The fourth Cycling and Walking Innovations event will highlight why boosting cycling and walking is a win-win, because it is politically more supported than ever and the benefits are visible in quality of life, the environment and local economies. The 2017 DfT Innovation Challenge Fund was the catalyst for the first Cycling and Walking Innovations event in 2018, which was launched to celebrate the innovators – from the private and public sectors – who are driving the active travel s

Public bodies and transport operators must do more to enable people with mental health conditions to make journeys, states a new report. An online survey by the UCL’s Centre for Transport Studies revealed the main barriers for people mental health issues. Of the 385 respondents, 90% have anxiety issues, 71% suffer from panic attacks, 68% have depression while 51% have difficulty communicating and 45% have memory loss. The survey was supported by a range of organisations including Sustrans

In creating safer street design for cycling and walking, junctions consistently prove to be the greatest challenge for many designers and engineers. Dutch transport consultancy Mobycon

The Mini-Holland programme was the turning point for Waltham Forest, giving the council the means to challenge the dominance of the car, believes Clyde Loakes. The £29.6m grant from TfL changed everything. Up until then, the council had tried to encourage active travel through a range of small-scale measures, says Loakes, the council’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Transport and the Environment.  “Yes, we had the traditional traffic calming engineering solutions, b

The Landor LINKS Annual Survey of Mobility as a Service is now in its third year. Whatever sector of transport you work in, MaaS is now having an impact either as a planner, providing public transport, bike share, car hire, leasing, payments, operational support, TRANStech. We'd like to hear from you, so please complete the survey to gauge how MaaS – and our hopes and fears for it – are developing. Take part in the survey today Last year we had more interest from the automotive se

A tech firm that deploys cameras and machine learning software to analyse the movement of people and traffic has received £25,000 from the North East Small Loan Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund. Newcastle-based Streets Systems says the funding will enable it to acquire more equipment as well as increasing its workforce and extending its client base. The firm, set up by Tom Bailey and Tom Komar, uses sensors to gather in-depth data on pedestrian and cycle movement

The Metropolitan Police is preparing to launch a huge programme of speed limit enforcement across London, which aims to catch a million offenders a year.  Councillors on borough association London Councils’ transport and environment committee heard about the proposal last week. Transport manager Andrew Luck told them of a “planned increase in speed enforcement activity, which will result in an increase in the number of offences processed from 160,000 to one million per annum&rd

The Government has tabled legislation committing the UK to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  The draft Statutory Instrument to amend the Climate Change Act 2008 was laid in Parliament last week. It toughens the Act’s target from an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 against 1990 levels to a 100 per cent reduction. The UK’s share of international aviation and shipping emissions are excluded. Announcing the secondary legislation, outgoi

The public in Bristol will be asked next month to choose between a class C charging clean air zone (CAZ) or a diesel car ban to ensure the city complies with legal limits of nitrogen dioxide. The class C CAZ would see charges imposed on non-compliant taxis, private hire vehicles, vans, buses, coaches and lorries. It would be complemented by a local scrappage scheme for older vehicles, actions to reduce bus and taxi emissions, a bus lane on the M32, and a diesel vehicle ban on Upper Maudlin Stre

The Scottish Parliament has voted down a Bill that would have made 20mph the default speed limit on most built-up roads in Scotland. MSPs voted last week by 83 to 26 to block any further progress for Green MSP Mark Ruskell’s     Restricted Roads (20mph speed limit) (Scotland) Bill.  The proposed legislation would have made 20mph the default speed limit on all ‘restricted roads’ – those with street lights placed more than 185 metres apart that are C or unc

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea anticipates earning £100,000 a year by allowing floating car clubs to operate in the borough. Kensington and Chelsea is in talks with two floating car club operators, Zipcar Flex and DriveNow, and expects both to launch schemes this summer.  Johnny Thalassites, the council’s lead member for planning and transport, said each operator was expected to have about 50 vehicles in the borough at any given time.  Floating car clubs ope

A new guide packed with useful information about the Mini-Hollands and Liveable Neighbourhoods programmes has been published. The 64-page guide, published by Landor LINKS in partnership with Transport for London, includes a round-up of all the Liveable Neighbourhoods projects being developed across the capital. Building on the success of Mini-Hollands, the Liveable Neighbourhoods Programme will use the Healthy Streets Approach to deliver attractive, healthy, accessible and safe neighbourhoods.

Hilary Gander has witnessed a few political twists and turns since the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames secured Mini-Holland funding five years ago. The LibDem council won the £32.7m grant in 2014, but the following year control of the council switched to the Conservatives. Then, at last year’s local elections, the LibDems returned to power. Which means that Gander, as Portfolio Holder for Environment & Sustainable Transport, has been handed the opportunity of shaping the

The DfT has “gone rogue” on climate change, sidelining the issue in its plans, policies and guidance to local authorities and bodies such as Highways England, according to environmental transport consultants. Lisa Hopkinson and Lynn Sloman of consultant Transport for Quality of Life make the comments in a report for campaign group Friends of the Earth.   The authors say economic development and reducing congestion currently take priority over climate change in transport policy

Paul Campion will be the new group chief executive of the board of TRF, the holding company of transport research body TRL. Campion was until recently the chief executive of the Transport Systems Catapult where he worked with government and industry partners developing collaborative investment projects to deliver innovation and growth in the smart mobility sector. The Transport Systems Catapult was merged with the Future Cities Catapult to create the Connected Places Catapult. Prior to headin

The shared mobility charity CoMoUK has appointed Richard Dilks as its new chief executive. Dilks was previously transport programme director at the business group London First, where he led policy and advocacy across a wide range of transport modes. Prior to that he worked as a policy adviser and journalist at the consumer body Which? Dilks said: “It is a huge honour to become CoMoUK’s chief executive at this momentous time for shared mobility. The opportunities for it to deliver th

APCOA is offering a contactless parking experience at 200 sites across Germany. The service uses contactless entry and exit, automatic billing and app-based supporting services. The company is issuing drivers with a windscreen label that incorporates an RFID chip. When clients approach the parking garage barrier in their cars, the barrier automatically opens via the wireless technology of the RFID chip in the label and the system subsequently debits the parking fee using the client’s stor

The government has launched a competition for 7 to 19 year olds to design the electric vehicle chargepoints of the future, inspiring the next generation of engineers — a key aim of the modern Industrial Strategy. The ‘Eco Innovators’ competition aims to inspire young people to use their creative and engineering skills. Winners will have their designs made into real-life prototypes supported by industry experts. The ‘Eco Innovators’ competition — announced by

Modelling World 2019, 4 & 5 June, Birmingham: Supported delegate places for students Our event partner Jacobs is kindly sponsoring 10 full delegate places for students who are interested in sharing ideas about the key issues to be discussed at Modelling World. Please apply, by 28 May, with a CV and top two preferences for morning and afternoon sessions to: juliana.orourke@landor.co.uk Jacobs will ask all student ambassadors to gather at lunchtime at the event reception desk for a group ph

Right from the moment Enfield became one of TfL’s Mini-Holland boroughs back in 2014, the rumbles of dissent began. Cllr Daniel Anderson, who until recently was the council’s deputy leader, recalls being verbally abused at public meetings: “It’s fair to say we faced considerable opposition. People referred to me - and still do - as the idiot who built the cycle lanes. But I can live with that. If I didn’t believe that it was the right thing to do I wouldn’t ha

CoMoUK, the charity that promotes the social, environmental and economic benefits of shared transport, or collaborative mobility, has been on a journey. The organisation started life as Carplus, promoting the benefits of the UK’s car club and car sharing sectors. In 2016 Carplus launched Bikeplus to cater for the growing popularity of public bike share schemes. Last year, the two activities were united under the CoMo name. The organisation performs its charitable mission through education

Transport inevitably forms a key focus for the Committee on Climate Change’s (CCC) analysis into how the UK economy can achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Putting aviation and shipping to one side, surface transport accounted for 23 per cent of emissions in 2017, of which cars accounted for 14 per cent, HGVs 4 per cent, vans 4 per cent, and buses, rail, and other transport (including mopeds and motorcycles) 1 per cent.  The Committee’s 304-page technical report

“If Britain is serious about improving the quality of its air then the single most important step is to accelerate the switch from petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles to electric cars,” an editorial in The Times said on 13 May. “Yet not only is the Government dragging its feet on initiatives to tackle this crisis, some of its actions have undermined progress. “We report today that sales of electric cars in Britain are far below levels in other European countries,” t

With Scotland having set itself a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2045, both Glasgow and Edinburgh will start work on a range of programmes to ensure they reach this target, with both cities unveiling ambitious plans to cut greenhouse emissions to a neutral level. Glasgow wants to reach the target "well before" 2045, while Edinburgh has set its target to 2030. Glasgow has already established the first Low Emission Zone outside of London, while the UK’s biggest onshore wind far

Immense Simulations, the intelligent mobility software provider, today announced that it has secured $4.6m in Series A funding. The investment will aid the continued growth and development of its AI-driven ‘Simulation as a Service’ platform, which is disrupting traditional transportation modelling. The Series A funding was co-led by global technology investor, Amadeus Capital Partners, one of Europe’s most active AI investors according to Pitchbook, and Global Brain Corporatio

The London Borough of Croydon is to consult on introducing traffic restrictions to streets outside eight more primary schools at the start and end of the school day, under its ‘school streets’ initiative.  Shifa Mustafa, Croydon’s executive director for place, said the three pilot school street schemes implemented in 2017 had “significantly reduced car use” for school run trips, in the range 15-25 per cent.  “Parents become educated and socially in

Liftshare.com has been honoured with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for the second time. Building upon its previous recognition for Innovation, Liftshare has now been recognised with the Queen’s Award for Sustainable Development. Liftshare provide services for workplaces that solve parking and recruitment problems as well as helping their employees to share their commutes. Liftshare also offer a free car-sharing platform to the public, matching members with peoople travelling in th

German carmaker Audi will be discussing the work it is doing developing self-parking cars at the annual Parking & Property conference. The day will also see Gatwick Airport reveal details of its upcoming trial of a parking robot that will marshal cars in one of its surface car parks.The evolution of the connected, autonomous, shared and electric cars will have a profound impact on the design and operation of car parks. A panel of architects, automotive experts and parking operators will addr

Businesses in the North East are being invited to apply for funding totalling £80,000 for projects boosting take-up of electric vehicles. The Electric Vehicle Innovation Accelerator is a new programme led by the Innovation SuperNetwork, which brings together more than 50 partners and 5,000 businesses in the North East, and the utility firm ENGIE. As part of the Go Ultra Low North East campaign, the Electric Vehicle Innovation Accelerator is seeking ideas that reduce the costs and complex

Modelling World, now in its 14th year, is the UK & Europe's best attended, longest-running and biggest conference / annual exhibition for transport and pedestrian modelling professionals, advisory and strategic modellers, data scientists and transport economists. In 2019, we will be introducing an afternoon session, prior to the main conference, to explore the implications and potential of Digital Twins. It will be led by Mark Enzer, Chair, Digital

We’re seeing these developments on the ground now, changing the way people travel. Sometimes it’s trial on a small scale with local introductions of new services across a limited area. The flexible on demand driven bus service in launched by Arriva started in an area of Sittingbourne just 4 miles wide and 6 miles long. A single bus route converted by TransDev to ‘pay for how far you travel’ measured by Bluetooth beacons. One Royal Mail depot trialling electric cargo trike

A couple of weeks ago, a fellow called George Monbiot (a writer fairly well-known for his environmental and political activism) wrote an article for The Guardian in which he said that, “The car is still useful – for a few people it’s essential. It would make a good servant. But it has become our master.” These words caught my eye, not just because I think George is on to something, but because I wrote about that same something in these pages around 18 months ago. Entitle

Roads have been closed to traffic outside 40 schools across England, Scotland and Wales for a two-week trial period as part of the Big Pedal event. This is the Big Pedal’s tenth year, but it is the first time schools have closed streets, working in partnership with walking and cycling charity Sustrans, the campaign group Playing Out and local authorities. More than 2,200 schools are taking part in this year’s event, which runs until 5 April. Sustrans is helping schools and local au

New mobility solutions such as self-driving vehicles could exacerbate congestion and result in fewer people walking and cycling, warns a new report from the DfT. Rising automation must be complemented by more efficient use of limited road space, for example through shared rides, increased occupancy and consolidating freight, states Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy. Analysis carried out for the DfT suggests that traffic could grow 55%

Plans for a ‘Beelines Network’ of cycling and walking routes across Greater Manchester will take another step forward if 18 schemes gain approval next week. This will take the number of endorsed schemes to 42, delivering 319 new and upgraded crossings and junctions and 70 miles of new cycling and walking routes. If the latest schemes are approved by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), the total value of cycling and walking related-projects across Greater Manchester wil

Leicester City Council has signed a partnership agreement with Santander for a bike hire scheme. An invitation for bike hire operators to submit bids will be published next month, with the scheme due to start at the end of this year. The scheme – comprising 500 bikes at 50 docking stations – will cover the city centre and surrounding neighbourhoods, including railway and bus stations, Leicester Royal Infirmary, university and college campuses, major workplaces and sports facilities.

Five new garden towns have been unveiled, unlocking potential for up to 64,000 new homes across England, the Minister of State for Housing announced. The locally-led new communities, from Hertfordshire to Gloucestershire, will receive a share of £3.7 million of funding to fast-track specialist survey work and planning works necessary for each new town’s development. The funds will be spent by councils to help to deliver the homes and infrastructure needed for both neighbouring

The biggest review into transport in a generation will pave the way for transforming the way people and goods move around our cities, the government has announced in its Future of mobility: urban strategy. Also, in a boost for sustainable transport, the government has announced the first winners of the Transforming Cities Fund and awarded £60 million to 10 city regions for schemes supporting low-carbon vehicles, cycling and walking projects, and smart traffic controls. The Transforming Cit

Road traffic in Scotland grew 3.3 per cent to a new record in 2017, according to Transport Scotland’s annual compendium of transport statistics. The growth was more than double the 1.3 per cent recorded in Great Britain as a whole.   An estimated 48.0 billion vehicle kilometres were driven on Scotland’s roads in 2017, up 36 per cent on the 35.2 billion in 1993, the first year that estimates were made for all roads. Estimated traffic levels on local authority roads in 2017 were

As ride-share becomes more popular, councils should replace on-street parking charges with a “transaction fee” for stopping at the kerbside, believes Alastair Evanson, solution director at traffic and transportation software specialists PTV Group. Local authorities should consider the impact on revenues as kerb use shifts from parking to passenger pick-up and drop-off, Evanson told delegates at Future Streets, hosted by Arup Group and organised by Landor LINKS. “Pricing kerb u

Contemporary and 1960s car parks, school streets schemes, charity fundraisers, cycle hubs and digital payment systems make up the eclectic list winners at the British Parking Awards 2019. The British Parking Awards have been presented annually by Parking Review magazine since 2002, and the awards ceremony organised by Landor LINKS is the social highlight of the parking calendar.The ceremony was compered by the comedian Shappi Khorsandi, who revealed that in being evicted first on I’m a Cel

Commuters in Gloucestershire are being offered a car-sharing scheme that connects people wanting to head into Cheltenham, Gloucester and Cirencester with spare parking at out-of-town businesses. The En Route Parking system offers commuters a network of car parks near major employment areas. The service has been created by Kate Vidgen, who said: “I know local business owners are trying their best to solve the parking problems through schemes like car-sharing, cycling or walking to work but

Eleven London councils have secured funding for projects to make their streets more people-friendly. The Mayor of London and Transport for London (TfL) is providing a total of £53m in the second phase of its Liveable Neighbourhoods programme. Seven boroughs were awarded a total of £33m towards phase one projects in 2017.  TfL received 22 bids for phase two funding. The winning bids comprise a range of projects designed to cut rat running, make junctions safer, implement new wal

The BMW Group and Daimler AG are pooling their mobility services to create a new global player providing sustainable urban mobility for customers. The two car companies are investing more than €1 billion (£850m) to develop and intermesh their offerings for car-sharing, ride-hailing, parking, charging and multimodal transport. The partnership will see the creation of five joint ventures: •    PARK NOW for parking •    CHARGE NOW for charging&bu

Motor traffic dominates road-based travel and the bicycle, invented in 1817, remains an under-valued mode. Machines resembling modern bicycles with chains driving the rear wheel were developed in the 1880s. By the mid-1890s there were a million cyclists in the UK. Cycling’s heyday was in the 1930s, but the growth of motoring led to what Cycling magazine described as “carnage on the road”.  Thinking in relation to cycle traffic and pedestrian provision generally assumes th

The most effective way to combat the threat of gridlock as self-driving cars become more common is through congestion pricing, states new research. The ability of autonomous vehicles (AVs) to cruise will blur the boundary between parking and travel, says the study by transportation planner Adam Millard-Ball, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Parking charges will no longer be an effective congestion management tool, warns Millard-Ball. &

Phase two of plans to transform Newcastle Central Station and the surrounding land will be considered by the city council next week. The programme would free up more space in concourses within the station, provide additional pedestrian entrances into the station, improve short and long stay parking and move the taxi rank into the existing short stay car park at the front of the station. The works would also pave the way for a new station multi-storey car park, commercial and residential housing

Planning policy should be rewritten to limit car-based housing and promote high density city living, says consultant Transport for Quality of Life in another report for Friends of the Earth. Outlining their vision for the future of urban living, Lisa Hopkinson and Lynn Sloman say: “People in compact, dense towns and cities will live in well designed, high-quality homes, the majority in 3-6 storey buildings, giving neighbourhoods a human scale. “Everything will be easily accessible

It’s clear that the auto industry has its sights on shared mobility, but in a model that is much closer to Uber and Lyft’s taxi-alternative than true co-mobility or shared modes such as Uber Pool or Lyft Line, which connect potential clients with other passengers with the same route or location. BMW and Daimler have launched a combined car-sharing venture called  ‘Jurbey’ and, under the terms of their deal, reports Automotive News, which includes Daimler's Car2Go and

Local authorities can radically improve their transport system by increasing the use of shared modes, especially active ones, but need operational and regulatory guidance. CoMoUK is supporting local authorities by bringing together stakeholders, including the DfT, to help deliver shared mobility goals, a process that will kick off at the Shared Transport Masterclass in Leicester on 22 February Cities in the UK are on the precipice of an upcoming revolution in the way we provide transport. The p

Campaign for Better Transport has called on the Government to invest £4.8 billion in expanding the railway network to reach the most disconnected and disadvantaged communities. In a new report, The case for expanding the rail network, it outlines how a national reopening programme would initially create 33 new rail lines with 72 new stations, allowing an additional 20 million rail passenger journeys a year by bringing over 500,000 people within walking distance of a train station. It

Zipcar, a company that helped define the sharing economy, has released the findings of its 2018 Impact Report. For the first time, the report comprehensively captures key findings gathered over Zipcar’s eighteen years of mobility leadership. The findings, combined with objective third-party research, offer tangible evidence that car sharing continues to provide both members, and the cities they live in, with significant and distinct social and environmental benefits, at a time when new mob

The government has awarded more than £6 million to support ultra-low emission taxis right across the country, furthering its ambition for a zero emission future. The funding will see almost 300 rapid chargepoints and 46 fast chargepoints installed for ultra-low emission taxis in 17 local authorities, including in Greater Manchester, Brighton and Hove, Leicester and the north east. This announcement marks another milestone in the delivery of the government’s Road to Zero strateg

Shared mobility modes have great potential to address congestion and poor air quality challenges, but the practical delivery of an integrated shared mobility strategy is complex. The Shared Transport Masterclass on February 22 will bring together operators, local authorities and potential mobility users to take the first steps in creating a practical framework, based on 'mobility pledges', that can guide the set-up for successful shared mobility. The mobility pledges are rooted in work tha

UNICEF UK has launched a report into air pollution, including a national call to action and recommended measures for government, in order to urgently reduce levels of air pollutants in areas populated by children. Notes the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, responding to the report: 'Around a third of UK children are growing up in areas with unsafe levels of air pollution and without urgent intervention, toxic levels of air pollution are expected to persist fo

As Unicef published its latest briefing on air pollution, stating that across 86% of the UK, children are breathing in harmful levels of toxic air that can harm their lungs, damage the development of their brains and stunt their growth, new figures from Close Brothers Asset Finance’s quarterly survey of businesses in the UK and Ireland suggest that traffic congestion is reaching crisis point across the UK, affecting both productivi

Waltham Forest council has launched a £20,000 fund to help local community projects encourage more active travel.   Organisations can bid for up to £2,500 from the Community Walking and Cycling Fund to deliver projects with residents in the London borough over this spring and summer.  The council hopes the fund will lead to more community led guided walks or rides as well as bike maintenance classes for community groups.  Funding will come from the £27m Mini H

APCOA Parking staff supported an Irish children’s hospice by collecting toys. The 2018 Christmas Toy Appeal in aid of the LauraLynn Children’s Hospice, which provides palliative care to children with life-limiting conditions and their families across Ireland. Over 60 toys were collected during December along with a donation of €250 (£215). In 2018, LauraLynn provided specialised hospice care to approximately 250 children with life-limiting conditions and their families.

