Following a two-year delay, a new state-of-the-art shuttle service between Luton Aiport Parkway station and London Luton Airport will open to the public this month.
The Luton Direct Air-Rail Transit (DART) is a cable-hauled, electrically powered and automated shuttle that will transport passengers from the railway station to the airport in under four minutes.
With a £300m budget, the DART covers a distance of 2.2km and is a joint investment by Luton Rising and Luton Council.
Graham Oliver, chief executive officer of Luton Rising agreed that the project had been “costly” but said, “its value is in its connectivity; its value is huge.”
With an aim to get diesel buses off the route, the DART will replace the bus transfer service and, says the council, “will significantly improve the rail passenger experience”.
It will, however, be significantly more expensive than the bus, with a one-way trip priced at £4.90, whereas it currently costs £2.40 for the bus shuttle.
Until the end of the month, the Luton DART will operate initially for around four hours per day. Passengers travelling and using the existing bus transfer during this time will be invited to make their journey by DART during the transition period.
It is hoped that it will be running 24 hours a day in time for the busy Easter holiday travel period.
With sustainability at the heart of the project, the ‘cable car’ technology used by the DART shuttles is the work of the Doppelmayr Cable Car (DCC) company, based in Austria.
“One benefit of the DART is that as the grid decarbonises, running the Dart will get cleaner and cleaner,” explained David Randall, operational readiness team lead at ARUP who worked with Luton Rising and the council to design and build the DART.
“From 2023 to 2050 we are hoping it will save 10,000t of CO2 but after 2050, when the UK is targeted to reach net zero, we will expect to see the carbon savings grow exponentially.”
The system also features regenerative braking.
“Regenerative braking which works a little bit like a Formula 1 car,” said David.
“As trains come into the station they slow down and that energy is recovered and harnessed and used to power things like the heating on the shuttles and other equipment inside the stations.”
“Putting Luton town on the map”
“The Luton DART is one of the biggest infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Luton and promises to put our town and our airport firmly on the map for all the right reasons,” said Cllr Hazel Simmons MBE, (Labour) Leader of Luton Council.
“Electrically-powered, energy-efficient, and future-proofed to support sustainable growth of the airport, it is a vital sign of our commitment to encourage more passengers to take the train rather than individual car journeys to and from our airport.”
Chair of Luton Rising, Cllr Javeria Hussain (Labour) said it will deliver seamless transfer, “enabling passengers travelling from London St Pancras to be at the airport in as little as 32 minutes on the fastest trains at peak times.”
Letting the train take the strain
According to Thameslink and Great Northern managing director Tom Moran, only one in five people travelling to Luton Airport use the train.
“This is the lowest of all the airports in London,” said Tom.
“In terms of sustainable targets, we very much wanted to get more people using the trains and just to remove a reason for people not to get the train to the airport.
“The project aimed to give passengers a seamless transition from the two trains rather than having to take the bus.”
