The Scottish Government

« Previous | Contents | Next »

Listen

Review of Scotland's Cities - The Analysis

TABLE 6.6: Scottish Transport Partnerships

• The role of the land use planning system as the key focus for resolving these pressures and trade-offs becomes even more important. The post-1996 Structure Planning arrangements bear little relationship to the enlarged gravitational pull of the cities. Decisions on housing requirements, land supply and allocations are in many cases being taken at too local a level. The new city-focused strategic development plans emerging from the Executive's Review of Strategic Planning will play a crucial role in aligning development planning more closely with what is happening on the ground.

6.6 INTER-CITY CONNECTIONS

The priority of successive Scottish Office administrations in the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and through to the early 1990's was to ensure good accessibility to all parts of Scotland. This involved substantial expenditure in putting in place a modern road system linking Scotland's principal towns and cities to each other and to the major markets outside Scotland. The 1960's saw construction of Forth and Tay Road Bridges and the M8 and dualling of the A74; the 1970's saw construction of the M9, M90 and significant works on the A9; the 1980's further major works on the A9 including construction of the Kessock Bridge, dualling of the A94, construction of the Edinburgh bypass and major works on the A75. Figure 6.5 illustrates the results of this policy.

By 1990 journey times by road had significantly reduced to most points in Scotland. Since 1990, upgrading of the M74 to motorway standard, and continuation of the trunk road enhancement programme have secured further incremental gains in journey times. The challenge now is to maintain existing levels of accessibility in the face of rising peak time traffic volumes.

A similar pattern is apparent for rail. Table 6.7 sets out the fastest timetabled journey time between the cities and between the cities and London over the last forty years. Significant reductions are recorded through the 1960's and 1970's, but most journey times have been broadly constant over the last 10 years or so.

TABLE 6.7: Changes In Accessibility By Rail 1962 to 2002

Source: British Rail Passenger Timetables, Scottish Region, Summer 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992; National Railway Timetable Summer 2002

Looking ahead, the M74 northern extension will open access to the south and west of the Glasgow region and access by rail from the Central Belt to England is due to improve significantly over the next decade: in particular the Strategic Rail Authority's 10 year plan promises improvements in rail journey times between England and Glasgow and Edinburgh by 2005 and 2010 respectively.

Otherwise, the majority of investment is being targeted at maintaining existing travel times between key locations rather than securing a step-change in journey times. Scotland's Transport: Delivering Improvements confirmed that the Scottish Executive's priority for the next decade would be to continue with this strategy, focusing on congestion problems in Scotland's main urban areas. Given finite budgets, it is right to prioritise maintaining existing levels of accessibility in the face of rising traffic volumes within the city-regions, but good accessibility for economic and tourism development has assumed a central role in national economic development thinking and the further north in Scotland one goes, the greater was consultees' concern about peripherality within the UK and in relation to Europe.

During the review process, the business community repeatedly expressed concerns about the connectedness of the cities, particularly connections between centres in the north of Scotland and Edinburgh and Glasgow. In this context, it may be helpful to explore how the accessibility of different geographical areas within Scotland relate to their competitiveness; and to identify what level of accessibility would decisively alter for the better business or tourist perception of specific Scottish regions' accessibility. A striking example of the sensitivity of demand to service improvements is the 45% increase in passengers on the Edinburgh to Glasgow service following the introduction of a 15 minute frequency.

6.7 PASSENGER AIRLINKS

6.7.1 Why airlinks matter?

Airlinks play a particularly important role in Scotland, making a significant contribution to the economy and social welfare.

Air services are the only realistic means of reaching most international destinations; and they are the quickest means of travelling to the southern UK. As a result, Scots make extensive use of air travel for domestic as well as international journeys. The average number of return trips per head of population in Scotland is currently estimated at 1.75, second only to London within the UK.

Airlinks play a disproportionate role in the inbound tourism market - see Chart 6.3. Overseas tourists in particular are reliant on air travel.

While the new Rosyth-Zeebrugge ferry should reduce this reliance somewhat for tourists coming from North-West Europe, the availability, frequency and price of direct air links is likely to remain an important determinant of Scotland's competitiveness as a tourism destination.

Aviation directly supports close to 15,000 jobs in Scotland and accounts for 1.2% of Scotland's GDP, but its indirect significance is likely to be much greater. Air services serve an important role in attracting inward investment and helping to stimulate and sustain the growth of local businesses by opening up new markets and supply chains. The key growth sectors for the Scottish economy, such as financial and business services and high-tech industries (including bio-technology, software and optical and electrical engineering) all depend on good quality access to Scotland's principal export markets in UK, Europe, North America and elsewhere.

Airports are frequently the focus of 'clusters' of businesses requiring easy and frequent access to air services, e.g. the aeronautical cluster in the west of Scotland focused on Glasgow Prestwick and Glasgow Airports; the financial and business services cluster in the vicinity of Edinburgh Park and the hi-tech industries clusters in West Lothian and Fife, both of which have convenient access to Edinburgh Airport; and the international oil supply sector in and around Aberdeen. Edinburgh and Aberdeen Airports have particularly high shares of business usage (see Table 6.8).