EU partners will continue to work over the next three years to raise the profile of shared transport solutions as part of the SHARE-North project. Speakers from project members CoMoUK and SHARE-North will be speaking at the Shared Transport Masterclass on February 22 in Leicester. The aim of the SHARE-North project is to develop, implement, promote and assess shared transport options such as car clubs, bike share, ride sharing and other shared transport options. CoMoUK will focus on engagi

The NHS will save £319m if cycling doubles in seven UK cities every eight years by 2040, according a new report from Sustrans. The charity calculates that 34,000 life-threatening illnesses - including Type 2 diabetes, stroke, breast cancer and depression - would be prevented, along with 628 early deaths. Transforming Cities: The potential of everyday cycling uses data from Sustrans’ 2017 Bike Life studies of B

Since Bolloré’s pioneering Autolib car share service pulled out of Paris last year, Daimler’s Car2Go has delivered on its plan to offer 400 electric cars for free-floating sharing across the French capital. The service is simple: all you need is the app to grab a car2go anywhere in the home area of Paris. Parking is free in the designated zone.  More cars are to follow over the course of this year, says Car2Go's CEO Olivier Reppert, who considers Paris an ideal ground fo

A new national planning framework is urgently needed to place public transport, rather than car-based “low density sprawl”, at the heart of policy for new developments, says a new report by the Urban Transport Group. This would enable the “agglomeration” of economies – where firms benefit from close proximity to each other – and meet housing demand without making congestion and air quality worse, according to The Place To

Sheffield City Region has today announced plans to appoint its first Active Travel Commissioner. The post will cover all aspects of active travel schemes to be delivered across the region, as part of Sheffield City Region’s bid for a share of the government's Transforming Cities Fund. Earlier this month, Sheffield City Region submitted six active travel and public transport schemes to the government for co

Ad Hominem abuse of transport secretary Chris Grayling has become a commonplace feature of late when the media is discussing transport policy (Media Monitor passim) but on 15 January Alistair Osborne, business commentator for The Times, decided to launch a personal attack against environment secretary Michael Gove instead. “No government minister ever got anywhere without being able to think two contradictory ideas at once, so why should Michael Gove be different?” he asked rhetorica

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”  H L Mencken Imaginary might be a little harsh, but exaggerated certainly isn’t. The latest hobgoblin is the air quality ‘crisis’, which is being used to justify more taxes on some drivers in the guise of clean air zones (CAZ). If the much-delayed carbon dioxide hobgoblin doe

The vehicle rental and leasing industry is looking at the impact of trends such as the electrification and automation of vehicles, emergence of last mile delivery services and Brexit, says the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVLRA). According to the BVRLA’s new Industry Outlook 2019 Report the next 12 months will be a very challenging period, but the association says there is clear evidence that BVRLA members are seizing the initiative and not waiting for an upturn in the

A group of roadside Santas joined the City of London Police last week to launch a Christmas Road Safety campaign. Using handheld speed cameras, pupils from Sir John Cass and St Paul’s Cathedral Schools recorded several vehicles exceeding 30mph although there is a 20mph limit in the City. The City of London Corporation’s Road Danger Reduction Plan seeks to achieve Vision Zero – an end to all deaths and serious injuries on London's transport system - which is key part of the May

Traffic and parking management professionals will be gathering in Manchester during January to discuss issues such as the effective management of the kerbside, preparing Clean Air Zones, creating safer school streets, regulating pavement parking and the case for workplace parking levies. The Traffic + Parking conference on 22 January 2019 will be a forum in which parking and traffic management professionals from both the public and private sectors can gather to discuss the operational issues th

The British Parking Awards 2019 recognises excellence in management, design and innovation in both the on-street and off-street parking sector. To give entrants some extra time refine submissions, the deadline for sending in entry packs has been extended to Thursday 10 January. The diverse nature of the parking sector means that the competition has categories that cover the design and upkeep of buildings, as well as ground-breaking policies, excellent services and innovative technology.&nb

A two-week operation to target illegal and dangerous driving across London resulted in the arrest of 176 drivers for drink, drug, dangerous and disqualified driving. The operation is part of a joint Vision Zero commitment by Transport for London (TfL) and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to eliminate death and serious injury on London’s roads by 2041. During the operation, 4,758 offences were identified – more than 800 offences higher than an average two-week period in 2016. T

Councils will get new powers allowing the use of CCTV and ANPR cameras to enforce parking restrictions in cycle lanes as part of a government ‘action plan’ to improve road safety for pedestrians and cyclists. The two-year plan, published today, will end the requirement for civil enforcement officers to issue penalty charge notices to vehicles parked in cycle lanes. Among a raft of

Belfast’s Queen’s University has become the first organisation to achieve a Gold Standard in a new international Cycle Friendly Employer accreditation (CFE-UK). The scheme has been launched by EU project ‘Bike2Work’, with the charity Cycling UK the recognised provider for the UK.  CFE-UK is the only international standard for workplace cycling, working in partnership with countries across Europe. Site auditing and advisory work is also provided by charity Sustrans

Improving cycling and walking infrastructure can increase spending in shops by up to 30%, according to a report published today by Transport for London (TfL). The research found that people walking, cycling and using public transport spend 40% more each month than car drivers. Some 45% of high street visits are for “social and community reasons” while improving streets for cycling and walking led to a 216% increase in “people stopping, sitting and socialising”, said the

People-friendly spaces a dedicated cycleway and plazas are among proposals for Edinburgh’s George Street and New Town public realm design project. A draft concept design for the area, which has been produced after extensive consultation with a range of stakeholders including community and specialist interest groups, went on show at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre for the first time on 8 November. As part of the wider City Centre Transformation project, the George Street and New Town (G

Tower Hamlets Council is making over £120,000 available to community groups, schools, local businesses and housing associations who want to in reducing air pollution in the east London borough. To be eligible for funding, projects must be related to either reducing air pollution emissions, reducing air exposure to pollution or increasing awareness of air pollution; be directly relevant to actions in the council’s Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP); have a measurable impact; and have wid

On 1 November the City AM newspaper debated the pros and cons of driverless cars in what turned out to be a brief spate of media articles on the subject of autonomous vehicles. “There are approximately 1.3 million global road deaths each year and 95% of these are caused by human error,” the ‘pro’ columnist, artificial intelligence expert Daniel Pitchford, began. “The deaths due to driverless cars currently stand at four. Autonomous vehicles therefore offer a signifi

Landowners, developers, car park operators and constructors have to make investment decisions and we have to make practical decisions. They are asking what is happening right now and what does the future hold? There is currently a lot of uncertainty in the sector, but there are three main trends that I see having a profound effect on car park design. Firstly, how we use cars is changing. We’re seeing far more car-pooling going on and car ownership falling. Secondly, the car industry itself

The Belfry shopping centre car park in Redhill, Surrey, has just undergone a £2m facelift by USL StructureCare. While no major structural changes are being made, the work is the most significant refurbishment in 26 years and the first full refurbishment in 17 years. The refurbishment includes re-surfacing of the entire car park following the removal of the previous coatings, decoration throughout of all ceilings, walls and columns, replacement of all joints, LED lighting and new parking b

If 20% of private car trips were replaced with shared modes in the Greater Dublin area, the miles driven would fall 23% and emissions by 22%, says a report from the International Transport Forum (ITF). However, the study found that congestion would fall by only 7%.  The report was commissioned by Ireland’s Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the National Transport Authority of Ireland to explore how shared mobility could change mobility services in Greater Dublin. Jari Ka

The 6th Annual Smarter Travel LIVE! Conference, hosted by Merseytravel & Liverpool City Region (LCR) on October 16 and 17, attracted more than 600 delegates from across the UK and beyond. Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of Liverpool City Region, and Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester Mayor, both gave keynotes, stressing their commitment to ongoing devolution and the delivery of a fully integrated, accessible and clean transport network linking key towns and cities across the North (see news pages)

Drivers’ dependency on the car has jumped in the last year, with a third (33%) of motorists – the equivalent to 13.2m – saying they are more reliant on their cars now than 12 months earlier, compared with just 27% in 2017, according to research conducted by the RAC. The motoring association's annual Report on Motoring is based on a representative survey of 1,808 motorists. Data from the study of motoring trends, now in its 30th year, shows car dependency had been dropping stea

I’ve done my fair share of travel behaviour change programmes in my time. These programmes often succeed in getting more people cycling, walking and using public transport more often but, when we ask people their primary reason for making a change, the main reason is something to do with personal health and fitness. Similarly, when we come to evaluating programmes, the largest benefits tend to reside in health improvement rather than ‘transport’ benefits. So, I was interested

If you go down to Milton Keynes today, you’re sure of a big surprise. Driverless pods, robot goods deliveries, ‘petrol stations’ for electric vehicles –  Milton Keynes has them all, perhaps providing an insight into how towns and cities everywhere will look in the future. This ‘new town’ in Buckinghamshire, which developed from the late 1960s to house population overspill from London, has always been big on innovative transport thinking. It is the exempla

Road traffic volumes in England and Wales are forecast to rise by between 17 and 51 per cent from 2015 to 2050, according to the DfT’s new road traffic forecasts. This represents the lower and upper results from seven scenario tests designed to reflect the uncertainty in the key drivers of road traffic demand such as population growth, trip rates, GDP and income, the cost of driving, young people’s driving habits and licence holding, the demand for goods, and technology. The forecas

Sustrans has welcomed the launch of the Safer Streets Bill, which seeks to make 20mph the standard speed on residential streets in Scotland. John Lauder, the sustainable transport charity’s national director for Scotland, argued the Bill is great news for people who walk and cycle. “When it comes to saving lives and reducing injury on our roads, the benefits of 20mph speed limits are well known but worth repeating,” Lauder wrote in his blog on the charity’s website. 

Drivers’ dependency on the car has jumped in the last year, with third (33%) of motorists – the equivalent to 13.2m – saying they are more reliant on their cars now than 12 months earlier, compared to just 27% in 2017, reveals research conducted by the RAC. The motoring association's annual Report on Motoring is based on a representative survey of 1,808 motorists. Data from the study of motoring trends, now in its 30th year, shows car dependency had been dropping steadily sin

Over half of UK local authorities have parking problem areas and a third are experiencing an increase in illegal parking, according to a survey conducted for mobile payments specialist Passport. The sector review, carried out by Passport in partnership with survey VIGA, was designed to get a better understanding of the pressures faced by local authorities. It also reveals concerns over the impact of reduced local authority budgets and that new mobility modes such as ride-sharing and dockless cyc

The 2019 edition of the British Parking Awards is up and running. Now in its 18th year, the competition encourages both public and private sector organisations to nominate people and projects that represent the best in parking management, design and innovation. The awards encompass both the on-street and off-street sides of the parking sector. The diverse nature of the parking sector means that the competition has categories that cover the design and upkeep of buildings, as well as ground-break

Around 50 streets in the capital will be closed to traffic on Sunday 22 September to mark World Car Free Day. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Transport for London (TfL) are backing London Play, the charity that works to give children the freedom to play by shutting roads to traffic. The charity helps residents to organise Play Streets, where roads are closed to traffic a few hours once a week or month to provide a safe space for children to play outside with their friends. Play Streets also enc

New funding of more than £100m for R&D into low and zero-emission vehicles in the UK has been announced by Prime Minister Theresa May at the Zero Emission Vehicle Summit in Birmingham. The £106m funding package covers projects developing innovative green battery, vehicle and refuelling technology. The Prime Minister referred to her “ambitious mission” for the UK to become world leader in low emission technology as part of a drive to keep the country green. She&n

Zero emission cars, vans and taxis could be issued with green number plates to promote clean engine technology, the Department for Transport has suggested. The special plates, which are already used by countries like Norway, Canada and China, would be available for green vehicles like electric and hydrogen cars. As well as promoting zero emission vehicles, the DfT says green number plates could help support local incentives for electric vehicles such as access to bus or low emission vehicle la

The City of Edinburgh has launched an online toolkit to help communicate the benefits of adopting a 20mph limit. The toolkit comprises activities and resources designed to help local communities to spread the word about calmer speeds and encourage behaviour change across the city.  Edinburgh became the first city in Scotland to implement a citywide 20mph network in March. The council hopes the 20mph limit will to improve road safety, encourage active travel and help make the city’s s

Chariot, Ford’s ride-sharing shuttle service, launched its first European routes tailored for companies and campuses in London. Chariot uses Ford Transit vans in a minibus mode to provide a ride-sharing service that connects commuters living and working in areas underserved by public transport with nearby transit hubs. The Chariot service was launched in London earlier this year with four routes designed to complement the city’s existing public transport system. The new Chariot ro

Transport company Uber has signalled a shift in emphasis from cars to electric bicycles and scooters for shorter journeys in urban areas as part of its long-term strategy, according to the ride-hailing app’s chief executive.  In an interview with the Financial Times, Dara Khosrowshahi said more individual modes of transport were better suited to inner-city travel. He admitted that, in the short-term, the move would mean a further financial hit for a company that lost $4.5bn last year

AppyParking has announced that its new head of marketing is Garry Thornton, who previously worked at Zipcar UK, where he was tasked with changing people’s perceptions of car ownership and bringing the concept of car sharing into the UK mainstream. Thornton will support AppyParking founder Dan Hubert in raising awareness of new smart city solutions that enable cities, fleets and the general public to overcome the friction and inefficiencies of traditional parking solutions. Dan Hubert sai

An APCOA Parking site in Sheffield has launched a long-term fund raising partnership with a local hospice. Almost £1,000 for patient services has already been provided to St Luke’s Hospice through a free parking day event at The Moor car park. This event allowed people to donate to the hospice instead of paying to park.  The hospice’s branding now appears throughout the car park, which will also host the charity’s Night Strider event on 6 October.  “We a

Volkswagen is to launch an all-electric car-sharing offering in major cities in Europe and North America under its We Share sub-brand. The programme will be launched in the German capital Berlin, which will be served by 2,000 vehicles. The Berlin fleet will comprise 1,500 e-Golfs when the service begins operating in the second quarter of 2019, with an additional 500 e-up! following later. These vehicles will gradually be replaced by the first models from the new Volkswagen I.D. family from 2020

Hundreds of new housing developments across the country could be delayed for months because of the DfT’s request that councils “pause” design work on street schemes with level surfaces – i.e. no kerbs.  Transport minister Nusrat Ghani wrote to councils in England at the start of this month “asking” that they “pause the introduction of new shared space schemes that incorporate a level surface, and which are at the design stage”. The Department

The development planning system in England has an in-built bias towards building new housing estates on greenfield sites that are heavily car dependent, a new report concludes.  The Transport for New Homes project was funded by the Foundation for Integrated Transport, an environmental transport grant-making charity set up in 2014, and with help from the RAC Foundation. The project team visited scores of new housing developments in England and three in the Netherlands to assess their locati

Remember the first day at sustainable transport boot camp? That’s right: we marched up and down, shouting “Bus good! Car bad!” until we were hoarse. On day two we genuflected before the (now ubiquitous) image from Münster in Germany that shows the relative amounts of road space taken up by the same number of people travelling by bus, car or bicycle.  The evil of the car was so obvious; our response so visceral. At our passing-out parade, we swore we would give our all

New laws to crack down on dangerous cyclists have been proposed in a new government consultation. The new offence would be equivalent to causing death by dangerous driving. The government says the three-month consultation would complement proposals announced in June for a crackdown on dangerous drivers who pass cyclists too. Transport minister Jesse Norman said: “In recent weeks we have announced a range of measures designed to protect vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestria

Nottingham City Council will not introduce a charging Clean Air Zone after modelling suggested an alternative set of measures would achieve compliance with EU limit values by 2020. Nottingham was one of five cities originally ordered by the  Government to introduce a class B CAZ covering buses, coaches, HGVs, taxis and private hire vehicles because modelling suggested that the city would be unable to meet EU nitrogen dioxide limit values in 2020.  The other four cities were Derby, Sou

The City of Paris has teamed up with French car-maker Groupe Renault to develop an electric mobility strategy. The partnership envisages a series of short, medium and long-term actions in favour of the development of connected and autonomous electric vehicles (EVs). Initially, Groupe Renault will roll out a commercial offer of electric mobility for Parisians, Ile-de-France residents and visitors, starting in September 2018. The projects include: electric bicycle offered via Marcel from Gro

The Department for Transport is seeking ideas on how to increase the number of ‘last mile’ deliveries made by electric cargo bikes and vans. The Last Mile and Future of Mobility call to evidence, both published today, will explore how technology could make transport safer, more accessible and greener.  The results of the call for evidence will form part of the government’s Future of Mobility Grand Challenge, which will explore all the regulatory barriers to technological

Volkswagen plans to offer car-sharing services via its new WE customer platform.  WE will begin rolling out vehicle-on-demand services in Germany during 2019. The German car giant said WE services will be extended to major cities in Europe, North America and Asia during 2020.  Jürgen Stackmann, VW board member for sales, said: “We are convinced that the car-sharing market still has potential. That is why we are entering this market with a holistic single-source concept cove

Volvo Cars has launched M, a mobility operation that provides on-demand access to cars and services through an app.  The carmaker says that M will learn about its users' needs, preferences and habits, personalising the customer relationship. M is developing proprietary learning technology that asks users about their specific needs instead of just informing them where they can pick up a car.   “Volvo Cars is becoming more than just a car company,” said Håkan Samuelss

Ford Motor Company has created Ford Autonomous Vehicles, a new organisation charged with accelerating its autonomous (AV) business.  Ford Autonomous Vehicles will include Ford’s self-driving systems integration, autonomous vehicle research and advanced engineering, AV transportation-as-a-service network development, user experience, business strategy and business development teams. The new company, which is structured to take on third party investment, will be primarily based at For

The government has imposed a moratorium on the creation of any new ‘shared space’ schemes in response to concerns raised during the consultation on its new Inclusive Transport Strategy. The strategy was developed following the Accessibility Action Plan (AAP) consultation, which received over 1,000 responses. Shared space schemes involve the removal of features such as kerbs, road surface markings, designated crossing places and traffic signs are removed. In the strategy document, t

Thousands of motorists are still flouting a traffic ban that was introduced three years ago in the London Borough of Waltham Forest as part of the Mini Holland programme. More than 9,000 fines have been issued to motorists contravening the traffic ban on Orford Road in the Walthamstow Village area. The scheme was introduced in 2015 as part of the Mini-Holland programme, with three outer London boroughs – Waltham Forest, Enfield and Kingston upon Thames – receiving around £100m

Proposals to make London the world’s most walkable city have been unveiled by Will Norman, London’s walking and cycling commissioner. The capital’s first Walking Action Plan, which is supported by Public Health England (PHE), maps out a vision to make London the most walkable city in the world, with a million extra walking trips each day by 2024. London’s Mayor Sadiq Kahn wants to increase the proportion of people walking, cycling and taking public transport from the cur

The National Grid’s annual Future Energy Scenarios report  finds that electric vehicles will will play a major role in delivering a low carbon future. Electricity demand is expected to grow significantly by 2050, driven by increased electrification of transport and heating. There could be as many as 11 million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030, and 36 million by 2040.  In the same month, the Automated and Electric Vehicles (EAV) Act, which has now passed through Parliam

Plans for a major upgrade of junction 9 of the M3 motorway at Winchester have attracted overwhelming support at a public consultation. Some 96% of respondents backed the need for the improvements to this junction, which will be redesigned to create a dedicated free flow lanes, which will allow drivers travelling between the M3 and the A34 to avoid using the junction roundab

The Automated and Electric Vehicles (EAV) Act, which has now passed through Parliament, is set to be a significant step towards improving air quality, cutting congestion and boosting road safety, claims Government. The AEV Act will see a 'massive improvement' in electric chargepoint availability, and gives the government new powers to ensure motorway services are upgraded with plenty of points, and even allowing mayors to request installations at large fuel retailers in their areas. I

Speed limits on all red routes in London's congestion charging zone will drop to 20mph by May 2020, as part of plans to eliminate deaths and serious injuries on the capital’s road network by 2041.  The Vision Zero action plan – published today by the Mayor of London, Transport for London (TfL) and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) – also states that by 2024 speed limits will be cut in most of London’s town centres and other high risk locations. Overall, TfL is

Researchers have published a comprehensive report on private- and public-sector big data policies affecting transport in EU countries and abroad. The travel behaviours and transport preferences of city dwellers are changing. Transport researchers and policymakers are therefore faced with numerous challenges as they strive to create efficient, safe and sustainable transportation systems, notes CORDIS, the EU Research and innovation news service. In order to address these issues, the EU

Now in its 3rd year, the Awards will showcase the ways in whiich people's lives are being improved through cost-effective, clean and integrated transport provision across towns and cities. These awards celebrate both the positive impact that smarter travel projects can deliver, and the professionals who lead them. Whoever you are, whatever your project or service, everyone has a chance of winning a Smarter Travel Award. You don’t have to have the biggest budgets, the sexiest product or th

