Is the energy transition moving fast enough to meet climate change targets and limit the damage caused by fossil fuels? Two recent reports from global consultants appear to take rather different views...and, as usual, the devil is in the detail... According to consultant Wood Mackenzie, the energy mix is changing only gradually and the world risks relying on fossil fuels for decades to come. Despite great efforts to reduce costs in renewables, electricity, zero-carbon technologies and advanced

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 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

Transport for London has launched a demand responsive bus trial in the London Borough of Sutton. A second trial is due to be launched in Ealing later this year.  The 12-month GoSutton project sees the minibuses, with capacity for 14 passengers, operate on-demand over an area rather than a specific route. It is being operated by Go-Ahead and app-based ViaVan. Go-Ahead already operates the similar service, PickMeUp, in Oxford (LTT 12 Apr). ViaVan is the European joint venture between US-bas

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

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

Transport for London expects the capital’s bus patronage to fall 2.6 per cent this year as the bus operating subsidy rises 12.8 per cent to a record £722m.   TfL’s central budget forecast is for 2.155 billion bus passenger journeys in 2019/20, down from a forecast 2.213 billion in 2018/19.  This would continue the steady decline seen in recent years: patronage fell from 2.314 billion in 2015/16 to 2.262 billion in 2016/17, and to 2.247 billion in 2017/18. “Th

The Scottish Government is considering a request from bus operators for additional funding  to cover a shortfall of at least £6.4m in the budget for concessionary fares reimbursement in 2018/19.   Transport secretary Michael Matheson met with representatives of the Confederation of Passenger Transport Scotland last week to discuss the matter.  Matheson had earlier revealed to the Scottish Parliament’s rural economy and connectivity committee that the demand for reimb

Greater Manchester Combined Authority is to fund free bus travel for 16-18 year olds.  The Opportunity Pass, championed by the conurbation’s Labour mayor Andy Burnham, will initially be implemented as a one-year pilot on 1 September. Young people will pay a £10 administration fee for the smart card pass that could also give discounted access to sporting, cultural and leisure venues. Eamonn Boylan, chief executive of GMCA, said talks with bus operators were continuing about the

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

A multi-operator bus ticket covering Portsmouth, Southampton and the south of Hampshire is used for about 0.27 per cent of bus trips and is always likely to be a “niche” product, according to its promoter. Consultants have meanwhile warned that contactless ticketing could be a threat to the ticket’s long-term viability.  Solent Go was launched in 2014 and is managed by local authority joint transport committee Solent Transport and the South Hampshire Bus Operators Associa

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

Proposed Sweeping reforms to Britain’s complex system of rail fares will allow local politicians to maximise the benefits of devolved rail powers, says the Rail Delivery Group. The RDG has just published its proposals to reform rail ticketing following a consultation held last year.   A two-stage approach to reform is proposed. First, the Government, industry and other stakeholders would work together to replace the outdated Ticketing and Settlement Agreement (TSA) with a new set of

Lancashire County Council has deferred a decision on raising bus station charges to allow further talks with operators.     The council’s cabinet was to have considered the plans this month but the paper was withdrawn at the last minute. A council spokesman told LTT: “We deferred this item while we look again at these proposals. Our aim is to make the charges the same for all county council-owned bus stations in Lancashire, rather than the current system where these vary.&

The DfT is consulting on creating a new pay-as-you-go (PAYG) zone for rail travel in the south-east of England.  PAYG systems automatically charge the fare for the journey without needing the customer to buy a ticket.  The system already operates in London through Oyster and contactless ticketing, and the DfT has provided Transport for the North with £150m to develop a multi-modal PAYG programme for the north of England. It has also agreed with South Western Railway to develop

Between 31 May 2018 and 31 July 2018, the Department for Transport held a 'Call for ideas' in respect of rail market-led proposals (MLPs); essentially a call for proposals that were 'financially credible without government support'. There was a strong response to this call for ideas, with the department receiving 30 submissions, although DfT has not yet commented on the relative merits of these. An MLP is defined as 'a project promoted by the private sector which addresses an opportunity not ne