TABLE 6.8: UK/Foreign Business Traffic by Airport Regional

Source: Air Transport Consultation
*Dundee Airport Survey (This figure should be treated with caution)

An indispensable attribute of the competitive city is an airport provided with direct international connections. A city needs an airport offering frequent and fast connections with other main centres in Europe to be a commercial centre of European significance. ⁵⁹ Scotland airports are clearly lagging well behind in this respect (see Table 6.9).

TABLE 6.9: International Connections Served by Selected European Airports

Source: Cities Review Team from Airport websites

6.7.2 Recent Traffic Trends

Passenger traffic to/from Scotland's airports has increased significantly over the last decade, doubling during the 1990's to reach 16.2 million passengers per annum (m.p.p.a.) in 2000, with a steady though incremental increase in destinations served. But average growth has been faster at UK regional airports as a whole (8% p.a.) than at Scottish airports (7% p.a.). While both Edinburgh (10%) and Prestwick (40%) have been growing well above the UK average, Glasgow (5.8%), Aberdeen (2.3%) and Inverness (6.2%) have lagged behind national average growth (see Table 6.10).

TABLE 6.10: Total Passenger Traffic at Main Scottish Airports 1991-2000
(000's of passengers)

Source: CAA Statistics (1991-2000)
Regional Airports defined as the largest regional airports considered under 2002 Air Transport Study
UK Total excludes small UK airports.

Post-2000 data suggests that, despite the general slump in air travel since September 11th, Edinburgh and Glasgow are continuing to grow strongly, both in absolute and relative terms (see Table 6.11).

TABLE 6.11: BAA Traffic Summary, July 2002

Source: BAA

Growth has been fastest in international scheduled services, which have increased their relative share of total traffic - see Table 6.12. Both Edinburgh and Prestwick had annual growth rates above the average for all UK regional airports. Prestwick's 79% annual growth was from a very low base and reflects the expansion of 'no frills' services. Edinburgh's annual growth rate of around 18% is attributable to full scheduled carriers. Glasgow's scheduled international traffic is heavily focused on transatlantic services where growth has been less rapid than on routes to Europe and stagnant since the events of September 11th, 2001.

TABLE 6.12: Total International Passengers at Scottish Airports 1991-2000
(000's of passengers)

Source: CAA Statistics (1991-2000)
Regional Airports defined as the largest regional airports considered under 2002 Air Transport Study
UK Total excludes small UK airports.

Inverness currently has no international services; a service to Amsterdam started just before September 11th was then withdrawn. International travel from the Highlands therefore depends heavily on connecting services at Gatwick and to a lesser extent Edinburgh, Glasgow and Luton.

As can be seen from the above, recent growth in domestic/international traffic at the main Scottish airports is broadly similar to patterns of growth elsewhere in the UK, and is presumably influenced by similar factors: rising household incomes, growth of 'no frills' services exerting downward pressure on fares and greater economic integration with other European countries.

But the uncomfortable reality is that growth to date has not reduced Scotland's dependence on London and/or continental European hubs. Glasgow and Edinburgh airports' catchment population and inbound visitor traffic is sufficient to support a wide range of domestic scheduled services, but only a skeleton network for short haul international scheduled services. Aberdeen and Inverness airports service even more limited scheduled route networks. This has implications for Scotland's attractiveness as a business location/partner, though it is not possible to quantify the scale of the effect.

Compared to the major regional airports elsewhere in the UK, Edinburgh and Glasgow have small catchment populations. In particular, Manchester, Liverpool, East Midlands and Birmingham each have a 1-hour road catchment of over 5.5 million people. Moreover, within Scotland, the available catchment population is shared between two separate Central Belt airports.

The temptation is, of course, to debate the relative merits of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and to approach the decision as if it is a zero sum game. But the historical inheritance of two airports is a fact, and previous studies have shown the high financial and environmental cost of consolidation at one or other site or at a new Central Scotland airport. Looking ahead, the UK Government Air Transport Consultation is forecasting sizeable further major increases in passenger volumes - see Table 6.13.

TABLE 6.13: Comparison of Passenger Forecasts for Each Demand Scenario at 2030 (million passengers per annum)

Source: UK Government Air Transport Consultation

This would bring Edinburgh and Glasgow Airports up to or close to the current passenger throughput of Manchester Airport (18 million passengers in 2000, sufficient to support an international scheduled network of over 60 destinations). The key need is to exploit the forecast increase in demand to secure the best possible outcome for Scotland.

This is not to advocate demand management/allocation by government. It is important that the individual customers, whether business or leisure, are allowed to choose their preferred point of departure, whether for full scheduled, 'no frills' or chartered flights. This will in time bring forward new services to a greater number of destinations.

Improved access to the airports has a key role to play in enlarging the catchment areas of the airports, (in the case of Edinburgh, potentially into the north east of England) as well as improving access from the existing catchment area and reducing dependence on the car. Only Prestwick currently has direct rail services, but there are studies, currently ongoing, assessing the opportunity for rail access to other key airports.

« Previous | Contents | Next »