ArrivaClick is an on-demand minibus service that takes multiple passengers heading in the same direction and books them on a shared vehicle, with the aim of tackling air quality issues and congestion. Enabling people to move out of private cars with the offer of convenient and comfortable shared journeys is a key driver for the project. ArrivaClick in Liverpool will become operational later in the summer. There are no fixed routes, with journeys determined by where passengers want to go wit

Painting a picture of the changing use of our transport system is not easy. A picture composed only of averages or aggregate change amounts to clumsy brush strokes. The finer detail in the picture comes from the artist’s ability to reflect the diversity of components of change – the distributions from which the averages arise. The Department for Transport's latest statistical release, 'Road Traffic Estimates: Great Britain 2017'  attempts to paint a picture, including fine

The National Infrastructure Commission is to explore how to engage stakeholders and the public at large with the topic of road pricing, saying reforms to the way we pay for road use are “inevitable”. The Commission’s National Infrastructure Assessment says  road pricing could protect motoring tax revenues. Fuel duty revenues will decline sharply if, as the Government expects, sales of low/zero emission vehicles grow rapidly.  “Reforming how road use is paid fo

A project designed to reduce the dominance of the car on a shopping street in Newcastle has won support from a retailer who was among its harshest critics. Steve Robson (pictured) and other traders had opposed Newcastle City Council’s plans to remove parking bays on Acorn Road, in the suburb of Jesmond, and feared the changes would drive away customers. Three years ago the council implemented the £350,000 project, funded by the government’s Cycle City Ambition Fund, making th

The government must start to lay the foundations now for the altered streetscape of 2050 when all cars and vans will be electric as well as mostly autonomous, argues the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) in a new report. The first National Infrastructure Assessment, published this week, sets out a long-term strategy for the UK’s economic infrastructure from 2020 to 2050. Electric vehicles will soon have the same range and be cheaper to buy and maintain than fossil fuel vehicles, t

The government has stated its aim of making all cars and vans on the UK’s roads zero emission by 2050. The sale of all new petrol and diesel cars and vans will end by 2040, as set out in the government’s Air quality plan. “By then, we expect the majority of new cars and vans sold to be 100% zero. By 2050 we want almost every car and van to be zero emission,” says the Road to Zero strategy. The government previously stated in its

Plans have been drawn up to transform Stockport’s bus station into a transport interchange. Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is working with Stockport Council and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to develop the £1bn investment plan. The proposals include: A fully accessible, covered passenger concourse in the interchange with seated waiting areas Better and easier routes to the town centre for pedestrians. with improved links to the rail station, Merseyway

Driverless vehicles will transform the way in which the kerbside and off-street parking are planned and managed in cities. Long-stay kerbside parking will eventually disappear from city centres, replaced by hop-on-hop-off vehicles, while car parks will be transformed into vehicle re-charging and servicing centres. These are among the predictions made by consultancy Steer Davies Gleave in a new report. There has been a lot of discussion and speculation about how connected autonomous vehicles (CA

Plans for a cycling and walking network across Greater Manchester, made up of more than 1,000 miles of routes, was unveiled at Cycle City Active City last week. The ‘Beelines’ network will include 75 miles of segregated bike lanes as well as 1,400 safer road crossings on most routes and 25 ‘filtered neighbourhoods’ where priority will be given to people over motorised traffic. Beelines was launched at Cycle City Active City by Chris Boardman, Greater Manchester’s c

Few motorists appear to be aware of the penalties they can incur when misusing a mobile phone while drivers, research by the RAC has revealed. Nearly two-thirds of drivers (64%) remain unaware what the consequences of breaking the law, which as introduced 15 years ago. Tougher penalties for using a handheld mobile phone at the wheel were introduced in March. The new penalty was set at six points on the driver’ license and a £200 fine. However, the RAC found that over a quarter of

Steve Rotheram, Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor, and Nathalie Nicholas, the Combined Authority’s recently-appointed Deputy Portfolio Holder for Transport and Air Quality, represented the city region during June at a National Clean Air Summit convened by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, UK100 and IPPR. The idea is a simple one, says The Independent: ‘Get people from across the UK in the same room, from a local level all the way up to the corridors of Whitehall, to see what can be do

Roundabouts could be replaced by signalised junctions in a world of driverless cars, according to a new report on the road safety implications of connected and autonomous vehicles.  “Some [crash] countermeasures currently popular because of the protection they provide to car occupants, for example, roundabouts, may become less necessary, thereby removing the heightened risk that some intersections provide, for example, to cyclists,” says the report, funded by the European Road

Following the release of the first fleet of proof of concept vehicles in Christchurch in 2017, along with trials across NZ and Australia with other partners and technologies, HMI Technologies (HMI), a New Zealand / Australian-based Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) innovator and a member of ITS UK, has developed a self driving & self-learning AV technology company called Ohmio Automotion. HMI has been a player in the ITS industry for more than 15 years and, based on its experience wor

To mark Clean Air Day 0n 21 June, free travel is being offered on Manchester’s Metrolink light rail service for commuters travelling before 7am and after 7pm. The move, by Metrolink owner Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), is part of a drive to encourage people to think about changing travel habits to improve air quality. TfGM wants employers to consider flexible start and end times for their staff so they can take advantage of the free travel offer. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy

Schemes requiring companies to apply for permits to carry out road works are reducing the length of disruption by more than three days, according to a new report. Fewer road works over-run as a result of permit schemes, states the report, carried out for the Department for Transport by economic research and consulting firm Ecorys. Around 65% of councils now operate permit schemes while the remaining 35% are being asked to introduce them, says the report. Permit schemes cover works on all loca

Measures to improve road safety outside a girls’ school in east London have been drawn up by an all-female team. Tower Hamlets council brought in consultant Project Centre to work on the project with students from Central Foundation Girls’ School (CFGS).  Supported by female managers from Project Centre, students went on a site visit, collected survey data and assessed the needs of all road users. This helped shape the proposed measures, which are now out for public consultatio

Stockholm’s congestion charge scheme has proved remarkably effective at suppressing traffic levels and encouraging a shift to other modes of transport in the 20 plus years since its launch. After initially facing widespread public opposition, it now has majority support, even among those who regularly pay the charge. One of the scheme’s architects, Director of the Stockholm City Transport Administration Jonas Eliasson, vividly recalls the uproar around its launch in 2006: “It w

Ministers should ask the Office of Rail and Road to devise a new pricing model for electric vehicle use, encompassing the cost of electricity, road infrastructure, and congestion, according to a new report by bus industry lobby group Greener Journeys.  Transport economist Professor David Begg and Greener Journeys chief executive Claire Haigh make the recommendation in a report looking at the pricing of road transport. Begg was the first chair of the now defunct Commission for Integrated Tr

If Hercules had faced a thirteenth labour, it surely would have been parking in a crowded town centre on a Saturday afternoon. For many, parking conjures up visions of endless searching, pricey car parks and frantic dashes to feed the pay & display machine to avoid a penalty. Those days are coming to an end. A new wave of technology is ripping through the parking industry, changing the status quo and profoundly altering the parking journey and changing consumer behaviours. What does this mea

Transport and energy consultancy Cenex has appointed Dennis Hayter as the new chairman of its board.  Hayter, who has served as a director of Cenex since 2013, was involved in founding the UK fuel cell power technology company Intelligent Energy in 2001, where he served as vice president through to 2015.  Hayter succeeds Brendan Connor, who served as chairman from October 2005. Hayter will remain on the Cenex board as a non-executive director. Robert Evans, chief executive of Cenex,

A virtual reality tool to promote safer interaction between drivers and cyclists has been launched by Ford Motor Company. The ‘Wheelswap’ tool will help bring about behaviour change, making urban areas safer and helping to reduce pollution and congestion, said Ford. The tool is designed to show motorists and cyclists how inconsiderate driving and riding can be potentially fatal. Initial studies show that after undergoing the experience, nearly all participants said they would chang

The key findings of a European research project into the impact of transport policy on congestion have been published in a new report. The project – called CREATE (Congestion Reduction in Europe: Advancing Transport Efficiency) – examined congestion reduction policies in five western European capitals: Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Paris and Vienna. The report charts how policy priorities in the cities have shifted over the past 50-60 years: from road building, parking, lower density

CAVs and MaaS will radically change the mobility landscape of the next decade. But they are not 'easy to deploy' silver bullets. The future of modelling and policy making looks set to get very interesting, says Luis Willumsen, Director, Kineo Mobility Analytics Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) have been proposed as game changers in transport in the next decade. Indeed, the combination of both, a MaaS system using CAVs, will probably reduce costs by half

The government is being urged to ban cars from the immediate vicinity of school gates during drop-off and pick-up times by Living Streets. The walking and sustainable transport charity has produced a report, Swap the school run for a school walk, in which it sets out 21 recommendations designed to enable more children to walk to and from school.  The charity delivered the report to the transport minister Jesse Norman at the start of Walk to School Week. More than 2,000 primary schools in

Transport for London taxi and private hire (TPH) compliance officers have been granted new powers by the Metropolitan Police to carry out road stops without the need for a police presence.  The new powers will enable more enforcement against illegal and non-compliant activity to be carried out, thus improving the safety of taxi and private hire passengers while freeing up police resources. Some 109 TfL’s TPH compliance officers are being trained with powers to stop any TPH vehicle f

Disabled pedestrians and people living in low-income households are much more likely than non-disabled and richer people to be injured by a motor vehicle, suggests a new study. The study, titled ‘Road injuries in the National Travel Survey: under-reporting and inequalities in injury risk’, was conducted by Dr Rachel Aldred, reader in transport at the University of Westminster.  The study highlights that for every mile walked, a low-income pedestrian is three times more likely

Emerging technologies provide the key for improving mobility and delivering smarter, better and safer experiences for urban communities. But the real driver for change is coming from society itself. Technology is already helping to improve urban mobility but, today, we’re only scratching the surface. The potential of technology to truly transform the way we move in and around our towns and cities is absolutely huge. Two-thirds of adults now own a smartphone with mobile internet access and,

The Lake District National Park Authority is exploring the potential to replace car access to a popular visitor attraction with a gondola system. The idea is being explored for the Whinlatter Forest Park area, about four miles west of Keswick and close to the A66 east-west trunk road.  The forest visitor centre is a popular destination for activities such as mountain biking, walking, and its adventure play trails for children. Access to the visitor centre is via the steep single track B52

Electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, driverless vehicles, Mobility as a Service, open data, ride-hailing apps, public bike hire schemes... a bewildering array of disruptive transport technologies and mobility products have emerged in recent years. But how should local authorities respond? Help pioneer each one? Embrace just one or two? Or let others take the lead? Hertfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for highways recently summed up the choice in the context of road technology dev

Electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, driverless vehicles, Mobility as a Service, open data, ride-hailing apps, public bike hire schemes... a bewildering array of disruptive transport technologies and mobility products have emerged in recent years. But how should local authorities respond? Help pioneer each one? Embrace just one or two? Or let others take the lead? Hertfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for highways recently summed up the choice in the context of road technology dev

Brighton & Hove City Council’s licensing panel has refused to renew Uber Britannia Ltd’s private hire operator licence.  The unanimous decision was taken as members were not satisfied that Uber was a ‘fit and proper person’ to hold an operator’s licence under the terms of Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 and the council’s licensing objectives.  In a letter to the company, chair of licensing Jackie O’Quinn sets out the

Work to build Cycle Superhighway 11 (CS11) at Swiss Cottage is to start in mid-July, Transport for London (TfL) has announced. The current gyratory system will be removed and a two-way system introduced on Finchley Road and Adelaide Road. Avenue Road, which is between College Crescent and Adelaide Road, will become bus and cycle only, with a stepped cycle track, creating a new public space. Changes to Swiss Cottage are due to be finished in September. The reconfigured route will improve safety

Renault MOBILITY and IKEA France have signed a partnership to offer consumers an around the clock car and van rental solution.  Initially, the vehicles for hire will be both electric and conventional internal combustion engine depending on the charging infrastructure available on-site. This will make way for an all-electric fleet by 2020. The Renault MOBILITY self-service car rental service, which is debuting at the IKEA Paris-Villiers store, will gradually be rolled out to all IKEA store

A virtual reality app designed to raise driver awareness of blind spots on motorways and ‘A’ roads is being offered by Highways England.  The free app can be tried on a smartphone attached to a pair of cardboard goggles to allow drivers to experience blind spot scenarios. The scenarios include: mirror adjustment; identifying vehicles in blind spots; joining a motorway from a slip road; overtaking; and tailgating. John Walford, commercial vehicle incident prevention team leade

Changes in how we plan our transport networks for the future are urgently needed, says the first report from the Commission on Travel Demand We need to start planning now for how we travel around England in the coming decades, according to a major new report. It explains how, as a population, we travel substantially less today than we did one or two decades ago. Overall, we make fewer trips, spend less time travelling, and travel fewer miles.  But there are noticeable differences in our t

Do you know how to open a car door safely? Exactly who is allowed to travel on the pavement? Is there a speed limit for cycling? During May 2018, as part of a public consultation, the Minister for Transport's team will be visiting four English regions to talk with the public about road safety prior to possible changes in the law Against the backdrop of a country concerned about obesity levels, air pollution and congestion, the Government is keen to make cycling and walking the natural cho

The Government should prepare the country for the rapid acceleration of electric vehicle take-up, according to the National Infrastructure Commission’s EV policy lead. Catherine Jones, a senior policy adviser at the NIC, said: “There may be a strong case for making sure the UK has the charging points in place to support the fastest possible take-up of electric vehicles, without adversely affecting the energy network.” Jones said that, under current trends, only 3-7 per cent o

Over two-fifths of children are worried about air pollution near their school, a new UK-wide survey reveals. Some 43% of children living in urban areas are concerned about the levels of air pollution near their school. The YouGov poll, carried out for walking and cycling charity Sustrans, surveyed over 1,000 children aged six to 15 years old last month about their attitudes towards air pollution and the actions they think should be taken to help clean up the air.  More than one in three (

My last two pieces were reflections on different aspects of the process of creating better streets. This time, I want to turn my attention to the matter of how to assess whether or not a street has actually been made better. In fact, I’ll be writing about how we might assess the qualities of any street, whether or not it has recently been subject to a ‘betterment initiative’ (and if no-one’s ever used that phrase before, I’m claiming it). One prompt for my doing th

Britain is awash with innovative transport products and services, either in development or here right now. Most of the innovation is focused on big cities, where commercial operators are most likely to receive good returns on their investments and where public authorities have the resources and scale to plan and deliver new products and services over sustained periods. Consequently, many city dwellers have more travel choices than ever before, with bikeshare, car clubs and app-based ride hailin

APCOA Parking Deutschland is now working with airport parking reservation specialist ParkCloud to promote on-airport parking to passengers flying from Berlin Schönefeld.  APCOA is the parking concessionaire for airport operator Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg. The deal enables ParkCloud users to book spaces at Berlin Schönefeld’s most popular parking areas located a couple of minutes’ walk from terminals A and B, comprising 820 spaces across five levels, and available 2

Waymo will be using electric vehicles built by Jaguar to develop the next stage of the Google self-driving car concept. Jaguar Land Rover and Waymo said their partnership will develop a premium self-driving electric vehicle based around the new Jaguar I-PACE, the company’s first full-electric SUV.  I-PACEs equipped with Waymo’s self-driving technology will start testing later this year. On-road testing and capturing real-world data will allow Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover enginee

Jon Orcutt, director of communications and advocacy at Transit Center, NYC, talks to Transport Xtra about the need for NYC's proposed congestion charging policy and why Uber and Lyft are currently a menace to the city. Jon talked with Andy Salkeld, Leicester City Council Transit Center is a national Foundation dedicated to improving public transit. We are based in New York City, specifically in Lower Manhattan, and were closely involved with the major positive changes that took place under th

Heathrow Airport’s owners appear to be backtracking on a pledge that a third runway will see no more airport-related traffic on the roads than today, according to the London Borough of Hounslow.  Hounslow says the pledge is “barely mentioned” in the consultation documents concerning the third runway proposal published by Heathrow Airport Ltd in January (LTT19 Jan). “We are concerned that the much-heralded pledge to ensure that expansion does not lead to any more ai

The Department for Transport (DfT) has said that since the introduction of harsher penalties for motorists’ caught using a mobile phone last year has seen more than 26,000 caught offending. Among these were 500 novice drivers who had their licenses revoked for using their mobile phone behind the wheel in their first 2 years of driving. On 1 March 2017, the penalties for this offence doubled from £100 and 3 penalty points to £200 and 6 points. A further 1,997 motorists were ha

The first generation of station travel plans (STPs) were implemented in a bid to better manage, and proactively influence, the modes of travel people use to get to and from UK rail stations. They generally sought to actively promote sustainable travel options; reduce single occupant car trips; and tackle imbalances between parking demand, the quality of facilities for different station users, and differential impacts on neighbouring land uses.  Following an initial wave of pilots, the UK b

The London Borough of Wandsworth has given more details of its plans to become one of the leading places for electric vehicle charging.  With the Government recently criticising councils for the slow pace of delivering on-street charging points (LTT19 Jan), Conservative Wandsworth has told ministers it wants to be at the forefront of delivery.  The borough has received £187,500 for residential charge points from the £4.5m allocated to 25 London boroughs through the Office

Autonomous public transport vehicle trials in Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire and London are among the 22 autonomous vehicle projects and studies to share £22m from the Government’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.   A project led by FirstGroup has been awarded £2.5m to trial fully autonomous vehicles at the Milton Park business park near Didcot in Oxfordshire. The project also has a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) dimension.  The trial is due to run for two -and-a-half yea

Tottenham Court Road is set to become more cyclist and pedestrian friendly, with all motor vehicles except buses banned from using the thoroughfare between 8am and 7pm, Monday to Saturday. The restrictions are due to be in place by early 2020, said the London Borough of Camden. The first phase of the £35m scheme begins in March, with initial works to include: new granite paving on New Oxford Street by Centre Point; the removal of pedestrian barriers and traffic light poles from Tottenham

A growing number of workers in the UK would rather be based in lively urban centres than business parks on the outskirts even when there is ample parking, according to a new report from the Urban Transport Group. “More people in more key sectors of the economy do not wish to be ‘buried alive’ in a business park on the outskirts (however good the car parking) and their skills are in sufficient demand that they can choose the employers that provide them with a more interesting a

Plans for a West London Orbital rail line - connecting Hounslow, Hendon and Cricklewood - feature in the Mayor of London’s Transport Strategy. Mayor Sadiq Khan’s transport vision for the next 25 years was presented today to the London Assembly ahead of its final publication next month. The proposed West London Orbital Line, linking up London Overground services, would run via Brent Cross, Old Oak

The Campaign for Better Transport has announced it is looking to appoint a new chief executive office to replace Stephen Joseph, who will be stepping down at the end of Autumn. Joseph was appointed executive director of Transport 2000 in 1988, the same year Michael Palin was appointed President, and received an OBE in 1996 for services to transport and the environment. Transport 2000 changed its name to Campaign for Better Transport in 2007. During his 30-year tenure with the charity, Joseph

Following its trial of bus services in London last year, travel app Citymapper has finally launched what it terms ‘The Responsive Network: a  solution for dynamic shared transportation in cities’. The service is live in London, and is know as ‘Smart Ride’, and is already available via the apps. Writing in a post on medium, Citymapper declares that they ‘design a network, not a route’. ‘Unlike traditional buses that are tied to a route, our veh

Following entrance to multiple markets in the United States, Chariot  is launching its daily commuter shuttle service in London, to 'make getting around the city easier'. Chariot London is the latest of Ford’s European initiatives, accelerating the development of its smart mobility technologies. Throughout 2018, Ford will be trialling a 20-strong fleet of plug-in hybrid Transit Custom vans in the UK capital as part of the “Cleaner Air for London" initiative supported by Tra

The British Parking Awards 2018 attracted around 100 entries from across the country, from which a short list of finalists has been selected. The entries have been assessed by a panel of experts made up of parking managers, transport and parking consultants, representatives from the major parking associations and bodies representing the motoring and freight sectors. The winners will be revealed at a gala lunch to be held in London on 9 March. To see the list of finalists click here The diverse

One dividend from the rapid developments in information technology has been the emergence of the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in the form of the integration of multi-modal information, ticketing and payment systems. The idea of integrated transport systems is long-established but has often been frustrated by events. Yet MaaS apparently offers the opportunity for a new level of seamless door-to-door mobility by using just one platform and a single payment. The service can therefore com

To move, we occasionally need to stop. Indeed, we could look at door-to-door / end-to-end journeys by designing how we stop (to change from one bit of the journey to another) as much as how we travel. Transport hubs and interchanges are all about designing hiatuses between journey segments. Whilst we usually think of these as the grander multi-modal cheek-to-cheek interchanges, the humble bus stop is an intermodal interchange hub too. So far, so obvious. But in the emerging models of mobility a

We’re on the verge of a huge shift in the way we live and travel. Ownership was long considered the pinnacle of societal ranking – and in some ways, still is. Buying a house or a car has traditionally been seen as a rite of passage, a way to mark one’s success. But things are starting to change. In the current economic climate, renting has become the norm for younger people and buying a car is beginning to seem like a waste of money when more and more of us are living in cities

More than 900 people have applied to participate in a trial of lightweight hydrogen cars in South Wales. Monmouthshire County Council agreed in 2016 to host the trial of the Rasa two-seater car developed by Riversimple Movement Ltd of Llandrindod Wells, Powys (LTT/10 Jun 16). The trial will be based in Abergavenny, where a small filling station will be created in the car park beside the bus station. Riversimple aims to start the trial this spring and to have about 20 vehicles in public use by

The City of York Council is to  toughen up restrictions on vehicles in the city centre and near the racecourse in response to heightened national concerns about vehicle-borne terror attacks.  York city centre has a number of pedestrian streets (‘footstreets’) created using Traffic Regulation Orders. The restrictions operate between 10.30 and 17.00 seven days a week, with restrictions mainly enforced using bollards. Some footstreets, however,  permit disabled vehicle a

A plan to restrict motor vehicle access to Regent’s Park, making the roads more pleasant for cycling, looks likely to go ahead after months of delay and uncertainty.  Closing four of the eight gates into the park to vehicular traffic for 20 hours a day (except 11am-3pm) was part of then London mayor Boris Johnson’s proposed cycle superhighway 11 plan linking Swiss Cottageto the West End.  The four gates, one in the north and three in the south, give access to the outer ci

The Department for Transport (DfT) Bike Share masterclass, held last week in Leicester, saw local authorities and operators alike give the DfT a strong heads-up that, in future, some kind of bike share licensing framework may be needed in England. Whilst agreeing that voluntary codes of conduct and signing up to the Bikeplus accreditation scheme are working for now, with the co-operation of the current players operating in the UK, there is no guarantee that less co-operative operators won't seek

An autonomous vehicle that emulates human driving behaviour will be taking to the full range of Britain’s roads.  The HumanDrive project will seek to take autonomous technology to the next level in terms of ride comfort and adaptability, covering a number of different UK road scenes with natural road positioning. It will culminate in what is claimed to be the most complex journey yet attempted across the UK without driver input. The HumanDrive project vehicle will be expected to dea

The proportion of trips made by private transport in London rose in 2016 for the first time since the 1990s, according to TfL’s annual Travel in London report. The share of trips made by public transport, walking and cycling dropped 0.5 per cent in 2016, from 62.6 per cent to 62.1 per cent. Trips by private transport rose from 36.1 per cent to 36.5 per cent.  The report also reveals a further fall in the average number of daily trips made by Londoners, which are now 16 per cent below

A £150m scheme to build a new rail station at Guildford and to turn the adjacent surface car park into a ‘Station Quarter’, with homes and shops, has been approved by the Planning Inspectorate. The appeal decision overturns Guildford Borough Council’s refusal to give the scheme planning permission. The development will feature a new public square, reconfigured access for vehicles with a new taxi drop-off area, a nine deck multi-storey car park and secure cycle parking.

