§ Mr. Gordon PrenticeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what contingency plans are in place for visitors to travel to the Millennium Dome in the event that the Jubilee Line extension is not fully operable by 1 January 2000. [95807]
§ Mr. HillThe Government expects that the whole of the Jubilee Line extension will be up and running from end-to-end in time for the opening of the Millennium Experience and hope that all stations will be open by the end of this year. A 15 train per hour Monday to Friday service is already operating to North Greenwich station through the Stratford to Waterloo section of the line. This is expected to be increased to 24 trains per hour seven days a week when through running from Stanmore to Stratford is successfully achieved in due course. Visitors to the Dome will therefore be able to travel on the Jubilee Line, even if access to the line is not possible from all of the stations at the end of the year.
It had, however, been decided in June 1998 that it would be irresponsible not to have contingency arrangements in place to manage problems on any of the main transport links to the Millennium Dome during the Millennium Year. London Underground Ltd. have therefore, in association with London's other transport operators, developed plans to cover a wide range of possible scenarios and a robust command and control strategy to direct those plans should they need to be invoked.
In the event of disruption, contingency provision will be made available through a combination of spare capacity on the other available public transport links to the Dome and a small number of additional buses and boats that have been contracted to be made available at short notice. A summary of the contingency plan arrangements has been placed in the Library of the House.