Travel

The Court of Appeal has upheld a challenge to the decision to proceed with a third runway at Heathrow airport on the grounds that the Government’s Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS), which endorsed the runway, was unlawful in failing to take into account the Government’s commitment to the provisions of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The Government takes the view that Heathrow expansion is a private sector project and so will not appeal against the judgement, leaving open the possibility of later amending the ANPS. This doubtless suites the Prime Minister, who represents a West London constituency under the flightpath and who had earlier been a vocal critic of the airport’s expansion. Abandoning the third runway would also add to the Government’s credibility when hosting the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow later this year. Meanwhile, the owners of the airport must decide whether an appeal to the Supreme Court would be worthwhile.

The case for increasing the capacity of Heathrow, the UK’s main hub airport, has been based on the needs of business: more direct connections for exporters, facilitating inward investment to the British economy, and boosting London as a world city for doing business. There is no convincing argument for expanding tourism, inbound or outbound, given the need to reduce carbon emissions from aviation.

What is generally overlooked is that most air travel is for leisure purposes. Even at Heathrow, only 25% of passengers are on business trips. So there is ample room for business travel to grow if the demand emerges. Leisure travellers would be displaced to other airports with spare capacity, Stansted and Luton near London, and regional airports beyond. This would happen under the influence of market forces since most business travellers would be willing to pay a premium for the advantages of Heathrow.

Suppose I need to travel to India, to Bangalore for instance. If I’m on a short business trip paid for by my organisation, I’ll fly direct from Heathrow. But if I’m going on holiday, paying out of my own pocket, I’ll shop around for a low-cost flight, expecting to fly with one of the Middle East-based airlines, changing flights at an intermediate hub such as Dubai. I might leave from Heathrow or from Gatwick, Stansted or a regional airport, depending on price and convenience. If demand for business travel to Bangalore grows, leisure travellers who might have flow direct will be have viable alternatives.

Ultimately, growth of demand for air travel will be constrained either by airport capacity or by the need to limit carbon emissions to comply with the Government’s legally binding target of net zero emissions by 2050. One way or another, the cost of air travel is likely to rise, reducing growth in demand.

Hubbub, a UK environmental NGO, has released a report on flying by people in the 20-45 age group, based on a survey sample of two thousand. It found that no less than half the flights by men aged 20-45 in 2019 were for stag parties and a third of flights by women were for hen dos. Hubbub is concerned about the carbon emissions from these flights and the options for reduction by selecting a UK destination. For example, swapping Barcelona for Brighton is the equivalent of going vegan for 2.5 months.

The high proportion of flying for partying is surprising, and reflects the availability of low-cost flights outside the main season for tourist travel. Some increase in the cost of leisure air travel would increase the attractions of domestic destinations, without rather little loss of enjoyment, I anticipate.

Although the private sector operator of Heathrow has a natural commercial interest in expanding its capacity, not all the airport’s users agree. Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways’ parent company, has been critical on account of the likely need to cover the cost of construction through higher landing charges. A capacity constraint would allow BA as the dominant airline to raise prices over time, but would also allow the Government to claw back some of the increased profits through a rise in Air Passenger Duty.

In short, we can manage without a new runway at Heathrow. The market will allocate airport capacity to the highest value users, and the UK’s chances of meeting its carbon reduction target will be improved.

Note added: The Supreme Court upheld an appeal by Heathrow Airport against the Appeal Court’s decision, so the new runway is not legally prevented from being built.

The environmental charity Hubbub has released a report on flying by people in the 20-45 age group, based on a survey sample of 2000. It finds that half the flights by men aged 20-45 in 2019 were for stag parties and a third of flights by women were for hen parties. Hubbub is concerned about the carbon emissions from these flights and the options for reduction by selecting a UK destination. For example, swapping Barcelona for Brighton is the equivalent of going vegan for 2.5 months.

An implication of this high proportion of optional leisure flights is to weaken the case for additional runway capacity to accommodate the forecast growth of demand for air travel, in particular the third runway planned at Heathrow. In the absence of increased capacity, growing demand would lead to higher prices in the market for air travel, which would tilt the balance towards UK destinations for leisure trips, to the benefit of the economy of seaside towns and other hospitable destinations. Most air travel is for leisure purposes. There is plenty of airport capacity for business travellers who are willing to pay a premium to command priority over those on leisure trips.