Young adults in Great Britain and other countries are driving less now than young adults did in the early 1990s. The Department for Transport (DfT) commissioned the Centre for Transport and Society (UWE, Bristol) and the Transport Studies Unit (University of Oxford) to carry out a systematic assessment of available evidence on the subject, both by review of UK and overseas published literature, and by new secondary analysis of existing UK data sets. The study sought to address the questions:

A new statistical release for January 2018 from the Department for Transport presents four pieces of analysis using National Travel Survey data.  Key findings include:  There have been substantial changes in travel behaviour since 1975. The total number of trips per person per year increased from 1975 until 1990 and has been falling since 1995. The basic unit of travel in the NTS is a trip, which is defined as a one-way course of travel with a single main purpose. In 2011-2014, dis

After a dramatic decline during the financial crisis in the latter part of the last decade, the UK motor vehicle industry has made a strong recovery. November 2016 saw a 9.6% increase in the number of cars produced in the UK compared to the previous year and a record number of cars were exported during 2016 – representing 77.3% of total production. Like the rest of the manufacturing sector, the automotive industry is currently in the process of digitalisation, a journey that introduces th

The achievements of women working in the transport and logistics centre will be recognised by the FTA everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards. Currently in its eleventh year, the awards are designed to showcase the role women play in the future of transport and logistics. Maxine Benson

The Netherlands is in pole position to make the transition to automated transport, reveals a new report from professional service company KPMG. It found that the Netherlands came top in a cross-section of 20 countries planning for self-driving vehicles. Using an Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index (AVRI), KPMG scored each nation on four ‘pillars’: policy & legislation; technology & innovation; infrastructure; and consumer acceptance. Behind the Netherlands the other top rank

Nobody can avoid the absolute deluge of articles that are coming out now and media stories relating to autonomous vehicles (AVs). Typically, these are fairly polarised. Some can be characterised as predicting a real reduction in the demand for parking. There are images from various urban designers and architects showing romanticised 2050 visions of what the future might look like, of how our streetscape might start to evolve. But the debate about AVs starts to become a lot more nuanced when we&

The take-up of government grants for on-street electric vehicle chargepoints has been “extremely disappointing”, says the DfT. Since the launch of the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme more than a year ago, just £150,000 out of £1.5m available for 2017/18 has been awarded, a DfT spokesman told LTT.  Only five councils - Portsmouth, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Cambridge, Luton and Kettering – have applied for grants, which cover up to 75%

A new report from the MaasLab at UCL, commissioned by TfL, provides insights about Londoners’ attitudes towards car-ownership, shared mobility services and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) as well as an impact assessment about a potential introduction of MaaS in the city. Londoners’ attitudes towards car-ownership and Mobility-as-a-Service: Impact assessment and opportunities that lie ahead is available online.  According to the report, at least 35% of regular car users stated that

The related problems of air pollution and congestion impact negatively on key risks to the public's health: namely cardiovascular disease, lung cancer and respiratory diseases, along with rising obesity levels brought about by the lack of physical activity due to car-dominated lifestyles and road safety fears. Many transport academics and practitioners are asking if some form of road pricing is essential inn order to reduce traffic volumes and so help to fix these challenges?  The recent U

Sales of new cars in the UK were down 5.7% in 2017 compared with the previous year, according to new figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). This marks the first drop in annual registrations of new cars in six years, said SMMT. The fall in sales was chiefly due to a 17.1% drop in diesel car sales, caused by “anti-diesel rhetoric and the potential for tax hikes causing buyers to hesitate”, said SMMT. “However, these cars remain the right choice

The use of remote control systems to park cars would become legal in the UK under proposals outlined by the government. The consultation started today and will run for six weeks. Remote control parking is a type of advanced driver assistance system that allows the driver to carry out a parking manoeuvre from either inside or outside the vehicle by using an external device. The device may either be one supplied with the veh

Poor air quality and physical inactivity are the public health issues of our time. In political circles, we hear plenty of strategic posturing: the new £220m Clean Air Fund has been announced, although details are not yet forthcoming. Integrated transport and spatial planning is back on the agenda, this time to improve health, rather then economic, outcomes. In reality, a combination of appropriate measures is needed to get more people moving, and to do so in clearer air. Plans for air qu

Electric, connected and autonomous vehicles will “revolutionise” the road network, leading to a new era of safer, easier and less polluting travel, predicts Highways England in a report published today. The report outlines Highways England’s proposals for the strategic road network (SRN), with an interface between roads and connected vehicles to “communicate in a more useful way with those driving on our roads”.  Technology has a pivotal role in improving mai

The winners of the British Parking Awards 2018 will be revealed at a gala ceremony held in London during March by the comedian Lucy Porter. The competition is free to enter and, as is now traditional, the deadline for submissions has been extended to Monday 8 January. According to Time Out, Lucy Porter “is one of the most talented comics on the circuit”. Having had 11 Edinburgh Fringe shows and international tours, Lucy is a well-established and loved comedian. On TV, she has

When I was interviewed in 1992 to be the very first parking adjudicator for the new decriminalised enforcement scheme in London, I said that my first objective was to have the best tribunal in the country, and my second was to have no work.  I think the Traffic Penalty Tribunal is now perhaps the most advanced tribunal in the country, something the Courts & Tribunals Service agree with, especially regarding our technology. But we are still busy. When I said I hoped there would be no wor

Passengers in Boston’s Seaport district were able to experience self-driving rides on the Lyft network in nuTonomy vehicles from this week, announced nuTonomy. Earlier this year, nuTonomy and Lyft announced a partnership focused on bringing nuTonomy vehicles to the Lyft network in Boston. As the pilot progresses, select Boston passengers in Seaport area will be matched with nuTonomy self-driving vehicles when they request rides through the Lyft app. Our partnership with Lyft has two goals

Berlin-based Chargery offers a green mobile charging service for electric cars in urban areas. Based on smart data analysis, Chargery proposes bringing the charging station to its customers by bicycle, reports New Atlas. At the moment, the service is focusing on businesses but when the scheme rolls out to private customers, bookings will be made via an iOS/Android companion app for a pay per use model, with the price inclusive of delivery. The Chargery project is currently undergoing t

A fleet of 500 all-electric Renault ZOEs will be arriving in Madrid this month to join new car-sharing scheme ZITY, the result of a cooperation between Renault and urban services operator Ferrovial. Madrid has the highest rate of daily car-sharing in Europe due to the city’s size, population, traffic problems and air pollution issues. This new car-sharing scheme covers a wide area of the Spanish capital, with vehicles provided to customers in the right place at the right time via a smartp

The National Infrastructure Commission has released more details of its forthcoming prize competition to design roads capable of accommodating driverless vehicles (LTT24 Nov).  As well as road design, the Roads of the Future competition will consider traffic management, and how the rules of the road may need to change.  The competition will be launched in the new year, and is being run by the NIC in conjunction with Highways England and the Government’s innovation agency Innova

Such has been the rapid and pervasive growth of the ride-hailing app Uber that the word ‘Uberisation’ has entered the language as a shorthand expression for a distinctive mix of operational and working practices. Although the Uber smartphone app forms the technological basis for the company’s business, it is its ambitious and relentless worldwide growth, driven by its co-founder and former chief executive Travis Kalanick, which is the trademark feature of this Silicon Valley di

Strategic charging zones for electric vehicles could be rolled out across Edinburgh as part of the city’s first Electric Vehicle Action Plan.  The zonal approach to charging hubs are one of five key strategic objectives in the city council's plan, which will be considered by members of the Transport and Environment Committee.  In September the Scottish Government announced a major expansion of electric vehicle infrastructure across Scotland by 2022, coupled with a phasing out o

Research undertaken for the recently published Urban Mobility Innovation Index suggests that whilst most cities do have an established strategy for urban mobility, these are frequently a statement of ambitions and guiding principles rather than a roadmap set out to address concrete local challenges, informed by comprehensive data. Coverage of mobility options relating to health, fairness and accessibility is ‘quite diverse among cities’, as is the quality of the service provided

Business and energy secretary Greg Clark has announced that Coventry and Warwickshire will be the home of the new National Battery Manufacturing Development Facility (NMDF). The facility will receive £80m of funding from the government’s £246m investment programme for battery technology – the Faraday Battery Challenge. A part of the Automotive Sector Deal, the new centre will build on the West Midlands reputation as a locus of automotive expertise and research and deve

Jonny Goldstone, co-founder of London’s Green Tomato Cars, has returned to the company as managing director at what he calls a pivotal time in the capital’s private hire market. Green Tomato Cars seeks to provide an environmentally-friendly private transport services. Goldstone plans include upgrading the fleet to exclusively zero emissions and hybrid vehicles by the end of 2018. Other changes include an upgraded website with easy, secure booking from the home page and a simplified

Groupe Renault has produced a 1,000 cars enabled to participate in a European trial of connected and autonomous vehicle technologies. The Méganes will be provided to fleet customers taking part in SCOOP, an European Union pilot project for the deployment of cooperative intelligent transportation systems. The EU project facilitates trials of future vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) connectivity solutions under real-world driving conditions. SCOOP features a ran

The government hopes that its Industrial Strategy will place the UK at the forefront of development of autonomous vehicles (AVs), artificial intelligence (AI) and innovative approaches to shared mobility services. The draft Industrial Strategy, titled “Building a Britain Fit for the Future”, outlines how the government intends to boost businesses and worker productivity through investment in the skills, industries and infrastructure of the future. The White Paper confirms governmen

Housing developments will be car-free except for disabled people in parts of the capital with the best public transport connections, under new measures announced by London Mayor Sadiq Khan. This is among the proposals to reduce parking capacity in the mayor’s draft London Plan, published this week. The draft states that residential car parking would not be linked to unit size, so that parking spaces would no longer go up as unit sizes increase. Meanwhile, office developments in central a

A £13.4m initiative to create a driverless transport testing area based in Greenwich, south-east London, is due to be up and running by spring 2019. Loughborough University (LU), the lead academic partner, has been awarded £500,000 as part of the project to develop a research programme enabling a real-world working testbed for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). The Smart Mobility Living Lab: London will enable companies to trial their ideas, technology and services within co

Policies that seek to ban diesel and petrol cars from towns and cities is a knee-jerk reaction that ignores the efforts the automotive sector has made to produce less polluting vehicles, the president of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has said. Tony Walker used his speech at the SMMT’s annual dinner to address the issue of air quality. He focussed on the automotive sector’s efforts to invest in new technology and improve air quality in towns and cities.  

Ford has awarded some €30,000 (£27,000) to start-ups developing carpooling, navigation and podcast apps that will work on its in-car SYNC Connectivity System. The three winning apps in Ford’s Make It Driveable AppLink challenge each receiving €10,000 (£9,000) and an opportunity to work further with Ford. One of the winners, French-based Zify, app, mixes the world of the sharing economy and social media by filling empty car seats through connecting like-minded drive

Uber is to buy thousands of self-driving vehicles from Volvo between 2019 and 2021. Last year, Uber commenced testing prototypes made by Volvo in the US. The new non-exclusive agreement will see Volvo provide Uber with up to 24,000 of XC90 SUVs, which will serve as Uber’s autonomous driving-compatible base vehicles. Volvo says the vehicles incorporate all the necessary safety, redundancy and core autonomous-driving technologies that are required for Uber to add its own self-driving techn

Idealised visions of ‘The City of the Future’ are often presented as a symbol of progress. Whilst specific visions differ, the common element is the notion that in the future, the world’s most concentrated populations will occupy city environments where a digital blanket of sensors, devices and cloud-connected data are brought together to enhance the living experience for all. Smart concepts encompass key elements of what enable effective city ecosystems – from traffic c

Older cars in urban areas not to blame for harmful emissions, claims the RAC Foundation. The motoring research body says that a study it commissioned shows that scrapping the oldest cars owned by people living in towns and cities would only have a negligible effect on air quality. An analysis of MOT information for 22 million individual cars has enabled a team of academics, led by Professor Jillian Anable of the University of Leeds, to use mileage, emissions and registered keeper data to map ex

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has set out criteria for what drivers should expect from vehicles described as ‘automated’ and will task Thatcham Research with assessing any car marketed as ‘automated’ or ‘driverless’ against its 10 new criteria. The ABI’s announcement comes in reaction to the Automated and Electric Vehicle Bill, which is currently being considered by Parliament. Matthew Avery, director of research at Thatcham Research, said:

Millions of drivers have no easy way of knowing how they might be affected by the future roll-out of clean air zones in the UK because of the lack of an official number plate look-up system for checking a vehicle’s Euro emissions category, the RAC has warned. The motoring organisation has signalled its concern in light of the government telling dozens of towns and cities that breach legal air pollution limits that they must publish plans for reducing harmful nitrogen dioxide emissions by

Improving local transport connections between Oxford and Cambridge could lead to the creation of both new jobs and housing, says Lord Adonis. The chair of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) is urging ministers, and council leaders across the arc covering Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Northampton and Cambridge, to “seize the opportunity” and harness the area’s economic potential. Lord Adonis has launched Partnering for prosperity: a new deal for the Cambridge-Milton

The winners of the British Parking Awards 2018 will be revealed on Friday 8 March by the comedian Lucy Porter. Parking Review launched the British Parking Awards in 2002. Now in their 17th year, the annual competition encourages both public and private sector organisations to nominate people and projects that represent the best in parking management, design and innovation. The competition is 

The House of Commons Transport Committee is to look at how digital transport service platforms can enable the provision of Mobility as a Service, or MaaS. Digital platforms are increasingly being used to deliver a variety of transport services, ranging from niche online car and bike-sharing schemes to high profile taxi and private hire smartphone apps. The Transport Committee’s inquiry will look the potential of integrated, multi-mode MaaS apps, and ways of overcoming barriers to im

When Jim Hill and John Cannon founded Hill Cannon & Partners in 1967 little did they expect that, over the next 50 years, their business would grow to be recognised as an international leader in the design and development of contemporary car parks. Transforming what were historically seen as functional buildings, from an architectural perspective, to award winning, architecturally significant buildings that shape our urban landscape today. Pioneering car park designers Jim Hill and John Ca

The regulatory environment for road transport needs to be overhauled to make it fit for emerging forms of mobility products and services, Michael Hurwitz, Transport for London’s director of transport innovation, has told the London Assembly’s transport committee inquiry into future transport.    Said Hurwitz: “The regulations were set in the 1970s and the 1990s, and the world of transport in those days was crudely speaking as follows: you had a car or you took a priv

Transport for London is consulting on plans to ban all end-to-end vehicular traffic – including bicycles – from a section of Oxford Street, central London’s main shopping street.  The proposals cover Oxford Street West (OSW) – the section of the street from Orchard Streetto Oxford Circus – and surrounding streets.  Currently, only buses, taxis, and delivery vehicles can use Oxford Street between 07.00 and 19.00, Monday to Saturday. Under the plans, all

A property services company says it has identified around 10,500 car parks in the UK’s towns and cities that could be developed to accommodate over 350,000 homes, enough to house around one million people. “Over the past 15 years several crucial demographic changes have begun to take hold which are having a dramatic impact on the adequate provision of housing in the UK,” said Nick Whitten, JLL’s director of UK research. “A trend towards urban living has disproport

Sustainable transport charity Sustrans has developed a tool with environmental consultancy Eunomia that has been designed to help make the case for walking and cycling measures in terms of air quality. The air quality tool shows how to get the best value in terms of air quality from supporting walking and cycling, and sets a framework for how to build plans for walking and cycling into plans to improve air quality. Dr Andy Cope, director of insight at Sustrans says

Cars powered by electricity emit 50% less greenhouse gases than diesel-powered vehicles, according to a European study. The report suggests that even where coal-fired power stations are used to generate electricity, electric cars are more beneficial than diesel ones.Belgium’s VUB University has calculated the total lifecycle emissions of an electric car, including its manufacture, battery build, and all its energy consumption. The university found that: “Electric cars emit significan

Nissan has demonstrated a prototype of its most advanced autonomous driving technology, planned for real-world use from 2020, on public roads in Tokyo. Nissan Motor Corporatti tested its next-generation ProPILOT technology on a modified Infinit Q50 sports sedan. The technology is designed to enables the vehicle to operate autonomously on urban roads and motorways. The prototype’s artificial intelligence uses input from 12 sonars, 12 cameras, 9mm-wave radars, six laser scanners and a high

New registrations of electric vehicles (EVs) hit record highs in 2016, with over 750,000 sales worldwide. But this still represents just 0.2% of total vehicle sales and, although the number of electric vehicles is going up, the rate of growth has been slowing in recent years, a report by the International Energy Agency reveals.  In 2016 the EV market increased by 60%, compared with 77% in 2015 and 85% in 2014. EVs have a long way to go before reaching deployment scales capable of making a

The Open University and the University of Sussex’s findings that driving while using a hands-free phone can be as dangerous as drink-driving or using a handheld phone is of concern for all advocates of road safety (LTT 13 Oct). As shown by the Government’s latest THINK! campaign [pictured above] urging people to “put your phone away”, the focus is on handheld devices but more public awareness campaigns are needed to address the dangers of all distractions at the wheel. A

Replacing private car traffic with shared mobility services in urban areas can dramatically cut the number of cars needed, reduce CO2 emissions and free public land for uses other than parking. This was the key finding of a report from the International Transport Forum at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).  The report, which was presented at Smarter Travel LIVE! last week, examines how on-demand shared transport modes could change the face of mobility in He

A road safety film featuring numerous pink kittens highlights how much drivers miss if they are distracted by looking at their phones. The THINK! road safety film is aimed at younger drivers in particular. The video was directed We Are From LA, the directors behind the video for Pharrell Williams’ hit song Happy. It has been shot in the style of a music video with a soundtrack from musician Aphex Twin. The music video style of the film marks a change from previous THINK! campaigns. THIN

