Ultraspeed responds to Government, stating maglev facts and costs.
Ultraspeed letter to Sec of State
Friday, 31 October 2008
![UK Ultraspeed has welcomed Geoff Hoon’s statement before the House of Commons Transport Select Committee that maglev is “not ruled out” as UK high speed ground transport. Ultraspeed has also corrected the mis-statement of maglev costs made before the committee. Details here.
Maglev offers better value than TGV-style rail in UK-specific conditions. Detailed studies have been conducted which have consistently produced whole-life costs lower than comparably-scoped, but slower, TGV-style systems.
The business plan for North:South route between London and Heathrow and the English North is here.
The formal submission to the Scottish Parliament Transport Committee which also looks at regional-scale applications is here.
Overall, UKU warmly welcomes the increasing political consensus that investment in strategic high speed ground transport is now an urgent necessity in Britain.
Ultraspeed has already formally confirmed to the Shadow Secretary of State that a robust maglev entry will be submitted to £15.6bn competition the Conservative Party has announced it intends to hold “immediately on taking office” if that party wins the next General Election. Details here.
In response to the exchanges at the 29/10/08 Committee hearing, Ultraspeed CEO Dr Alan James has also written to the Secretary of State in similar vein. The text of the letter is published below.
30 October 2008
Maglev high speed ground transport
Dear Secretary of State,
I am writing to you in response to your mention of maglev at Wednesday’s Transport Select Committee hearing. I was delighted with your statement in reply to David Clelland’s question that you have not ruled out maglev in Britain. In the light of your statement and of the growing political consensus that investment in high speed ground transport is an urgent necessity, I write primarily, to affirm UK Ultraspeed’s readiness to re-engage immediately with DfT to move things forward.
I am, however, concerned that the view persists that maglev costs more than 300km/h [186 mph] TGV-style wheel-on-rail in UK application. This is inaccurate.
Regrettably, the 2007 White Paper statement on maglev costs was wrong. And we know it to be wrong, because it used our own figures and then erroneously simply double-counted major items. Please see my 27/07/07 letter to your predecessor for the detail.
But let us not revisit old ground, but rather progress matters on a robust foundation of fact. In this spirit, and to assist informed policymaking, much detailed work has since been carried out on maglev over the last year. This new evidence, which we will be happy to present to you and your senior team, now includes data on journey-time, speed, energy and CO2 performance to a very high level of accuracy: ± 1 metre, 1 second and 1 kilowatt. Detailed results versus train, plane and car are now also to hand. Project Finance modelling to the standard required to support substantive initial engagement with HM Treasury has also been completed.
Critically, detailed capital costings for a variety of UK maglev applications have been examined.
• These consistently produce capital costs for maglev, including land, in the region of £30m per route km, including such complex route sections as the traverse of the Pennines and alignments into the hearts of London and other major cities including Birmingham and Manchester.
• Compared to maglev’s £30m/km, your Department has published an out-turn cost for CTRL (the UK’s only TGV-style wheel-on-rail system, including the cost of Temple Mills Depot) of £56.42m/km. This would be over £60m/km in comparable 2008 terms.
On the basis of studies to date, 500 km/h maglev capital costs are less than 300 km/h TGV.
On a more fundamental level, maglev requires only one line to link all the major city-regions of the ‘West Coast’ and ‘East Coast’ corridors, whereas TGV-style rail needs two routes, yet is slower to all destinations. This means between 100 km to 200 km less infrastructure than TGV. That’s billions saved before a service has ever operated. Maglev’s single-route approach also means that only maglev can cost-effectively link the important catchments of Merseyside, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland’s Central Belt to a national network.
On a whole-life basis, the maglev case is stronger still. Maglev is highly automated, and highly efficient in O&M and staff costs. It requires only half the fleet, and completely avoids TGV-style physical grinding down of its infrastructure every time a unit moves – maglev never actually touches its guideway.
Taking all the above advantages into account, studies indicate that maglev will comfortably outscore any comparably-scoped TGV-style rail project on a whole life basis, whether this is expressed in terms of ‘net cost to HMG over a PPP term’ or ‘NPV of benefit outweighing NPV of cost’, or any other similar test of value.
To move matters along, I would be happy to arrange for an early presentation to you and your team. We would propose to focus on both the full-scale London – Northern England – Scotland system and, in parallel, on opportunities to rapidly progress city-to-city pilot projects. We would present comprehensive business cases for each.
I look forward with interest to your response.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Alan James
Chief Executive](58702DC8-8744-4ACD-9575-37C17E832280_files/shapeimage_1.png)
