Amongst all the noise about the third runway at Heathrow, second runway at Gatwick, possibility of Crossrail 2 or HS3, a long overdue piece of airport/rail infrastructure is quietly taking shape on my doorstep in Luton....
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This is Luton Airport Parkway station, opened in 1997. It is connected to Luton Airport by a shuttle bus, which is initially free but has been charged for the last fifteen years or so, ostensibly to pay for a brand new fleet of Wright FTR buses placed on the service by First. This has been quietly forgotten as the FTRs were transferred to Swansea, and then a scrap yard, as
older, second hand buses replaced them. |
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The station opened and shuttle bus operation started when the airport was handling 5 million passengers per annum (mppa). In 2018 the airport handled over 16 mppa and is expected to meet, if not bust, its maximum permitted of 18mppa in 2019. Some 15% of those passengers access the airport by rail. As an airport with a focus on low cost airlines and a heavy [price conscious] visiting friends & relatives (VFR) market, good public transport access is essential. For completeness, broadly the same number of passengers arrive at the airport by express coach from London.
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| The demand for travel to the airport has outgrown the capability to provide it using shuttle buses. At both ends of the route customers are routinely left behind. In late 2020 a new rail timetable will be introduced with a half hourly non-stop service between St Pancras and Luton Airport Parkway, which will only increase the number of people choosing rail to access the airport by train. Or at least it would if there was good access onwards to the airport...... |
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| Anyone travelling through Luton Airport Parkway over summer/autumn 2019 will have seen a new construction rapidly going up on the east side of the station. This will be the station for a new automated people mover link between Parkway and the airport terminal. |
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| Whilst to the south the track construction is well under way. |
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| The station under construction, viewed from the west. |
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| And viewing from the north. The foreground will become an interchange between Luton Airport Parkway and the people mover. |
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| The track towards the airport rises over the A1081 (between the airport and the M1) with a bit of art on the actual bridge itself. |
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| The contractor building the station and new interchange has illustrations on their hoardings showing the works taking place. |
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| There will be a new access to the platforms at Luton Airport Parkway. This includes lifts and escalators to each platform: escalators were not included in the original station bridge to platform construction, whilst the platform 2/3 lift has been out of service for as long as anyone can remember. |
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| Ain't worked for ages. |
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| Soon to be surplus to requirements. |
The automated people mover to be installed is a
Doppelmayr Cable Car (DCC) It's not a monorail! The DCC was first used at
Birmingham Airport to replace its MagLev (admittedly with a bus shuttle for many intervening years). It has since been rolled out in several airports around the world as well as in Las Vegas where it's known as the
Mandalay Bay Tram. My perception is that the technology is very very simple, which reduces the number of things that can go wrong. This is essential when 24/7/365 operation is likely to be required (both the Birmingham and Las Vegas applications are effectively 24/7).
As a cable car it is two trains independently operated, which also means that when maintenance is required, a single train service can be operated. My only concern was that the trains are specified to be more akin to the Mandalay Bay five-section trains rather than the Birmingham Airport two-section trains, and am
pleased to read that they will be four section, capable of operating every four minutes. The nature of train arrivals does mean that demand will be very 'pulsed' towards the airport but that's a problem every such system faces around the world.
As I say, probably five years overdue at Luton and is a step change in the quality of public transport to the airport. We don't yet know how it will be charged or if free: like the current shuttle bus my feeling is that it will be integrated in to the National Rail fare structure.
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