Car useTravel

The House of Commons Transport Committee is enquiring into the British Strategic Road Network. Written submissions have been published, including my own. While most of the evidence submitted is reasonably predicable, given the established positions of the organisations concerned, I was particularly interested in the offerings of Ian Williams, a very experienced former transport consultant, now at Cambridge University, and of the consultants WSP. They both draw attention to changing patterns of land us, particularly increasing urban density, which are limiting the growth of car travel.

There is an ongoing debate about the future magnitude of road traffic growth. At its most broad brush, this is ‘peak car’ versus continuation of historic growth trends. At a more granular level, account needs to be taken of local demographic changes – where people choose to live and work, and how, in consequence, they choose to travel. On the whole, higher urban densities mean less car travel and more rail, both urban and interurban.

FinanceTravel

The Financial Times reports that Crossrail, the new east-west underground rail line currently being constructed in London, is sparking office development near stations on the route, with expectations of rents rising 10% over the next decade above the baseline projection. While a business levy is contributing to the construction cost, this captures only a fraction of the rise in values from Crossrail. This office construction is part of a trend for companies to move back into central London, reversing a 20-year exodus aimed at cutting costs. Businesses find that they can’t attract quality staff outside the capital.

The general point is that new transport infrastructure, well located, enhances access and prompts the construction of commercial and residential property, the source of employment and homes. This is how the benefits of transport investment materialise. Property owners who benefit from enhanced values should be expected to contribute to the cost of construction.

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A useful study of the prospects for High Speed 2, the proposed new rail route north out of London, has been published by the Independent Transport Commission – a rare example of a report by a group with expertise but without a prior position in the current debate. The ITC identifies the two  benefits of HS2 as being increased rail capacity and improved connectivity. Their conclusion is broadly favourable to HS2 provided local investment is planned to take advantage of the new line.

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The Financial Times reports that central Manchester is Britain’s most vibrant urban area, the result of a flow of young professionals and students into this former industrial city. This reflects a nation-wide revival of city living.

One consequence is the declining interest in cars amongst the urban young, for whom this is not a central part of their way of life.

Car use

Two articles in the Financial Times highlighting a decline in car use.

In the City of London there are plans to remove cars from two busy roads to improve the environment for pedestrians.

In the US it is reported that young city dwellers are driving less, forcing the motor industry to rethink the role of the car.

Both these reports are consistent with trends in the developed economies in which the revival of city centres is facilitated by welcoming the young and pushing back the car.

Car usePublished papersTravel

I presented a paper (Metz ETC 15-9-13) at the recent European Transport Conference held in Frankfurt. This shows how car use in London rose from about 5% of all journeys in 1950 to 50% by 1990 – no surprise there. But then it started falling, to 38% currently, and projected to fall further to 30% before 2040. This is surprising since car use has always risen with growing incomes. However, in London we have not built new road capacity, which has constrained car use to a steady 10m trips a day for each of the past 20 years. But because the population has been growing, these car trips represent a declining share of all travel. This is the clearest illustration of the phenomenon of Peak Car.

I also suggest that growing cities in developing countries, where car use is still low, may be able to avoid this peak and move directly to a more sustainable level of around 30% for a city of 10m. The key policies to achieve this are to provide rail travel for work journeys since this can get business and professional people out of their cars, and limit parking in the city centre to keep buses, taxis, good delivery and emergency vehicles moving.

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A report from the Centre for Cities finds that 8 of the 10 largest British cities have seen private sector jobs become more concentrated in their city centres. The result is that more than one third of jobs in large city centres are in knowledge intensive service activities, such as finance, law and marketing. In London this figure is almost 50 per cent. And in turn they are less reliant on retail, with retail jobs making up 9 per cent and 5 per cent of all jobs respectively.

But the opposite has occurred in medium and small sized cities. These cities, on average, have seen an increasing number of private sector jobs being based away from their city centres, with out-of-town employment sites playing a larger role in their economies. And fewer of their city centre jobs are in knowledge intensive activities – one quarter of jobs in the city centres of medium size cities are in this area, while the figure is one fifth for small cities. This in turn makes them more reliant on retail, which makes up at least 16 per cent of all jobs in each.

These findings are relevant for transport provision. The larger cities are becoming less reliant on the car for travel to their centres, where interaction between people is inhibited by traffic flows and parked cars, and where rail-based public transport offers speed and reliability.

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There is ongoing debate about the benefits to be expected from the proposed high-speed rail route north from London, known as HS2. The standard transport economic analysis, which recognises the value of time savings from faster travel, yields a very modest benefit-to-cost ratio, even assuming that time spent on trains  is completely unproductive. Accordingly, the proponents of HS2 commissioned a different analysis from KPMG which attempts to estimate productivity gains, put at £15bn a year. However, Professor Henry Overman, an expert on this topic, is very critical in two recent blogs (12 and 13 September). He concludes: ‘So, on my reading, [the KPMG report is] technically wrong and possibly out by orders of magnitude.’

It is to be expected that a consultant commissioned by a proponent of a major infrastructure scheme will look for evidence of benefits sufficient to justify going ahead. What is needed is an appraisal of the costs and benefits of HS2 by an impartial body competent to explore the range of valid methodologies.

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When asked which technology would have most impact on the daily routine if lost, 18-34 years olds in the US attach more importance to their computers and mobile phones than to their cars. For older age groups, the car remains the more important, according to a Zipcar survey. Use of transportation apps reduces driving frequency by 25% for this younger age group.

These findings add weight to the idea that there is a significant change in car use by younger people, driven in part by uptake of digital technologies.

Car useTravel

The UK Department for Transport recently published updated road traffic forecasts based on its National Transport Model. Continued growth is expected. By 2040 road traffic is forecast to be 46% higher than in 2010, implying an increase in congestion (measured as time lost) of about 114%. Despite this increase in traffic, CO2 emissions are forecast to decline by around 15% from 2010 levels, reflecting fuel efficiency improvements and use of biofuels.

In the view of many of us, these forecasts are implausibly high. For instance, the increase in car traffic in London by 2040 is put at 40%. Yet car traffic in London has hardly changed in 20 years, reflecting the constraint imposed by road capacity which no one is proposing should be relaxed significantly. More generally, the DfT forecasters reject the idea that car use has peaked on a per capita basis, evidence for which is emerging in most developed economies. It is probably too much to expect the forecasters to revise downwards traffic projections at a time when the Government has announced a big increase in expenditure on the roads system.