Introduction

Background

On 8^th August 2019 the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity announced a commitment to progress with the development of the Levenmouth Rail Link, a project to re-instate the railway between Thornton North Junction and Leven.

The Scottish Government has made the following over-arching commitments in reopening the railway line:

• Railway stations will be provided at Leven and at Cameron Bridge.
• The aspirational journey time between Leven and Edinburgh (and vice versa) should not be greater, depending on the route taken, than 70 and 75 minutes.
• The railway line will be designed to permit services as far as Leven.

The project, known as the Levenmouth Rail Link, was identified as part of the Levenmouth Sustainable Transport Survey. The study was a transport appraisal undertaken in accordance with Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) and represented the strategic business case (SBC) for this rail investment which returns passenger rail services to the area for the first time since 1969. The Levenmouth Rail Link website states the rail link represents an investment of over £116m to the area, and will provide the following:

• In the interim, an hourly, direct local service to/from Edinburgh, via Kirkcaldy from its opening on 2^nd June 2024; followed by two trains per hour to/from Edinburgh – one via Kirkcaldy, and the other via Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline (including during peak periods) in 2025.
• Journey time of approximately 70 to 75 minutes between Leven and Edinburgh.
• New railway stations at Cameron Bridge and Leven, with both railway stations having provisions for car parking (including EV charging), cycle parking and designed in compliance with ‘Accessible for All’ standards.

In addition, complementary bus and active travel interventions are delivered separately from the rail scheme, via the Levenmouth Reconnected Programme. Note - the scope of this evaluation does not include evaluation of investments by any other organisations, including the Levenmouth Reconnected Programme.

Study area

Levenmouth is located on the coast in the east of Fife. It is found directly east of Glenrothes and north-east of Kirkcaldy and provides a connection to the East Neuk. This baseline study uses the following definition for the ‘Levenmouth’ area in which the data analysis is undertaken: ‘Levenmouth’ comprises the immediate populated urbanised settlements of Leven, Methil, Buckhaven, Windygates and Kennoway.

The Levenmouth boundary is provided in Figure 1‑1, showing its location in relation to the Fife Council area boundary.

In addition, the Levenmouth Area Committee boundary (comprising Electoral Wards 21 and 22) has been used to help define the resident and business survey catchment areas. This area includes ‘Levenmouth’, plus neighbouring villages of Lundin Links, Lower Largo, Upper Largo to the east, and East Wemyss, West Wemyss and Coaltown of Wemyss to the south-west. This boundary is also shown in Figure 1‑1.

Transport Planning Objectives (Levenmouth Sustainable Transport Study)

The original Transport Planning Objectives (TPOs) set for the Levenmouth Sustainable Transport Study (Initial Appraisal: Case for Change, 2018) - and which informed the generation and selection of this rail scheme for implementation - are listed below (noting that for this baseline, ‘via rail’ has been included at the end of each TPO):

• TPO 1: Improve transport access to employment and key services, including education, health and leisure facilities, within the Levenmouth area via rail.
• TPO 2: Improve transport access and connectivity to and from the Levenmouth area for businesses, visitors and the resident population via rail.
• TPO 3: Increase the sustainable mode share for the residents and workforce in the Levenmouth area via rail.

These remain the TPOs from which the Levenmouth Rail Link is expected to deliver on, as such is the focus of this baseline evaluation. Transport Scotland reviewed these TPOs and developed an evaluation framework which sets out the intended outcomes of the Levenmouth Rail Link and the indicators which will be used to measure the impact of the re-establishment of the Levenmouth Rail Link (see Appendix A in the accompanying technical appendices).

Note the original TPOs did not have the inclusion of ‘via rail’ to the end of each TPO – this due to it being a multi-modal sustainable transport study that considered options for bus, rail and active travel. The inclusion of ‘via rail’ is to ensure that this baseline evaluation focusses on impacts the rail link has on the TPOs only. It is also acknowledged rail patronage within the local area is likely to be a relatively small data set.