Government funding for England’s mandatory concessionary travel scheme for older and disabled people has been cut by more than 60 per cent since 2011/12, according to the North East Joint Transport Committee. The estimate follows a review of the Government’s provisional local government finance settlement for 2019/20.  “It is clear that Government funding for transport services is continuing to be cut once again, with cuts partly being offset by council tax income,&rdquo

Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) smartphone ticketing should be available to Wales and Borders rail passengers by April 2021. The facility will not necessarily involve ITSO Ltd, which manages the ITSO specification for inter-operable smart ticketing schemes. Government body Transport for Wales has published the grant agreement for the Wales and Borders operator and development partner (ODP) contract, awarded to KeolisAmey in June. The agreement includes deadlines for the development of smart ticketing on t

Transport for the West Midlands has become the first transport provider to offer mobile phone-based ticketing using the  ITSO specification, initially for users of the Metro light rail system.      ITSO Ltd manages the ITSO technical specification used by transport providers to implement smart ticketing schemes. The specification underpins concessionary travel smartcards and public transport smartcard products such as Swift in the West Midlands, Pop in Tyne and Wear, Walrus

Further cuts to bus routes  in inner and central London may be necessary to reduce unsustainable levels of subsidy, Transport for London has said. TfL’s new business plan forecasts that the operating deficit on the capital’s bus services will rise from £638m in 2017/18 to  £723m in 2020/21.  “This will be the highest annual bus subsidy in our history and represents an increase of more than 25 per cent since 2015/16,” it says, blaming the rise

On 17 December the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama devoted half an hour to a highly critical analysis of the proposed HS2 high-speed rail network between London, Birmingham and then further north to Leeds and Manchester. After initially focusing on the allegation that the Government’s budget for the first phase of HS2, between London and Birmingham, is wildly unrealistic and will actually cost many billions of pounds more than the current official estimate, Panorama

The rail industry should completely overhaul fare structures to capitalise on contactless payment methods, Transport for London has said. It says scrapping return fares for urban rail journeys is fundamental to such a reform.   TfL’s comments come in its response to the Rail Delivery Group’s consultation on the future of rail fares.  Current fare structures are too complex, says TfL. “Advance fares, premium fares and off-peak fares are not bad in themselves but a st

The news that the small but rich European state of Luxembourg is planning to make all public transport free to use in 2019 generated a brief media debate concerning whether this is a good idea and whether we in the UK could or should follow suit. Particularly enthusiastic about the concept was Guardian leader writer Susanna Rustin. “Hooray for free buses – this is how we create a greener, cleaner world,” she said on 7 December. “What’s not to like about Luxembourg&r

Nottingham city Council has outlined how it plans to introduce contactless ticketing on buses and trams, with daily and weekly fare capping, from 2020.   Councillors were briefed this week about the £3.4m project, part-funded by a £2.4m grant from the DfT’s National Productivity Investment Fund.  Bus operator Nottingham City Transport (NCT), as the operator with the largest market share, will act as lead contractor, receiving £1.364m for a back office system.

Everyone needs transport to move around and to access everyday needs, but for each individual those needs are different, and they change over time and space: herein lie the seeds of inequalities in transport. In light of the current DfT review on transport and inequality, it is important to estimate the nature and scale of transport inequalities in Great Britain and how this impacts on quality of life, and then to discuss the implications in terms of transport investment and subsidy decisions.&n

Leicestershire County Council will cut £400,000 from its budget for supporting bus services while allocating the same amount to mitigating the impacts of HS2 construction in the county. The council spends about £2.3m a year on supporting passenger transport, and says some services receive £17 of subsidy per passenger journey. Last week the cabinet agreed to adopt a draft Passenger Transport Policy and Strategy (PTPS), which will save about £400,000 a year, as required un

Bus operators are claiming that their revenues have been undermined by Merseytravel’s youth ticket, which is not conditional on showing proof of age. Merseytravel denies there is a significant problem with misuse and says it wants its MyTicket product to be easily available, without forms to complete. MyTicket was introduced in 2014 for young people aged five to 15. In 2015, the upper age limit was increased to 18. My-Ticket currently costs £2.20 for a day’s unlimited bus trav

