Scope for railway transport in urban areas : report of the forty-seventh Round Table on Transport Economics, held in Hamburg on 25th and 26th June, 1979.

378 Pages·1980·12.222 MB·English

by  OECD

ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE
ROUND
TABLE
47
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORT
PARIS1980
ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE
REPORT OF
THE FORTY·SEVENTH ROUND TABLE
ON TRANSPORT ECONOMICS
held in Hamburg on 25th and 26th June, 1979
on the following topic:
SCOPE FOR
RAILWAY TRANSPORT
IN URBAN AREAS
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORT
The European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) was insti
tuted by a Protocol signed at Brussels on 17th October 1953. It comprises the
Ministers of Transport of the following 19 countries: Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, G,reece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg,
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United
Kingdom and Yugoslavia (associated countries: Australia, Canada, Japan,
United States).
The purposes of the ECMT are:
to take whatever measures may be necessary to achieve, at general or
regional level, the maximum use and most rational development of
European inland transport of international importance;
to co-ordinate and promote the activities of International Organisations
concerned with European inland transport (rail, road, navigable ways),
taking into account the work of supranational authorities in this field
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
...................................................
FOREWORD 4
SCOPE FOR RAILWAY TRANSPORT IN URBAN AREAS
Case studies
AMSTERDAM"
II
M. Van Witsen 5
"BARCELONA" and "MADRID"
F. Cal Pardo and V. Rallo 31
"BRUSSELS"
P. De Greef 79
"COPENHAGEN"
K. Lemberg 105
"HAMBURG"
H. Weigelt 131
"LILLE"
J. Dreuil 159
"LIVERPOOL"
S. Rihani 177
"MILAN"
A. Clerici 213
"MUNICH"
D. Lippert 239
"NAPLES"
A. Polese 259
"NEWCASTLE"
D.F. Howard 275
"OSLO"
K. Skuland 313
"VIENNA"
H. Petzmann 325
SYNTHESIS
(Round Table debate on the reports)
G. Heimerl 357
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 371
ECMT. ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE
Forthcoming publications 375
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FOREWORD
Compared with other Round Tables organised by the ECMT, Round
Table 47 was a scientific event with a number of distinctive
features:
- It took place in Hamburg on the occasion of the IVA 79 Fair
and not, as is usually the case, at the ECMT headquarters
in Paris.
- In view of the nature of the subject, which does not lend
itself to a general presentation, the usual introductory
report was replaced by a series of case studies on a number
of European cities. These did not, however, include agglo
merations with populations running into several million like
Paris or London; the size of such cities, the scale of their
transport networks and the volume of transport movements that
concern them present very special problems on which, inciden
tally, many studies have already been made.
- The number of experts who attended the Round Table was -
because of these circumstances - very large, far higher than
the usual attendance at this kind of meeting.
- Instead of the report giving the main conclusions reached in
the discussion, normally written by the Secretariat, a con
solidated report was produced, compiled by an expert appointed
for the purpose. Basing himself on replies to a questionnaire
sent out to all the authors of the case studies, this rappor
teur endeavoured to define, at the overall level, the scope
for railway transport in urban areas and to single out a num
ber of general principles for possible action based on ex
perience in the various countries.
4
"AMSTERDAM"
M. van WITSEN
Head of Planning
Research Department
Netherlands Railways Ltd.
Utrecht, Netherlands
5
SUMr1ARY
1 • BASIC INF'OFUV!ATION ABOUT AMSTERDAM 7
1 .1 • Brief historical survey 7
1.2. Population gro,vth .............................. . 7
1.3. Traffic growth .•...................•.•.......... 9
2. A CLOSER LOOK AT THE RAILWAYS TODAY 11
2.1. The situation of the routes into Amsterdam 11
2.2. Rail transport today (sale) ••••••••••••••••••••• 11
2.3. Scheduled services (production) ••••••••••••••••• 16
2.4. Infrastructure and rolling stock (factors of
production) ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 16
2.5. Interaction with other modes of transport
