Any successful integrated transport system is dependent upon the existence of a fast, frequent, high-capacity public transport system as its core network. In Greater Manchester, Metrolink – our flagship light rail system – has shown that high quality public transport is essential to improving the accessibility of town and city centres, attracting development and stimulating investment into local communities.

Metrolink has been delivering considerable benefits for over 13 years. It provides fast, frequent, fully accessible and reliable services, which means a comfortable and safe journey. The system is flexible, attractive, penetrates the regional (Manchester city) centre, links the two main heavy rail stations at Victoria and Piccadilly, connects with new centres of economic activity and has been, and can be, installed at a far lower cost than heavy rail.

The system has demonstrated its ability to generate multi-modal journeys and to support regeneration. The two existing Metrolink routes – from Bury to Altrincham via Manchester city centre and to Eccles via Salford Quays – carry 19 million passengers a year, and take 3.5 million car journeys off the road. Roads running parallel to Metrolink have seen traffic reductions of up to 10 per cent. Within an area of two kilometres of the line, between 14 per cent and 50 per cent of car trips to destinations served by Metrolink have switched to trams.

The existing lines are so successful because they serve a major urban conurbation, have major traffic attractions at the end of routes, serve corridors with significant volumes of traffic, and offer a competitive service.

Metrolink is also successful because it has a number of features that deliver benefits to users and potential users. These include:

• Competitive journey times compared to cars and buses.
• Predictable, reliable journey times and service patterns due to a high degree of segregation from traffic, and priority at junctions.
• Good perception of personal safety, with CCTV at stops and on trams and visible staffing on the system.
• Good key interchanges with other modes including several park and ride sites, bus interchanges at Altrincham, Bury and Piccadilly, and train interchanges at Piccadilly and Victoria.

Metrolink has played a vital role in the growth and improved performance of the local economy, and its expansion will bring further success. We want to extend the network, and the benefits Metrolink brings, by building lines to Oldham and Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyme and South Manchester and Manchester Airport.

The expanded network is forecast to carry 17.9 million passengers a year and take 5.6 million car journeys off the roads. The three proposed extensions would also have a major impact on regeneration and social inclusion.

Greater Manchester accepts that in the right corridors, buses have a vital role to play in urban transport networks, and that new high-quality buses offer some exciting opportunities for transforming public transport. However, in a well-balanced transport strategy, and in the Metrolink corridors, buses should be seen as complementary to trams, each mode having its own applications. Suggestions that bus-based systems can be a cheaper and more economic alternative to modern trams ignore:

• The greater cost-effectiveness and higher benefits of trams in higher-volume corridors, partly because of the sheer volume of buses that would be required to provide the same capacity as Metrolink.
• Metrolink’s proven effectiveness in stimulating regeneration, transforming perceptions and luring motorists out of their cars.
• The less competitive journey times of a bus alternative, resulting in more congestion to all road-users.

Increasingly, evidence shows that the best-performing economies are those that are underpinned by modern, dynamic public transport systems which provide fast, convenient, high-quality and reliable services. There is no doubt that connectivity is critical to economic and social success.

Metrolink has been a key factor in Greater Manchester’s recent economic revival and it has a critical role to play in securing ongoing private sector investment to support regeneration strategies, particularly in areas that are still economically fragile. Metrolink will therefore continue to form the cornerstone of Greater Manchester’s integrated public transport strategy.