Bus operators are fighting hard to retain and grow their share of the local travel market, and they are investing heavily in a new generation of apps and on-bus services to help them deliver this aspiration. This is the new reality for bus operators, according to Jonathan Raper, CEO of TransportAPI. For the past decade, Raper has been at the forefront of a movement to develop journey data platforms. “We have now reached the point where real-time apps can give bus travel the edge over other

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

Leeds City Council is set to introduce a Clean Air Charging Zone (CAZ) across more than half the city in January 2020. The worst polluting buses, coaches and HGVs that fail to meet the council’s minimum emissions standard will pay a £50 daily charge. A Leeds City Council spokesman told LTT: “Our proposals are that the worst polluting taxi and private hire vehicles that don’t meet our minimum emissions standard would only be required to pay £12.50 a day or alternati

The Government is setting up a central payment system that drivers will use to pay charges for entering Clean Air Zones across England. Ministers’ decision to set up a national system follows months of talks with local authorities planning to introduce charging CAZs. Some authorities, such as Birmingham, had wanted to run the payment system themselves.  The DfT outlined its plans to  LTT this week. “Central government is developing a central payment and enquiry function t

First Bus has become Britain’s first large operator to offer contactless payment on all of its vehicles, and believes that data from its digital technology will strengthen its hand in discussions with local authorities. On Monday last week, First Manchester was the last of 14 operations to inaugurate ticket machines supplied by Ticketer. The technology, rolled out since June 2017, enables all First Bus passengers to use contactless bank cards instead of cash on the bus, complementing the

Corethree bills itself as the “world’s leading mobile ticket provider”. It issued its 50 millionth m-ticket in February this year – sold through apps developed for transport operators large and small across the UK. Corethree’s customers include a wide range of operators and authorities including First Bus, Arriva, Santander Cycles, Translink, Lothian Buses, My Get Me There (Transport for Greater Manchester), McGills Buses and Go Ahead. But, on 3 September, everythi

The timetable chaos that caused severe disruption on Britain's railways in May resulted from a combination of mistakes made by Network Rail, two train operators and the Department for Transport, the rail industry regulator has decided. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has published its interim inquiry report into what caused the May 2018 timetable disruption, which led to passengers enduring delays and cancellations as they could not predict how long a journey may take, or even if it was possi

Go-Ahead Group has reported a fell in profitability on its regional bus operations for the year ending 30 June.  Group revenues were £3.46bn, down from £3.48bn in 2017. Profit before tax was £145.7m, up from £136.8m.  UK Bus operating profit pre-exceptional items rose from £90.7m to £91.4m. The contribution from the regional bus business dropped from £47.1m last year to £45.8m, with the profit margin falling from 12.5 per cent to 11.9 p

Official statistics for rail passenger journeys do not take account of the growing use of “split ticketing”, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has confirmed to LTT. Buying tickets for successive legs of a single train journey can save significant amounts of money. The practice has become more common in recent years following media publicity and the creation of websites dedicated to reducing travel costs by calculating the cheapest combinations of tickets for the customer’s jou

HS2 is, in its minor way, an illustration of the corruption that besets the West (‘Politicians didn’t see adviser’s damning assessment of HS2’ LTT 03 Aug). No brown envelopes perhaps. Instead vast salaries for supporting politically sensitive decisions however stupid those decisions may be. The Times reports that 25 per cent of HS2 staff earn over £100,000 per annum for heaven’s sake. The most fundamental fraud associated with this, and most rail projects, is

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

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

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

According to recent statistics produced by the Department for Transport, bus service use in England is in decline. Although bus use per person has increased significantly in London over the last 25 years (+52%), it has fallen by 40 per cent in many other English metropolitan areas. Along with London, Liverpool City Region is a proud exception to the rule. As a result of the introduction of a range of customer-focused improvements, including on board Wi-fi and USB charging points, the number of f

