Trafford Park Metrolink

THE CHALLENGE

Transport for Greater Manchester needed to refresh their powers to build an extension of the Metrolink tram system to the Trafford Centre shopping mall. The mall is located next to a very congested stretch of motorway. All the links for 3 or 4 junctions in both directions fall into the most congested 10% in the country. It has roughly half the public transport mode share of comparator malls such as Bluewater (Dartford), Meadowhall (Sheffield), and the Metrocentre.(Newcastle/Gateshead).
The route passes through Manchester’s leading manufacturing area Trafford Park. Changes in land-use there made a new route desirable, which triggered the need for a new Public Inquiry to obtain Transport and Works Act Order powers to construct the line.

SYSTRA’S ROLE

SYSTRA refreshed Manchester’s multi-modal transport models to include new origin-destination survey data gathered in the area. We updated the demand model to include parking access and egress times at the Trafford Centre, where car parking spaces can be up to 800m from the entrance to the mall.

We carried out the transport modelling, ran TUBA, authored parts of the economic case chapter for the business case, and prepared proofs of evidence for the inquiry.