, second and third, means that no railway gets anywhere close to that.

Meanwhile motorists never actually allow that much space between cars; a 2-second headway isn't safe at speeds over 25mph, yet how often have you seen campaigns encouraging motorists to leave that much space on a 70mph road?

 

[Nick Ashwell]

The problem is the flow rate past Newport, the Coldra needs to be triple motorway lanes to ease congestion there and then they need to bore new Tunnels just north of the existing ones and move the fire station. That would solve the majority of the problem.

 

[Llanigraham]

The problem is the flow rate past Newport, the Coldra needs to be triple motorway lanes to ease congestion there and then they need to bore new Tunnels just north of the existing ones and move the fire station. That would solve the majority of the problem.

Having seen the geological problems they had driving the current tunnels, including having to demolish homes above the tunnels, it would probably be easier just to remove that part of hill completely.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Bus lanes, oh goodie more congestion for those of us who won’t use buses as they are expensive, still unreliable, smelly, dirty, inconvenient for where we work or live.

Then where is there a large catchment of housing and a large area of employment sites that is currently linked poorly or not at all by public transport? If that sort of thing can be identfied, it should be possible to put together a bus service to make buses convenient for more pepole. Admittedly it will never be convenient for everybody (my own commute would be a hard one to make work by public transport, the bus would have to run for about 30-40 minutes through a very rural area with little prospect of intermediate revenue) but in the relatively urbanised south east of Wales there must be something we can do for some pepole.