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

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

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

How we pay for public transport is in the spotlight. The rail industry has launched a review of fares and ticketing. Transport for London says contactless payments now account for around 50 per cent of transactions on its network, demonstrating passengers’ appetite for convenience along with trust in a ‘best fare’ promise. And cash is now no longer the most popular way to pay for bus travel in West Yorkshire either, with smartcards, apps and contactless now accounting for more

Councils wanting to reduce pollution from toxic gases such as nitrogen dioxide from traffic on our roads must consider how compliance can be cost-effectively achieved for Clean Air Zones (CAZ) and Low Emission Zones (LEZ). There are several practical steps that can be taken by extracting greater value from limited resources by utilising existing assets more effectively. CCTV enforcement and traffic management systems are now routinely deployed by councils to capture civil traffic contraventions

If any budding student of project management had the time, then Edinburgh has been the place to be for the last nine months as the inquiry into the city’s tram debacle took oral evidence from scores of witnesses. In all, the inquiry, chaired by Lord Hardie, took evidence for 59 days. The hearings came to an end last month with closing statements from legal representatives of some of the main participants. Hardie is now preparing his final report, drawing not only on the oral and written ev

Trams in London will go ‘cashless’ on 16 July 2018, with payment only accepted by Oyster or contactless cards. This follows the successful introduction of cashless payment on buses across London in July 2014, says Transport for London (TfL). This year less than 66 paper single tickets a day were sold across entire tram network, with many now travelling using Oyster or contactless payment, says TfL. Ticket machines, which were installed when the tram system opened in 2000, will be

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

A simplified fares and ticketing system is set to be introduced across Greater Manchester’s Metro light rail service. This would involve a flexible four-zone system, designed to deliver to easy to understand and better value fares for passengers across the network. If the change is approved by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), the system would be launched in early 2019, cutting the current 8,500 stop-to-stop fare combinations to just 10 zone-based fares. It would also help to

A new, purpose-built train depot for London's new Elizabeth line has opened at Old Oak Common, in north-west London. The depot will house and maintain up to 42 of the Elizabeth line's 70 new trains at a time. The maintenance infrastructure at Old Oak Common will be pivotal to the day-to-day operation of the Elizabeth line when it launches in December 2018. The Old Oak Common depot has come into service as TfL prepares for the introduction of its rail services (TfL Rail) in west. TfL Rail will

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

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 DfT has declined to offer any explanation for specifying the use of the Retail Prices Index for fare increases in several future rail franchises. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says RPI is a “very poor measure of general inflation” and any continued use of RPI should be “closely scrutinised”. The RPI ceased to be a National Statistic five years ago and is only published by the ONS for legacy reasons. However, it has now emerged that the next Wales and Bord

After the Labour Party had launched a policy providing free bus travel for people under 25 in areas that adopt bus franchising or municipal bus operations (LTT 13 Apr), Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee observed on 12 April that: “It’s a good idea, but still a lot less generous than many older people’s free travel passes. Outside London over-65s get bus concessions; in London the over-60s get not just free buses but free tubes as well, even for high earners still in work. &ldqu

All regular readers of LTT will know that I am a vehement opponent of the current legal regime governing buses. Nevertheless I cannot support either of the proposals that appear on page 5 of the current issue (‘Corbyn pledges free bus travel for under-25s in franchise areas’, ‘Make bus travel free for all’ LTT13 Apr). Free bus travel for under-25s would create enormous capacity problems here in Nottingham and in other university cities where students would switch from wa

Rail passengers issued with a penalty fare now have recourse to an independent appeals service not connected to the rail companies. Once an appeal is received the clock will stop on the 21-day deadline for the payment of a penalty fare until the outcome is resolved.  The Department for Transport said the new appeals process will give greater consideration to circumstances of how and why the penalty was issued. Rail minister Jo Johnson said: “Rail users should make every effort to g

Senior citizens and the disabled will see their free off-peak bus travel concession in England maintained for the foreseeable future following amendments to the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme, the Department for Transport has confirmed. The scheme, which was introduced in 2007, ensures that bus passengers aged over 65 or with a disability are entitled to travel free of charge on any off-peak local service throughout England. Some 10m people use the concessionary scheme. Buses Min

