1

Dorset and East Devon Waterborne Passenger Transport Scoping Study

(A tale of two coasts)

Chris Fisher

Principal, Fisher Associates

October 2009

www.fishermaritime.net

Tel: 01590 6265 220

2

There was a challenge

• To use waterborne passenger services to contribute to sustainable transport

• Two participants stepped up to the plate …

Italy:

The

Bay

of

Naples /

Gulf

of

Salerno

3

England:

Lyme

Bay /

Poole

Bay

4

It was a fair challenge …

• Similar scale

• Exposed S/SW facing coastlines

• Millions of people:– Major coastal tourist locations– Significant centres of population

5

And there was a clear winner …

• BUT Why??

6

7

Well … once upon a time, there was a canoe race

8

The English team was racing the Italian team ….

9

The Race

• It was a long race – lasting many years in stages

• Each team had 8 men

• Each team trained hard

10

… but they were losing ground

STAGE 12010

11

Investigations took place …

• The morale of the English team was very low

• Top Management held an enquiry, and a study group examined the issues

• The study group discovered, after numerous analyses ……

12

The Italian team had seven boatmen and a captain Italy

13

The English team had one boatman, but seven captains

14

Measures were taken …

• Top Management proved to be forward thinking ……

• They hired consultants to assess the structure of the English team

15

It took a long time ……

Meanwhile …

• Policy makers commissioned multimodal studies

• They were all rather dry – not a boat to be seen

• Planners built new roads and junctions• The sea rose and the land crumbled … • and car parks and roads started to disappear

16

17

The consultants reported ……

• There were too many captains and not enough boatmen

• On the basis of the experts’ report, it was decided to change immediately the structure of the team

• There would be four policy makers, two Planners, one environment officer, and yes one boatman

• Steps to motivate the boatman were taken

• “We have to improve his environment and give him more responsibilities”, said the policy makers

18

Did it work?

19

No

STAGE 22050

20

What did the England team do?

They fired the boatman

21

And gave a bonus to the others for high motivation

22

What did they do with this?

• More roads

• More junctions

• More car parks

• … and no waterborne passenger services

Until …

• Someone said:

– “Lets find a Plan B!”

• So yes they hired consultants!• We asked the question: How and where and when

could waterborne passenger transport replace car journeys?

23

So we looked at

• The market for services

• Supply side issues

• Conclusions

• Recommendations

24

The market

• Lots of people doing lots of coastal driving:– The combined impact of functional and leisure

journeys results in traffic on coastal roads in August of up to 6,500 to 8,100 vehicles per day

– Traffic has grown on some sections of road by between 23% to 34% in just 11 years

• About 0.7 million people on the wider Coast

25

The market: travel to work journeys

• There is a large potential market for water based commuter services within Christchurch Bay / Poole Bay, on the scale of tens of thousands per day (30,000 each way)

• For the Jurassic Coast, water based commuter services would have a potential market on the scale of hundreds of passengers per day

26

The market: visitors

• The potential leisure market over the Study Coast is estimated at 10 million visits

• Related spend on “travel” and “attractions / entertainment” is estimated to be over £200 million

• Approximately half of this (5 million visits, £100 million spend) may be attributed to the Jurassic Coast

• Data on visitor attractions illustrates that people are drawn to the coast by the specific attractions on offer

• Leisure visits on the Jurassic Coast may generate perhaps 10,000 car journeys per day over the summer period

27

The market: bums on seats

• Three or four boat services aimed at functional journeys might remove say 300 to 400 car journeys per day

• If water passenger transport could service perhaps 5% to 10% of visitors, this would remove 500 to 1,000 car journeys per day

• Combining these potential for removing at least 1,000 car journeys per day in summer on the Jurassic Coast in the short-term (5 to 10 years)

• Plus upside from other functional journeys and niche markets: walkers, cyclists

28

Supply side issues: services

• Some 30 existing service operators have been identified along the Jurassic Coast, and a further 10 for Torbay

• Most of these are small scale trip boat operations

• There is little integration of sea services with other modes

29

Supply side issues: boats

• Regulatory “classes” for pax vessels determine operating limits the higher the class, the more expensive the boat

• Where passenger vessels operate in waters with increasingly larger waves, regulations require increasingly qualified crew

• Coding of waters off the Jurassic Coast means that a high level of classification is required, but this is significantly relaxed in “summer” (Apr to Oct inc.)