Replacing private car traffic with new shared mobility services in urban areas can dramatically reduce the number of cars needed, significantly cut CO2 emissions and free public land for uses other than parking – without making it more difficult for users to get from door to door. This latest report from the International Transport Forum at the OECD, presented at Smarter Travel LIVE!, examines how the optimised use of new on-demand shared transport modes could change the future of mobilit

The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) has published a blueprint for delivering a transition away from diesel cars and commercial vehicles in urban areas. The plan was published as London launched its Toxicity Charge, or T-Charge, which requires the most polluting vehicles to pay a £10 daily fee on top of the £11.50 Congestion Charge. BVRLA members provide car-sharing and vehicle rental and leasing to businesses and consumers, operating a fleet of more than 4.7m

A new set of road use rules devised specifically for London is among the ideas proposed by an independent commission studying ways of making the capital’s highways work more efficiently. A ‘Movement Code’ is one of a series of policies proposed by the Commission on the Future of London’s Roads and Streets, convened by the Centre for London think-tank with the aim of developing new thinking on what can be done to manage the conflicting pressures on the capital's surface t

Urban streets could be converted into pedestrian and cyclist friendly green spaces by replacing roads for traffic with planting and adding greenery to building façades, a landscape architectural practice has suggested. WATG has unveiled its ‘Green Block’ concept with a visualisation of how Fleet Street in central London could look if transformed into a traffic-free, planted environment. The design is a response to a public challenge by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to designate

A project that will see the introduction of fully electric buses in London won the top award at the 2017 Low Carbon Champions Awards, organised by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (LowCVP). Transport for London, bus manufacturer BYD and bus operator Go-Ahead London jointly won the Grand Prix award for a partnership that is delivering vehicles, operational capacity and infrastructure to begin running London’s first two all-electric bus routes (507 and 521). Waterloo bus garage has been

New electric vehicle registration data indicates that the public appetite for plug-in vehicles accelerated in the third quarter of 2017, according to Go Ultra Low. A total of 12,932 plug-in models were registered between July and September, a rise of 36% on the same period in 2016 and 721 units higher than the previous record quarter, January-March 2017. The best-ever quarterly figures follow a record September, with 7,794 plug-in models registered, which is 27% up on September 2016. This year&

Carmaker Ford has partnered with Google and virtual reality (VR) studio Happy Finish to create an app that will bring to life the potentially fatal consequences of driving while distracted. The Ford Reality Check app is specifically aimed at young people who have grown up surrounded by social media.  The training experience uses Google Daydream VR to cast participants as a distracted driver picking up friends on the way to a party. Instant messages, phone calls and chatty passengers all c

US carmaker Ford has launched an innovation office in London that will target the near-term development of smart mobility technologies while focussing on the specific requirements of European cities. The Ford Smart Mobility Office on the Here East campus of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London is led by director Sarah-Jayne Williams. The US company said having an office in London offers Ford close proximity to its projects and partners. Ford is currently working on a number of proje

The Mayor of London has launched an online Cleaner Vehicle Checker that will provide an independent rating of nearly all new Euro 6 standard cars and many vans being sold in the UK showrooms.  The checker is designed to provide with a way of knowing whether a vehicle is performing as intended when driven in ‘real world’ conditions.  The checker can be accessed at www.london.gov.uk/cleaner-vehicle-checker  Consumers type in details of a new vehicle model to

Driverless cars could create a highway to confusion unless training and coaching catches up with the fast pace of change and helps drivers cope with a whole new set of demands. This was conclusion reached by a panel industry experts at a conference organised by road safety charity IAM RoadSmart, the RAC Foundation and tyre-manufacturer Pirelli. The Driver Ahead conference in London looked how the next generation of autonomous cars will record much more information than ever before. This da

The first electric black cabs are now being driven on the streets of London as they enter the final phase of testing ahead of the January 2018 deadline for all newly licensed taxis to be zero emission capable. The electric taxis have been developed by the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEV), which was formerly known as the London Taxi Company. The test fleet drivers are

The University of Southampton has become the first recipient a £50,000 award to fund PhD research into the training implications for drivers as vehicles become more and more automated. The Human Factors Research Award was created by road safety charity IAM RoadSmart and presented during its Driver Ahead conference.

A £10 emissions surcharge came into force in central London today, 23 October. The Toxicity Charge, also dubbed the T-Charge, applies to cars, vans, minibuses, buses, coaches and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) that do not meet minimum standards. The charge will be in addition to the £11.50 Congestion Charge. Petrol vehicles that do not meet Euro 4 standards and diesel vehicles that do not meet Euro 6 standards will have to pay a ULEZ daily fee (£12.50 for cars, vans and motorbi

Four projects across five locations have been awarded a total of £51m in funding for creating the environments needed to fully test connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technology. The projects are the first to be funded from the government’s £100m Connected and Autonomous Vehicles testing infrastructure programme announced in November 2016 and will be matched by industry. The consortia selected selected in this first round are led by HORIBA MIRA, Millbrook Proving Ground, T

The MOVE_UK consortium has completed the first phase in its three-year fully autonomous vehicles research programme, which is intended accelerate the development of automated driving systems and make them intelligent and safe enough for the UK’s roads. Taking place in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, south-east London, the project has enabled the MOVE_UK consortium to develop a new validation method. It is anticipated that the validation method will reduce introduction time of highly autom

Q: How will self-driving cars change the way in which towns and cities manage parking? Q: How can local authorities create electric vehicle charging facilities that are both environmentally and financially sustainable? Q: Will local authority parking teams be key players in tackling poor air quality caused by vehicle pollution in town and city centres? Q: What are the data protection rules that apply when rolling out cashless payment, virtual permits and other digital parking services? Q: Ho

Road safety charity IAM RoadSmart is suggesting a drink-drive rehabilitation course should be made compulsory for those convicted of the crime, as opposed to it being voluntary. The suggestion was made as the UK’s drink-drive laws turned 50. The charity said driver training would complement more visible policing and a cut to the drink-drive limit in delivering a significant reduction in the numbers killed and seriously injured on the UK’s roads. Neil Greig, IAM RoadSmart’s di

The Department for Transport will be launching a new THINK! drink-drive campaign at the end of November, marking the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the maximum legal drink drive limit was 50 years ago. The Road Safety Act 1967 made it an offence to drive a vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration of over 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood – a limit which remains in place to this day. Since official statistics first began in 1979, the number of drink drive deaths per year has f

Smarter Travel LIVE! 2017 offers an expertly-crafted overview of need-to know people, initiatives, products and services – all in one place Resources are squeezed, time is precious and expectations upon local authorities and transport professionals increase.  The travelling public assumes that everything about their travel experience can, and should be, improved through the smart (and positive) implementation of technological innovation.  But is it really that easy? The t

Dockless bike sharing start-up oBike has launched in Oxford, providing cyclists and cyclists-to-be with a cost effective, convenient and sustainable way of travelling around the city.   Following substantial liaison with the local authorities, oBike will roll out its dockless bike sharing scheme across the city on an indefinite trial basis. Haroon Khan, Business Development Lead for oBike Uk, said: 'We are extremely excited to launch oBike in Oxford. Building on from our successes in

Glasgow City Council has sparked anger among bus operators by deciding to focus its Low Emission Zone (LEZ) exclusively on buses initially. One operator is talking to lawyers about a possible legal challenge, while another wants to see the data on which the decision was based. At the end of last month, the council approved in principle a blueprint for establishing Scotland’s first LEZ in the city by the end of 2018. It believes that bus-only measures can be introduced quicker than restric

The Department for Transport has this week published its Summary Report on the Impacts of the Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF), which indicates that the Fund successfully supported projects that reduced car use, increased walking and cycling levels, boosted bus patronage, supported local economies and cut carbon emissions. Published figures suggest that LSTF investments 'achieved high value for money', says the report. In 2011, the Department launched the £540 million LSTF to i

Propelmee, an autonomous mobility software provider with specialist expertise in perception, will unveil its last mile delivery pod ‘Go4’ at the Smarter Travel show in Milton Keynes on 19 & 20 October. ‘Go4’ will appear on the ‘Street of the Future’ showcasing the first demonstration platform of Propelmee’s unique and highly robust autonomous mobility capabilities. ‘Go4’ will go live in a public demo in Cambridge later this year as a foot

More than 300 delegates attended Healthy Streets at Walthamstow Assembly Hall last week to explore the connections between public health and transport strategies. The event, organised by Landor LINKS and hosted by Waltham Forest Council, brought together council officers, urban designers, public health specialists, transport planners, consultants, academics, equipment developers, innovators and campaigners. The programme encompassed health-led street design, re-allocation of road space, behavio

A coalition of road safety and motor industry bodies is encouraging private and fleet car buyers to insist on autonomous emergency braking (AEB) when they buy their next new car. AEB systems apply the brakes to avoid an impending crash with another vehicle, pedestrian or cyclist. It is estimated that pedestrian and cyclist sensing AEB systems could potentially save 1,100 lives and 122,860 casualties in the UK over the next ten years.  Thatcham Research has calculated that if more car buye

The winners of the inaugural Healthy Streets Awards were announced at Walthamstow Assembly Hall last night, with a host of inspiring entries gaining recognition. The trophies were presented following the Healthy Streets conference and exhibition, hosted by the London Borough of Waltham Forest and organised by Landor LINKS. Among those receiving trophies was Caroline Russell, London Assembly member and Green Party councillor at the London Borough of Islington, who was named Healthy Streets Champ

With the days of the combustion engine seemingly numbered, an acceleration of the shift to electric vehicles (EVs) looks increasingly likely. EVs still make up a small proportion of all vehicles – just 1.7% of the total new car market in the UK – but local authorities should start planning now for charging point networks, says Dr David Connolly, Director of Innovation at transport planning consultants SYSTRA. “As the size of the electric vehicle fleet grows, we will need to en

Media pundits were fairly evenly split on Transport for London’s decision to suspend ‘ride-hailing’ smartphone app platform Uber’s London operations once its current private hire licence expires on 30 September. Among those to support the ban was Toby Moses, an assistant opinion editor at The Guardian. “Uber is cheap, convenient and by and large safe,” he began. “But it has serious flaws too. No company deserves a free pass just because it’s popul

Private car ownership should be banned in cities as part of a “revolution” in urban transport planning, according to a new report.  “All cities should target at least 70-80 per cent of trips by public transport, walking and cycling – with the remainder of trips by low emission vehicles,” says the report for Greenpeace in Germany written by a team led by Robin Hickman, a reader at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. There should be &ldq

The Government’s push for electric cars could flounder unless it acts to improve the poor state of the country’s electric vehicle charging point network, the RAC Foundation has warned. A new report for the Foundation describes the current network of public charge points as  “unattractive to use and unsuitable for encouraging the next wave of electric vehicle customers”.   A snapshot of the country’s electric vehicle charging points this summer revealed t

UK engineering company Dyson has revealed it is developing an electric car that will be on the road by 2020. Best known for developing innovative vacuum cleaners and hand-driers, Sir James Dyson has revealed that 400 staff been working on the vehicle project for the past two years at his company’s headquarters in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. In an email sent to staff by Sir James revealed about £1bn would be spent on developing the car, and £1bn on creating the battery. The spending

A floating car concept was named best future concept at designjunction 2017, which took place in London last week. Yuchen Cai was announced as the winning student during designjunction 2017’s opening evening. Cai created ‘The Float’, a vision of a Maglev vehicle car that will provide a new way of connecting with people, a new form of mobility and portrays an idea of how drivers can be more open and social to the outside world as autonomy becomes ever popular. The Float won a

Parking operator Indigo will be partnering with Faxi, a ride-sharing app that enables companies, hospitals, local authorities and other large organisations to preferentially allocate car parking spaces to employees who are proven to have shared their commute. The Faxi platform allows commuters to offer spare seats in their vehicles to co-workers. This allows both passengers and drivers to save money and typically proves to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than driving alone or using

A minority motorists admit to habitually flouting the law by using their handheld phones while driving, despite penalties for the offence being doubled on 1 March, RAC research has found. The government has increased the penalty for using handheld devices to six points and a £200 fine in a bid to stamp out the dangerous habit. However, research carried out with 1,727 motorists for the RAC’s Report on Motoring 2017 shows the move has not stopped as many as 9.2m drivers breaking the l

Uber London has lost its licence to provide minicab services after Transport for London (TfL) decided the ride-hailing app operator is not "fit and proper" to hold a private hire operator licence. This morning TfL announced that Uber would not be issued with a private hire operator licence after expiry of its current licence on 30 September.  Uber has signalled its intention to appeal the decision. In a statement, Uber said: "Transport for London and the mayor have caved in to a small

An international business campaign designed to fast-track the uptake of electric vehicles (EV) and infrastructure was launched by The Climate Group in New York, as business and government leaders gather at Climate Week NYC. Baidu, Deutsche Post DHL Group, Heathrow Airport, HP Inc., IKEA Group, LeasePlan, METRO AG, PG&E, Unilever and Vattenfall were the 10 first members of EV100, the only initiative of its kind to encourage global business commitments on electric transport, with members swap

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has released new federal guidance for the transition to autonomous vehicles.  Automated Driving Systems (ADS): A Vision for Safety 2.0 is designed to encourage state and local governments to draft laws for autonomous driving and help manufacturers to build self-driving cars that have contingencies for event of system failures. Click here to view

Volkswagen has signalled its ambition to move from vehicle manufacturer to an integrated provider of hardware, software and digital mobility services by announcing an autonomous vehicle concept that will form the basis of a diverse family of models. The company presented latest version of the SElf-DRIving Car (SEDRIC), the group’s first concept car, at the International Motor Show (IAA) 2017 in Frankfurt/Main. The SEDRIC concept combines fully automated driving at Level 5, electrification

Businesses are suffering anxiety about the investment required to deliver the electric vehicle infrastructure to support the alternatively fuelled fleets of the future, suggests a report. In five years, 63% of businesses expect to be using alternative fuels to power their business vehicles, according to the second annual Operational Fleet Insight report produced by the AA and BT’s Fleet Solutions. Nearly half of the report’s respondents felt government organisations should be lobby

Five active travel schemes have been awarded funding totalling £22.5m by the Scottish government. The shortlisted projects, to be delivered by charity Sustrans, will receive 50% of the total costs. Two of the schemes are in Edinburgh while the others are in Glasgow, Stirling and Inverness. Work on each project is due to begin in the next two months, with Inverness City Active Travel Network (Highland Council) set for completion by summer 2020. Meanwhile, Walk, Cycle, Live (Stirling Counci

The initial findings of the Electric Nation trial suggest that smart charging could be a key solution to meeting the challenge of the demand from increasing numbers of electric vehicles (EVs) on electricity networks. Electric Nation is investigating the benefits that smart charging could provide for local electricity networks, where additional demand from local clusters of EVs could require reinforcement of these networks. Electric Nation is one of Western Power Distribution’s (WPD) inno

A number of car-makers have launched ‘scrappage’ schemes in the UK that offer drivers a discount on new vehicles when they trade in old ones.  Scrappage schemes are now being offered by in the UK by companies including Audi, BMW, Citroen, DS, Fiat, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes, MG, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, Seat, Skoda, Suzuki, Toyota and Volkswagen. These scrappage deals come at a time when the UK car market has seen four consecutive mon

In the twentieth century, planning for the city was about planning for the car. In recent years, however, the true impact of this approach has become only too apparent. From a changing global climate to the obesity epidemic, an over-reliance on the private automobile is driving many of the greatest challenges of our time. With rapidly rising urban populations, these problems are set to intensify - that is unless radical changes are made.  At the same time, the case for non-motorised modes

A research consortium has unveiled three of the six self-driving cars that will feature in tests on public roads in Oxfordshire and between Oxford and London.  The DRIVEN project led by Oxbotica will test Level 4 automation, enabling the vehicle to drive itself most of the time without any human input. The project will culminate in multiple end-to-end journeys between Oxford and London in 2019.  Testing is underway at RACE’s autonomous vehicle test facility at the Culham Scienc

I have a few quick thoughts on some recent articles in LTT.  Iain Reeve’s Viewpoint piece about driverless cars struck a chord with me (‘Will self-driving cars really be a cure-all for transport problems? Don’t be silly’ LTT 18 Aug). I’ve felt for some time that the balance is swinging too far back towards techno-fixes and away from behaviour change. As he says, this usually results in behaviour compensation, so we end up no better off.  I also entirely

On 8 September The Scotsman’s transport correspondent, Alastair Dalton, enthused about the benefits of low emission zones (LEZs), several of which are due to be implemented in Scotland in the next few years. “Tough vehicle restrictions [are] better for all,” he began. “When The Scotsman moved its Glasgow office from the city centre to the south side nearly a decade ago, I remember being struck by how much cleaner the air felt… I was surprised at how much less pollu

While there has been plenty of debate over what Mobility as a Service (MaaS) could look like in the future, there are relatively few case studies on projects that have so far been delivered.  At Smarter Travel LIVE! I’ll be sharing my insights on a trial that Atkins ran in Cambridge. For many, MaaS is associated with mobile phone apps including integrated payment and journey planning. But providing the technology will not, on its own, ensure modal shift or an uptake of a MaaS servic

Air quality in the Spanish city of Barcelona deteriorates by as much as 48% during public transport strikes, researchers have found. The study found that alterations in public transport could trigger a rise in the number of private vehicle trips, which in turn increases air pollution levels.

Euro NCAP is calling on car manufacturers to implement autonomous technology in new vehicles in a bid to boost road safety. The independent body for car safety has outlined targets for manufacturers to introduce certain levels of autonomous technology into their vehicles in its new Road Map 2025, published to mark its 20th anniversary. The Road Map 2025 challenges vehicle manufacturers to offer the best possible technology as standard in all market segments and countries, protecting not only ca

Parking Review magazine has launched the 2018 edition of the British Parking Awards. Now in their 17th year, the competition encourages both public and private sector organisations to nominate people and projects that represent the best in parking management, design and innovation. The awards encompass both the on-street and off-street sides of the parking sector. The diverse nature of the parking sector means that the competition has categories that cover buildings, technology and people. Bri

The arrival of Will Norman as London’s first Cycling & Walking Commissioner in February heralded a new approach to reducing car use in the capital. The former global partnerships director at Nike is seeking to develop a comprehensive network of ‘corridors’ that link main roads with Quietways, as set out in mayor Sadiq Khan’s draft Transport Strategy.  Alternatives to superhighways Norman moved to the Mayor’s office on the understanding tha

Technology to automatically prevent distracting alerts while driving, the coalition warns, is urgently needed to tackle deaths and serious injuries caused by drivers using handheld mobile phones behind the wheel, says a coalition of road charities and organisations. The coalition has written to Android, Microsoft and the GSMA (Groupe Spéciale Mobile Association) urging them to include an ‘opt out’ driving mode as standard across mobile handsets. The letter comes ahead

A cycling charity has called for wider awareness to be made about the dangers of ‘car-dooring’ and how to prevent it through a public awareness campaign. Car dooring incidents involve drivers or their passengers opening car doors without checking for the presence of cyclists. Cycling UK is also advocating that people open car doors with their far hand, rather than the near as a way of preventing avoidable collisions. This method is sometimes called ‘the Dutch Reach' as it is c

With less than six weeks to go before Smarter Travel LIVE! on 19 and 20 October, this year’s Smarter Travel LIVE! event is bringing together the widest ever range of key players to spark dialogue and debate. The convergence of digital technology with the travel and transport sector is catalysing the most radical and sophisticated possibilities in decades, and Smarter Travel LIVE! is the place to be for those who need to be engaged in what is happening across the UK and beyond. Such rapid

An Intelligent Mobility accelerator has been launched by the UK government to lead the development of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Meridian, a subsidiary of the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), will operate as a mobility technology cluster designed to accelerate testing, development and adoption of CAVs within the UK and across international borders. Supported by the UK Government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and the Automotive Council, Meridian has s

Start-up businesses with innovative solutions to transport challenges such as congestion, overcrowding, emissions and road safety are being encouraged to apply for a new accelerator programme. The Intelligent Mobility (IM) Accelerator programme focusses on IM areas such as connected and autonomous vehicles, connected infrastructure, customer experience, and transport data and analysis. The programme is a partnership between Transport Systems Catapult and Wayra UK, a start-up accelerator that i

Traveller information must get much more reliable and available before Mobility as a Service (MaaS) can become a reality, a group of transport experts has warned. The ITS (UK) Public Transport Interest Group in London says out that only a quarter of bus companies have their timetable organised electronically, rather than on paper, making dynamic travel solutions almost impossible. The group said that more complete real-time information is required from local authorities and t

Taxi regulations need to be updated to reflect new technology, help reduce the risk of child sexual exploitation and create a level playing field for drivers, says the Local Government Association (LGA). This is in light of the proliferation of app-based taxi and private hire vehicle (PHV) companies and increased cross-border hiring. Taxi and private hire legislation, much of which dates

The way we travel is on the threshold of a major transformation. We will be able to make journeys that are safer, cleaner, more efficient and cheaper. And the catalyst for that change will be intelligent mobility (IM). In this new environment we will have access to connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) and new mobility services (including super-smart ticketing). But in order to see these benefits we will need sector collaboration and convergence. If this transition is managed well the rewards ac

A modified version of Uber's internal demand and usage data has been made available after getting feedback from city transport authorities that "access to our aggregated data will inform decisions to adapt infrastructure to make our cities more efficient". Uber emphasised that "Uber Movement" preserved the privacy of riders and drivers by anonymising the data, with full details outlined in a methodology white paper and said that data on origins and destinations was available under a Creati

Sadly, it’s once again time for me to roll out this prophetic utterance from 1963’s report of the Traffic in Towns steering group: “We are nourishing at immense cost a monster of great potential destructiveness. And yet we love him dearly. Regarded in its collective aspect as ‘the traffic problem’ the motor car is clearly a menace, which can spoil our civilisation. But translated into terms of the particular vehicle that stands in our garage (or more often nowadays

Cheshire East Council is to part-fund the provision of a drop-off/pick-up car park for school pupils that could improve road safety and cut congestion. But the council admits the scheme could also encourage more parents to drive children to school. The council is to provide £70,000 towards the cost of the facility for the Berkeley Academy school at Wistaston, with the school providing at least 50% match-funding. Cheshire East gave a funding commitment to Berkeley in April 2016 and Frank J

The world is currently experiencing paradigm shifts in attitudes to transport, enabled largely by technology. To Europeans, US headlines about driverless cars and AI breakthroughs, the rise of Uber and Lyft, hyperloop and superfast electric cars, could give the impression that innovation happens easily stateside. But it can be just as hard to achieve lasting change there as anywhere else, says David Bragdon, Chief Executive of NYC’s Transit Center, and tells Juliana O’Rourke that the

New drug-driving laws are taking a dangerous drivers off UK roads, with conviction rates running at 98%, says the Department for Transport. A new law introduced in 2015 makes it illegal to drive with certain drugs in the body above specified limits. The law covers eight illegal drugs and nine prescription drugs. If caught, drivers can lose their licence for at least a year, be fined up to £5,000 or even end up in prison. In 2015 some 1,442 motorists were convicted for offences inclu

Young drivers are the least likely to worry about charging or other perceived barriers to ownership of electric cars. New research shows that drivers aged between 18 and 24 are more likely to own an electric vehicle (EV) than any other age group. The AA-Populus study reveals that those aged 24-34 are the next most likely to own an EV. Drivers aged 55 and above are least likely to do so. Currently 5% of respondents aged 18-24 said they own an EV compared with 4% of 25-34 and 1% of those aged 55 a

Millennials living in London are enthusiastic users of the shared economy, according to a survey commissioned by car-share provider DriveNow UK. Some 73% of respondents said they use services and apps such as DriveNow, Airbnb and Uber.