A Labour Government would fund free bus travel for under 25 year olds – but only in parts of England that adopt bus franchising or take on the public ownership of bus services. Labour said the policy would be funded using money ring-fenced from Vehicle Excise Duty. The Conservative Government has already promised to ring-fence all VED revenues in England for a new National Roads Fund from April 2020. Labour’s free bus travel policy would only be available in areas where the local a

Transport for Greater Manchester is to purchase more than 20 new Metrolink vehicles with funding from its share of the  DfT’s £1.7bn Transforming Cities Fund.  Of the £243m allocated to Greater Manchester, £160m will be used to deliver walking and cycling infrastructure (LTT 05 Jan) and the remaining £83m will fund additional trams for Metrolink.  The Metrolink fleet currently consists of 120 vehicles, of which 108 are required to deliver peak hour

Uber has launched a free to access web-based database of road journey time data for London based on aggregated Uber journeys. Uber Movement for London does not provide information about Ubers’ movements around London. Rather it is a database of aggregate journey time data, which does not reveal how many trips have been aggregated in order to answer your query. That aside, the tool gives access to travel times between areas for selected dates (since 2016) and the ability to compare those

Prices for the UK’s first Mobility as a Service (MaaS) subscription packages have been announced, ahead of their launch in the West Midlands conurbation next week.  Finnish firm MaaS Global is offering two subscription packages for its Whim-branded MaaS, which the company says is the world’s only monthly mobility product. The products aim to persuade the public to give up car ownership.   Chris Perry, the UK lead for MaaS Global, this week outlined the packages – Wh

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

Talk about transport with any of the new metropolitan mayors and one of the hottest topics for debate will probably be bus franchising. It seems that, ever since Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s Government deregulated the buses, there have been calls for some form of re-regulation. Let’s not forget that transport ministers at the time were happy to provide the climate for a free-for-all, as long as it didn’t include the streets of London. Since then, local authorities have looked wist

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

Transport for Greater Manchester plans to spend £11.5m next year exploring the case for franchising bus services.  The funding will be used to: • prepare a business case of a  franchising scheme alongside other realistic options for improving bus services • obtain a report from an independent auditor on the assessment  • carry out a public consultation on the assessment of franchising  • publish a report on the outcome of the consultation 

The bus industry is in crisis. Passenger numbers are  plumetting at an even faster rate than the strike-hit railways whilst more operators either cease trading or cut back to core urban areas. Even the offer of free bus travel cannot tempt older people onto cold, unreliable, uncomfortable, worn-out buses for which they may have a long, cold wait. The DfT study on the impact of the free bus pass  quantifies the qualitative research that I have undertaken showing that the scheme offers

Respondents to the Welsh Government’s consultation on  the future of the concessionary travel scheme for older people and the disabled have given contrasting views about what, if anything, should change.  There were so many conflicting views in local government that the Association of Transport Coordinating Officers Cymru decided not to provide a response. The Welsh Local Government Association’s (WLGA) views are contradicted on several points by at least one local authori

Passengers using Govia Thameslink services suffered the worst levels of disruption on the rail network, reveals a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) published today.  This is the largest franchise in the UK – made up of Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern - including four major London train services. The DfT awarded the contract in 2014, worth £8bn over seven years, after Govia Thameslink scored the highest of five bidders for its proposals on service quality and put

Heathrow Airport Ltd (HAL) wants to recover up to £5.8m a year from Transport for London and Heathrow Express for running trains over the airport’s rail link. The Office of Rail and Road is consulting on the proposed charge for trains using HAL’s  8.6km rail link between the airport and the Great Western Main Line at Airport Junction.  HAL’s application envisages a charge for ten years commencing on 1 January 2019. It would apply to both TfL’s new Elizab

England’s mandatory concessionary fares scheme for bus travel represents low or at best medium value for money, according to a DfT assessment.   A conventional cost:benefit analysis of the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS) produced a benefit:cost ratio of 1.16:1, which represents low value for money in the DfT’s classification system. The BCR rose to 1.40 in a sensitivity test that considered more benefits, and the DfT says that the inclusion of  other n