• Key point: boats can be designed to operate off the Jurassic Coast – the issue is cost

30

Supply side issues: landing

• There has never been an attempt at a systematic and coordinated upgrading to provide a network of landing facilities

• Lack of landing points is a major impediment to development of sea services

• A range of seasonal landing facilities should be investigated

• Providing more landing points will enable more classes of passenger ship to operate within their regulatory limits

31

Opportunities

• The evidence indicates that there is a sizeable market

• Suitable boats can be procured, and landing places developed

• The private sector is active, and the public sector needs more sustainable transport options

• But there is a huge gap between potential for waterborne passenger transport, and the collective stakeholder community’s ability to realise this

• Multiple sacred cows …

32

Barriers 1

• Perception that marine services would be of little value, because they would be seasonal and weather dependent, and somehow wasteful: – The road carriageway and junction network is designed

to handle peak flows in summer. Boats are additional peak capacity – less used in winter the same as unused peak capacity on roads

– In general, high visitor demand will be consistent with good operating conditions

33

Barriers 2

• Perception that marine services are of little value because they will only serve leisure markets:– Data speaks for itself: visitors to the Jurassic Coast in

the summer may generate some 10,000 car journeys per day, perhaps 25% of overall flows identified on Jurassic Coast coastal roads

– Providing visitors with realistic alternatives could therefore have a significant impact on freeing up existing road capacity

34

Barriers 3

• Perception that the coast is too exposed and seas too rough to permit reliable operation of services:– Classification of passenger vessels specifically foresees

safe design of vessels for such operations – particularly from April to October

– The real issue is that these cost more to construct, and more to operate than vessels typically used now (for example within Poole Harbour)

35

Barriers 4

• It is true that current landing places may not be adequate, but the perception that additional facilities cannot be provided is wrong:– Possible to provide seasonal facilities– Potential for longer term strategies to upgrade

harbours and their connectivity

36

Barriers 5

• Perception that an expanded network of services is not financially viable, (even if appropriate landing places existed), based on deeply flawed supposition that ALL financial risk should be assumed by private sector. This is wrong in principle:

– The public sector is responsible for achieving sustainability in all its senses

– Public sector should accept risks that are appropriate to the level of benefits that sea transport offers

37

Barriers 6

• Perception that there is simply no public funding to support development of sea based infrastructure and services, therefore it is not worth trying, is rather myopic:– The public sector is responsible for funding and

providing roads. It subsidises rail and rural bus services

– It allocates funding to these

– So the funding is there for transport – it is just that transport by sea is not considered

38

KEY ISSUE

• With respect to passenger transport by sea, there is no effective link between key public sector bodies, nor between the public and private sectors, to enable these barriers to be tackled

39

Conclusion 1

• Even if the rate of growth of traffic slows in the future relative to historic trends, it is simply not sustainable to consider that ever increasing traffic can be accommodated on ever improving roads on the Jurassic Coast, particularly considering the potential long term loss of roads and parking due to coastal erosion. “Plan B” is essential

40

Conclusion 2

• Hypothesis: water based passenger services might remove at least 1,000 car journeys per day from Jurassic Coast coastal roads in August within 5 to 10 years equates to about a 2.5% reduction in current overall flows

• In the medium term (15 to 20 years), if water transport accommodated equivalent to 10% of existing overall flows (i.e. replaced about 4,000 car journeys per day), this would be equivalent to perhaps 10 to 15 years growth in road use

41

Conclusion 3

• The major barriers to development of greater use of water transport for passengers are perceptional, rather than related to the marine environment or regulatory issues

• Stakeholder community needs to be organised and coherent enough to recognise and change perceptions

• Yes potential for water based pax transport is significantly dependent on funding – both private AND public

• The public sector must bear its share of the risk

• This will not happen if water based passenger transport is not on the policy agenda

42

Recommendations 1

• A coordinated response across a wide group of stakeholders is needed to break down barriers

• This must tackle perceptions, and create the capability to make effective organisational links

• Some kind of sustained organisational response is needed to address the barriers and we recommend:1. Preparation of TOR for a Working Group to operate for 12

months in 2010

2. The subsequent formation of a permanent response to be defined by the Working Group

43

Recommendations 2

• Adopt a 10 / 30 / 50 year vision for development of water based transport services, defining their scope and planned penetration over these timescales

• Develop outline design studies for common classes of vessels that suit the market opportunities, based on satisfying appropriate regulations, and promulgate these and encourage their adoption

• Develop and implement a systematic and coordinated plan to provide a network of landing facilities with supporting infrastructure

• Identify pilot projects, e.g. Weymouth / Portland (in the context of the 2012 Olympic Games); Studland / Swanage / Corfe

• Develop an integrated “enabling” plan

• Integrate water based transport into overall transport planning, and develop public funding that bridges the gaps in financial viability for the private sector and port authorities

44

Thanks and …

•Put it on the agenda!!

45www.fishermaritime.net

Tel: 01590 6265 220