Whenever we talk about autonomous vehicles, a little alarm bell goes off in my head. No, not the safety one – I am sure that boffins in white coats with pens in their top pockets will sort out the safety issues. We will probably all be safer with the Terminator driving behind us, rather than with the human idiot who decides that he has an unnatural fondness for my back bumper at 70mph on the M25. The little mental alarm bell is the one that sounds whenever we’re getting too excited

When I was invited to write the first Annual Survey of Mobility as a Service in the UK I was intrigued.  Could you really survey something in such an early state of development? We currently only have one single ‘full’ Mobility as a Service (MaaS) application under active development in the UK. This app combines a number of public and shared transport operators and offers them through a single interface. A second is in the pipeline, but it will be at least a year in development.

Transport charity Sustrans Scotland is offering employers a way to offer its employees access to healthier journeys to and from work via its Active Travel Champion (ATC) programme. Active Travel Champions are organisations that have committed to increasing levels of walking and cycling at their organisation. Sustrans works with sites of 200 or more employees on which ‘champions’ are permitted to spend one to two hours of time per month on ATC related planning and activities.

The Freight Transport Association (FTA) is warning hauliers and delivery companies that cities across the UK will start levying high charges on older diesel HGVs and vans, for air quality reasons, between early 2019 and the end of 2020. London has proposals that could see, at the same time, many HGVs banned from the capital for having insufficient direct vision.

The Government's announcement that the sale of new petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles will be banned in the UK from 2040 predictably dominated both the headlines and the thoughts of leading transport commentators in late July. Much of the commentary concerning the Government’s plans was critical, with several pieces suggesting that by setting a deadline more than 20 years into the future, the Government was attempting to distract attention from its alleged unwillingness to take shorter-ter

Last week, the press was aflutter with the headline-grabbing announcement of the demise of not just diesel cars, but petrol by 2040 to help tackle the UK’s air quality problems. This might be great for all sorts of reasons – if a little late – but will the lights stay on? And is this the right way of looking at the urgency of today’s urban air quality crisis anyway? Before we get much further, it’s worth being clear about what we mean by these different terms &ndash

The evolution of technology has opened up the transport industry to endless possibilities. As this grows, so too does the need to address customer choice and empowerment. But is industry doing enough to understand the people who use and rely on transport services?  Understanding the customer experience is arguably more important now than ever. A web of conflicting interests need to be addressed, from traditional engineering and safety considerations to the new and future digital landscape,

With roads close to saturation point and trains becoming overcrowded, transport providers and innovators must work together to develop new solutions, believes Stephen Hart at Innovate UK. “Congestion is getting worse, with growing frustration leading to more road rage,” he says. “There’s no longer a rush hour, there’s a rush five hours.” Current systems used to manage roads and rail services need to be better integrated to be effective, says Hart, head of co

The number of trips made by people in England continued to fall last year and is now 13% lower than 2002, according to the National Travel Survey.  People made on average 774 trips in 2016, excluding short walks (defined as being less than a mile in length). In 2002 the average was 886.   Average distance travelled, excluding short walks, was 6,396 miles in 2016 – 10% below the 7,104 miles recorded in 2002. The 2016 figure was 3% lower than 2015.   The average annual mile

Local authorities across the UK were this week digesting the implications of new DfT advice that community transport organisations must possess a public service vehicle (PSV) operator’s licence if they want to bid for council contracts.  Huge number of contracts across the country have been awarded through competitive tenders to community transport groups who do not possess an operator’s licence. Until now, the Government’s advice has been that they do not need to possess

Carl Pittam (pictured) has been appointed head of network development at E-Car Club Ltd. He was previously an associate with  consultant Steer Davies Gleave. Pittam was Sustrans’ England director before joining SDGin 2015. 

The introduction of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) on London’s streets must be done in a way that supports the mayor’s transport policies, Transport for London has said. Michael Hurwitz, TfL’s director of transport innovation, said CAVs presented both potential drawbacks and benefits.   On the drawbacks, he said: “Cheap, convenient car travel could be extended to Londoners who don’t have a car or a licence, therefore reducing public transport patron

A recent graduate from University College London has won the 2017 Wolfson Economics Prize, a £250,000 competition that posed the question: “How can we pay for better, safer, more reliable roads in a way that is fair to road users and good for the economy and the environment?” Gergely Raccuja proposed a distance-based charge as a replacement for both fuel duty and vehicle excise duty. The money raised by a levy could be used to improve air quality and invested in making UK road

Ensuring that would-be carpoolers are riding with people they like could potentially decrease car use by nearly 60%, research from a professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada has found. The research, published in Transportation Research Part C, used social media analytics, algorithms and computer simulation to match would-be carpoolers with people driving to work.

Connected car services provider INRIX has added details of all APCOA Parking sites in Europe to its parking database. The deal sees APCOA providing INRIX with access to information from 1.4m parking spaces at over 9,000 locations in 13 countries.  The INRIX Parking database holds details of 35m parking spaces in 8,700 cities across 100 countries worldwide. It offers dynamic occupancy information on 20,000 lots in 2,000 cities across 67 countries. INRIX provides parking information and ser

Plans have been published to reconfigure the busy Fiveways junction in Croydon, south London, with the aim of making it safer for all road users.  Transport for London (TfL) and Croydon Council say the proposed improvements would help to reduce delays and congestion. They point out that the Fiveways area is often busy, with motorists and bus users experiencing congestion at peak times, especially on weekends when large numbers of visitors go to and from the retail parks along Purley Way.

Actions to cut vehicular traffic must feature prominently in the next local implementation plans (LIPs) prepared by London boroughs, says draft guidance just issued by Transport for London. The LIPs must support London mayor Sadiq Khan’s draft transport strategy, the central objective of which is to reduce the share of passenger trips by car/taxi/private hire vehicle in the capital from 36% today to just 20% in 2041, with the share by foot, cycle and public transport rising from 64 to 80%

New software designed to reduce congestion, encourage active travel, improve the passenger experience and help transport operators run more efficient services is being showcased by a programme to support startups. The programme was developed by Nitrous - a company that encourages collaboration between startups and the public sector to help create smart cities - and supported by Transport for London (TfL).   Several hundred applications were received and these were whittled down to a short

DriveNow won the sustainable transport category at the Sustainable City Awards in London. The car-sharing service was awarded the trophy for its contribution to the reduction of air pollution and easing congestion in the capital. The awards are run by the London Sustainability Exchange and funded by the City of London Corporation. They recognise organisations in London that demonstrate excellence in sustainable development and best practice in environmental management. DriveNow is a joint

The illustrations in London mayor Sadiq Khan’s new draft transport strategy don’t contain many cars but that’s not surprising: the mayor wants to cut the share of passenger trips made by car/taxi/private hire vehicles from 36% in 2015 to 20% in 2041, with the share made by walking, cycling and public transport rising from 64% to 80%. “The success of London’s future transport system relies upon reducing Londoners’ dependency on cars in favour of increased walki

Human drivers will quickly have to be banned from roads on which autonomous vehicles are authorised, a transport economist has predicted.  Paul Buchanan, a partner at consultant Volterra, gave an upbeat assessment of a future in which highly autonomous vehicles (AVs) and Hyperloop magnetic levitation technology transform travel patterns.  “I love autonomous vehicles,” he said. The first place he expected them to be permitted was motorways because these were closed to pede

Milton Keynes central will be the testing ground for a new mobility solution when the roll-out of a fleet of 40 driverless pods begins early next year.  The foundations for the UK Autodrive project were laid in October 2016 with on-street trials of three LUTZ Pathfinder pods in Milton Keynes by Transport Systems Catapult (TSC). The two-seater pods were developed by Oxford University spin-out company Oxbotica and manufactured by Coventry automotive innovation firm RDM. The next generation o

James Taylor has started his role as UK managing director of DriveNow, the car sharing joint venture of the BMW Group and SIXT SE. Taylor will be replacing Joseph Seal-Driver, who left the business in May to work in the bike-sharing sector. Taylor joined DriveNow UK in March 2015 and was head of marketing before taking up the position of UK managing director. Previous to his time at DriveNow, Taylor has almost 15 years experience in senior marketing, operational and management roles.  &ld

The need to create healthy streets is at the heart of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s first transport strategy, which sets out proposals to reshape transport in the capital over the next 25 years. The Draft Transport Strategy includes proposals for ‘Liveable Neighbourhoods’ that encourage walking, cycling and the use of public transport and to increase opportunities to use streets as public spaces and for play. The mayor wants to create ‘Healthy Routes’ - attra

The Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) has announced that Paul Campion has been appointed as chief executive officer.  Campion joins the TSC from his position leading IBM’s Global Financing in the UK and Ireland. IBM Global Financing is an IT financing house that helps IBM’s clients and partners optimise the financial cases for their IT transformations. He has previously worked in a variety of technical, marketing and sales operational leadership roles for IBM, both in the UK an

Joseph Seal-Driver has left car-sharing provider DriveNow, where he was UK director, to launch a new bike-sharing scheme. DriveNow is a joint venture of BMW and rental company Sixt.  Seal-Driver said: “When I joined DriveNow five years ago as the first international hire, the Munich team were cramped in one room and planning the second City launch. Since then DriveNow has established itself as a leading car-sharing service, operating from 12 European Cities with over 850,000 custome

British Parking Award winner Jade Neville has joined Legion Parking as client account manager. Legion Parking is part of facilities management specialist OCS Group. Neville previously worked for APCOA Parking, where she started as a civil enforcement officer supervisor in 2007 before being promoted to the role of operations manager in 2014. She received the Front Line trophy at the British Parking Awards 2014 in recognition of her work as a ‘hate crime ambassador’, a role that saw

Streetlytics allows users to make well-informed decisions by providing direct access to detailed, ready-to-use insights on a particular population, its activity, and movements across all modes of travel from the current day into the future. As traffic analysts, we need to know the reasons why travel is happening, as well as key facts about the trips and flows on our streets and transport services. The questions asked in traffic operations and in modelling are who, when, where, why and how. WHO:

Future cities will be different than today's cities in many aspects, but especially in terms of transportation and mobility. The car of tomorrow will be intelligent, connected and autonomous. Aspiring smart cities  such as Qatar in the Middle East are preparing for the challenge. The future car will avoid accidents, drive by itself and park by itself. When the penetration of this technology on the road becomes high enough, people will no longer need to own a personal vehicle.  Why sh

The EU project Opticities develops and implements real-time decision tool for traffic management based on dynamic simulation. The design is a combination of Grand Lyon’s existing traffic management system and Aimsun Online, which is developed and supported by TSS-Transport Simulation Systems. The tool allows the anticipative monitoring of the traffic in the network based on predetermined warnings by predicting the next hour in real time. By Emmanuel Bert The Opticities project has brought

There is one thing that cities around the world have in common: their streets are congested with cars, causing traffic jams and accidents, polluting the air and taking up an immense amount of the highly contested urban space. But addressing the symptoms alone is no solution; we also have to face up to the underlying cause: the conventional use of conventional cars. And therefore we need mobility disruptive technologies. There is one thing that almost all cities around the world have in common:

As we consider new models of mobility – whether these are autonomous vehicles or Mobility as a Service packages – the interesting question arises, of the people you know, how might they be travelling in five or ten year’s time?  In the housing sector, an oft-overlooked likelihood is that about 80% of 2050s housing stock has already been built. In a similar vein, how similar will be people’s mobility lifestyles in 2050 to now? Who (and how many) might be travelling d

Central government and transport authorities need to do more to engage with the private sector to ensure that Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is truly customer-based, says Martin Higgitt, Market Director Sustainable Travel and Transport at transport planning consultancy Systra. “I sense at the moment the government is standing back,” he says. “There is this laissez faire attitude to let the market take care of innovation. The public sector needs to be involved. Of course, it need

Air pollution in the UK kills 25.7 out of every 100,000 people, making it one of the most deadly countries in Western Europe, according to the 2017 Health Statistics from the World Health Organisation. The figures show that, by comparison, morality rates from air pollution are 0.4 per 100,000 in Sweden, 12.1 in the United States, 14.6 in Ireland, 14.7 in Spain and 15.8 in Brazil. Meanwhile, new figures from Kings College London reveal that air pollution in the capital is now worse than levels

The Government is set to be taken back to court by environment lawyers ClientEarth after the organisation described the latest plan in the press as "even worse than the previous effort, which has already been ruled illegal by the High Court". ClientEarth objected to the concept of non-charging clean air zones, which were welcomed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which on Friday praised the Government for its keenness to "avoid charigng consumers and businesses for dr

Parking and property professionals have long lived by the mantra ‘location, location, location’. But while location remains important, the era of data analytics and connected cars means information and communication will soon be the most important factors for developers, retailers and parking operators. Parking and places in the era of connected cars will be central themes at Parking & Property 2017. The line-up of speakers includes experts in retail trends, property development

Car-maker Daimler and technology company Bosch are to work together on developing a fully automated driverless system by the start of the next decade. The two German companies believe driverless vehicles will be able to act as shared urban resources and be used by both non-car owners and non-drivers such as young and old people. Bosch and Daimler aim to develop software and algorithms for an autonomous driving system that will achieve Level 4 (high automation) and Level 5 (full automation) drive

A huge investment in the UK’s road network and higher road maintenance standards may be necessary to make the most of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), according to a new report by the RAC Foundation. There is huge uncertainty about how the CAV market will develop, and over what timescales, says report author Charles Johnson, group technical director of consultant CAS (Competence Assurance Solutions Ltd),   He uses the Society of Automotive Engineers’ definition of the

Pedestrianised areas of Milton Keynes are to serve as the testing ground for a new mobility solution, with the roll-out of a fleet of 40 driverless pods offering short-hop journeys due to start later this year. A selected group of users will try out the service, piloted by UK Autodrive, a consortium of technology and automotive businesses, councils and universities, which is developing self-driving and connected car technologies. The three-year project, which ends in October 2018, will test how

Business owners can have a significant impact on the number of drivers converting to electric vehicles (EVs) by giving employees access to charge points at work, says the National Grid. The energy infrastructure operator points to experience at its own headquarters in Warwick. Data from National Grid House shows a three-fold rise in the use of its six EV charge points since they were installed as a viability project in April 2016.  Three stakeholder groups use the charge points: company

The West Midlands is shortly to become the first region to pilot Mobility as Service (MaaS) to its residents. MaaS brings several modes of travel together, combining options from different transport providers into a single mobile service, so removing the hassle of planning and one-off payments. It’s rather like a mobile phone package, where users choose set amounts of data, minutes and texts, although MaaS users would opt for a tailored package of public transport access, taxi use and car

Mark Moran Car-sharing service DriveNow has introduced a new rental process in its app and vehicles, which will significantly speed up the process of reserving and using the vehicles. Customers can now reserve, open the vehicle and drive away within seconds, said DriveNow. In addition, all options for the rental process, including booking hourly or daily packages, are now fully integrated within the app. Further developments and new features will be introduced over the coming months. The new

An electric car-sharing service in Japan by Nissan Motor Company and the City of Yokohama. The Nissan New Mobility Concept is a round-trip car sharing service based around an ultra-compact electric vehicle. The Choimobi Yokohama service enables users who register online to pick up and return cars in 14 locations around Yokohama Station. Cars can be reserved 30 minutes in advance and can be driven within the city. The Nissan New Mobility Concept service costs 250 yen per 15 minutes, plus a 200

The London Taxi Company (LTC) has opened the UK’s first car plant dedicated solely to the production of range-extended electric vehicles in Coventry. LTC has invested more than £300m in the new site at Ansty, which has the capacity to build more than 20,000 vehicles per year. The vehicle retains the styling and key features of a London taxi such as being wheelchair accessible and having a high level of manoeuvrability whilst incorporating new features like a larger cabin a

The Government’s interest in autonomous vehicles is too focused on cars at the expense of wider applications such as in public transport, freight, and agriculture, according to a new report from a House of Lords committee.  “The Government must not allow hype and media attention around driverless cars to cause it to lose sight of the many potential benefits that CAV [connected and autonomous vehicles] can provide in areas outside the roads sector and within the roads sector for

Lancashire county Council may repay hundreds of penalty charge notices issued to drivers who entered a remodelled bus-only street in Preston. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal ruled that drivers faced difficulties seeing the restriction sign because they were having to be vigilant for pedestrians crossing the street. The case concerns Fishergate in Preston, the busy east-west shopping street close to the city’s railway station. Major public realm improvements were made to the street in 2014, r

The diverse nature of Westminster and its multiple users creates high demand for the limited parking space available. The associated problems of congestion and poor air quality are often compounded by the time taken for motorists to find parking as they drive around the city searching for availability. Developing solutions to this parking conundrum was the focus of the Smart Cities Connected Parking Hackathon, which was organised by Impact Hub in partnership with Westminster City Council, the D

APCOA has appointed Ken Stone as the its new regional manager south. Stone will be responsible for all of APCOA’s southern contracts, including London, as well building client relationships, driving innovation and securing new business. Stone has worked in parking enforcement management roles in both the public and private sectors. He has served with councils in Newham, Camden, Horsham, Lambeth, Barnet and Barking & Dagenham.  Stone said: “After six years of consultancy w

Parking & Property 2017 8 June: 15 Hatfields, London Parking & Property is the only annual event dedicated to off-street parking. Over the past 7 years the conference has provided a forum for debate and sharing best practice among public and private sector car park owners and operators, developers, planners and companies supplying design and equipment services. The conference content is developed by Nigel Williams, managing director of Parking Matters, and Mark Moran, editor of

Parking projects that seek to make the lives of children safer and easier where among the winners at the British Parking Awards 2017, which took place on Friday 10 March. Kent County Council won the Front Line Award for its Responsible Parking Squad initiative. The council has devised a toolkit of materials and techniques that can be used by pupils at secondary schools to tackle the problem of dangerous parking and driving, especially during the school run. The London Borough of Wandsworth rec

The winners of the British Parking Awards 2017 will be revealed at an awards ceremony in London on 10 March. The British Parking Awards were launched by Parking Review magazine in 2002 to recognise achievement and best practice in the design and management of parking. With winners selected by a jury of their peers, the British Parking Parking Awards logo and trophy have become a respected and coveted mark of excellence among parking professionals. Below we provide a guide to the finalists. Par

Andy Burnham has promised to “re-regulate” Greater Manchester’s bus network if he becomes the conurbation’s first directly elected mayor. But he stopped short of committing to use the franchising powers of the Bus Services Bill. The Labour candidate in the 4 May election has pledged to end the “free-for-all” of buses on the conurbation’s road network.  In a campaign video highlighting the conurbation’s poor air quality, he said: “For 3

Life used to be simple in the transport world. People generally owned cars, used public transport or walked and cycled. OK, I am guilty of opening with what is probably a false premise, but stick with me for now. As the boundaries between private and public transport blur through the emergence of shared models and new forms of ownership, maybe the discussion could shift to private and public spaces of travel. Put another way, if the future means that we summon pods to whisk us to our destination

Penalties for using a phone at the wheel of a car double from 1 March to six points and a £200 fine. These form part of a range of tougher sanctions designed to reduce driver distraction. Drivers caught using a phone within two years of passing their test will have their licence revoked under new rules in England, Scotland and Wales. New drivers who get six points or more must retake their practical and theory. More experienced drivers can be banned if they get 12 points in three years.

