Will the current public transport network in Birmingham support passengers disembarking HS2?

By modelling potential passenger demand will the current Birmingham Public Transport network best support passengers disembarking from High Speed 2 (HS2)? This research created two models by which answer this question. As data for Birmingham with regards to public transport journeys was not publicly accessible, the Oyster card journey data was used, obtained from the TfL website. This data contained 5% of all Oyster card journeys for a week, giving the mode of transport and some mode-specific journey data.

King’s Cross St Pancras station was chosen to be modelled due to similar characteristics with Birmingham Curzon Street station, which is the final destination of the HS2 project. Rail and bus data were filtered to include journeys that originated from or coincided with King’s Cross station. The model was then created and passenger numbers noted to then create the proportion of travellers from King’s Cross that terminated their journeys in a zone.

Various assumptions were made due to some limitations with the data as covered in the report. Zones for Birmingham were identified as this showed the future plan for the city. Using some of the city zone allowed for future comparison between these reports findings and the Big City Plan. Some additional zones were added to ensure that as much of the city was covered by the model. Zones were then paired up according to the characteristics identified in the initial model. The pairing was complete based on an individual best fit case instead of a whole set best-fit case. Having paired up the zones the proportions of travel to each zones from London were then transferred across to Birmingham to view how the predicted flow of passengers would occur from HS2.

The demand for HS2 in Birmingham was reviewed and the increase in the number of passengers due to HS2 analysed. As a result, this research found that the increase solely due to HS2 is insignificant in relation to the expected population increase when HS2 is completed. Therefore, the findings were that by attempting to accommodate the large population increase, the additional influx from HS2 will be adequately supported. Giving the recommendations of implementing a greater number of Sprint buses to provide high-speed transit from areas outside of the city into Curzon Street. Supplement the current bus network to areas that are closer to the city centre like Aston in order to ensure that growth will still occur in these areas due to the increasing accessibility to the city centre. Increasing rail capacity to reduce the overcrowding at New Street station, by a higher number of services during peak time or increasing train length. Alternative transport modes can be offered, with the suggestion to extend the Midland Metro line to potentially reduce the demand on New Street.