Network Rail is predicting a big increase in rail freight traffic over the next 30 years, even though one of rail’s staple markets – power station coal – is forecast to collapse. The draft freight market study forecasts freight tonne kilometres growing from 22.9bn in 2011 to 30.9bn in 2023, 37.2bn in 2033 and 45.2bn in 2043. Tonnes lifted have fallen from 115.4 million in 2004 to 111.3 in 2011. But NR predicts the trend will reverse with 126 million tonnes lifted in 2023,...

Network Rail is preparing to accommodate massive growth in passenger and freight traffic on the rail network over the next 30 years. The infrastructure owner has just published market reviews of the regional urban, London & South East, and rail freight sectors, complementing the long-distance market study published in March (LTT 5 Apr). In each of the passenger sector studies, NR presents a range of demand forecasts before choosing to adopt the highest growth for route capacity planning,...

Transport for London and TRL are trialling a range of cycle safety features on the test track at TRL’s Berkshire headquarters. Volunteers are testing the features, which, if deemed successful, could be trialled on London’s roads next year. Measures include new ways of segregating cycle lanes; changes to traffic signals; revisions to junctions and roundabouts; and bus stop ‘bypasses’. A summary of each trial is given below. Future trials will test different road markings...

Satellite navigation service provider Navevo has launched what it claims is the world’s first ‘cyclist alert’ safety feature as part of the latest version of its ProNav satnav product for HGV drivers. The software has been developed in association with Transport for London to provide a commercial vehicle driver with an audible and visual alert as they approach a junction or section of road that has been determined to be a location where there are regularly high volumes of...

Derogatory phrases such as “Beeching the Butcher”, or “Beeching’s axe again!” tend to appear whenever there is a reference to the Beeching report or proposals are made to reduce rail services. And the effect of the “shortsighted closure of the branch railway and the village station under Beeching” forms an essential element in the local folklore of some 2,000 British villages. Yet few can have actually read the Beeching report, The Reshaping of British...

Newcastle City Council  is consulting on plans to ban goods vehicles and vans from the city’s pioneering ‘no car’ lanes, as part of wider proposals to revamp city centre traffic management. Newcastle’s ‘no car’ lanes are open to any vehicle that is not a car. But the council is now consulting on restricting their use to buses, cyclists, taxis, private hire vehicles and motorcycles. Vans and lorries would be prohibited. “The reasons for these...

Transport for London has called for major reforms to how the construction industry manages its goods deliveries in an effort to cut accidents between construction vehicles and cyclists. More than half (56%) of the cyclist fatalities in London between 2008 and 2011 have involved large commercial vehicles and a disproportionate number of them involve construction vehicles, says TfL. It commissioned TRL to look at how cycle safety is considered within the design and operation of construction...

Communities secretary Eric Pickles has given the green light to a controversial plan for a major rail-connected warehousing development on Green Belt land in Hertfordshire. Pickles wrote to developer Helioslough just before Christmas saying he was minded to approve the construction of a Strategic Rail Freight Interchange (SRFI) on land in and around a former aerodrome at Radlett, near St Albans. Final approval is subject to a satisfactory Section 106 agreement being submitted by the end of...

Network Rail has unveiled its investment proposals for the 2014-2019 period which it says will allow 225 million more passengers to be moved and 30% more freight every year with 355,000 more trains running. The five year business plan would provide 20% extra morning seats into central London and 32% into large regional cities in England and Wales. It would also provide 700 more trains a day linking key northern cities and a ten-minute reduction in journey time between Manchester and Leeds. The...