Local Rail: do we need a new business model? When: 14.00-15.30 Friday 17 July The discussion will look at how local rail services can best be secured and developed in the light of the Covid-19 impacts and the legacy position from the pandemic and lockdown. Panellists: Malcolm Holmes, executive director, West Midlands Rail Executive Nicola Forsdike, rail consultant Nigel Harris, the Railway Consultancy Paul Salveson, rail commentator To attend, visit:

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

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

Sophie Howe, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, has organised a meeting with the Welsh Government to discuss fundamental differences that the M4 Relief Road scheme has exposed in their respective interpretations of legislation. The Welsh Government appointed Howe as “guardian of the ability of future generations to meet their needs” after it passed the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. The Act defines four pillars of well-being – economic, social,

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

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.

The winners of the 2019 everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards have been revealed. Over the past 12 years the everywoman awards have championed women in the transport and logistics industries, showcasing and celebrating the sectors’ most exceptional role models. The winners were announced at Grosvenor House in London on 13 June. While many of the winners were drawn from the passenger transport, infrastructure and freight sectors, the world of walking was also recognised at this y

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 Annual Survey of Mobility as a Service is now in its third year. Whatever your work in transport, either as a planner, providing public transport, bike share, car hire, leasing, payments, operational support, TRANStech 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 sector than public transport – but there are developments coming through now whi

Air quality barriers more than nine metres high are to be installed along parts of Highways England’s road network in an effort to ensure surrounding areas comply with EU limit values for nitrogen dioxide.  Highways England revealed the plan to LTT this week as environmental lawyers ClientEarth raised the prospect of taking the Government to court again over air quality unless HE comes up with a clear plan to end illegal levels of air pollution on the Strategic Road Network (SRN).&nb

The Scottish Government’s plan to give councils the power to implement a workplace parking levy has stirred up debate between supporters who see it as a new revenue stream for transport improvements, and detractors who see it is as a tax on work. Broadly the same power is already available to local authorities in England and Wales through the Transport Act 2000. Nottingham City Council is the only authority to have implemented a scheme so far and its experience has been  informing the

Birmingham City Council is trying to reach an agreement with its PFI road maintenance contractor to enable the main subcontractor, Amey LG, to exit the troubled contract.   Birmingham entered a 25-year Government-backed private finance initiative contract for highway maintenance and management in 2010 with Amey Birmingham Highways Ltd (ABHL). ABHL is a ‘special purpose vehicle’ company, which employs Amey LG (Local Government), Amey’s highways maintenance and management

On 26 May Sunday Times columnist Gillian Bowditch was strongly critical of plans to give Scottish councils powers to introduce workplace parking levies. “At the risk of sounding like a poor girl’s Jeremy Clarkson, the newly proposed workplace parking levy, whereby tens of thousands of Scots may end up having to pay hundreds of pounds a year extra to get to their place of work, is third-form economics,” she began. “Even the most dedicated petrolhead would have a job defen

Will it be built or won’t it? City AM newspaper has assessed the likelihood of HS2 going ahead under each of the candidates to lead the Conservative Party. In order of the likelihood (according to the bookies) of them being our next great leader, this is the paper’s best guess: Boris Johnson: would prefer a trans-Pennine link; Michael Gove: sceptical; Jeremy Hunt: a strong supporter; Andrea Leadsom: would scrap it; Dominic Raab: recently said ‘I’m not sure yet’, wh

The Blue Badge, Motability and Cycle to Work schemes should be offered to disabled people using bikes, says Sustrans. This would remove some of the barriers to cycling that many disabled people face, believes the walking and cycling charity. “The Blue Badge scheme should be extended so that disabled people can use it with their cycle for better access,” said Tim Burns, Sustrans’ senior policy and partnerships advisor.  A growing number of high footfall city and town cent

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

Corethree, Europe’s leading mobile ticketing and data insights provider, today (21 May 2019) announced that it has reached an unprecedented milestone of one hundred million mobile tickets sold on behalf of its transport operator partners; testament to the growing popularity of mobile ticketing technologies and how m-tickets are becoming the default choice for consumers to travel and experience the smart city.  Corethree provides m-ticketing and cutting-edge data insights to some of

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

North Yorkshire County Council is reviewing responses to a consultation on the future of Scarborough’s park-and-ride services.  The Filey Road (A165) and Seamer Road (A64) sites in the south of the town were opened in 2009. Each has 600 parking spaces.  Bus services operate seven days a week all year round to a 15-minute frequency. The current contracts with East Yorkshire Motor Services are due to end in April next year.  The council says the sites and services cost it &

Smart Motorways, a flagship programme of Highways England, aim to relieve congestion by converting the hard shoulder into a running lane and by varying the speed limit to smooth traffic flow. To assess performance in practice, Highways England has been monitoring closely the section of the M25 between Junctions 23 and 27 since the widened road opened in 2014. Three annual reports have been published, detailing traffic flows, journey times and safety, and comparing outcomes ‘before’ c

Aimsun has a long working history with TfL, and its software is already licensed to TfL through the city’s Strategic Modelling Framework and the Operational Modelling Frameworks, which were put in place back in 2015 and recently extended to 2020. The idea behind this current project is not only to consolidate existing models into an integrated, multi-level platform for modelling the city’s transport — with all the efficiency, consistency and cost reduction that this implies &m

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

Banning diesel freight trains could worsen inter-urban road congestion and lead to thousands of extra lorry kilometres in London, according to a study for the National Infrastructure Commission. The NIC has recommended completely decarbonising the road and rail freight sectors by 2050 to support the Government’s Climate Change Act targets (LTT 26 Apr). It is confident that batteries or hydrogen fuel cell technology will enable  road freight to decarbonise by this date but sees less p

London mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to tighten the amount of car parking that can be provided in new developments came under the spotlight at the public examination into the new draft London Plan this week. The mayor says the restrictions are necessary to deliver his objectives of reduced car trips and more walking, cycling and public transport use. But some of the restrictions on new residential development have not gone down well with outer London boroughs or the Ministry of Housing, Communi

Transport planners spend a lot of time looking forwards, forecasting change and working out ways to mitigate future-year scenarios. We have all attended events on the future of mobility and on the disruption of emerging trends and technologies. This is all vital to the profession and the civic role that transport planners play in land development and infrastructure design. However, we suggest that a good way of dealing with new challenges is to learn lessons from the past. To paraphrase one reno

Cracked and uneven pavements make nearly a third of older people feel unsafe when walking on their local streets. The YouGov survey from Living Streets, the UK charity for everyday walking, was released for National Walking Month. Living Streets is calling for councils to remember pavement potholes when repairing their roads to enable the most vulnerable to feel happier and safer using their streets. It is part of Living Streets’ #nine90 campaign which aims to highlight the need for stree

This year more major road schemes will be considered by the national infrastructure consenting process than ever before. They will be judged against the not-so-snappily-titled National Policy Statement (NPS) for national networks, which supports a major road-building programme to tackle congestion. With transport innovations making the news almost every week, how up-to-date is this? Let’s hope more so than the 2011 Energy NPS that still gives outline policy approval, immune from direct leg

Graham Pendlebury will be retiring as DfT’s Director, Local Transport on 31 May. His successor will be Stephen Fidler, currently a Deputy Director in DfT’s Strategic Roads Division, with responsibility for overseeing delivery of the Highways England Road Investment Strategy.  Since taking on the role in February 2013, Pendlebury has been responsible for local roads funding and maintenance, bus policy, active and accessible travel, managing about 100 staff and an annual budget o

A software tool has been developed for estimating the  impact road and public transport investments have on property values.  The Government’s National Infrastructure Commission commissioned the Institute for Fiscal Studies to develop the Property Value Uplift (PVU) tool. The IFS says the tool’s results  “can be considered the best short-run estimates available given existing data and the timescale of the project, and an excellent starting point for future anal

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is calling for changes to traffic sign regulations to allow zebra crossing markings to be installed on side road junctions as part of its new Bee network of cycle routes.  The combined authority has  just approved funding for a research study, which could provide evidence to persuade the DfT to revise the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016. Eamonn Boylan, interim chief executive of Transport for Greater Manchester, told

Leicestershire County Council has criticised a borough council’s proposals locations for new major housing and economic development, saying they undermine the campaigns to improve the A46 and A5 roads. The campaigns for major improvements to the A5 connecting Staffordshire to Northamptonshire, and the A46 connecting Gloucestershire to Lincolnshire, are backed by councils, MPs, businesses and shadow sub-national transport body Midlands Connect. The A46 campaign wants a new road round the s

Transport for London has  made a new pitch for the ‘metroisation’ of commuter services in south and south-east London, with turn up and go frequencies and higher capacity trains. TfL already manages much of the capital’s rail services through the London Overground concession held by Arriva, and the Crossrail concession held by MTR. But most rail services in south London remain part of rail franchises managed by the DfT.  TfL’s strategic case for metroisation s

On 24 March The Manchester Evening News published a lengthy analysis of the allegedly parlous state of the bus network in the Greater Manchester conurbation, describing it in the article’s headline as “patchy, expensive and nonsensical”. “The choice between walking a long or risky route in the dark, getting a taxi, being late or not going out at all will ring true for thousands of Greater Manchester bus passengers,” the paper said after detailing the travails suffe

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

In the ‘frequently asked questions’ section of Derby City Council’s web pages for the A52 Wyvern transport improvement scheme, the question is posed, ‘How did the scheme get to this stage?’ Last week city councillors reflected on a slightly different question, namely, ‘How did the scheme get into this state?’, as they considered the findings of an audit report into the troubled project. When complete, the road scheme is expected to improve travel condit

Shadow sub-national transport body Transport for the South East (TfSE) still looks set to seek bus franchising powers from the Government, despite an indication from DfT civil servants that the power crosses a ‘red line’.  TfSE recently consulted member authorities about the proposed set of powers it should acquire when it gains statutory status (LTT 18 Jan).  The matter was also discussed at TfSE’s December meeting attended by Tricia Hayes, the DfT’s director

Swindon Borough Council is to bid to the Government’s £675m Future High Street fund for cash to turn a dual carriageway road between the rail station and town centre into a ‘bus boulevard’.  The council wants £25m to help turn Fleming Way into a bus interchange, which would allow the nearby “tired, poor quality” existing bus station to be redeveloped as part of the larger mixed use Kimmerfields development. Swindon says the proposal would “c

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority is pressing the DfT for answers as to why some key roads in the conurbation have been omitted from the Major Road Network.  MRN?designation for a road?is significant as it opens up the opportunity for highway authorities to bid for funding of improvements from the DfT’s new National Roads Fund, which commences next April.  Alan Reiss, WYCA’s director of policy, strategy and communication, told the area’s transport committee last

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

Tributes have been paid to the architect and street designer Ben Hamilton-Baillie who has died from cancer at the age of 63. After studying architecture, Hamilton-Baillie spent the early part of his career in the social housing sector before joining Sustrans in 1995 to work on designing parts of the National Cycle Network. Subsequently, while travelling on a Churchill fellowship, he came to know the Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman. Monderman, who died in 2008, was critical of traditional t