Breaks in trend

The title of my new book, ‘Driving Change: Travel in the Twenty-First Century’, reflects both the observation that there have been important changes in travel behaviour as we moved from the last century to the present, as well as the possibility that new transport technologies will make a difference to how we travel.

We have nearly half a century of time series data from the National Travel Survey that shows little change in both average travel time (close to an hour a day) and trip rate (about 1000 a year). In contrast, the average distance travelled displays two distinct phases: growth from 4500 miles per person per year in the early 1970s to about 7000 miles by 2000, after which growth ceased. Most travel is by car, so, as expected, car use per capita ceased to grow at the turn of the century, which is also the case for other developed countries. Such cessation of growth of car use has previously been called ‘peak car’, but a better term would be ‘plateau car’ since there is little evidence of a decline in per capita distance travelled.

Growth in average distance travelled was a consequence of higher speeds made possible by the growth of car ownership, supported by road construction. The proximate cause of cessation of growth in car use was the cessation of growth of household car ownership, which increased from 14% in 1951 to 75% by 2000, after which growth ended. A number of factors contributed to the break in the growth trend of car ownership. Population growth in cities, where alternatives to the car are viable, reflected both a shift in the economy from manufacturing to services that tend to be located in city centres, as well as the attractions of city living for young adults, whether studying or in employment.

In successful cities, exemplified by London, car use has been constrained by the capacity of the road network while the travel needs of a growing population have been accommodated by investment in rail. Increasing population density shrinks catchment areas for retail businesses and public services, so making active travel and public transport acceptable alternatives to the car. Car use in London peaked at around 1990 when 50% of all trips were by car, subsequently falling to 36% at present, with the Mayor’s ambition to reduce to 20% by 2041. Increasing population density gives rise to agglomeration benefits – economic, cultural and social – such that declining car use is associated with increasing prosperity. Other cities have a choice: whether to accommodate the car on account of its attractions as a means of mobility; or whether to push back the car to encourage interactions between people.

While car use per capita ceased to grow at the turn of the century, rail passenger numbers went in the opposite direction, doubling over a 20 year period, a consequence of the growth of employment in business services in city centres, congestion on the roads, and investment in the railway by both the private sector train operators and the public sector Network Rail.

The breaks in trend in both road and rail use pose problems for modellers and forecasters. Such breaks reflect changes in travel behaviour, hence historic relationships (elasticities) cannot be assumed to apply. Moreover, the invariance in average travel time observed in the National Travel Survey findings indicates that the benefits of transport investments are not time savings as conventionally assumed. Rather, people take advantage of higher speeds to travel further, to have more choice of destinations, services and opportunities. In short, the benefits of investment are improved access, which is generally subject to diminishing returns. So the conventional four-stage transport model that generates time savings as the output in ‘do something’ cases does not validly represent the changes in travel behaviour that result from an investment.

A feature of travel in the twenty-first century is the impact of new technologies. What impact may we expect on travel by old-established modes of the rapidly developing, often disruptive, digital technologies? Four new technologies are available, or becoming so. Electric propulsion eliminates tailpipe emissions, good for urban air quality and mitigating climate change. Digital navigation can improve the efficiency of our travel and reduce uncertainty and anxiety. Digital platforms allow more efficient matching of supply and demand, exemplifies by ride-hailing taxis such as Uber. And autonomous vehicles may reduce costs for conveyances that otherwise would have a human at the wheel, but may add to congestion as unoccupied private cars make their way to where they are next needed.

The past transport innovations – railway in the nineteenth century, motorcar in the twentieth, modern bicycle in its heyday, motorised two-wheelers in low income countries today – all these allowed a step change in speed and hence in access. In contrast, the new technologies seem unlikely to permit faster travel. Accordingly, they will not be transformational for users, but rather offer incremental improvements to the quality of journeys.

We are therefore in a period of relative stability in respect of per capita travel, which innovative technologies seem unlikely to disturb.

This blog also appeared on the PTRC website.