(integration) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3. PROSPECTS FOR THE RA~LWAYS 22
3.1. Land use 22
3.2. Quality and capacity of the existing network 22
Extending the network outside Amsterdam ••••••••• 23
Extending the network inside Amsterdam •••••••••• 24
Integration 25
4. FINru~CIAL RESULTS ; ECONOMIC IMPORTru~CE 25
4.1. Financial results ; covering the losses ••••••••• 25
4.2. Outlook for the future •••••••••••••••••••••••••• 26
4.3. Investment 27
4.4. Economic importance 28
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1. Basic information about Amsterdam
1.1 Brief historical survey
Amsterdam is the Netherlands' first city as regards
size and importance. Though the seat of government is The
Hague, Amsterdam is the real capital. Originally developing
as a port and trading centre because of its situation on what
was once an inland sea, (the Zuidersee), the importance of
the port of Amsterdam has gradually been completely eclipsed
by the port of the city of Rotterdam, where the Rhine pro
vides a better link with the hinterland. Amsterdam has deve
loped more and more as a financial centre, while it has been
able to strengthen its transport position through the deve
lopment of the Schiphol International Airport.
As it has succeeded in preserving its particularly
large and beautiful, mainly 16th and 17th century, city centre,
traversed by innumerable canals, Amsterdam has also become an
outstanding tourist centre.
1.2 Population growth
For the purposes of this ECMT survey (which is of course
concerned with railway transport and consequently traffic to
and from the Amsterdam conurbation), some fundamental popula
tion data, which explains the growth of.traffic, is shown in
Table 1.01.
Although· it is difficult to look at the traffic si tua
tion in Amsterdam separately from the other large cities in
the West of the Netherlands (the so-called "Randstad Holland"),
an area in which distances are relatively short (Amsterdam
Haarlem = 20 km, Amsterdam-Utrecht = 35 km, Amsterdam-The
Hague= 55 km), an attempt is made to define the Amsterdam
Environs, the inhabitants of which, to a large, but not always
overwhelming extent, are Amsterdam-oriented and the result is
an area of a radius of 30 to 40 kw (see Figure 2.01).
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Table 1.01: Population growth in Amsterdam
1920 1940 1960 1975 2000
No, of inhabitants
in the city, incl.
immediately adja- ca.
cent urban areas 750,000 800,000 950,000 850,000 750,000
Area covered by ca.
buildings (ha) 5,000 7,000 11 '000 15,000 20,000
No. of jobs 275,000 300,000 375,000 425,000 ca.
OJ 450,000
Ditto, centre ca. ca.
only 120,000 140,000 150,000 140,000 120,000
Population of the
area surrounding
Amsterdam (with-
in a radius of ca. ca. ca.
30 to 40 km) 1 '400,000 1,600,000 1 '950 ,ooo 2,200,000 2,400,000
No. of commuters
living outside
but working in ca.
Amsterdam 5,000 15,000 45,000 65,000 125,000
1.3 Traffic growth
It emerges from Table 1.01 that inside this Amsterdam
area the growth of the Amsterdam conurbation itself was com
paratively slow until 1960 but then it stopped altogether
and even went into reverse with a considerable outflow into
the environs. This process will continue in the years to
come. The reasons for this are the same as in most other
large European cities:
- more land being used for residential and employment
functions (see Table 1.01: the area has tripled or
quadrupled with respect to 1920);
- a shift of population towards lower density areas,
this due to wider ownership of cars and to a lesser
extent to rail transport facilities;
- an increase in the nUmber of jobs in the urbanised
areas themselves;
an unduly increasing amount of space claimed by
traffic.
In particular, Amsterdam used to be a very compact
city, where the above mentioned phenomena were particularly
marked. If we add to this the fact that the central city
area, in view of its history and structure, is only to a
very limited extent suited to extensive modern office com
plexes and not at all to dense motor traffic, then the grow
ing problem of the railways becomes apparent:
It is clear that the railway has a major role to
play in transport (parti'ularly of commuters) into
the centre, but this role is made difficult by the
growth of new settlements in the environs away from
the railways.
The increase in commuter traffic is particularly
marked outside the central area, for which the rail
way is even less suited, but certainly necessary
because of the large volume of traffic.
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