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

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

Transport for New Homes is asking transport and housing practitioners to help it develop a checklist for avoiding car-dependency in new housing developments. It aims to outline the the various elements that make up a good housing development. Some are obvious: the development should have easy access to direct and frequent bus routes, for instance. Others are often forgotten: cycle routes should not end at the site boundary but should join up with a wider network. Homes should have secure, e

Communities Secretary Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP has announced millions of pounds in extra housing funding, along with new planning measures to build thousands of homes, rejuvenate high streets, create jobs and deliver economic growth. The measures are part of a wider strategy to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s. The package will unlock large housing sites with targeted £717 million infrastructure funding, reform parts of the planning system and ensure new-builds are more e

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

Two new sections of motorway bus lane opened in Belfast this week, offering predicted peak time journey time savings of up to 15 minutes for passengers compared with car travel. Belfast already has hard shoulder bus lanes on two sections of the M1 in the southern suburbs and one on the M2 in a north-western suburb.  The new M2 bus lane runs from Junction 2 to J1B at Duncrue, close to the city centre. The new M1 lane is further out than the existing lanes, extending bus priority from Lisbu

Welsh finance minister Rebecca Evans has admitted she has not yet discussed with First Minister Mark Drakeford how the proposed M4 Relief Road round the south of Newport could be funded. The controversial project is estimated to cost £1.4bn, and some Assembly Members believe the actual cost would be significantly higher. Evans replaced Drakeford as finance minister in December, after Carwyn Jones stepped down as First Minister. The report of the M4 relief road public inquiry was delivered

The removal of a large roundabout in Waltham Forest, north-east London, marks the final phase of the borough’s Mini Holland programme. Waltham Forest was one of three outer London boroughs – along with Kingston upon Thames and Enfield – to receive funding from the then Mayor of London Boris Johnson in 2014 to create cyclist and pedestrian friendly routes. A new T-junction, with signalled crossings for pedestrians and cyclists, and bus interchange (pictured above) has replaced

Peninsula Transport,  the shadow sub-national transport body (STB) for the south-west of England, has outlined the road projects being considered for submission to the Government’s Major Road Network and Large Local Majors funding streams. The Government has asked STBs to submit their investment priorities this summer for the first five-year period of the National Road Fund (2020/21-2024/25).   Peninsula Transport covers five  local transport authorities: Somerset, Devon,

I promise this isn’t a column about Brexit, though I can’t help it if you feel there’s a resonance. It’s about a new philosophy I learned of last month when I joined Twitter (after a nearly unbroken record of turning my back on social media, which I found intrusive and distracting, apart from Second Life, in the early days, which was sweet).  It was a short tweet from a young American academic, with a heavy load of grading, i.e. marking, student scripts. She wrote &

I have worked in transport, motoring and campaigning for more than 25 years. After seeking fame and fortune in Hollywood, I returned to the UK and worked for the British Road Federation. In the late 1980s I headed up the campaign group East Anglia Roads to Prosperity primarily to campaign for the dualling of the A11 and A47. I still tell my sons every time we drive to Norwich City FC that I helped dual this road. I was also secretary to a campaign group, Movement for London, which then, as now,

Barry Hutton, a teacher, researcher, and polemicist, has died, aged 83. With a degree in geography from Nottingham (in 1957) and a masters in highways and traffic engineering from Birmingham (in 1962), Barry started his career in transport planning working for a Yorkshire firm of architects and planning consultants, but soon moved into teaching in the town planning department of Leeds College of Art.  In 1968 he moved to the University of Wales in Cardiff, and then, in 1972, to Bristol Pol

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

MPs are demanding answers from the Government about how two major Highways England road projects will be funded following the Chancellor’s announcement that the Government will not sign any more private finance deals.  Highways England had been planning to use the second generation private finance model (PF2) to part-fund the A303 improvements, including the tunnel at Stonehenge, and the Lower Thames Crossing project for a tunnel linking Kent and Essex.  In his Budget last autu

Bristol City Council has gone back to the drawing board in its efforts to comply with legal limits of nitrogen dioxide, after concluding that a clean air zone (CAZ) covering vans and possibly cars would have an unacceptable impact on the city’s residents and businesses. News of the rethink comes in a letter sent by the city’s Labour mayor Marvin Rees to environment minister Thérèse Coffey, explaining why the council has missed a second deadline to submit an outline bus

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. &

Last year, MTR Corporation signalled its clear intention to develop opportunities under its Rail + Property model with the appointment of John Robinson, a speaker at the Rail Stations and Property Summit on February 27, as Head of Property for the European business. MTR Europe already runs rail services in Sweden through MTR Nordic, and has set the tone of its ambition by launching MYHeadsapp this week, a new travel app that sends personalised public transport updates to travellers in Stockholm

A six-week consultation to discuss possible developments around Crewe railway station has been launched by Cheshire East Council.  An action plan is being drawn up to manage development and support the regeneration of the site around the station ahead of HS2’s arrival, scheduled for 2027. This will help identify the most immediate opportunities around the railway station, and ensure that related growth and development is ‘plan-led’, says the council.  The action pl

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

London boroughs have urged the Government to find a new way of funding borough road maintenance expenditure, and have called for some of the most important borough roads to be included in the next revision of the Major Road Network. A submission to the DfT by the London Technical Advisors Group says borough road maintenance needs are overlooked in the national funding debate. “The average London borough’s population now far exceeds that of Norwich or Exeter and is equivalent to that

Suffolk County Council will lose £77.5m of DfT grant after the council scrapped plans for a new road crossing of the River Orwell in Ipswich, saying it is unaffordable.  The then chancellor George Osborne gave Suffolk the grant towards the £96.6m Upper Orwell Crossings project in March 2016. The award from the DfT’s  £475m Large Local Majors Fund raised eyebrows because no councils had been invited to bid to the funding pot at that stage. It was widely regarded

A flyover on a major radial road in the north of Birmingham looks set to be demolished as part of a redevelopment plan.  The city council is to consult on demolishing the A34 Perry Barr flyover as part of proposals to build a Commonwealth Games athletes village – Birmingham is the host city in 2022 – and make wider improvements for active travel in the area.  The flyover carries traffic  between Walsall and Birmingham over the intersection with the A453 from Sutton C

I’m not really an aficionado of The Simpsons, but there are one or two moments from the episodes I’ve seen that have stayed with me. The one I’m thinking of right now is a scene when Homer is standing outside Moe’s bar with Moe himself, as a low-loader pulls up with an industrial-sized piece of kitchen machinery. Moe says, “I got it used from the Navy. You could flash-fry a buffalo in 40 seconds”; to which Homer replies, whining, “40 seconds? But I want

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

Bolton station is to receive a £1m overhaul which will see the under-used Victorian building on platforms four and five refurbished in a bid to attract retail, enterprise and community use. The project will include new seating and signage, improved waiting rooms and toilets and pigeon netting to keep the space clean. The work is due to be completed by spring. Key to the transformation is the Bolton Station Community Development Partnership which embraced the project with some great ambiti

Plans for a ‘super hub’ are being drawn up on the site of the Old Oak Common railway depot in north-west London. The high-speed rail station, due to open in 2026, would offer services to the Midlands, Scotland and the North and access to central London and Heathrow via Crossrail. The long-term planning and development of the wider site is being led by the Mayor of London’s Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, which is planning a mixed-use development, with commercia

Advances in technology may provide new opportunities in metropolitan railway finance, says Joseph Potvin, Executive Director, Xalgorithms Foundation It is common knowledge that commercial and residential properties within an easy walk of metropolitan train stations are in relatively greater demand, which tends to be reflected in their significantly higher lease and sale values. This mobility premium has long been the basis for so-called Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) initiatives.&nbs

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

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

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

On 19 January the lead story on the front page of The Times informed readers that they could soon be charged “£1,000 to park at work” because “motorists face new charges as councils prepare plans to tackle pollution”. After explaining that: “A workplace parking levy is being considered by at least ten councils in England and Scotland to reduce traffic and pollution and to raise money for public transport”, The Times’ story then led with strong cri

Transport for the North has ruled out trying to spread road investment funding “fairly” across the region, saying funding will instead be directed where it is most needed. Responding to feedback to the proposed Major Road Network (MRN) in its draft strategic transport plan, TfN says: “Some respondents wished to be assured that investment will be fair and shared evenly across the North. “TfN does not believe that the allocation of resources should start from the viewpoin

A huge range of road-focused innovations are to be trialled in a £23m DfT-funded programme announced this week.   Trials will take place in Kent; Staffordshire; Reading; Suffolk; Solihull and Birmingham (joint); Cumbria; Buckinghamshire; and Central Bedfordshire. The councils are working with numerous private and public partners (including more councils).  Buckinghamshire has received £4.49m for a diverse programme of projects, including: using kinetic energy recovery fro

Just about every major change to spatial planning that has occurred in the last 20 years, with the exception of the regional spatial strategies, has made it more difficult for transport planners to be able to deliver cohesive strategies and ones that give due weight to environmental protection.   With the establishment of Regional Assemblies in the late-1990s came regional transport strategies (RTSs) as part of regional spatial strategies (RSSs). This enabled transport planning across loca

The end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 have seen a host of consultations, reports and inquiries into why it’s so necessary to boost walking and cycling levels; both through securing long-term investment and fully integrating quality cycling and walking infrastructure with public transport, homes and work. First, the Department of Health and Social Care launched its ‘Prevention is better than cure' vision, which specifically mentions the need to 'coordinate transport, housing, educat

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

A few years ago, Future Systems Catapult and Grimshaw Architects ran a competition to ask ‘What new civic function might a rail transportation hub play in the next 10-25 years?’ Participants were asked how station operators could dynamically re-direct travellers around disruption, how neighbouring businesses could be increasingly integrated with station environments, and what the service function around urban, suburban and community rail stations would be. Such is the time lag betwe

Plans have been unveiled for two schemes in Crawley, West Sussex, designed to create better links between the town’s rail and bus stations and improve pedestrian, cycling and bus access and facilities.  The £5.3m Station Gateway project aims to provide a better public space and transport connectivity and improved town centre facilities while the £8.3m Eastern Gateway scheme is designed to deliver better public space and connectivity to support development opportunities at

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

Transport for London is to procure a data as a service (DaaS) contract to improve real-time understanding of how the capital’s road network is being used.  “Real-time (less than 60 seconds latency) journey time and speed data will enable TfL to generate information relating to delay/congestion and journey time reliability,” says a prior information notice (PIN) issued to  alert the market to an upcoming  tender exercise, due to start in the spring. “Data

Major improvements to Greater Manchester’s transport networks will play a vital role in supporting the conurbation’s spatial development over the next 20 years, according to the area’s new draft spatial plan. The revised draft Greater Manchester Spatial Framework includes two major ‘development corridors’ to improve the north of the conurbation’s socio-economic fortunes. These will require hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in roads and public trans

