The Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority published the Strategic Outline Business Case for the CAM ‘metro’ on 19 March 2019. Headline conclusions from the report include:
- the metro network would encompass a core component in Cambridge city and extend to the regions as far as St Neots in the west, Mildenhall in the west, Haverhill in the south, and Huntingdon in the north.
- the case for the metro is ‘compelling’ and the Benefit to Cost ratio is up to four to one.
- CAM would deliver value-for-money and be operationally affordable.
- the metro will include up to 12 km of tunnelling within the historic city core, with at least two underground stations.
- the network will be fully segregated, ensuring that it is not subject to congestion experienced on roads.
- The overall metro network would be 142 km in length (including the existing 23 km of guided busway).
- The service frequency would be “turn up and go” in the core, or a vehicle around every 5 minutes.
- the CAM proposes to use low-floor electric rubber-tyred vehicles which share some characteristics of trams (e.g. wide doors, greater capacity than buses), of which several examples have recently appeared on the market.
- The vehicle would run on a road, not guided on steel tracks like trams. The vehicle would have a driver for the foreseeable future. It is expected that some guidance would be by optical laser technology, which is under development by the Greater Cambridge Partnership.
- The overall cost of the scheme would be around £4 bn, a large share of which is allocated to tunnelling.
Cambridge Connect strongly supports the Combined Authority and Greater Cambridge Partnership in their vision to deliver an integrated, strategically connected, sustainable, world-class public transport system for the people of our region. We recognise the investment is substantial, although the return on investment will be much greater. This investment is necessary: to enable people to get to work and visit family & friends, to support economic growth and improve productivity, to support social inclusion, to help reduce waste and carbon emissions, and to move to a more sustainable society. We recognise there are many details yet to be worked out, although we think that the overall vision and strategy is the right direction and highly deserving of public support.
