On track for growth

Eurostar Chief Executive Richard Brown heads up a company that is transforming the face of Europe’s railways. His ambitious plans for revolutionising inter-European travel have come under scrutiny, but with Eurostar’s increased focus on high-speed continental business travel – carbon neutral, at that – his company is definitely headed in the right direction.

“Eurostar is a complex organisation: an unincorporated partnership between three companies in France, Belgium and the UK”

This autumn sees Eurostar’s long-awaited move from Waterloo to a new hub at St Pancras International. It’s a wildly ambitious undertaking, but in Richard Brown the company has a leader more than capable of keeping things on track.

The driver is very simple: the completion of the UK’s first high-speed line that runs between London and the Channel Tunnel, starting from St Pancras International station. “The commercial opportunities of the move to St Pancras International for Eurostar are immense,” says CEO Brown. “From 14 November 2007, when Eurostar begins services from St Pancras International, average journey times will be 23-25 minutes faster.” For instance, it’ll take just 2hrs 15 minutes from the centre of London to the heart of Paris, 1hr 51 minutes to Brussels and a mere 1hr 20 minutes to Lille.

The redevelopment of the rail infrastructure between the Channel Tunnel and the new London terminus has been a huge undertaking. Construction of the so-called ‘High Speed 1’ line and the St Pancras revamp has cost £5.8 billion in public funds and represents one of the UK’s most challenging construction projects. The line is 109km long and was built in two parts by London & Continental Railways – Section 1, from Folkestone to Fawkham Junction in Kent, was finished in 2003 and allows trains on the British side of the Channel to run as fast as those on the French side at a maximum of 300km/h; Section 2 links Section 1 to St Pancras via a series of new tracks, bridges and tunnels constructed in one of the UK’s most ambitious civil engineering projects to date. With High Speed 1, the UK will be fully connected to the growing European high-speed network, a network that now stretches across 3750km from The Netherlands and Germany, to Italy, Spain and beyond.

It’s not been cheap. With around £800 million going on redeveloping St Pancras station, sources have estimated the cost of installing the line at about £73.5 million per mile (compared with the £28.4 million it cost to build a mile of a three-lane motorway in 2005), and the high cost of the project is partly due to some major engineering challenges: having been lifted over the river Medway, tunnelled under the Thames, threaded through the M25 and channelled through 18km of tunnelling under London, High Speed 1 has overcome a number of significant obstacles. However, construction work for the high-speed railway and stations – including the testing and commissioning of track, signals and communication systems – is now complete, and Eurostar recently undertook its first, record-breaking journey on the new line, completing the fastest ever journey time between the French and British capitals with a run of just two hours and three minutes.

Brown believes the new line and the move to St Pancras will have significant benefits for both his company and for rail passengers in general. Eurostar has already seen a 28 percent increase in passenger numbers since the first section of the high-speed line was completed in 2003, cutting journey times by 20 minutes. “We’re expecting similar double-digit increases over the next three to five years – our aim is to be carrying 10 million passengers per year by 2012,” he confirms. And with a dedicated high-speed service, Eurostar’s punctuality is set to improve further. “More than 90 percent of our trains already arrive on time compared with less than 90 percent for the airlines that operate on our routes,” he continues.

St Pancras International itself will be a highly impressive gateway to Europe, a destination to visit in its own right like New York’s rejuvenated Grand Central Station with excellent restaurants, prestige shops and a 90-metre champagne bar – the longest in Europe. Millions more people will now be in easy reach of continental Europe as Eurostar will have direct or close connections to six tube lines and seven national rail services at St Pancras and the nearby King’s Cross and Euston stations. “We’re also opening a new station at Ebbsfleet International just off junction 2 of the M25 and close to the Dartford Crossing,” adds Brown. “It will have a practical catchment of more than 10 million people and a will offer a great alternative for some current Waterloo users from south of London who may not want to connect to St Pancras.”

With the rapid expansion of Europe’s high-speed rail network over the next couple of years – such as the TGV Est service from Paris to Strasbourg that began on 10 June 2007 and the new Dutch high-speed line linking Brussels and Amsterdam – high-speed rail is going to be even more compelling, and the High Speed 1 infrastructure leaves Eurostar handily placed to capitalise further. “Travel is no longer about distance,” says Brown. “It’s about the quality of the experience and the speed of the journey. The high-speed network across Europe is already providing a really attractive, fast-growing and effective alternative to low-cost, short-haul air travel. Eurostar is working closely with our European partners so that travellers can easily book and connect onto destinations beyond our direct services. Our first quarter results this year show a 39 percent increase in passengers travelling on to the South of France, for instance.”

Indeed, Brown admits that partnerships with other operators are critical to the success of a trans-European enterprise such as Eurostar. “Later this year, Railteam – a partnership between Eurostar and seven of Europe’s high-speed operators including Thalys, SNCF, SNCB and Deutsche Bahn – will further improve the high-speed rail network and make rail an even more attractive alternative to air or car travel. Railteam is an important element in meeting the growing demand for cross-border, faster and environmentally friendly travel within Europe.” The current service offers 5000km of line, with this figure set to rise to 7600km by 2010 and 15,000km by 2020. The expansion will also witness a multiplication of cross-border interconnections, and by 2010 the Railteam members expect 25 million international travellers to be using their European high-speed rail network as an alternative to air travel.