New roads, bus rapid transit corridors, tram-trains, and light rail extensions all feature in the list of projects to be developed over the next five years to support Greater Manchester’s growth.   Transport for Greater Manchester’s draft delivery plan for 2020-2025 says business cases will be prepared for projects including:  • extending the Atherton branch of the Leigh-Salford-Manchester busway westwards to Wigan • a new road linking the M61 to the new A49 li

A new transport interchange has opened at Newton-le-Willows in Merseyside, featuring a new subway, stairs, lifts, ticket office and improve passenger waiting facilities.  The £18.95m scheme, funded by the Local Growth Fund and Merseytravel, also provides step free access to and between the platforms via the new subway and lifts, a bus interchange adjacent to the new ticket office, and a dedicated drop-off and pick-up area. Parking capacity has increased from 80 to 400 spaces with th

The DfT has invited local authorities in England to prepare bids to two funding streams for major road improvements.   The Government has earmarked £3.5bn over the first five years of the new National Roads Fund, commencing in April 2020, for improving local roads.  Much of the funding will be awarded to schemes on the newly designated Major Road Network. A dedicated MRN fund will be set up for schemes requiring between £20m and £50m of DfT grant. A second funding s

Drivers in north-east Scotland are reporting dramatic journey time reductions following last month’s opening of a 20-mile section of Aberdeen’s Western Peripheral Route.  The project features a dual carriageway western bypass for the city, a link road between Stonehaven and Cleanhill south of Aberdeen, and dualling the A90 between Balmedie and Tipperty, north of the city.  Sections north of the city opened last summer and last month’s opening completes the western a

It’s become fashionable, of late, both to decry the work of experts and to decry the fact that the work of experts is decried. You may also have noticed that many who decry the work of some experts also hold fast to the work of other experts. Strange, that.  This may have led you to conclude that what’s actually at play here is the fact that people generally welcome the conclusions of experts who agree with their instinctive or otherwise firmly-held beliefs, and generally esche

Plans have been unveiled for a new entrance at Birmingham’s Snow Hill Station, which will make it easier for passengers to switch between local rail and tram services. An image of the new eastern entrance (left) has been released by Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), part of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA). Independent infrastructure specialist Barhale has been appointed by TfWM to build the £1.5m project. Barhale will construct the entrance beneath the existing brick

The Government’s plan for an expressway road between Oxford and Cambridge could undermine the benefits of the East West Rail project to connect the two cities, the England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) alliance of local authorities has warned.  EEH programme director Martin Tugwell voiced concerns at the Local Transport Summit in Hertfordshire, organised by Landor Links and Local Transport Today.  He told LTT this week that members of the EEH’s strategic transport foru

The Welsh Government is due to receive a report soon from a taskforce established to “resolve the problems with unadopted roads”. Difficulties arise where new homes are occupied but there is a time lag before the roads in the development reach the required standard for the local highway authority to adopt them.  Cynon Valley AM Vikki Howells recently said in the Senedd: “I continue to deal with a large volume of casework relating to problems caused by unadopted housing e

Glasgow City Council should rethink the purpose of its city centre grid road network and give more space and priority to active travel and public transport, an independent panel of experts has recommended. Council leader Susan Aitken set up the Glasgow Connectivity Commission to advise on the future transport priorities for the city. The Commission is chaired by Professor David Begg, a Labour transport committee convener in Edinburgh in the 1990s who also advised the UK Government on transport

The public will be able to try out a driverless bus service in Scotland and two on-demand services in London, after the projects received a share of a £25m Government grant.  The projects are the winners in the fourth round of the Government’s Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Intelligent Mobility Fund. ‘Project CAV Forth’ will see an autonomous bus service operate between the Ferrytoll park-and-ride site in Fife and Edinburgh Park’s train and tram interchang

A three-year DfT research study into area-wide signed-only 20mph limits has failed to find compelling evidence that the schemes reduce collisions or casualties in residential areas. The DfT this week said the final report’s headline findings presented a “mixed picture” about the performance of schemes, which many councils have implemented in recent years. The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) said the findings were “disappointing but not surpris

The Welsh Government is consulting on replacing the A494 Dee Bridge, which carries heavy cross-border traffic between England and Wales, with two new bridges, side by side. The bridge was built in 1960 and has suffered structural deterioration. It has two lanes per direction. Current traffic, 61,000 vehicles per day, is approximately double the volume the bridge was designed to carry. The central reservation, protective barriers and footway do not comply with modern standards, and there is no h

Transport for London was already facing unprecedented financial challenges before the news came this summer that the opening of the central tunnel section of the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) between Paddington and Abbey Wood would be delayed from December until next autumn, and that additional cash was needed to complete the project.  A combination of the ending of the Government’s revenue grant, which had been worth £876m four years ago, the fares freeze imposed by mayor Sadiq K

Bus operator Stagecoach says the outside lanes of motorways in Strathclyde should be reserved for buses and coaches. Transport Scotland’s current Managed Motorways study is considering the possibility of dedicating the hard shoulder of the M8 in Glasgow to buses (LTT 26 Oct). This, however, would see buses interrupted at each junction by other traffic crossing their path to join or leave the motorway. Robert Andrew, managing director of Stagecoach Scotland, told LTT: “We see potent

Hire schemes for electric scooters could be one of the next urban mobility innovations to hit the UK, according to shared transport association CoMoUK. E-scooter hire schemes already exist in other parts of the world, including the United States. They operate on similar principles to public bike hire schemes. US e-scooter app-based sharing firm Bird is running a trial on private land this month in East London. Escooters run on battery power, with users pressing a button or using a ‘twist

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

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

Plans to make 10,000 miles of the National Cycle Network (NCN) traffic-free have been announced by Sustrans. Since the network was launched 23 years ago, the active travel charity has installed more than 5,000 traffic-free miles and aims to double this by 2040. This is among the pledges in a major review of the network, publis

The continuing emphasis given to benefit:cost ratios (BCRs) in transport appraisal and decision-making leads project promoters and their consultants to abuse the system by artificially boosting BCR values, the Transport Planning Society has told the DfT.   “The real world production of BCRs is seriously flawed,” says the TPS, adding that, at an appraisal conference this summer, “practitioners made wry comments about how they had to work very hard to achieve their client&r

Traffic generated by building new road capacity will rarely cancel out the benefits of building that capacity, according to a new report for the DfT.  Consultants WSP and RAND Europe were commissioned to  study the scale of ‘induced traffic’   to inform Highways England’s second five-year Road Investment Strategy, covering 2020/21-2024/25.  The consultants reviewed 25 papers about induced traffic from OECD and European countries. Their report updates the e

Suffolk County Council  is grappling with a major funding gap for the Upper Orwell Crossings project to improve road access in Ipswich. The project comprises two new bridges and refurbishing a third. It is intended to relieve east-west routes and the A14 across the Orwell Bridge, as well as open up development land.  The estimated cost was £96.6m in 2015 and the Government pledged £77.5m to the project in March 2016 from the £475m Large Local Majors Fund. This  

A proposed new bypass in Northamptonshire has been shelved after the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP) withdrew its funding for the scheme. The proposed dual carriageway A509 Wellingborough Development Link phase one, formerly known as the Isham bypass, is part of a wider plan to improve the A509 between the A14 south of Kettering and the A45 south-west of Wellingborough.  Northamptonshire has spent £2.9m developing the phase one scheme and estimates that con

Combined authorities with strategic planning powers will be given the power to implement a strategic infrastructure tariff (SIT) to help fund transport and other infrastructure, the Government has announced. A SIT would be similar to the mayoral CIL in London, which has been used to part-fund Crossrail, will be additional to the community infrastructure levies (CIL) that individual councils operate to fund infrastructure.   The SIT idea featured in a consultation held earlier this yea

The Welsh Government will give the National Assembly of Wales a binding vote on the controversial M4 Relief Road early next month. In a separate development, the UK Government said in its Budget last week that it would consider raising the Welsh Government’s borrowing cap by £300m at the next spending review to enable delivery of the road. Welsh finance secretary Mark Drakeford welcomed the prospect of a higher borrowing limit but said a decision on uses for the borrowing should be

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority is drawing up plans to reorganise transport delivery arrangements in the area. A reorganisation is seen as necessary to support Conservative mayor James Palmer’s ambitions for a number of big transport investments, including the bus-based CAM system (see opposite) and road and rail improvements. Combined authority transport director Chris Twigg said a review of the area’s client-side transport capabilities by consultant Arup ha

Transport infrastructure owners should be subject to much tighter restrictions on what they can do in designated landscapes, the Chilterns Conservation Board is to tell the Government’s review of National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The board’s comments reflect the anger about Network Rail’s choice of electrification equipment for the Great Western main line, which passes through both  the Chilterns and the North Wessex Downs areas of outstanding natura

Oxford Street in central London will remain an important corridor for motorised vehicles under new plans for the street and the surrounding area published  for consultation by Westminster City Council.  The proposals come four months after the collapse of a plan for the partial pedestrianisation of the street (LTT 22 Jun). It was drawn up by a partnership including Westminster and London mayor Sadiq Khan, but Westminster withdrew support amid pressure from local residents who feared t

New innovations can pave the way to smarter mobility on better quality roads and footways, offsetting the impact of funding cuts. This is one of the chief findings of a new report by the Local Government Technical Advisers Group (LGTAG).  The report says that “new techniques and low cost interventions” can help ensure the efficient repair of roads in England. The DfT’s local highway maintenance funding for English authorities is about £1bn a year, which is matched b

Prevention is a vital health topic for government and the health sector – and it’s also the focus of a new public health vision document, launched this week by Health Secretary Matt Hancock. The 'Prevention is better than cure' vision, which sets out how we can use policy, new technology, workplace strategies and the power of local communities to prevent worsening health, will also be a key focus for the Public Health & Sustainable Transport Summit to be held on 27 March 2019 in

A 2.5km stretch of Nine Elms Lane and Battersea Park Road will be redesigned to make the streets more people-friendly, says Transport for London (TfL).  The proposals include: a new substantially segregated cycle route connecting to Cycle Superhighway 8, which runs between Wandsworth and Westminster; signals and junctions designed to separate cyclists and motor vehicles by time or space; wider pavements; 23 new or improved pedestrian crossings; and improved bus lanes.

