Travel

Travel

I recently visited Bangalore, India’s high technology centre. It has grown to become the third most populous city in the country, and the traffic congestion is impressive. A new elevated road is under construction from the airport to the city centre. Initially, I had the impression that a system of elevated roads was being constructed throughout the city, but it turned out that what I saw is a new metro, underground in the centre, elevated above the larger roads beyond. 7km of the metro is already open, with 42 planned in total.

Rail is the right response to population growth in a dynamic city in which roads will never be able to cope with the potential demand for car use.

Car useTravel

The weekend issue of the Financial Times has the front page headline ‘Cars no longer stars as the young find themselves forced off the road’. The story is that the number of young people taking driving tests is falling as high insurance costs and demographic changes begin to transform a generation’s relationship with cars. This is followed up over most of page 3, quoting me amongst other experts. The motor industry is well aware of the trend but uncertain how to respond. It hopes that when the economy recovers, young people will come back to cars. However, Gordon Stokes, of Oxford University, is cited as saying that people who learn to drive when they are less than twenty do about 40% more mileage a year than those who earn when they are about thirty.

There may well be a generational shift in attitudes to the car underway.