Other transport schemes in the study area – Levenmouth Reconnected Programme

The Levenmouth Reconnected Programme is a £10 million fund focussed on stimulating growth and economic prosperity in support of the improvements being brought to the area by the Levenmouth Rail Link. This includes new and enhanced bus services serving Leven over next three years (from June 2024) and support for development of a Levenmouth-wide Active Travel network linking all communities and the two new railway stations.

Note - the Levenmouth Reconnected Programme is not being evaluated as part of this Baseline Study. This study is solely concerned with the rail link reopening project.

Aim of this study

Transport Scotland commissioned Jacobs to undertake the baseline evaluation for the Levenmouth Rail Link. The aim of this study is to undertake baseline data collection and analysis to support future evaluations of the rail link.

Data was collected prior to scheme opening and the introduction of the revised railway timetable in June 2024. This baseline provides information on travel behaviour and attitudes towards future travel options in the local area from local residents, businesses and stakeholders before rail services on the Levenmouth Rail Link came into operation. This baseline will allow future evaluations to establish whether the project has achieved its objectives and delivered benefits to the local area.

Methodology

This study follows the guidance set out in Transport Scotland’s Rail Evaluation Guidance (2015). This baseline study provides information and data to understand pre-implementation travel behaviour and attitudes towards travel, to help inform future evaluations which aim to measure the impact of Levenmouth Rail Link. These evaluations are completed at intervals of one, three and five years, to capture short and longer-term impacts.

The baseline study methodology provides an overall assessment of current travel patterns, behaviours, socio-economic characteristics and the current economic performance of Levenmouth prior to the reopening of the rail link.

This study is considered to be a mixed method study due to a combination of primary and secondary datasets which uses both qualitative and qualitative methods of research to collect data and inform the baseline of this scheme. The approach has been chosen to better answer the different research questions providing stronger evidence and more detailed results. It included primary data collection through household interviews and business surveys; and desktop-based secondary analysis utilising existing socio-economic and transport datasets. The steps undertaken are set out broadly below:

1. Scoping Review: Business Case, Transport Planning Objectives and evaluation framework, were reviewed to develop research questions. Following the development of the research questions, a review was undertaken to understand the availability and reach of extant travel data in the Levenmouth area.
2. Primary Data Collection included:
   1. surveys with residents, businesses and organisations to understand current travel behaviours, patterns and opinions.
3. Secondary Data Analysis included:
   1. the following data sets:
      1. Socio-economic information regarding the areas relevant to the reinstatement of the Levenmouth Rail Link.
      2. Population and demographic data regarding areas close to the Levenmouth Rail Link.
      3. Economic data regarding areas close to the Levenmouth Rail Link.
      4. Existing rail ticket sale data.
   2. a review of qualitative respondent data and comparison to secondary data analysis (e.g. Scotland Census data) to understand additionality.

Surveys

To inform the baseline, two surveys were undertaken as part of the primary data collection exercise, with the following purposes:

1. Residents’ survey, to:
   1. Understand the existing travel behaviour of local residents in the area.
   2. Understand residents’ attitudes to and intentions in the light of reinstatement of the Levenmouth Rail Link.
2. Levenmouth business and organisation survey, to:
   1. Understand the broader economic impacts of the rail link.
   2. Understand the foreseen impacts for businesses and organisations.
   3. Provide an overview on the anticipated impacts of the railway station on other modes of transport.
   4. Understand existing travel behaviour of visitors to the area.

Fieldwork was conducted between 30^th April and 23^rd May 2024 by the firm IBP Strategy and Research (IBP). IBP defined the target population area and refined the survey questionnaires. Surveys with residents, businesses and organisations were carried out, and IBP produced a detailed survey report (. Note – regarding the use of the term “significant” in this detailed survey report: IBP have indicated that whilst the term ‘significant’ has been used, no detailed tests have been carried out determine ‘statistical’ significance. As no significance testing has been undertaken, this means any differences between groups of respondents could have occurred by chance due to sampling variation, rather than being a true difference in the population, especially where an apparent difference is small.