A new European cycling industry association has been formed in a bid to influence government transport policy. Cycling Industries Europe (CIE) will supersede the European Cyclists Federation’s Cycling Industry Club. The CIE will be led by Tony Grimaldi, chief executive of bike company Cycleurope, and the Cycling Industry Club’s Kevin Mayne. The new association will bring together cycle and accessory suppliers with bike share operators, cycle delivery firms, consultancies and digital

Passenger demand on Belfast’s new Glider bus corridors has increased so rapidly that Translink introduced a peak express service this week, using double decker buses to supplement the Glider articulated vehicles. Glider operates east to west via the city centre and along a spur route to the Titanic Quarter, following an investment of £90m. Preparatory works included installation of bus lanes.  Since Glider services began in early September, about 30,000 additional passengers p

National Government, Network Rail and rail operators came under fire last week as Steve Rotheram, Mayor of Liverpool City Region and Andy Burnham, Mayor for Greater Manchester, spoke out about “lack of accountability”. Speaking at Smarter Travel LIVE! Steve Rotheram referred to the Office of Road and Rail’s report into a summer of rail chaos which found “systematic failures from government, Network Rail and the rail operators” leading to collapsed services and missed chances to avoid disruption

A transport revolution appears to be underway in the West Midlands, and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is major part of the picture. The long talked about ‘Sprint’ routes are finally happening. Changes to governance, with a new combined authority, a Metro mayor and a need for better transport connections ahead of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, seem to have focused minds. Plans  for a whole network of Sprint routes are now on the table.  Sprint gets off to slow start

In the run-up to the publication of expressions of interest for the future Oxfordshire Strategic Traffic Model (OSM) on October 23, Smarter Travel LIVE! hosted a workshop session with Oxfordshire County Council, innovation hub MoBox and Oxford-based im23, the smarter mobility agency, to outline new ways for local authorities and the tech community to collaborate. In a first for UK local authorities, Oxfordshire County Council is using its OSM procurement to demonstrate how to leverage innovation

Transport for the North (TfN) is on course to deliver a smart card for rail solution across the region by December 2018, said Alastair Richards, Programme Director, Smart and Integrated Travel, TfN, speaking at Smarter Travel LIVE! 2018 last week. This is part of a nationwide programme to roll out smart ticketing for all rail travel in the country, he addded. Phase 2, from 2019, will focus on customer information, collaboration and innovation, including enhanced information on bus fares, planned

Liverpool City Region's Mayor, Steve Rotheram, speaking at Smarter Travel LIVE!, last week, referred to the Office of Road and Rail’s report into a summer of rail chaos which found “systematic failures from government, Network Rail and the rail operators” leading to collapsed services and missed chances to avoid disruption. “Can you honestly imagine chaos on that scale being allowed to happen in London and the South East without major government intervention,” he as

In the second in a series of reports on workshops hosted by the DfT to explore ways of improving its WebTAG modelling and appraisal tools,  Richard Batley sets out the chief findings of discussions which considered the premise that “uncertainty may be fundamentally unquantifiable – but it needs to be addressed early in the scheme development process”. Back in June, the DfT published its consultation on priorities for a new ‘Appraisal and Modelling Strategy’, s

On 11 October it was the turn of The Guardian’s Parliamentary sketch writer, John Crace, to become the latest in a lengthening line of critics to take aim at the allegedly hapless transport secretary, Chris Grayling. “She [Prime Minister Theresa May] appointed Grayling as transport secretary primarily on the grounds of damage limitation because transport was a relatively quiet beat and surely he couldn’t come to too much harm there?” Crace began. “But this has turne

The mobility options on offer to meet users’ personal travel needs have significantly diversified over the last few years. While the traditional analogue options of walking, driving or cycling with your own car or bike, or using a timetable and catching a fixed route bus or train still exist, they are now augmented (and in some cases are being replaced) by digital ways to identify, book and use a much wider range of transport modes, including those adopting very different, and much more fl

A group of councils in the southwest of England believe they can significantly reduce the environmental and economic impact of weather-related events on road networks thanks to a new modelling tool. The Highways Infrastructure Resilience Assessment Modelling tool (HIRAM) helps to identify and record where extreme weather risks, such as flooding and heavy winds, are most likely to cause damage and where maintenance and improvements are most needed, says the South West Highway Alliance.  A c

The Highways Agency has published revised plans for a three-lane dual carriageway linking Essex and Kent, including a 2.4-mile tunnel under the Thames. The 14.5-mile Lower Thames Crossing will connect the M2 near Rochester and the M25 in Essex between Gravesend and Tilbury. According to the Highways Agency, the crossing will have the longest road tunnel in the UK and, at 50ft wide, the third largest bored tunnel in the world. Changes have been made to proposals after a consultation, which rece

The closure of a pair of flyovers in central Liverpool provides an opportunity to reduce motorised traffic and encourage more journeys by public transport, cycling and walking, say two charities. The Churchill flyovers, which connect the northern suburbs to the city centre, closed for structural inspections on 28 September. The closure is likely to last for at least six months, since the flyovers were built without apertures to provide access to the interiors of decks and columns. Problems alre

The DfT has admitted a letter instructing councils in England to pause work on level surface street designs was targeted at town centres and not residential developments.  The DfT is now working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to clarify what it means for residential streets. The Local Transport Note 1/11: Shared Space has been temporarily withdrawn. Most observers believe the government’s request for a pause on new projects was aimed at town c

Parking management undertaken by councils is an “essential public service” that benefits London’s economy while helping to deal with traffic, improve air quality and ensure better road safety, states a report commissioned by London Councils.  The London boroughs association commissioned consultant Integrated Transport Planning (ITP) to evaluate the cumulative impact of parking management measures such as bays, yellow lines and parking zones.  Benefits of Parking Man

The last issue covered the LTT seminar on the future of transport investment appraisal, which raised wide-ranging issues about professional practice and the way transport projects are looked at in their wider context by other parties. The discussion included current DfT consultation on potential revisions to WebTAG – the DfT’s guidance on preparing the economic case for transport investment. The DfT has also been holding a series of specialist theme-based workshops. Tom Van Vuren (pi

The England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) alliance of local authorities is calling on the Government to set an indicative funding envelope for the area,  to help prioritise infrastructure investment.  The funding envelope is one of five ‘asks’ the EEH is making of the Government ahead of the Budget, to accelerate delivery of the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge growth region, which lies at the heart of the EEH’s geography. The asks are: • committing to develop

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

My heart sank when I read the report in the last LTT on plans by Bournemouth and Poole councils to join a shadow sub-national transport body (STB) to lobby for faster north-south connections to the M4 and beyond.  Here we go again! Let’s fire up the DeLorean and zoom off down the Memory Bypass back to the 1980s!  This is a magical road; history is a blur as you whiz past two SACTRA (Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Appraisal) reports, the Bristol Bath to South Coast Stu

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

Compensating train operators for disruption during engineering is a routine activity for Network Rail. Every operator is eligible, even those that will directly benefit from the work being done. Meanwhile, when unplanned line closures occur, passengers can receive compensation for the consequential delays. Highways authorities, on the other hand, are not obliged to make any compensation payments to road users, regardless of the scale of delays caused by roadworks.  Could these polar opposi

Transport for the North wants a five-year funding envelope for strategic road and rail projects, which it would choose how to allocate. It is also exploring how it can increase overall funding levels, with one idea being to devolve Vehicle Excise Duty.   A discussion paper setting out the case for TfN taking control of the North’s strategic road and rail budgets was presented to the sub-national transport body’s board meeting in Sheffield this week.    The paper warn

The DfT has revealed the broad corridor for a new expressway road between Oxford and Cambridge, provoking anger from wildlife groups who say it is the most damaging of the three corridors assessed. The DfT said that, after detailed review of the three options by Highways England, corridor B offered the greatest benefits to the region, “outperforming the other options by providing better links to jobs, education, leisure and health services”. The new road would cut the journey time b

Opening this month, Edinburgh's Your Bike cycle hire scheme is using innovative 'hybrid lock' technology that supports a network of 'virtual' geo-fenced bike parking stations along with physical stations. It's about bringing a planned and integrated approach with new facilities and solutions for cities so that the private car is no longer first choice, says Matt McNulty, urban mobility director for Serco and Your Bike The Your Bike scheme in Edinburgh, to be known as ‘Just Eat Cycles&rsqu

W hy do transport projects so often seem to end up costing much more than originally forecast? Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, of the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, has spent a lot of time researching this question and his work has shaped the thinking of the DfT and Treasury. He says there is clear evidence that the costs of the vast majority of projects are underestimated at the point the decision is made to proceed with them. As for why this should be so, Flyvbjerg says the

The Government should use a portion of the new National Roads Fund for local road maintenance, the National Infrastructure Commission has said. The National Roads Fund will be launched in April 2020 by  ring-fencing Vehicle Excise Duty in England.  Ministers originally proposed that all the funding would be ringfenced for Highways England but the DfT has since announced that a portion of the funding will be used for improvements to the Major Road Network of the most important local a

A traffic ban trial at Bank Junction is to be made permanent, the City of London Corporation has announced today. The ‘Bank on Safety’ scheme, which restricts the junction to buses and cyclists only between 7am and 7pm, has been in operation since May 2017. This marks the first phase of plans to totally re-design the junction by 2021, which could result in the removal of all motorised traffic.  The corporation’s Court of Common Council made the final decision after month

Motorists will soon be to avoid roadworks when planning their journeys thanks to a new digital system funded by the government. The Department for Transport (DfT) is investing up to £10m in Street Manager, a digital planning service due to launch next year. It is anticipated that the service will make more consistent, accurate data on street works available to drivers. Unlike current data on roadworks, which is often out-of-date and incomplete, Street Manager will generate real-time data

Crossrail has announced a delay of almost a year in the completion of London’s new Elizabeth Line, which means it will not open until the autumn of 2019. The new East-West route across London had originally been scheduled for opening in December 2018. Crossrail is a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that is jointly sponsored by TfL and the Department for Transport. Once the railway is complete, it will be run by TfL. The delay was revealed on 31 August. The company s

The body representing England’s home builders has called on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to end the confusion about whether  streets with level surfaces – i.e. no kerbs – can still feature in new residential developments.  The Home Builders Federation’s call follows transport minister Nusrat Ghani’s request that councils “pause” work on new street schemes featuring level surfaces that are at the design stag

Sunderland’s Northern Spire bridge over the River Wear opened this week. The £117m crossing is part of Sunderland City Council’s wider five-phase Sunderland Strategic Transport Corridor connecting the A19 with the city centre and Port of Sunderland. The next phase, a dual carriageway between the bridge and the city centre, should open in 2021. The bridge was built by a joint venture of Farrans Construction and Victor Buyck Steel Construction. The design team was led by Buro Hap

Dundee City Council has appointed firms to deliver a range of mobility services in the city, which could provide the foundation for a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) product.  Neil Gellatly, Dundee’s head of roads and transportation, told LTT the initiatives were all part of the city’s Mobility Innovation Living Laboratory (MILL) project, which aims to deliver new services for citizens while enabling mobility firms to develop and test their products in a live setting. The council

An east-west cycling route has been officially opened by London walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman. The 12km Quietway 2 (Q2) will enable people to cycle from east London into the city centre and on into Bloomsbury and Walthamstow via Angel, Haggerston, London Fields and Clapton. The Quietway network is a continuous direct and clearly signed cycle routes on the capital’s traffic light streets. The Quietways complement fully segregated cycle routes that Transport for London (TfL)

