Travel

 A Roads Task Force (RTF) was set up by the Mayor of London in July 2012 to tackle the challenges facing London’s streets and roads.It has recently issued a substantial report which repays careful study. Street and roads are for movement, of course, but they are also places in their own right, where things happen and people interact. In fact, streets account for 80% of London’s public space. The aim is to improve the efficiency of movement, to encourage walking, cycling and use of public transport, and to provide better, safer places for all the activities that take place on street. These potentially conflicting aims are a real challenge, particularly given expected population growth.

The RTF has looked at what other cities around the world are doing. In successful cities, there is a clear trend towards reducing the impact of motor traffic to improve the quality of life and make them more attractive to live in and to do business. A conceptual framework involving nine street types is advocated, ranging from the arterial road to the city place, depending on the relative importance of movement versus non-movement activities.

One particularly interesting proposal is that consideration is given to shifting motorised traffic underground, in order to maintain capacity for vehicular movement while increasing surface capacity for sustainable modes and delivering transformed places. Examples are cited from Paris and Oslo where this has been successful.

Those with a particular interest in urban travel should look at the impressive set of technical analyses compiled by Transport for London (TfL) to support the RTF, which includes a set of international case studies.

The RTF report has been endorsed by the Mayor and by TfL.

Travel

Earlier this year I participated in a study visit to social enterprises in southern India organised by Journeys for Change. It was an excellent experience which I recommend. There is now a video of a similar trip.

Published papersTravel

I have a new paper published in the Journal of Transport and Land Use, title ‘Mobility, access and choice: a new source of evidence’. The new source is the UK Department for Transport’s accessibility statistics, which relate where people live (census data) to where are located services and facilities such as doctors, hospitals, schools etc. My analysis allows estimates of how much choice people have, dependent on their mode of travel. I find that for those with use of a car or good public transport, levels of choice are quite high, consistent with the proposition that demand for travel has ceased to grow because we have enough choice to meet our needs.

This Journal is unusual in that it is available free of charge online without charging authors for the costs of publication. Commendable.

Car useTravel

An interesting report from the Institute for Mobility Research, part of the BMW group, on the declining car use by Generation Y, those born between the early 1980s and the mid 1990s. A useful addition to the growing literature on an important demographic trend in developed economies which is contributing to the cessation of growth of per capita car use.

Car useTravel

The UK Government has announced a substantial programme of road repairs and construction. While the case for repairs is strong, will the proposed new construction represent value for money? A recent evaluation of 58 ‘major schemes’ implemented by the Highways Agency found time savings to road users at peak usage of only three minutes on average. The Department for Transport’s appraisal methodology multiplies small time savings by a large number of drivers and a standard value of time to generate acceptable benefit-to-cost ratios. But such benefits are notional and the impact in the real economy is unclear.

The most congested parts of the trunk road network are adjacent to population centres, where local traffic impedes long distance traffic. Road improvements permit expansion of the former, the latter gaining little. It remains the case that we can’t build our way out of congestion.

Targeted transport investment can certainly have substantial economic benefits, witness the regeneration of London’s Docklands made possible by investment in the rail network. But the Government’s intention ‘to build all Highways Agency road projects’ seems unlikely to result in commensurate observable economic benefits. We need a fresh look at the economic case for road investment.

Uncategorized

Street demonstration in Brazil have been in the news, one cause being an increase in public transport fares. An illuminating report in the Financial Times suggests that Brazilians’ love of the car has led to the cities becoming chocked with cars, while public transport remains poor. Car numbers have more than doubled since 2002 and Brazil is the world’s fourth largest car market. The government has boosted the car industry to stimulate the economy. But road capacity has not increased and investment in public transport has been slow. Sao Paulo has only 74km of metro track compared with Mexico City’s 227km.

There are plans to extend the Sao Paulo metro to 200km. The state secretary of planning is quoted: ‘The only way forward for public transport is rail …. Sao Paulo will not survive if we don’t do it’. That is the correct conclusion. Growing cities with increasing population density need to rely less on road and more on rail, particularly for work trips. Car’s share of journeys in Sao Paulo may well have passed its peak.

 

Travel

The British Museum has announced a record rise in visitor numbers, up 42% in May compared with the previous year. The BM is the most visited attraction in Britain with 5.57m visitors in 2012. The free-to-enter museum is on the itinerary of one in four overseas visitors to London.

My recent experience is that the BM is uncomfortably crowded, even for special exhibitions with paid and timed ticketing. We may not be far from the point where the demand exceeds capacity of this and other key London attractions, which in turn may slow the growth of overseas visitors to London. This is relevant for future projections of the demand for air travel and for airport capacity in southeast Britain.

Car useTravel

The Financial Times reports that the operators of the M6 Toll road are willing to allow vehicles to use it free of charge when the parallel motorway is congested, in return from release from an obligation to part-finance a link road. The M6 Toll is a 27-mile for which the private sector operator has a 50-year concession. Charges are £5.50 for cars and up to £11 for lorries, for a 20-minute journey. Traffic is down as much as 45% from peak usage in 2006.

While some of the decline in use must be due to the economic downturn, it looks as though the time saving benefits are too little to justify the toll for many road users. This might seem surprising for lorries for whom ‘time is money’, one would suppose. But perhaps fleet operators skilled in just-in-time delivery can cope with congestion adequately on the parallel roads, without incurring the toll.

Car use

Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan Transport Research Institute reports that the rates of vehicles per person, licensed driver, and household in the US reached their maxima prior to the onset of the current economic downturn. He suggests it is likely that this reflects societal changes that influence the need for vehicles, such as increases in telecommuting and in the use of public transportation.
Previous evidence from the US has documented a cessation of growth of car use per capita before the current economic downturn. This new report own vehicle ownership is consistent with the beginning of a significant shift of attitude towards the car.