A guide designed to help local authorities understand the opportunities and challenges presented by rapidly accelerating advances in transport technology has been published by the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET) and ITS (UK). The second edition of the Local Authority Guide to Emerging Transport Technology is targeted at local government officers, elected members and their consultants and explains how technology can aid delivery of a range of policy objectives, from reducing em

Parking revenues at Heathrow rose last year, generating around £114m for the UK’s biggest airport. However, Heathrow has made a commitment to maintain car traffic at current levels even as it plans for a dramatic expansion. The airport has 23,000 public parking spaces that are used by business travellers, holidaymakers and people with business at the airport. Parking is treated a retail activity in the airport’s accounts, which showed its range of car park pro

Costly car repairs could be prevented with the help of a crow-sourced virtual pothole map to be tested by Ford later this year. The map would show drivers, in real-time, on in-car displays, where potholes are, how bad they are and suggest alternative routes. Cold, ice and snow all cause roads to freeze, thaw and ultimately break apart, a situation compounded by heavy spring rain that fills the holes. Bad road surfaces contribute to more than a third of all accidents every year. In th

Electric vehicle owners are starting to have free smart chargers installed as a result of their participation in the Electric Nation project. The electric vehicle (EV) chargers will play an important role in a research project to ensure that the UK’s local electricity networks can cope with the ever-growing numbers of electric cars. The UK electricity grid currently has sufficient capacity to deliver power to electric vehicles, however if clusters of EVs develop in local areas and they

APCOA Parking has entered into a partnership with POD Point, a manufacturer of electric vehicle (EV) charging points. The partnership will see EV charging units rolled out in town centres and at train stations, airports, shopping centres and hotels around the country. The first batch of 15 POD Point units have been installed for APCOA at London Heathrow Airport and the Broadway Plaza retail car park in Birmingham. The units are available to all EV drivers that are looking to park their car at

These days we hear a lot about the importance of data in the transport sector, and it is my contention that the advent of the digital age, driven by data, will come to be regarded as the fourth industrial revolution. Why? Because operating transport in a highly connected, inter-operable world that is data-driven is likely to be viewed as a revolution. The first industrial revolution was brought about through mechanisation, the second through mass-production and the third through computerisation

Councils are using humour to raise awareness of road safety issues among children and parents. They are handing out booklets, by creative agency Serious Comedy, which feature amusing scenarios to shed light on dangerous parking and driving as well as offering children advice on how to cycle safely to school. One of the guides - ‘Should You Sack Your Chauffeur?’ - shows parents committing offences such as using a mobile phone while driving, to the chagrin and dismay of their child pa

We may not be able to predict what the future of transport will be, but we can be sure of what it will not be. And we can be wiser. There is no need to scan deeply into the horizon to spot the green shoots of change: they are everywhere to see. We may not be sure exactly what shape it will take, but we know that the revolution in transportation and travel habits is going to be big. Increased robotics are already in every new vehicle: assisted parking, sensors, automated efficiency, and even sof

Stagnant transport patronage can only be increased if commute times are decreased, according to a U.S magazine highlighting how transport users' "average commute times are 1.9 times greater than for those driving". Governing, a platform and magazine for state and local government leaders, compiled recent Census survey data for 25 metro areas and reported that "college towns are about the only areas where public transportation commute times mirror those for auto commuters". Driving takes less th

The London Boroughs of Bromley and Bexley have jointly awarded APCOA a new 10-year parking contract. The new arrangements, which will start in April 2017, will help to further harmonise the procedures and processes of both authorities and produce efficiency savings.  Bromley and Bexley became a shared service in 2013. To date, these authorities have utilised the services of separate contractors to undertake parking enforcement and other related duties while existing contracts ran their ter

There are three pillars of sustainability that must be appropriately addressed to achieve meaningful results; be it in transport, housing or any other sector. You could think of these as three interstitial layers, each necessary in their own right, to create a functional system of sustainability: economic, environmental and societal requirements. The success of one relies on the others, and our focus will be on the most neglected of the trio, society.  The societal impact of sustainability

APCOA Parking has recognised the achievements of employees at a dinner and awards ceremony. Trophies were presented to 16 members of staff who the parking operator felt have delivered excellent service and often gone beyond the call of duty. The recipients were drawn from across the company’s on-street and off-street teams in the UK and Ireland. They include both front line staff and those working in back office or contract management roles. Many recipients were recognised for engaging w

The UK’s first demonstration of a ‘teleoperated’ autonomous vehicle service for people with reduced mobility has been completed as part of the GATEway project (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment), which is being led by TRL. The demonstration, which took place at the InterContinental Hotel in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, used an autonomous-enabled Toyota Prius. It ma

Car-sharing could make a major contribution to reducing traffic congestion, vehicle emissions and pressure on parking. This is what the various local government agencies the capital believe. In May 2015 Transport for London (TfL), the Greater London Authority and London Councils teamed up with Carplus, a charity promoting car-sharing and a number of car club operators to produce a car club strategy for the capital. The document stated: “An ambitious approach to growing car clubs could ach

Volvo Cars is to set up a new shared mobility business unit as part of a broad expansion of its car sharing and mobility services strategy. The new business unit will be based around car-sharing company Sunfleet, which has been operated by Volvo since 1998. Based in Sweden, Sunfleet has around 50,000 subscribers generating approximately 250,000 transactions in more than 50 Swedish cities. While Sunfleet will form the core of the new business, Volvo said that it will in future be expanded into

Transport for London and Ford will be trialling hybrid Transit vans. The 12-month project will see a fleet 20 new plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Transit Custom vans that will run solely on electric power for the majority of city trips such as deliveries or maintenance work. Ford will provide 20 PHEV Transits to a range of commercial fleets across London, including TfL’s fleet, to explore how such vans can contribute to cleaner air targets while boosting productivity for operators in urban conditio

Almost 8,000 drivers were caught using a mobile phone behind the wheel during a week-long campaign by police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is illegal to use a handheld phone while driving, with drivers caught breaking the rules facing penalty points and a fine.  Officers handed out 7,966 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for the offence in November. The number of FPNs issued, equivalent to a rate of 47 an hour, is the highest yet for a week of enforcement on “distraction dri

Connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) will deliver little benefit to traffic flow on inter-urban roads until they form the majority of the vehicle fleet, research commissioned by the DfT suggests. But they may  bring benefits more quickly to urban traffic conditions. The DfT commissioned consultants Atkins and White Willow Consulting to explore the impacts of CAVs at different levels of market penetration. A connected car is one capable of connecting to external networks, whether it be

Transport forecasters need to pinpoint drivers of travel demand that are less prone to change and those that can be changed by policies we choose today, Dr Greg Marsden has urged as the Commission on Travel Demand he chairs calls for evidence. Marsden, noting in his blog that attempts to identify plausible sets of alternative futures has alighted on variations in traffic volumes of between -62% and +10%, comments: "We need to ask... whether the relatively near future of 2040 is so unc

The long list of entries to the British Parking Awards 2017 has been unveiled. This year the competition has attracted over 90 submissions that are now being assessed by the jury.The British Parking Awards encompass the worlds of traffic management, architecture, enforcement, technology and property.This year there are entries from local authorities, commercial operators, rail companies, universities, retailers, consruction companies, equipment suppliers and many others. To see the 2017 entry li

Nissan will bring real-world demonstrations of autonomous driving cars to Britain next month. The Japanese car-maker will be deploying modified versions of its electric LEAF in London. Details of the borough in which the driverless trials will take place have yet to be revealed. Nissan said passengers will include government officials, technical and safety experts. These will be the first demonstrations of Nissan’s autonomous drive technology on public roads in Europe. NTCE, the European

Vehicles fitted with autonomous technologies will bring most benefit to the personal mobility of the disabled (56%), the visually impaired (42%) and the elderly (30%), according to a survey of the British public conducted by car-maker Nissan. Improved mobility for everyone was considered to be the primary advantage of autonomous cars, accounting for the sentiment of more than 60% of respondents. This benefit outweighed concerns of the possibility of a malfunction (49%), or not having full cont

Car-makers and smartphone manufacturers will meet transport ministers to discuss technological solutions that could reduce the problem of people being distrated by handheld devices while driving. It is anticipated that the meeting, which is due to take place in Whitehall, will see Department for Transport ministers and officials tell the mobile phone companies that “drive safe” modes, similar to the now common airline mode, must be included in basic phone software. Drive safe w

Average speed cameras are to be installed at accident hotspots on eight routes across Lancashire in a bid to prevent all serious road accidents and deaths. Jenoptik SPECS3 Vector cameras will cover sections of eight roads, ranging from 0.5 to 8.5 miles in length. Over the past six years there have 265 collisions on the routes, resulting in 406 casualties, with 13 fatalities and 62 people suffering serious or life changing injuries. Lancashire Road Safety Partnership said that average speed cam

Nissan has joined 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), a network pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation that seeks to help cities accommodate and benefit from physical, social, and economic challenges. Nissan and 100RC will work with cities lay the groundwork for autonomous drive, electric vehicles and new mobility services. Nissan chairman and chief executive Officer Carlos Ghosn announced the partnership at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Ghosn told delegates that

Autonomous and connected vehicles had a very high profile at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which took place in Las Vegas. Car-makers, automotive system developers and tech companies showed their latest vehicles, hardware and software at the annual event.  Nissan chairman and chief executive officer Carlos Ghosn used his CES keynote on 5 January to announce several advancements as part of the Nissan Intelligent Mobility blueprint for transforming how cars are driven, powered, an

Ministers are drawing up a longer list of cities that will have to implement charging clean air zones (CAZs) to cut vehicle emissions following the High Court’s quashing of the Government’s air quality plan. Only five cities were required to introduce charging CAZs under the air quality plan published in 2015 – Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby, Southampton and Leeds. The plan was quashed after the High Court ruled that it failed to bring down nitrogen dioxide emissions to within

Community transport and car clubs have common ancestry in the UK but have diverged significantly over the years. The emergence of new technology and more widespread disruption in the transport sector now opens all sorts of opportunities to look again at what the future might hold across and beyond these sectors. A recent Community Transport Association (CTA) conference exposed a fundamental conundrum for transport professionals. Those operating community transport on the very smallest scale see

The Sustainable Transport & Health Summit is the key event and showcase of 2017 for transport, parking, public health and urban professionals involved in delivering active lifestyles that help make healthier places. The UK government recognises the important role of transport in building healthy places where people want to work and live and has committed to supporting sustainable travel initiatives. The government has made significant funding available for sustainable travel – some &po

Volkswagen has created a traffic sign recognition system that provides drivers with information on the most important warning and prohibition signs along the route they are taking in real time. The VW Dynamic Road Sign Display system records the relevant road signs via a camera. Signs that the system has been set to regard as important are then displayed them either in the car’s multifunction display, the display of the radio and navigation system and/or a head-up display, depending on th

Driving after a big night out, such as the office Christmas party, can be as dangerous as drink driving, even if no longer over the limit. In Europe, research shows alcohol is a factor in one in six road accident fatalities, while in the UK one in 10 drink driving arrests take place between 6am and 8am. The way in which over-indulging can affect a person can be experienced by donning a specially designed ‘Hangover Suit’ simulates a throbbing head and the esperience of feeling tired

The capital’s new East-West and North-South cycle superhighways have attracted huge numbers of cyclists but led to heavier delays for motor vehicles, with some journeys across central London taking up to 15 minutes longer. A report on the impacts of the superhighways programme was presented to Transport for London’s programmes and investment committee by Ben Plowden, TfL’s director of strategy and planning, and Alan Bristow, director of road space management. In the five mont

Uber is expanding its self-driving vehicle pilot programme to San Francisco in California. The ride-hailing technology company will be using specially converted self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs. Uber and Volvo signed an agreement in August 2016 to establish a jointly owned project to build base vehicles that can be used to develop fully autonomous driverless cars. The first batch of cars were tested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The cars to be used in San Francisco have been built by Volvo and sold

The widespread use of “risk averse” autonomous vehicles could make roads safer for pedestrians, resulting in people-friendly neighbourhoods, according to a new study from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Self-driving cars will “slow down and yield” to pedestrians and cyclists, said author Adam Millard-Ball, assistant professor at the university’s environmental studies department. “Autonomous vehicles could empower cyclists to ‘take the lane&rs

The steady increase in online shopping is driving an increase in levels of van traffic across the UK, the RAC Foundation has said. According to the Department for Transport, van traffic has increased 70% over the past 20 years compared with 17% for all traffic. The foundation has just published the results of a survey that show more than 7 in 10 (71%) British adults aged 16-75 say they have shopped online within the last three months. The average UK household now places around 2.5 on

There are already over 60,000 home charge points for electric cars in the UK, and new research finds these sockets will be one of the most desirable features of neighbourhoods in 20 years’ time. The study, conducted by electric car campaign Go Ultra Low, suggests technologies such as electric car charging points, ‘positivity’ lamp posts which beam colourful lighting during winter to combat SAD (seasonal affective disorder), and fingerprint-activated door locks could be some o

A group of leading car-makers have announced a plan to work together to create a charging network in Europe. BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen Group have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a joint venture. The goal is the quick build-up of a sizable number of stations in order to enable long-range travel by drivers of battery electric vehicle (BEVs) drivers. The pr

The Volkswagen Group has launched a mobility services company called MOIA, which will explore services such as ride-hailing and car pooling. MOIA, which stands for “Individual mobility for everyone”, is part of the German automaker’s desire to transform itself into a provider of sustainable mobility. Matthias Müller, chief executive of the Volkswagen Group, unveiled MOIA the Tech Crunch Disrupt technology event in London. He said: “MOIA will help u

Trees and grass not only make town centres look greener, they make urban spaces healthier by reducing harmful particulates in the air. Scientists from EarthSense Systems and the University of Leicester published the results of a study into the effect of urban trees on air pollution. The results show a direct link between air pollution and green infrastructure, with trees and grass cover contributing to a reduction in concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The resea

The disruptive triangle of electrification, autonomous drive (AD) vehicles and connectivity technology is forcing the global auto industry to rethink how cars will operate in the future and how we will use them. If we get it right, the technology being developed and tested today will eventually create an environment where people are able to move about more efficiently, more safely and more cleanly, at lower cost and in different ways. It could improve the quality of daily life for billions of p

Hybrid vehicles may not be as environmentally friendly as they appear, a senior scientist at the consultancy TRL has warned. The main area of contention revolves around whether a plug-in hybrid is operating in electric mode or engine mode, said Dr Helen Viner, TRL’s chief scientist, infrastructure. Speaking at the TRL Academy’s annual symposium, Viner said: “If in electric mode, there will be zero exhaust emissions from the vehicle while in engine mode there will be exhaust e

Air quality alerts have been issued to the travelling public by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for the first time. The warning messages were displayed on electronic signs at bus stops, in Tube stations and at roadside on 1 December. The previous mayor, Boris Johnson, had made air pollution alerts available through a subscription text service. The alerts are now being displayed at 2,500 bus stops and river piers, at the entrances of all 270 Tube stations and on 140 signs next to the busiest main roa

The damaging effect of air pollution could be mitigated by the better design of roads and changes in driver behaviour, suggests the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The organisation, which provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care, has just published draft guidelines on Air pollutio

The efficient management of the kerbside and roadspace is essential to the health, wealth and vitality of urban centres. These were central themes of Parking World 2016, which took place in London on 24 November.  Over 250 people attended Parking World to listen to a programme featuring over 50 speakers from across UK and Europe. There were presentations by local authorities, academics, consultants, architects, technologists, campaigners and contractors. The programme was devised by Mark

The City of London Corporation is exploring a package of demand management measures to cut vehicular traffic levels.  A report to next week’s planning and transportation committee suggests tolls on the  Thames bridges entering the City; a higher congestion charge; changes to traffic signal settings; and freight consolidation centres to reduce goods traffic. The idea of placing tolls on bridges looks likely to be quickly dropped. The Corporation’s streets and walkways sub-

The Government is under pressure. It has struggled – and failed – to convince High Court judges of the adequacy of the measures set out in its Air Quality Plan to bring nitrogen dioxide emissions within legally compliant levels at sufficient pace. As a result, officials have just five months to generate a third attempt at a plan. One of the elements bounced back and forth is over the scope for a diesel-focused scrappage scheme to form part of the strategy, something the mayor of Lon

As you may recently have seen, Oxford Dictionaries declared their Word of the Year for 2016 to be “post-truth”, defining it as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. However, while the OD folk show very clearly how the use of the (hyphenated) word has indeed spiked during the past year (or, rather, if we’re being truthful, the past half

One of the key challenges for the future of automated driving will be determining where liability rests in the event of an accident with an automated car. A central part of making sure claims are settled fairly will be to understand who was in control of the vehicle at the time – the driver or the car? Cars of the future will thus need to collect data that will help insurers can determine whether the driver or the car was in control of the vehicle at the time. This is the message coming f

Over half of people think road laws will have to be change when driverless cars take to the roads, says a survey of UK drivers. The survey, from Venson Automotive Solutions, looked into people’s attitudes to driverless cars and road safety. It reveals that 55% of respondents called for a review of road traffic laws in line with the rise of automated vehicles. When asked who should be liable, in the event of an accident by a driverless car, 22% said the remote vehicle operator, with o

Cenex, a UK consultancy specialising in low carbon technologies, has appointed fleet management and renewable energies specialist Steve Carroll as its head of transport. Carroll will be responsible for: carrying out Cenex’s large-scale vehicle trials; developing new relationships with technology innovators, local governments and end users; and helping fleet owners and local authorities realise the value of investing in low carbon vehicle technology.

Volvo Cars has unveiled a concierge service concept that could mean its customers that they will never have to stop at a petrol station, go to a car wash or even take their car in for a service ever again. The concierge services could eventually become a part of the Volvo On Call mobile platform. The car-maker is piloting the idea in San Francisco, targeting Volvo owners driving the latest XC90 SUV and S90 saloon.  The pilot is due to start in November and will ramp up to include around 3

The London Borough of Lambeth has made tackling environmental crimes such as fly-tipping, littering, spitting, urinating and dog fouling a priority.  The south London council has signed a contract with APCOA UK & Ireland that will see its civil enforcement officers (CEOs) expand their role beyond enforcing parking regulations to become responsible for issuing fines for environmental crimes.  “Managing our streets goes beyond just ticketing illegally parked cars,” said

The British Parking Awards 2017 are open for entries. The annual competition recognises excellence in parking policy, design and management. The awards span the on-street and off-street parking sectors, encompassing the planning, design and management of both structures and operations. There are also categories that recognise the achievements of individuals and teams working in the parking sector. The awards also categories that recognise innovative systems and business approaches. The categor

The Chancellor is facing calls from 53 Conservative MPs to cut fuel duty in his Autumn Statement next week after a price rise at the pumps over the last month. Charlie Elphicke, the chair of the Commons all-party group on "fair fuel" who co-ordinated the letter, told The Sunday Times that after six years of duty freezes in fuel duty, it was time for a cut: "The fuel duty freeze has been of real benefit to the UK economy. But it's clear that cutting fuel duty would be an even bigger boost t

The efficient management of the kerbside and roadspace is essential to the health, wealth and vitality of urban centres. This will be a central theme of Parking World 2016, which takes place at the Kia Oval in London on 24 November.  There will be sessions on: the provision and regulation of parking in town and city centres; the workplace parking levy concept; fighting Blue Badge fraud; and the development of online parking payment and booking services. To book your place click here (Quot

In thinking about tomorrow’s world, it is important to separate out the modelling required in operating such a future, recognising quite different levels of automation and connectivity, data and information flows, pricing and control mechanisms; as opposed to the modelling required to forecast what such futures may look like, and supporting decision-making today.  In that context it may be useful to separate out four quadrants in the modelling vs time range. Modelling Today's World

Says Tom van Vuren: It was of course inevitable – that our Modelling World family would at some point also include Tomorrow’s World. And although we tend to peek into the future in our traditional Modelling World events, this new conference in the series is an opportunity to bring in new perspectives from organisations and players not immediately involved in delivery of modelling, data and visualisation in today’s world. 