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

The Welsh Government has embarked on a new method of financing road schemes in its invitation for bids to dual the final section of the A465 Heads of the Valleys road. The Government does not have sufficient capital to fund the £500m scheme in addition to its other highways plans, which include the £1.4bn M4 Relief Road south of Newport. It has therefore developed a Mutual Investment Model (MIM), similar to the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) but with the Government taking a stake

The London Borough of Hounslow is preparing to consult on introducing a workplace parking levy (WPL), which could help pay for a new passenger rail service to connect the borough with Crossrail.   The west London borough envisages implementing a levy in a major employment area in the vicinity of the A4 Great Western Road in Brentford, broadly between Gillette Corner and Boston Manor Road.  The WPL zone would cover  sites within about 1km of the proposed new Brentford Golden Mile

With profound apologies to The Temptations, and to those of you who – with every justification – think that I’ve already written too much about this topic in these pages, I’m afraid I’m going to spend a few hundred more words on the subject of so-called ‘Shared Space’ (henceforth ‘SS’).  What precipitated this turn of events is the DfT’s publication, last month, of The Inclusive Transport Strategy. Just three paragraphs of this 76

Sadiq Khan will have to begin a review of the new London Plan as soon as it is finalised to reflect new national planning policies and the revised method for calculating housing need, the Government has announced. The draft plan covers the period 2019 to 2041 but some of the detailed elements of the plan, such as the annual housing targets, cover only the first ten years. “This reflects the dynamic nature of London’s land market and means that there will need to be a review of the h

The Government has threatened to intervene to prevent London mayor Sadiq Khan imposing strict limits on car parking in new developments as part of the new London Plan.   The warning from communities and local government secretary James Brokenshire came as the Greater London Authority this week released the consultation responses to the draft plan published last December (LTT 08 Dec 17), and minor amendments to the draft plan in light of the feedback. A public examination of the plan is lik

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority has ordered future park-and-ride sites to be built as temporary facilities so that they can be removed again when Cambridgeshire’s proposed new Metro public transport system is opened. The decision affects new park-and-ride facilities planned on three roads in the vicinity of Cambridge: the A10, the A1307, and the M11.  The P&R sites are integral parts of wider transport improvements for each corridor currently being pursued by

Roads, footpaths, buses, trains and trams are used day in day out by ordinary people from all walks of life, and the way that transport supports – or frustrates – their plans and needs is a fundamental influence on their wellbeing and personal fulfilment. Transport planning is fundamental to our society; well-planned transport supports and enriches people’s lives, and can help people be healthier and happier, and build stronger communities.  It’s only right then tha

As stories predicting HS2 will blow its budget pile up, the campaign to stop the project struggles on with only pennies in its tin. Joe Rukin, campaign manager of Stop HS2, told LTT­this week that he has now taken his redundancy from the organisation but continues to do bits and bobs. Rukin is bitter about the way environmental campaign groups failed to back the campaign against the project, and reserves his fiercest criticisms for the Campaign to Protect Rural England. “CPRE’s a

The 100th citybike docking station has been installed in Liverpool within the Titanic Hotel’s car park, in the World Heritage listed Stanley Dock. The new station, which can hold 10 bikes, connects the district to a network of stations across Liverpool, with the scheme now offering 500 bikes. Situated near to the Regent Road entrance the Ten Streets creativity district, the citybike station provides easy access to the city centre. The Regent Road area is undergoing a multi-million pound

The government will put up to £300m into extending the Access for All programme, making railway stations more accessible, including through step-free access. The funding commitment was announced alongside publication of the Inclusive Transport Strategy, which seeks to improve accessibility across all types of travel for those with both visible and less visible disabilities. The Department for Transport said the new measures and funding will help ensure disabled people can travel confiden

Hackney council is offering residents the chance to design their own ‘parklets’ to replace parking spaces on their streets. A trial scheme, launched today, will support the installation of 15 parklets across the London borough. The trials will run from one to six months, after which the council will decide whether to make the parklets permanent. Each parklet will occupy a single parking space, with the design determined by residents. Features could include planters, bike racks, ben

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

The revised National Planning Policy Framework has been published, and sets out the government’s planning policies for England and how these are expected to be applied. The revised framework replaces the previous National Planning Policy Framework published in March 2012. Building attractive and better-designed homes in areas where they are needed is at the centre of the new planning rules, says Government, as Secretary of State Rt Hon James Brokenshire reveals the new framework. The consu

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

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 has called for a shake-up of the local transport funding system in England outside London, and for the DfT to increase urban transport funding.  The NIC’s first National Infrastructure Assessment says local transport authorities should be awarded “stable, devolved infrastructure budgets”, just like Highways England and Network Rail.  “The devolved budget should comprise of five-year settlements, with fixed annual budgets

‘Diversion factors’ and ‘elasticities’ may sound like dull jargon but they are crucial to demand forecasting, providing estimates for how transport investments and changes in fares or journey times influence people’s travel choices. Diversion factors are used in transport appraisal to estimate the source and extent of new traffic on one mode resulting from an intervention (such as an investment, improvement/deterioration of a service, fare change, or policy change

Councillors in Cambridgeshire have been presented with the early results of demand management investigations that are taking place despite the mayor of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, James Palmer, being opposed to  road charges (LTT 08 Jun). Peter Blake, director of transport at the Greater Cambridge Partnership (a joint committee of Cambridgeshire, Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire district councils) updated the partnership’s executive board this month

At first glance, bus stations might seem an unlikely saviour in the battle to save our town centres. Yet that’s precisely what forward-thinking councils are pinning their hopes on as they seek to stop the inexorable shift from the high street to out-of-town developments.  Bus stations are symbolic of the decline of our town and city centres. These transport hubs have all too often fallen into a state of neglect that mirrors the depressed, dilapidated areas in which they are located.

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

Former London cycling commissioner Andrew Gilligan has recommended a huge investment in cycling facilities in Oxford, Cambridge and Milton Keynes in a report for the Government’s National Infrastructure Commission.  Gilligan was commissioned to write a report on cycling provision in the three cities as part of the NIC’s wider work on the growth prospects and infrastructure needs of the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge arc. His report is highly critical of  provision for cyc

The Welsh Government’s annual funding and work allocations are creating inefficiencies in the maintenance of the Government’s own roads, according to the local authorities who undertake the task. They also say traffic congestion is exacerbated by the roadworks “spike” in the last months of the financial year. Two regional agents, consisting of local authorities, look after the Government’s 1,050 miles of trunk roads, including the Welsh section of the M4. This enab

The DfT is expected to announce the preferred corridor for a new expressway road between Oxford and Milton Keynes within the next few weeks. It has rejected a plea from the England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) shadow sub-national transport body to delay the announcement (LTT 11 May). The new road would form part of the proposed Oxford to Cambridge dual carriageway expressway. Three corridors for the western end of the route have been explored by Highways England, working with the DfT and ot

If you’re James Brown, of course, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World (at least, that’s the title of his 1966 hit). And, while I wouldn’t want to build a philosophical position on that song’s lyrics, many of its words are pertinent to my theme. Firstly, as many of you will know, Mr Brown did also point out that this ‘man’s world’ would be ‘nothing without a woman’. Secondly, as hardly anyone knows, the song was jointly wri

The Charter for Parks, launched by the National Federation of Parks and Green Spaces, and a coalition of national organisations, has called on on Prime Minister Theresa May and First Ministers Nicola Sturgeon, Carwyn Jones and Arlene Foster, to celebrate these spaces and take action to safeguard them. The Charter calls on the UK’s four political leaders to: Endorse a legal duty for all public greenspace to be managed to a good standard Ensure adequate long-term resources for maintenanc

A road junction with one of the poorest safety records in London is being upgraded by Transport for London (TfL), the Mayor of London and Islington Council. Reconstruction of the Highbury Corner junction begins on the 28 June. The works will transform the see the 1960s roundabout removed and replaced with two-way roads and segregated cycle lanes on all three remaining sides of the roundabout.  There will also be a new public space created for residents and visitors. The improvements to t

The DfT is consulting on priorities for the next round of reforms to its transport appraisal and modelling framework.  The Department says the environment for appraisal has changed considerably in the last five years, citing:  the Government’s industrial strategy; new institutions such as sub-national transport authorities, combined authorities, and the National Infrastructure Commission; changes to travel behaviour that are not fully understood; and the development of new techn

Worcestershire County Council has revised its proposed parking standards for new housing developments after developers, consultants and even some of the council’s own officers said the original plans would deliver unattractive car-dominated estates.  The council’s draft streetscape design guide recommended a minimum of two spaces per one and two bedroom house; three spaces per three bedroom house; four spaces per four bedroom house; and thereafter an additional 0.5 spaces for e

Brighton's bike share scheme (BTN BikeShare) is to expand with 120 new bikes and nine new hubs, mostly in Hove.  The scheme started last September with 450 bikes at 51 sites and, in the nine months since, has attracted 35,000 subscribers. Back in March, after gaining more than 22,000 users in just six months, the scheme became the biggest in the UK outside of London, and by the end of May there had been 213,000 rentals and more than 400,000 miles cycled, according to the Brighton and Hove N

All local authorities in Scotland will be given the power to implement bus franchising, under powers contained in the Scottish Government’s new Transport (Scotland) Bill. The Bill also includes powers for the creation and enforcement of low emission zones, ticketing schemes, and parking.   The draft legislation is split into six parts, and the buses section (part two) contains a wide range of new powers, including a new form of partnership – Bus Service Improvement Partnerships

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

London mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to transform Oxford Street could be doomed after Westminster City Council’s decision to withdraw support.   In a statement that apparently took the mayor and Transport for London by surprise, Nickie Aiken, the Conservative council leader of Westminster, said earlier this month that the council had “taken the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street off the table for good”.  Making the street more pedestrian-friendly is one of the mayor

Readers may wonder where certain core ideas in transport planning have come from – in many cases their roots are in the work of Stephen Plowden, who died last month aged 85. He played a key role in creating the idea that more and bigger infrastructure was not always the answer to meeting people’s travel needs or their aspirations for the places they inhabit. His pioneering work on managing demand and on the pursuit of safe, active and sustainable transport was reflected in a career s

Transport planning is a very new profession. I know the Romans built roads (and speed humps!) and more recently Britain built canal, railway and motorway systems, but these were basically single purpose feats of engineering, however impressive.  Transport planning as we know it is new and thoroughly modern, in that the answers to many of the complex problems we currently face are less clear-cut than how strong does a bridge have to be? Or even how fast can a legion march on Londinium? &nbs

Work is to start next week on building a new transport interchange at Ashton Bus Station in Greater Manchester. The new interchange – to be delivered by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and Tameside Council – will feature a covered concourse, with seated waiting areas, as well as electronic information screens. It will have shops, fully accessible toilets, baby-changing provision and enhanced passenger security including CCTV. There will also be improved taxi facilities. Dur

