Research Questions 'Compelling' Case for Additional Capacity

The former Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, told the Transport Select Committee in October that the case for HS2 "starts" with capacity. "If the compelling case for additional capacity... was not there, then a large part of the case for high speed rail would be undermined."

The Government recently refused a freedom of information request from 51m asking for traffic data showing how busy the peak servcies are on the west coast manin line out of Euston.

That led the HS2 Action Alliance to conduct its own study, which has been independently verified by a market research company, looking at teh evening peak period between 4.30pm and 6.59pm. The research showed on average the servcies had occupany rates of 56%. The data showed after the peak, when faes drop significantly, were much fuller, at up to 94% but opponents dismiss this as "artificial loading" because of the fare structure used.