Both surveys included several questions to capture qualitative data to determine additionality due to the new rail link. The purpose of these questions was to understand the likelihood of outcomes if the Levenmouth Rail Link had not been opened and whether the baseline position is likely to remain unchanged.

Considerations of counterfactual

It was recognised that there are challenges of identifying a suitable counterfactual upon which to establish what would likely have happened without the scheme (i.e. the rail link reopening) in Levenmouth. The following contribution analysis approach was used to consider additionality and understand the extent to which the project leads to outcomes that would not have occurred in the absence of this rail link reopening.

Additional questions were incorporated into both the residents and business surveys to qualitatively consider whether the potential impacts to travel patterns and behaviours would have happened anyway without the investment of the new rail link reopening. These questions also considered any anticipated impacts due to the reopened rail link which would be a useful indicator for future evaluations.

This qualitative data from the surveys was used alongside Scotland-wide trends, historical data for the Levenmouth area and wider policies to assess the impact of a ‘do-nothing’ scenario (assuming the do-nothing scenario does not contain any new travel investment in Levenmouth). Questions related to displacement in the surveys were used to qualitatively assess whether the rail link reopening would lead to a shift from other modes of transport (e.g. buses and cars). This data was reviewed against current travel demand patterns (i.e. pre-scheme opening). It is also intended for the data to be compared against post-scheme opening data to determine any shift between travel modes. To infer an understanding of displacement, questions were also asked about respondents travel intentions post-scheme opening, e.g. ‘do you anticipate using the Levenmouth Rail Link within 12 months of it opening?’; ‘please select the anticipated purpose of your trips’; and if the Levenmouth Rail Link was not to reopen, what main mode of travel would you use for those journeys?’.

Baseline evaluation limitations

The following evaluation constraints have been listed as part of this baseline.

Data limitations:

• Patronage data from commercial bus operators was not available which provides some limitations to fully analyse current public transport travel patterns in the Levenmouth area.
• Concessionary bus ticket data was only available at Fife local authority level. This was used as a proxy to understand public transport trips in the region.
• ScotRail had introduced the ‘Peak Fares Removal’ pilot on 2^nd October 2023 which removed peak fares across the network until 30 September 2024 when the scheme ended. This may have had an impact on journeys being made in Fife and elsewhere but is not further investigated within this baseline study.
• Visitor/tourism inputs were captured through the business surveys and no separate surveys were undertaken to further explore the current baseline for leisure/tourism in the Levenmouth area.
• Rail freight was not scoped as part of this baseline, as there is currently no rail freight service operating on the rail link. This is not to say that rail freight would not operate on this rail link in the future.
• Census data is used to place Levenmouth findings in context with the rest of Scotland. For this report only the 2011 Census data was available for analysis. Future evaluation activity will be able to draw on more up to date data from the 2022 Census.

Survey limitations

• Whilst an exercise was undertaken to determine the impact area, there may be impact areas beyond the scope of this study that we are either not currently aware of or anticipated such as wider parts of Cupar, St Andrews which are further away from the Levenmouth Rail Link or places such as Elie which have a very low population spread.
• Non-response bias, where individuals contacted for the survey choose not to participate. The opinions or behaviours of these non-respondents may differ in meaningful ways from those who did participate, leading to a bias in the results.
• Social desirability bias, respondents may have answered questions in a way that they believe will be viewed favourably by others.
• This baseline aims to isolate any impacts of the current political influences at which this baseline study was held and current background interventions in the Levenmouth area such as Levenmouth Reconnected. But there is a likely chance that respondents may have some overlap of understanding of the likely impact of this intervention along with the background interventions.