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

Anna Delveccio, who started her transport engineering career as a teenager, has received the top honour at the 2018 FTA everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards.  Launched 11 years ago, the awards programme celebrates women transforming transport and logistics in the UK. The winners included women working for transport organisations including Heathrow Airport, Royal Mail, Merseytravel and Transport for London.  The Woman of the Year Award was presented to Anna Delvecchio, Comme

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

A programme of improvements to the West Midlands’ motorway and trunk road network, including a new Western Strategic Route connecting the M5 and M6 (LTT 25 May), has been proposed by pan-Midlands transport partnership Midlands Connect.  The summary report of the Midlands Motorway Hub study by consultant Atkins makes ten recommendations:  • installing ‘estimated time savings’ signs on the M6 to encourage use of the M6 Toll during incidents and peak times &

More than 50% of would-be cyclists are put off getting in the saddle because of overtaking cars, potholes and having to share the road with HGVs. These were among the key concerns raised by adults across England, Wales and Scotland who took part in a survey conducted for the charity Cycling UK by YouGov. In the online poll, involving 2,024 respondents, 57% said they are deterred from cycling by lorries and other large vehicles while 56% cited drivers overtaking too closely and 56% highlighted p

The economic case for a new motorway around the west side of the West Midlands conurbation is being explored by pan-Midlands transport body Midlands Connect.   An illustrative map prepared by Midlands Connect shows the  ‘Western Strategic Route’, described as a motorway, connecting junction 4a of the M5 near Bromsgrove, south-west of the conurbation, with junction 2 of the M54 and junction 11 of the M6, both to the north of Wolverhampton. Intersections are shown with the A

Construction of the Silvertown Tunnel in East London could commence next year following the Government’s decision to grant Transport for London a Development Consent Order for the project.  The 1.4km twin-bore tunnel will connect the A102 Blackwall Tunnel approach road on the Greenwich Peninsula, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich south of the Thames, to the Tidal Basin roundabout junction on the A1020 Lower Lea Crossing/Silvertown Way north of the river, in the London Borough of Newh

Halton Council is considering the implications of a new ruling that the charges for using the new Mersey Gateway Bridge during the first six months after opening last October were illegal. An adjudicator for the Traffic Penalty Tribunal for England and Wales ruled earlier this year that a motorist, Ms C, one of five appellants, was not liable to pay the £2 charge for using the £430m bridge because of a number of procedural errors in how the charging scheme was introduced (LTT 11 May

Construction firm Carillion’s collapse was inevitable because it was operating an unsustainable business model, an inquiry by MPs has concluded.  The joint inquiry into the company’s collapse by the House of Commons business, energy and industry strategy, and work and pensions--committees concludes: “Carillion’s business model was an unsustainable dash for cash. The mystery is not that it collapsed, but how it kept going for so long.  Carillion was involved in

The City of London Corporation will decide in the coming weeks whether to make the Bank Junction experimental traffic restriction permanent. The road safety scheme, introduced on 22 May last year, sees only buses and pedal cyclists allowed to cross the junction between the hours of 7am and 7pm, Mondays-Fridays. Four criteria were set for measuring the scheme’s success: a significant improvement to safety; maintaining access for deliveries; improving air quality; and not unreasonably impa

Most of us played with Lego as children, but I was more likely to leave lines of toy cars around the house, which is somewhat ironic given my current line of work. But I still play with Lego today, as I tidy up my children's efforts when they’re not looking. But I think the two are linked in my line of work.  I like to imagine transport models in a similar way: a number of blocks that are interconnected to produce a replica of how people and goods move around our real cities. All the

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 secretary Chris Grayling visited Yorkshire to officially open an £400m scheme to upgrade of the A1 between Leeming and Barton. Almost 70,000 drivers each day will use the new stretch of dual carriageway in Darlington. This is the sixth scheme to be completed as part of the government’s £15bn road investment programme. The A1 upgrade scheme is one of several on the journey between Newcastle and London, which is being upgraded. Other elements include: the M1 wide

The 36 finalists in the 2018 FTA everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards have been announced. Now in its eleventh year, the awards programme celebrates the achievements of women in the UK’s transport and logistics industry.  This year’s finalists include women working for transport organisations including Heathrow Express, Merseytravel, Network Rail, Transport for London and West Midlands Trains. The UK transport and logistics industry employs around 2.4 million people.

The England’s Economic Heartland grouping of councils has written to transport secretary Chris Grayling voicing concerns  about the Oxford to Cambridge expressway study. EEH criticises Highways England’s engagement with stakeholders; says the objectives of the road are unclear; and calls for this summer’s announcement of a preferred corridor to be deferred.  “We appreciate that the expressway is a complex and sensitive project,” says the letter from Bucki

Halton Borough Council this week challenged a Traffic Penalty Tribunal adjudication that the tolls on the new Mersey Gateway crossing are illegal.  The Traffic Penalty Tribunal for England (outside London) and Wales ruled earlier this year that a motorist was not liable to pay the toll for using the new bridge because Halton’s processes for introducing the toll had not fully complied with the Mersey Gateway Road User Charging Order 2017. Adjudicator Andrew Barfoot  said the cou

London mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to transform Oxford Street has run into trouble, with Westminster City Council halting its work on the scheme.  Making the street more pedestrian-friendly is one of the mayor’s flagship policies and Transport for London has budgeted £82m to be spent on the street over three years (£5m in 2017/18, £51m in 2018/19, and £26m in 2019/20).  The initial focus is Oxford Street West, between Orchard Street and Oxford Circus.

As a major supermarket joins the trend for using electric cargo bikes for its delivery services, changes in general travel trends need much more careful scrutiny, say researchers. Increases in levels of home deliveries, and the rapid growth in light van traffic, for example, are poorly understood. In April this year, Sainsbury’s began its innovative new trial of grocery delivery services by electric cargo bike. A fleet of five zero emission bikes is making deliveries across South London,

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

Academics in Australia have launched an extraordinary attack on the work of a British-based academic whose research has shaped the UK Government’s approach to costing  transport and other infrastructure projects.  Peter Love and Dominic Ahiaga-Dagbui say Bent Flyvbjerg’s research, which attributes project cost overruns to the  behavioural issues of optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation (lying), is “akin to being fake news”. “No evidence at a

The North East Combined Authority has voiced concern about the lack of any firm commitments to increase rail capacity on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) between York and Newcastle.  The line features four tracks between York and Northallerton in North Yorkshire but then becomes two-track.  The route is already busy and there are plans for further services – TransPennine Express wants to increase frequencies to Newcastle and FirstGroup is planning an open access service between

The UK Government recently announced a total ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2040. While this move will certainly be beneficial for the environment, there are a set of significant challenges to be addressed in the intervening 22 years. Collectively, overcoming them will ensure that the owners of battery electric vehicles – which may number in the millions in a matter of decades, up from less than 200,000 today – will be able to operate their vehicles in a conve

Sally Cairns and Carey Newson deserve support for their argument that there should be no third runway at Heathrow until the airlines have shown that they really can deliver on the cleaner and quieter planes that they claim to be possible, and until access to the airport does much less environmental damage than at present (Viewpoint LTT 30 Mar). However, there is one important environmental aspect of long-distance travel that the two authors do not mention. Even if the travel itself could be ren

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 (

The Second Severn Crossing is to be renamed The Prince of Wales Bridge at a ceremony later this year, the Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns has announced. The renaming of the crossing, which was opened by Prince Charles in 1996, will mark both the Prince of Wales’ 70th birthday year and the 60th anniversary of The Queen ‘creating’ him Prince of Wales at the closing ceremony of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff in 1958 when he was nine-years-old. Alu

The Welsh Government has accused the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales of making “wholly unwarranted” suggestions that the M4 relief road plans are at odds with the  Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. The criticism of commissioner Sophie Howe features in the Welsh Government’s closing submission to the M4 Relief Road inquiry, which has been considering the Government’s favoured “Black Route”, a new 14-mile motorway around the sout

The first of three ‘Metrobus’ bus rapid transit routes will launch in Bristol on 29 May, following a £230m infrastructure investment by three councils – Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset – and the DfT.  To ensure fast services, Metrobus will be the first commercial services outside London to operate ‘buy before you board’ ticketing, with drivers unable to sell tickets.  First West of England will run two of the routes and, in

Councils in the North East of Scotland are proposing to quash developer interest in building new retail and commercial developments beside junctions on the new Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR). Construction of the 29-mile dual carriageway AWPR is nearing completion, with opening scheduled for the autumn. The Aberdeen City and Shire Strategic Development Planning Authority (SDPA) says the new road is already attracting interest from developers.  “Recent planning applications

The major Road Network (MRN) of the most important local authority roads could create confusion with the Primary Route Network (PRN), Wiltshire Council has said. The PRN comprises roads between places of “traffic importance” across the UK. Primary routes are marked green on most road maps, as opposed to the more common red of an ordinary A road; and road signs for the PRN are green with white and yellow text. The network is constructed from a series of locations (“primary des

The DfT’s cartographers may be ace at roads and railways but ask them to plot the UK’s airports and they’re flummoxed. This map from the DfT’s stakeholder briefing document for the West Coast rail partnership franchise shows Glasgow and Edinburgh airport in completely wrong locations. Things are no better south of the border, with Manchester Airport placed east of Manchester Piccadilly, and Liverpool John Lennon Airport west of Lime Street.  Political leaders in

A public realm and road safety project involving the closure of one side of a roundabout in North London will make journey times slower for almost all road users, traffic modelling by Transport for London suggests.  The Highbury Corner scheme will see the western arm of the roundabout closed to create a  public space of about 2,600 square metres extending to the Highbury & Islington station forecourt.   Two-way traffic flow and segregated cycle lanes will be introduced on th

Transport for the North becomes England’s first statutory sub-national transport body (STB) in April.  The change from a shadow body to a fully-fledged STB will take place alongside its first board meeting in public in Liverpool on 5 April. At the meeting, elected leaders from the North’s 19 local and combined authorities who are constituent members, together with co-opted representatives from the six Rail North authorities, will invite business leaders from the region’s

England’s nascent sub-national transport bodies  (STBs) have urged the DfT to work with them to agree the Major Road Network (MRN) of the most important council roads.  Consultation on the DfT’s MRN plans closed last week. Many local authorities and the emerging STBs have said the DfT’s proposed network is too small and excludes roads of vital economic importance. MRNdesignation is significant because roads within the network will be eligible for funding from the new

The rising demand for cycle parking across the capital is not being met, with Network Rail particularly culpable in its failure to provide enough cycle racks at train stations, says the London Assembly in a report published today. Transport for London (TfL) should set out “clear steps” on how the rising demand for cycle parking will be met, which partners will be involved and how the infrastructure will be funded, says the assembly’s transport committee. Network Rail was sing

Proposals for a 5km cycleway have been announced by Manchester City Council. The mostly segregated route would link the city centre with Chorlton Park to the south. The Department for Transport has awarded £3.9m for the project while Manchester City Council, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and the Cycling and Walking Commissioner for Greater Manchester, Chris Boardman, are seeking to raise a further £5m. A Manchester City Council spokesman said: “This would pay for the