It's not difficult to agree with the statement that existing modelling is inadequate, says Miles Logie, director at Minnerva, but he is concerned about' throwing away' too many  relevant items from existing modelling practice. 'I think the challenge is to find a way which hangs on to the significant elements of what’s been achieved, but is also open to new approaches that deal with the new circumstances that need to be modelled,' he says. 'Finding the right path forwards is a key iss

Transport is being disrupted at a rapid pace, and this creates uncertainty but also new business opportunities. Over the past few years the Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) has met many decision-makers who want to know what transport market disruption means for investing in infrastructure, place-making, vehicle manufacturing and city operations. We have also met with many academics, SMEs and entrepreneurs who have excellent ideas for innovations to take forward the opportunities that are opening

With a population of nearly 2.5 million people in its greater metropolitan area, Vienna is the largest city in Austria. The city is actively taking forward measures to improve sustainable transport, including stringent parking space management and improving conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. These policies are outlined in STEP 2025, Vienna City Council's Urban Development Plan, of which Andreas Trisko, Head of Department of Urban Development and Planning, City of Vienna, was a key contribu

Almost 700,000 UK motorists would take up electric vehicles (EVs) if they were given the opportunity by their employers, according to research undertaken for Go Ultra Low, a joint Government and automotive industry campaign. The survey of UK company car drivers found that only 25% of businesses currently offer electric company cars to employees. Of those motorists who are not currently able to go electric, 69% said they would be ‘likely’ to choose an EV as their next company car, if

One of London’s premiere shopping locations, was converted into a car park last month. On Saturday 5 November the stretch of road between Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus was closed to traffic, yet still filled with cars as the Royal Automobile Club staged its 11th annual Regent Street Motor Show. Over 450,000 motoring enthusiasts, shoppers, tourists and Londoners converged on the capital’s ‘Mile of Style’ for a free event that showcased the history and future of moto

BMW has launched a new version of its MINI Connected app that seeks to move beyond in-car infotainment functions. Based on a platform called the Open Mobility Cloud, the upgraded MINI Connected technology now includes a personal mobility assistant that can help with journey planning and traffic alerts on the driver’s Apple iPhone. (Android-based smartphone compatibility is under development.)

The designers of a wooden-framed vehicle that could improve travel in the poorest parts of the world and a hydrogen-cell fuelled car have been honoured by the Royal Automobile Club. Gordon Murray Design has been presented with The Dewar Trophy, while Riversimple has been presented with the Simms Medal. These accolades are only awarded in years when the Royal Automobile Club’s Dewar Technical Committee deems there have been contenders of sufficient merit. 

The award winning parking manager Mirsad Bakalovic has been appointed to the newly created position of head of Civic Pride at the London Borough of Redbridge. He was previously head of parking, mobility and transport services at Tower Hamlets council. Bakalovic’s new role at Redbridge is part of a wholesale restructuring of the council, led by new chief executive Andy Donald. The council has built a new framework, with four new directorates - People, Place, Resources and Strategy - which

Ford is developing technology to help drivers maximise their chances of reaching a traffic light on a green.  The company is trialling a Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory system, which uses information on traffic light timings from a roadside unit to display to the driver the best speed to travel at to get a green light.  “There’s not much worse after a long day than to hit one red light after another on the drive home, and be forced to stop and start again at every junc

Transport is experiencing a period of disruption. New thinking, new business models, new technologies and new channels for sharing and engagement are combining to offer real potential for positive change. Join us on 24 November to meet expert international speakers and hear them explain how towns and cities can make the most of these new opportunites. Become part of the Better Places Network to remain involved with news, developments and best practice. Why?

Fife Council has launched a clean air scheme to encourage taxis and private hire firms to cut their emission levels. Under the free ECO Stars scheme taxi and private hire operators are offered advice on reducing costs and their environmental impact.  Each scheme member gets a 1-5 Star rating based on an assessment of how ‘clean’ their vehicle fleet is and the best practice they demonstrate. Taxi Central is the first company in Kirkcaldy to start using electric cars as private

Plans to make electric vehicle chargepoints more widely available and convenient for motorists have been unveiled by the government. The Department for Transport is consulting on a series of measures that it says will make chargepoints more accessible, making it easier for drivers to recharge as demand for low emission vehicles increases. The measures, which are due to be included in the Modern Transport Bill, would also give government powers to support the roll-out of hydrogen refuelling

A new course designed to educate drink drivers of the dangers of drug driving is being piloted by the Department for Transport. During the pilot, drug driving education will be added the existing rehabilitation courses in England and Wales for people convicted of driving while over the alcohol limit.  About 1,000 offenders will attend the combined courses, which have been introduced after figures show a fifth of convicted drug

For Mobility as a Service to succeed in cities, it should not just aim to meet the needs of travellers and service providers, but also contribute to the livability of places. James Gleave, Foresight Analyst, Transport Systems Catapult The Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) has defined Mobility as a Service (MaaS) as 'using a digital interface to source and manage the provision of a transport related service(s) which meets the mobility requirements of a customer'. There are two core strengths

The government has given its support for a third runway at Heathrow, the first full-length runway to be built in the south-east since the Second World War. The scheme will be taken forward in the form of a draft National Policy Statement (NPS) for consultation. The government believes that a new runway at Heathrow can be delivered within the UK’s carbon obligations and that concerns over air quality can be addressed. The decision has been welcomed by a wide range of business groups, but

Imagine taking the children to school, commute to work or drive across town to do some shopping without ever hitting a single red traffic light. Ford is trialling technology that tells you the best speed to reach traffic lights on green, something it hopes will make “riding the green wave” a day-to-day reality. Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory uses information on traffic light timings from a roadside unit to display to the driver the best speed to travel at to get a green light. T

Jaguar Land Rover showcased its latest connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies as part of the UK Autodrive demonstrations taking place at  the UK's HORIBA MIRA proving ground. Jaguar Land Rover is working with Ford and Tata Motors European Technical Centre to test connected technologies that will allow cars to talk to each other as well as the roadside infrastructure, such as traffic lights, in the future. CAV technologies are one

The government has unveiled a £35m package to boost the uptake of ultra-low emission cars and scooters. The funding commitment will see more electric vehicle chargepoints installed on streets and at workplaces across the UK after the number of new ultra-low emission vehicles registered rose by 250% over a two year periods. The funding announced includes: the next steps of a £20m competition that will help councils roll out chargepoints for ultra-low emission taxis up to £1

The public will soon be able to get a subsidy for electric motorcycles and scooters, which has so far only been available for four wheel vehicles, says the Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA). The announcement is part of a £35m boost for ultra-low emission vehicles. MCIA has been involved in negotiations with the Office for Low Emission vehicles (OLEV), the government department which encourages low emission vehicles, for the past three years. An initial announcement about ex

Road safety charities, medical bodies, police forces and motoring bodies are calling for MPs to reduce the UK’s high drink driving limit. Organisations as the Insitute of Alcohol Studies, Brake, Pacts, the AA and British Medical Journal point out that there has been no reduction in the number of drink driving deaths since 2010. Every year drink driving causes 240 deaths and more than 8,000 casualties in the UK. This costs an estimated £800m a year. Some 60% of those who are killed

People who find driving stressful but who are confident about technology are, on average, more comfortable with the prospect of autonomous vehicles on our roads, a survey of UK motorists suggests. The finding is part of a research project by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Goodyear to investigate how drivers feel about interacting with autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the road. Building on a 2015 joint research project that explored how drivers carry out and experien

Visitors to a free motor show in the West End of London will be offered test drives in the latest low emission electric vehicles. The Regent Street Motor Show, which takes place on Saturday 5 November, will showcase the latest pure electric and plug-in hybrid cars. The contemporary cars will be complemented by scores of veteran cars, which will be preparing for the annual London to Brighton Run on Sunday 6 November. Intriguingly, besides petrol-powered cars, some of the vintage vehicles ar

The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) is to make a £10m investment in charging infrastructure investment. There are two elements to the funding, which forms part of a wider £35m investment in the ultra-low emission vehicle sector. There will be £7.5m for workplace chargepoints and £2.5m for residential on-street infrastructure. The announcement came as the year-to-date plug-in car registrations total passes the sector’s full-year 2015 total. So far this year,

The House of Commons Transport Committee has launched an inquiry into urban congestion with the aim of identifying cost-effective and safe strategies for managing limited road space in towns and cities, minimising disruption to local communities and businesses, and keeping urban traffic flowing. The committee will examine combinations of measures that can come together to form integrated urban traffic management strategies, inc

And next, is the latest idea from those hyper-efficient Japanese – a desk that means you don’t even have to get off your bike before you can start work. What will they think of next? Most pedestrians seek eye contact with the driver when they cross the street, but this will no longer be possible with self-driving cars. Could the answer be to give the cars a human face? Swedish technology company Semcon has developed ‘The Smiling Car’ where the self-driving car communicat

One of Nottingham’s busiest routes is to be turned into an ‘Eco Expressway’, with priority given to buses, bikes and electric vehicles. The six-mile route will run between the city centre and Vale Road in Colwick, via Manvers Street and Daleside Road.  Work started on 3 October and will be delivered in phases, with the first phase due to be completed by March 2017. The upgrade will see a new cycle route and a road lane for electric vehicles and buses. Next year a fleet

The Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) in Milton Keynes has tested its self-driving vehicles in public for the first time in the UK. The demonstration of a UK developed autonomous driving system marked the conclusion of the LUTZ Pathfinder Project, which has been developing the technology for the past 18 months. The project team has been running a number of exercises in preparation for the demonstration as part of the LUTZ Pathfinder project, including virtual mapping of Milton Keynes, assessing

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is planning to introduce the Central London Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) a year ahead of schedule. Under the proposals, a London-wide Euro VI requirement for lorries could be introduced in 2019. The mayor also wants to extend the ULEZ to the North and South Circular in 2019. The Mayor has started the formal consultation necessary to introduce the Emissions Surcharge

Motorists are more concerned about parking availability and cost than 12 months ago, according to the RAC. The motoring organisation’s annual report is based on the views of a representative sample of 1,700 drivers from across the UK. The research reveals that the availability of parking has become a greater concern in 2016: 14% of motorists say this is one of their top four concerns this year, compared with 8% in 2015. Around 18% of motorists also say the cost of parking is now

APCOA UK & Ireland has launched a new online customer portal that will provide information for its APCOA’s client base and key partners. The portal will features internal APCOA news, case studies, stand-alone research, thought leadership pieces and political reports. The portal is designed to provide a seamless connection between customers and APCOA via alerts timed to accompany the release of key items and providing tem with the ability to contact their account mana

The DfT is “blatantly ignoring” concerns over the risks of converting motorway hard shoulders into extra lanes, the Transport Select Committee has stated. Ministers appear determined to press ahead with plans for All Lane Running schemes despite the reservations of MPs and motoring organisations, says the committee.  In a report published in June, the committee argued that the permanent conversion of the hard shoulder into a running lane is a radical change to the nature of mo

Members of the Source London electric vehicle (EV) charging network will have to pay a monthly subscription fee and pay-as-you-go rates from next month. Up until now members have paid a £5 annual fee and EV charging sessions were free. They will now have to pay £4 a month while the pay-as-you-go fee for using new EV points added to the network will be 3.6p per 20 minutes. It will remain free to use existing EV charge points. The new charging reg

Fully autonomous cars will account for half of all car sales in 25 years time, a study conducted by the Centre for Future Studies for Kia Motors (UK) suggests. Transformation: The future of driving to 2041 also predicts that by 2020 eight million connected cars on UK roads able communicate with each other and the surrounding infrastructure. The Centre for Future Studies (CFS) looked at new technologies, the role of connectivity

Millennials consider driving eco-friendly cars as the best choice to make their lives more environmentally friendly, according to a study by car-maker Nissan into attitudes consider driving eco-friendly car as the best choice to make their lives more environmentally friendly among those aged 18 to 34. The majority of Millennials surveyed owned a car (77%). Although they might not be driving electric vehicles now, they are in the market for future driving technology. Three-quarters (76%) conside

Most pedestrians seek eye contact with the driver when they cross the street, but this will no be longer possible with self-driving cars. Could the answer be to give the cars a human face? Semcon, a Swedish technology company believes so and has developed The Smiling Car concept where the self-driving car communicates by smiling at other road users. An internatio

UK car manufacturing reached a 14 year high in August, with exports driving demand. UK car manufacturing output increased 9.1% to 109,004 units in August compared with the same month in 2015. This was highest volume recorded for August in 14 years, according to figures published today by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). A total 1,132,727 vehicles have rolled off British production lines so far in 2016, representing year-on-year growth of 12%.  Demand

A 4x4 off-roader is the top selling ultra-low emission vehicle (ULEV) in the UK. The Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid topped ultra-low carbon car and van league table with 21,708 of the vehicles licensed in the UK at the end of Q2 2016. The Outlander makes up 33% of the total of 66,374 plug-in grant eligible vehicles on the road. In second place comes the pure batt

Sales of new ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs) on Britain’s roads have reached record levels, the government said. Department for Transport figures show 9,657 ULEVs were registered in the UK in the last quarter (April to June), an increase of 49% on the same period last year and 253% on two years before. The rise comes following the

Electric vehicle charging point supplier Chargemaster is to take a controlling stake in the Elektromotive and Charge Your Car (CYC) network. It has been reported that Chargemaster has paid £500,00 for the 55% controlling stake held by Singapore-based Elektromotive Group, as well as acquiring the 43% stake held by chief executive Calvey Taylor Haw, who will remain in post. Elektromotive and CYC will continue to operate from its existing premises in Brighton and both companies will continu

Police forces from across Europe working together to reduce road fatalities have launched the first ‘European Day Without a Road Death’, otherwise known as Project EDWARD. The project is supported by the 30 members of TISPOL, the European Traffic Police Network, and will highlight all the work being done by organisations to try and halve the number of road deaths in the European Union by 2020. It is hoped that Project EDWARD will encourage all road users to reflect on their behaviou

The illegal use of handheld mobile phones is at “epidemic proportions”, with an estimated 11 million motorists admitting to making or receiving a call while driving in the last 12 months, says the RAC. The motoring organisation is concerned that that for some attitudes towards handheld mobile use have become worryingly relaxed over the last two years. Research for the RAC Report on Motoring 2016 indicates that the proportion of people who feel it is acceptable to take a quick call

Motorists who use their mobile phones while driving will face much tougher penalties, transport secretary Chris Grayling has promised. He indicated he would be announcing new sanctions against the illegal use of handheld mobile phones while driving and in coming weeks. “We are developing a hard-hitting THINK! campaign to tackle this issue, to make it socially unacceptable like drink driving or not wearing a seatbelt,” he said. Mobile phone use while driving was a contributory facto

Airports are like small cities, providing thousands of jobs and opportunities for business to thrive. With over 400 organisations working out of Heathrow and a combined total of 76,000 airport colleagues who work across three shift patterns over a 24-hour period, a substantial amount of transport is needed to service them. To dissuade airport colleagues from travelling to the airport by single occupancy car, and to engage with carbon reduction issues more generally, Heathrow has a sustainable tr

Welcome to my new monthly column on shared transport. I’m going to use this column to explore the shared transport landscape and some of the tectonic shifts that are currently shaping it. Some effects are already visible and have names and some are only just coming into view, but there are still huge areas that will emerge over the next few years.  It will look not only at the shared transport sector (car clubs, car or ride sharing, bike share schemes and taxi sharing), but use it as

A trial of a smart charging solution that seeks to enable growing use of domestic charge points to be served by the local electricity network has been launched. The Electric Nation project was unveiled at the CENEX LCV2016 low carbon vehicle event, LCV2016, held at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Befordshire.Electric Nation will recruit between 500-700 people, who will buy or lease new electric vehicles, including pure electric and plug-in models. Trial participants will get a free smart charger

An expansion of London’s congestion charge zone and the introduction of a workplace parking levy could help restrain traffic growth, Sustrans has told the London Assembly’s Transport Committee’s investigation into traffic congestion. Sustrans called to a full feasibility into the introduction of an extended, usage-based road charging scheme for London, covering as much of Greater London as feasible. The charity suggested that such a study would need to consider the potential c

Volvo Cars has unveiled the first vehicle that will take part in its Drive Me project, a public autonomous driving experiment in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. The autonomous Volvo XC90 SUV was fitted out at Volvo Cars’ special manufacturing facility in Torslanda. It is the first in a series of autonomous cars that will eventually be handed to real families in Gothenburg to be driven on public roads. The Swedish car company believes that the introduction of autonomous driving (AD) techno

Ford is to launch a new City Solutions team to work with cities around the world on their transportation needs. This is one element of a series of urban mobility initiatives, including ride-sharing and bike-sharing, announced by the US-based car-maker. The City Solutions team to work with cities on expanding mobility services worldwide as part of Ford Smart Mobility LLC. John Kwant – who has worked with several global cities during his Ford career as part of the company’s government

The Campaign to Protect Rural England has used an article on The Guardian website to urge local government leaders to reduce travel times by public transport from towns to larger urban areas to secure their economic success. The CPRE uses the article to praise London boroughs that have allocated new housing according to where areas "are graded on a scale which takes into account factors such as walking time to public transport, as well as number and frequency of services at nearby stops". It wa

The Department for Transport needs a clear strategy to increase the use of ultra-low emission vehicles, reduce air pollution and deal with the VW cheat device scandal so that it can meet decarbonisation and air quality targets, the Environmental Audit Committee argues in a new report. Mary Creagh MP, chair of the Committee, said: “The uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles like electric cars, is too low to meet the UK's climate change targets at the lowest cost to the public. Air qual

The Department for Transport is not on track to meet its target to source ten per cent of transport fuels from renewables by 2020 in a bid to reduce carbon emissions and prevent dangerous climate change and needs to change course, MPs say. The DfT expects biofuels to provide 90% of the 2020 target and electrification of road and rail transport the final ten per cent. But the DfT's head of low carbon fuels, Rob Wakely, acknowledged to MPs that with three per cent of transport fuels currently bio

The RAC Foundation has called for a ‘drive-safe’ mode to be introduced for smartphones to overcome the problem of driver distraction. Around 70 fatal accidents a year on Britain’s roads have ‘distraction in vehicle’ as a contributory factor and that ‘Driver using mobile phone’ is a factor in some 20 fatal accidents a year. This death toll has prompted the RAC Foundation to work with TRL to understand how car makers, phone manufacturers and telecoms comp

The character of London is changing, with gyratories, large roundabouts and one-way systems giving way to people-friendly public spaces, says Esther Kurland Although we might not realise it, we are pretty good at creating excellent public spaces and streets in the UK. I recently hosted a delegation from NACTO (the National Association of City Transportation Officials), a coalition of city transportation departments in 46 cities across the USA, Canada and Mexico.   NACTO were producing a n

I’d like to share my journey into the world of local transport and, like Ellis Dodwell in LTT703, it’s not entirely conventional. Not only did I never plan on being in this industry, I specifically spent most of my life avoiding it! I was born the same year as the company I now help to run, which my parents both founded and worked for. Even in my teenage years I was engulfed in ‘transport stuff’ that they engaged in and I wanted nothing to do with.  When my friends

Round the corner from where I live, Enterprise Rent-A-Car recently converted a vacant newsagents into one of its branches for car and van hire. “Whoever spotted that opportunity was a genius,” said a friend, observing the brisk trade that takes place each day.  Car and van hire rarely feature in discussions of transport policy and planning, perhaps being regarded as just something the market gets on with delivering. Much more  interest is paid to their close cousin –

Creating places rather than mere developments is vital for the future success of the capital as well as the health of its citizens, argues Patricia Brown  Cities such as London are complex ecosystems, buffered by competing forces of needs. At its base level, the ‘Maslow Hierarchy of Needs’ for cities is relatively simple; our citizens need an education, an affordable place to live, and the ability to feel safe and secure as they move around their city.  Yet over the past

Trials are underway in the capital to display live traffic information on the back of buses. A number of buses on route 344, between Clapham Junction and Liverpool Street, are displaying real-time traffic information using digital information boards. This is the first time anywhere in the world that the innovations is being trialled, says Transport for London (TfL).  This technology provides London's drivers with a new source of information to help avoid congestion and improve their journe

An on-demand ride-sharing service for commuters has been launched in Bristol by public transport operator RATP Dev.  The service, branded Slide Bristol, is said to be the first such scheme in the UK. Six Volkswagen Transporters, with capacity for eight passengers, are available for the service between 07.30 and 09.30 and 16.00 to 19.00, Mondays to Fridays. Users book a ride via the Slide Bristol app. RATP promises that pick-up and drop-off points will be within five minutes walk of custom

 made the decision last year that her stepdaughter Lani would become a fully-fledged motorist. Lani turned 17 during the year. At the time of writing, she’s preparing for her driving test, after which she’ll have her stepmother’s old car for herself. If Summers-Rees had a stepson instead of a stepdaughter, he wouldn’t be having driving lessons. “I probably would be more happy for him to come back home on the train and bus late at night,” she says, express