Indeed, with the recent spotlight on climate change leading to something of a backlash towards air travel – especially for business use – travelling by train is now seen as a ‘greener’ alternative for many travellers. “We commissioned independent research that found a return trip on Eurostar to and from London, Paris or Brussels emits 10 times less carbon dioxide than the equivalent return flight,” confirms Brown. In April, the company announced it was going greener still. “We’re going to cut our emissions by 25 percent per traveller journey by 2012 and implement a 10-point environment action plan to reduce the environmental impact of all Eurostar operations by cutting the consumption of raw materials, sourcing responsibly and recycling more waste,” he says. “In addition, from 14 November 2007 all Eurostar journeys will be carbon-neutral. Unlike other transport operators, who ask passengers to volunteer to offset CO2 emissions at their own expense, we will bear the cost of making every journey carbon neutral – we will not charge a penny extra or pass the responsibility on to our customers. We believe we have a duty to reduce our environmental impact; it’s what our travellers want.

It’s certainly proving to be an attractive proposition, particularly for business travellers. “Not only do business travellers get a fast, seamless city centre to city centre trip, their carbon footprint is massively reduced at no cost to them,” says Brown, who admits it is a strategy that is helping Eurostar and other rail operators lure business users away from air travel and onto the train. “In 2006, our largest increase was in business traveller numbers, rising over 17 percent and generating an 18 percent increase in business sales revenue. In Q1 2007 we saw a 14.5 percent increase and an 18.15 percent rise in business revenue on Q1 2006 as more passengers switched to Business Premier.”

Alongside quick city centre to city centre journeys, the dedicated Business Premier class (launched in September 2005) allows business travellers to work productively for the entire journey if they so wish – so journey times can be billed. There’s also just a 10-minute check-in for business travellers, which is a huge advantage. “As a result, many more business travellers are definitely attracted by the environmental benefits of using high-speed rail instead of short-haul air,” says Brown.

The company has made real in-roads into the cross-channel travel market and business growth in the past few years has been impressive. Despite this, however, the company has yet to turn a profit. Given the complicated multinational make-up of the Eurostar partnership, Brown is reluctant to talk figures; however, he does expect big things from the company over the next couple of years. “Eurostar is a complex organisation, being effectively an unincorporated partnership between three companies in France, Belgium and the UK. It doesn’t have a profit and loss account as such: the three companies share the costs and revenue and report their results separately. However, we expect the French part of the business to move into profit soon, followed by Belgium and then the UK.”

But whilst Eurostar may not yet be in the black, its service levels have achieved global recognition and the company has won the title of ‘World’s Leading Rail Service’ for the last nine years at the World Travel Awards – a feat Brown is understandably proud of. “In terms of service and product, Eurostar is passionate about providing the best experience for travellers. I believe we’re a truly progressive company,” he says. “We don’t stand still. We could have rested on our laurels and been happy with the fact that we’re 10 times greener than short-haul airlines. But that wasn’t good enough for us – we wanted to be even better and even greener. We’re the world’s first rail operator and biggest mass-transport company to offer ‘carbon neutral’ journeys at no cost to travellers.”

Brown certainly loves a challenge: as if the logistics of such a major relocation project weren’t going to be difficult enough, he’s planning to accomplish the entire move overnight. “No mass transport operator has ever attempted such a huge undertaking, but we’ve been planning this for some time and I am confident that the move to St Pancras International will go smoothly,” says Brown. “We have a dedicated team working on over 100 separate work-streams. We are moving overnight and mid-week, outside of peak times, so there’s as little disruption as possible to our travellers. The move to St Pancras International and the beginning of Eurostar’s ‘carbon-neutral’ journeys on High Speed 1 on 14 November is the greatest challenge for us at the moment. I’m really excited by it.”

 

The greener way to travel
It’s official. Travelling by Eurostar is greener than flying. In fact, travellers who use Eurostar between Brussels and London generate 10 times less emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2 than travellers who fly, according to detailed independent research commissioned by Eurostar. A return airline journey generates enough CO2 to fill a double-decker bus, while a return trip on Eurostar produces only enough to fill a mini.

• High-speed cross-border rail journeys within Europe release around 10 times less CO2 than flights to the same destinations
• Rail travel consumes two to three times less energy than road travel. With the equivalent of one kg of petrol a truck will cover 58km; a train will cover 111 km
• A high-speed line takes up half the surface space of a motorway

Timeline:
High-speed timetable
1987 Channel Tunnel Act gets Royal Assent. Waterloo named international terminal
1991 Eastern route chosen for regeneration benefits
1994 Decision to make St Pancras London terminus. Waterloo International and Channel Tunnel open
1996 London and Continental Railways wins Channel Tunnel Rail Link contract
1997 Eurostar revenues fall well short of projection; potential investors pull out of CTRL
1998 Government agrees to back £3.75 billion of privately raised debt. Work starts on Section 1
2001 Work on Section 2 begins
2003 Section 1 of High Speed 1 (formerly CTRL) opens from the Channel Tunnel to Fawkham Junction in Kent
2006 Stratford International completed
2007 Waterloo Eurostar terminus to close in November. St Pancras and Ebbsfleet International to open
2009 Projected start of High Speed 1 domestic services. Expected opening of Stratford International

See the following link for images from eurostar:
http://www.eurostarimagery.co.uk/public_first_login.cfm?CFID=612537&CFTOKEN=57944849

Infographics:
10 million - Projected number of Eurostar passengers by 2012
90% - Percentage of Eurostar’s trains that arrive on time

Infographic (alternative style):
In 2006, 7.85 million people travelled on Eurostar, generating sales of £518 million