Councils in the Cambridge area are exploring the merits of road user charges but appear to be cooling on plans for a workplace parking levy. Meanwhile, James Palmer, the elected mayor of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CA), seems unlikely to support any charging proposals. A discussion paper on the demand management work programme was presented to a recent meeting of Greater Cambridge Partnership’s joint assembly. The GCP is the delivery body for the area’s

The DfT is likely to make changes to its WebTAG transport appraisal guidance following this month’s release of the Treasury’s new Green Book guidance on project appraisal and evaluation, a transport economist said this week.  The Green Book provides the analytical framework for all Government departments. Many of the updates contained within the new version actually reflect advances in appraisal and evaluation that individual departments and agencies have made since the last ve

The Government’s plan to designate a Major Road Network of the most important local authority roads in England should be accompanied by a performance specification and funding for the network’s maintenance, councils and road interests have told the DfT.  The comments come in response to the DfT’s consultation on the MRN, which ends on 19 March (LTT05 Jan). The DfT has proposed an MRN of about 5,000 miles. Councils will be able to bid to the new National Roads Fund, being

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

What’s going on at Ebbsfleet in Kent? Not a great deal, it seems. A decade ago LTT was given a tour of the Fastrack bus system in the area, and shown the big chalk quarries that would one day be home to thousands of new homes. Nowadays the Government talks of building an Ebbsfleet Garden City. Yet, in practice, few homes have been delivered and Ebbsfleet International station – which is supposed to lie at the heart of the city – remains surrounded by a sea of car parking (5,000

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

The National Infrastructure Commission’s first Annual Monitoring Report finds the Government 'slow in taking decisive action to address several of the UK’s major infrastructure needs'. The report finds that further action is urgently needed to improve mobile phone coverage and digital connectivity on the UK’s roads and railways. It also raises concerns about the Government’s failure to establish a firm timetable or funding plan for either Crossrail 2 or the Northern Powe

More than 423,000 homes have been given planning permission but are still waiting to be built, according to new research published this month by the Local Government Association. The study, commissioned by the LGA and carried out by industry experts Glenigan, shows the backlog has grown by almost 16 per cent in the last year. In 2015/16, the total number of unimplemented planning permissions in England and Wales was 365,146, rising to 423,544 in 2016/17. The figures also show that develop

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

Highways England has launched a consultation on the proposed £1.6bn A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down improvement scheme, which includes a tunnel to hide the road from Stonehenge.  The eight-mile dual two-lane carriageway scheme features: • a northern bypass of Winterbourne Stoke with a viaduct over the River Till valley • a new junction between the A303 and the A360 to the west of and outside the World Heritage Site replacing the existing Longbarrow roundabout • a 1.8-

Transport projects to facilitate housing developments in England feature prominently among the 133 projects sharing £866m from the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund.  Awards include: • Aylesbury Vale District Council – £9.5m for the Aylesbury link road and junction improvement • London Borough of Barnet  – £9.8m for Finchley Central station improvements • Dover Town Council – £15.8m for Dover bus rapid transit &

Almost half (45%) of the income from the Dartford Crossing in 2016/17 came in the form of penalty charge notices (PCNs) from late payers, according to the crossing’s annual accounts. Total crossing income rose £36.2m, from £168.5m (2015/16) to £204.7m. The DfT says the rise reflects increased enforcement activity and an increase in crossings during chargeable hours. Enforcement income was £92.3m, up from £60m in 2015/16. In addition, almost £50m of cha

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

Active travel and rail campaigners are embroiled in a dispute about the future of the Bristol-Bath railway path, amid speculation that the alignment could be needed for light rail. The 13-mile Bristol-Bath path was built between 1979 and 1986 and was the first major project undertaken by Sustrans. The active travel charity says the path is now the “busiest traffic-free route in the country”. The latest data shows 3,800 people used the path in east Bristol between 7am and 7pm on one

The government is being urged not to jeopardise the Stonehenge World Heritage Site as proposals for a new road through the site are opened in a public consultation. The public are being asked to oppose the scheme by Stonehenge Alliance, which comprise the Ancient Sacred Landscape Network, Campaign for Better Transport, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Friends of the Earth and RESCUE: The British Archaeological Trust

The Government has announced that Leicester City Council is to receive £10m of funding for highway infrastructure to unlock further development at the city council’s Ashton Green housing site. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid met with Leicester’s City Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby at Ashton Green where they made the announcement. Find out more about how Leicester and other cities

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

“There’s more demand for transport modelling than ever before!”  “There just aren’t enough experienced modellers to do it!” I would be surprised if there are any transport professionals who have not had this conversation over the last few years. For transport modellers it’s almost an everyday occurrence, with each new piece of work prompting hard thinking about how to marshal stretched resources to keep up with demand. Fred Ewing’s piece (LT

The suggestion of foreign secretary Boris Johnson that a bridge should be built across the English Channel received a significant amount of media coverage in mid-January. Despite most commentators suggesting that the idea was little more than an attempt to keep Johnson’s name in the headlines, few could resist giving him the oxygen of publicity that he seems to crave. Stephen Bush, a special correspondent at The New Statesman, for example, observed that: “As far as making a splash g

Lincolnshire county Council is looking to bring in a new contractor to complete the A15 Lincoln Eastern Bypass following Carillion’s liquidation. Carillion was awarded a £52.9m target cost contract for the 6.4-mile road in 2016 (LTT28 Oct 16).   Following Carillion’s demise last month, the council has brought in Galliford Try to ensure progress on the road continues. “While Galliford Try will be keeping things moving in the immediate future, we’ll be working

Plans for a new ‘Station Quarter’ around Runcorn rail station forms the centrepeice of a major regeneration of the Cheshire town. Halton Borough Council is working with a consortium, including architects We Made That and consultants Regeneris and Steer Davies Gleave, to develop a masterplan featuring housing, retail, commercial and leisure units in Runcorn. Runcorn station is on the Liverpool branch of the West Coast Mainline and is also a commuter station into Liverpool Lime Street

There is a massive imbalance between how much the government spends on maintaining national and local roads, says the Local Government Association (LGA). New analysis by the LGA says the government is set to provide £1.1m per mile to maintain its strategic road network between 2015 and 2020, compared with just £21,000 per mile for local roads over the same period. The government must take urgent steps to help councils tackle the £12bn repair bill for local roads, says the LGA.

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.

The roll-out of the 20mph limit across all residential and shopping streets in Edinburgh has entered its fourth and final phase. The scheme is to extend to South Edinburgh on 5 March. This marks the completion of an 18-month roll-out across the Scottish capital. Edinburgh joins the growing number of European and UK cities introducing lower speed limits, a move supported by organisations such as Police Scotland, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the World Health Orga

It was almost a year ago that I stood on the podium at Rail Stations and Property Summit describing the concept of ‘Station Place’, which we had developed for the Rail Delivery Group to demonstrate how their Nine Principles of Future Station Design might look.  After my talk, I was introduced to Jonathan Martin, the director of investment and delivery at the London Borough of Waltham Forest. Jonathan had spoken at the Summit on his vision for developing some key areas of under-

The new Maghull North station rail station is set to open in May as part of a £340m package of rail improvements across the Liverpool city area over the next three years.  Work on the £13m scheme, which is being delivered by Network Rail on behalf of Merseytravel, started in September 2017. Funding came from the government’s Local Growth Fund (LGF), Merseytravel and the Homes and Communities Agency, which previously owned the land on which the station will be built. 

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

It’s been (literally) years in the making, but the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation’s much-needed review of so-called ‘Shared Space’ has finally been published. Entitled Creating better streets: Inclusive and accessible places, the review marks an important and positive step away from the confusion that has dogged a phrase that has come to mean different things to different people with different perspectives. Those objecting to the idea are most often

The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has invited organisations to enter a prize competition to propose how road design, traffic management and road rules and regulations should be changed to accommodate connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).  The five best entries to the Roads for the Future competition will each receive £30,000 to develop their ideas, and the final winning entry will receive a prize of £50,000. Entries should cover one or more of three broad themes

Lancashire’s Local Enterprise Partnership has granted conditional approval to a £161m (outturn prices) new road in Preston.  The 2.7-mile Preston Western Distributor dual carriageway will connect the A583 Preston to Blackpool road at Lea with the M55 Preston to Blackpool motorway at a new junction 2 at Bartle.  Lancashire County Council says the road will open up land in north-west Preston for about 5,000 new homes and facilitate a new parkway rail station at Cottam on th

New and upgraded railways and upgrades to major road links feature in Transport for the North’s (TfN) draft transport plan released this week.  TfN, which will become England’s first statutory sub-national transport body in April, said the 30-year (2020-2050)  investment programme was “ambitious but realistic”. All the projects are subject to further development work but the programme has an estimated cost of £60bn-£70bn in today’s prices. Thi

The liquidation of construction and contracting company Carillion this week sent shockwaves through the transport sector, with some rival companies warning of losses because of their involvement with Carillion in joint infrastructure contracts.  Public sector officials expect Carillion’s work to continue without significant interruption, but some of the specialist subcontractors engaged by Carillion have been plunged into financial difficulties and have started to make staff redundan

Heathrow Airport Ltd is exploring options for road user charges as part of plans to limit road traffic and air pollution if a third runway is given the green light.      The options are outlined in  the informal consultation into the airport’s expansion that was launched this week.  The consultation is being run in advance of the formal consultation that HAL must hold before submitting a development consent order  (DCO) application to the Planning Inspectora

Councils should have the power to give pedestrians priority over vehicular traffic in designated streets, according to the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT).  The recommendation features in a new report on street design, which also recommends an end to the use of the phrase ‘shared space’. The CIHT says the phrase is “vague and tends to be associated with several preconceived ideas”. Practitioners should instead talk about three different d

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%

The economic benefits of modernising Preston railway station are to be explored in a study commissioned by Lancashire Enterprise Partnerships (LEP). Last week the LEP approved proposals by its Transport for Lancashire committee to assess the case for transforming the station. “Specialist consultants will need to be engaged to undertake this work, which will also need to include forecasts of future passenger demand, particularly for when HS2 services begin operating in 2026.” 

A new national housing agency – Homes England – has been launched by Housing Secretary Sajid Javid as one of the key steps towards delivering the homes the country needs. Homes England will play a 'major role' in fixing the housing market, says Government, by helping to deliver an average of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s. It is lending £45.07 million to developer Urban&Civic through the Home Building Fund, to ramp up the delivery of 4,507 homes by funding enabl

Highways England has published a set of design principles, which, it says, will encourage the building of roads that are environmentally sustainable, “nurture wellbeing” and allow “dignified and equal use by all”.  The document – The Road to Good Design – sets out 10 principles that act as “prompts” rather than instructions on how to create “better, more beautiful roads”. The principles, published today, state that good de

The forecast cost of the  M4 Relief Road has increased by £190m to £1.32bn because the original proposals did not include suitable mitigation measures for Newport docks. The opening date for the road has also slipped.   The Welsh Government submitted revised plans to the road’s public inquiry just before Christmas outlining £190m of additional works at Newport docks. The Government hopes this will prompt port owner ABP to drop its objection to the scheme. ABP i

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is reviewing the future of the Exhibition Road single surface scheme, but has voiced caution about the idea of full pedestrianisation.  The single surface scheme on Exhibition Road, completed in 2012 at a cost of £29m, has won a number of design awards. But the directors of the three museums on the road – Victoria & Albert, Natural History, and Science – wrote to the council last summer calling for the section of the road ou

Argyll & Bute Council wants Transport Scotland to explore the feasibility of building tunnels to remove a trunk road from a notorious landslip area, and to improve connections with Scotland’s central belt. The council’s policy and resources committee considered a report last month outlining a range of options for new east-west tunnels or bridges to connect the south of the area with the central belt.  The Cowal Fixed Link Working Group is championing the idea of better tra

Highways England (HE) wants to study the case for new and improved orbital routes around some of England’s major urban areas. The idea features in HE’s initial report on the strategic road network, which will inform the next road investment period (RP2: 2020/21-2024/25). The DfT has just launched a consultation (running to 7 February) on the HE’s report. The proposed orbital study would “investigate the strategic case for the development of strategic orbital routes to p

The government says key ‘A’ roads across the country could benefit from up to £100m each of funding as government releases consultation on the Major Road Network (MRN). The MRN consultation proposes that 5,000 miles of ‘A’ road are brought into scope for new funding from the National Roads Fund for upgrades and improvements.   Upgrade schemes which could be considered are bypasses, missing links between existing routes, road widening, major junction improveme

Transport for London (TfL) has announced that Gareth Powell, director of public transport and strategy, will be its new managing director, surface transport. He takes over from Leon Daniels with immediate effect. Powell joined TfL from consultant Atkins in 2003 in a business improvement and performance role. Since then he has held a number of roles in group business planning and performance before taking a lead role in the re-organisation of TfL. He went on to join London Underground as direct

Construction work to transform Waterloo into a people-friendly area will start in early 2020, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Lambeth Council have announced. Waterloo roundabout will be removed to create a new public space, with better routes for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users. Earlier this year Waterloo Roundabout was identified in TfL’s Safer Junctions programme as one of 73 junctions in the capital with the worst safety record for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclist

The Department for Transport has unveiled an investment of almost £200m to help improve the condition of local roads and encourage cycling, transport minister Jesse Norman has announced. The funding will be used for highways maintenance, repair potholes, developing technologies to improve highways resilience and the provision of cycle parks. The £200m includes: £46m to help repair potholes £151m for the local highways maintenance incentive fund a £500,000 com

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

A new report has argued that the government should create a new commission to involve the public in major infrastructure projects. The absence of a national strategy for infrastructure has serious implications, says the independent Institute for Government (IfG) in its report How to Design an Infrastructure Strategy for the UK, the fourth in a series of reports on improving infrastructure decision making in the UK. New projects are ‘dreamt up, reframed, scrapped and reinvented, seemingly w

Housing and planning minister Alok Sharma has announced that the Planning Delivery Fund is open for bids. An initial £11 million will be available to bid for as the government aims to have 300,000 homes a year built. The Planning Delivery Fund prospectus invites local authorities and third sector organisations to submit bids for an initial £11 million of resource funding. Funding is intended to support ambitious authorities in areas of high housing need to plan for new

More space for hire bikes is urgently needed at mainline railway stations in central London, according to David Eddington, head of cycle hire at Transport for London.  “We’ve had docking stations at Waterloo for the past seven years and it works well. There are 300 bikes that are returned to the docking points [as commuters make their homeward journey].  “In the early evening our team then wheels the bikes to a lock-up where they are stored securely. The next mornin

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

Freight traffic should be switched from rail onto lorry platoons, a move that would free up capacity on the rail network for more passenger trains, the Government’s infrastructure adviser, Lord Adonis,  has said. The proposal has caused uproar in the rail freight sector, with operators said to be “hopping mad” at Adonis, the former Labour transport secretary who now chairs the Government’s National Infrastructure Commission (NIC). Operators are concerned that Adonis

The Government should cease funding for the Transport Systems Catapult if the organisation cannot articulate a clear plan for how it will deliver economic benefits to the UK, consultants have recommended. The need for a new approach at the TSC is highlighted by a report published alongside the Government’s industrial strategy last week. Consultant EY was appointed to review the catapult network andidentifies the TSC as one of three that must prepare a detailed plan of activities for the n

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

Train operator Southeastern bagged two trophies at the National Cycle-Rail awards presented at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster yesterday. Southeastern took the coveted Operator of the Year award as well as Best Station of the Year for its work in improving bike parking facilities at Gravesend Station. The awards, hosted by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), celebrate the work done by the rail industry and associated organisations to encourage integrated cycle-rail travel. Station of the Year G

The Department for Transport recently issued updated forecasts of demand for air travel, to support a revised draft Airports National Policy Statement (LTT 10 Nov). However, these forecasts may overstate future demand by disregarding evidence of emerging market maturity. The new forecasts recognise the significance of market maturity – the slowing and eventual cessation of demand growth over time, a common feature of all markets for goods and services. The forecasts assume reductions in i

Travel in the arc between Oxford and Cambridge today and a few things are instantly striking. West-east public transport is sparse – indeed, there are no end-to-end rail services so the traveller has to go into London and out again. The end-to-end road journey is also to a poor standard, with most of the journey made on single carriageway A roads.      All this looks set too change, however, as the Government promotes the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge arc as the UK’s

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

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 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

A Preliminary business case for a new road bridge across the River Thames east of Reading has been published by Wokingham Borough Council.  Consultant WSP has prepared a strategic outline business case for the two-lane bridge, which would connect the roundabout for Thames Valley business park on the south side of the river (adjacent to the Great Western Main Line), with the A4155 Henley Road/Caversham Park Road junction north of the river.  The new crossing would relieve traffic on t

Most people regard rail electrification as an unquestionably good thing but ask those living with Great Western electrification and you’ll get a different answer. Indeed, so ugly is the overhead line equipment, train operator Great Western Railway is trying to pretend that the line hasn’t been electrified. Take this Famous Five-themed ad depicting a new IEP train passing over what is presumably the River Thames. Not a ghastly mast or wire in sight! Schoolteachers have to be vigila

While the push to deliver new homes and retrofit existing communities is high on the political agenda, if not actually happening in practice, we need a conversation about the kind of places that we build. Research carried out by Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) and the Ramblers found that local authorities want to build places that encourage walking and active travel. Developers do not always share these priorities, however, and many councils feel the mismatch is a challenge in achieving

Lucy Saunders, public heath specialist at Transport for London, has certainly made a significant impact on transport policy in London, with her healthy streets approach being embedded in Mayor Sadiq Khan's draft transport strategy.  But a side-effect is that it now seems almost compulsory for any presentation to include the ‘healthy streets wheel’ [pictured above], showing ten indicators of a healthy street.  At last month’s Healthy Streets conference in Walthamstow

The UK has much to learn from other countries when it comes to maximising the economic, social and environmental benefits of railway stations, according to a report published by the Campaign for Better Transport. Development around stations: Exploring international experience and lessons for the UK examines the international experience of creating development hubs around railway stations and the benefits that they can bring. The report has been published by the campaign's

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

More than £400m extra each year could be spent by councils on improving local roads if government funding mirrored rising income in fuel and motoring taxes, claims the Local Government Association (LGA). The LGA's call comes ahead of the Autumn Budget statement, which takes place on 22 November. The LGA statement picks up themes from its recent report, A country in a jam: tackling congestion in our towns and cities. Council leaders are calling for the government to implement a full

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

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

Hugh Wenban-Smith, who died recently (LTT 29 Sep) made significant contributions to transport thinking, policy and practice, as an economist, as a senior civil servant and as a researcher.  He also had a part in the development of the Transport Planning Society, and this appreciation comes from those who knew him in this capacity.   Born in Tanzania in 1941, Hugh spent his early years there, and maintained a lifelong interest and connection with that country. His earliest publication

Scottish transport minister Humza Yousaf has told Transport Scotland to look into re-opening a six-mile disused rail line between Leven in Fife and a junction with the Edinburgh to Dundee line. Officials will undertake a GRIP 4 study, the ‘single option development’ stage in Network Rail’s standard process for developing schemes. Levenmouth Rail campaigners envisage a half-hourly passenger service calling at new stations at Leven and Cameron Bridge. During a debate on the sch

A relief road that bisected the town of Caernarfon in the 1970s should be largely eradicated once an outer bypass is completed, a retired civil engineer has suggested. A public inquiry began in June into the Welsh Government’s proposal to construct a six-mile £125m new alignment for the A487 east of Caernarfon. One of the aims is to address peak congestion at the southern end of the town’s inner relief road, where southbound A487 traffic winds through a residential street.&nbs

Oxfordshire County Council is surveying 1,500 businesses about staff travel habits, to inform its development of a Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) for Oxford. The authority sees the WPL as a source of funding to implement measures outlined last year in the Oxford Transport Strategy. They include provision of new and improved rail stations, and a Bus Rapid Transit network providing a “tram-like level of service”.  A staged approach is suggested to deal with problems from “hi

The first draft Assessment Report from the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) warns that the current state of the UK’s infrastructure risks hindering the economy if action is not taken quickly. The report contains local transport content, including concerns about air quality and the needs of cycling and public transport within cities, as well as the more obvious comments on airport capacity and national road and rail corridors. Set up two years ago,  the commission was

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

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

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

Longer semi-trailers (LSTs) have cut lorry mileage and there are no signs they lead to more injury accidents, according to the latest report on the trial.  The Government launched the LSTtrial in 2012, initially permitting 1,800 of the trailers, which  can be up to 2.05m longer than the current standard semi-trailers  (15.65 metres instead of 13.6 metres). In January, the Government announced it would allow a further 1,000 LSTs to operate. Consultant Risk Solutions says the firs

Deep down everyone knows that roads are the backbone of life in the UK. Just as simple examples, try getting to work, see friends, or buy food without them. But they are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to money being allocated to look after them.  Maybe roads are neglected because they are just as much a part of everyday experience as the sun rising and setting. If most people think of roads at all, other than when they are congested or being dug up, they feature as just long grey

Lancashire County Council is seeking £400m from the Government’s new £2.3bn Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) for transport improvements in Preston and Lancaster.  The Government will award up to £250m to successful applicants to its HIF forward fund competition, which is expected to be heavily over-subscribed. Lancashire’s £250m Preston bid is for a new road bridge over the River Ribble west of Preston. This would connect up three road schemes being de

Northern Ireland’s Department for Infrastructure (DfI) has awarded Siemens a new contract to maintain traffic management equipment. The four-year deal covers traffic signaling equipment at more than 1,200 sites. The systems include 950 Safer Routes to School signs as well as a network of ANPR cameras, vehicle activated signs and rising bollards.