Rail patronage on London and South East services was 1.3% lower in the second quarter of 2017/18 compared with the same period of 2016/17, according to the Office of Rail and Road. This is the fifth successive quarter of decline.  GB-wide rail passenger journeys in the second quarter fell 0.4% to 424 million. Long distance passenger numbers grew 1.1% and patronage on regional operators (i.e. outside London and the South East) rose 2.0%.  In London and the South East, the South Wester

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

A new drone challenge has been launched in the UK that will work with five cities to explore if and how drone technology could be used to support local needs. The Flying High Challenge, run by innovation foundation Nesta together with Innovate UK, will consider how drones could assist cities with their emergency services, buildings maintenance, and traffic, environmental and pollution monitoring.  Drone technology is advancing rapidly. UK cities now have a unique opportunity to shape this

People with mental health conditions are being let down by transport operators failing to cater for their needs, according to Roger Mackett, Emeritus Professor of Transport at University College London. Speaking at the TRL Academy Symposium last week, he said that those with mental health impairments are being deterred from using bus and rail services due to lack of support from operators. This includes not giving staff the right training to help those with mental health issues, the shift to dri

Councils should not feel compelled to cancel contracts with community transport organisations (CTOs) as a result of the DfT’s new interpretation of  licensing requirements, the Department has said. The advice note sent to councils this month addresses their  concerns about the implications of the original DfT letter sent at the end of July (LTT04 Aug).   In the July letter, the DfT announced a re-interpretation of EUregulations that will mean CTOs can no longer undertake c

For five weekends in the run-up to Christmas Brighton & Hove Buses is offering free bus journeys to up to three children under the age of 16 or Bus ID holders who are accompanied by an adult The bus company hopes the offer will help reduce congestion caused by cars at such a busy time of year for shopping. Brighton & Hove Buses managing director Martin Harris said: “We want to help people to leave their cars at home and opt for public transport in order to reduce congestion on o

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

Legislation that will make Transport for the North (TfN) the first statutory sub-national transport body with its own legal powers and duties were laid in Parliament. The move to put TfN on a statutory footing means that its recommendations must be formally considered by the government. The Department for Transport (DfT) also confirmed the award of £18.5m from a £150m government fund for TfN’s smart ticketing programme. TfN will use this to introduce paper

London Overground has celebrated its first decade of successful operations. The operation, which is the third largest rail operator in the UK, commemorated its first 10 years of service on Saturday 11 November 2017.

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

The Welsh Government is budgeting for a large reduction in rail subsidy as soon as the new Wales and Borders franchise begins next year. The news came as incumbent operator Arriva announced its withdrawal from the competition for the new franchise.  The subsidy reduction appears to equate to about a third of the current franchise’s support, although the Government says this depends on the outcome of the on-going procurement process and negotiations with the UK Government. Welsh tran

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

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

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

As traffic levels hit a record high, there is a pressing need to manage congestion by diverting people from single occupancy cars to public and shared transport. However, with bus passenger levels falling across the country, persuading people to share journeys through conventional personal travel plans does not appear to be having a widespread impact.  So, how can the bus industry adopt disruptive approaches to change its business model and grow passenger numbers? The next generation Ove

It’s time to face up to the truth about ticketing - first generation smartcards only improved the passenger experience at the margins, even after all the initial hype with Oyster. Some would say that even that scheme nearly threw the baby out with the bathwater by introducing a flat fare for buses.  This reduced the revenue-raising potential below what it was with graduated fares. Just think for a moment how few large-area flat fares there are in the rest of deregulated UK. Edinburgh

The North East Combined Authority and local bus operators have entered into a partnership to offer young people discounted bus fares. Those aged under 19 are now eligible to discounted fares on all Arriva, Go North East and Stagecoach Services in Tyne & Wear, Northumberland, and County Durham. Prior to these changes the eligibility for young person’s discounts had varied widely between the different bus companies. Go North East has been offering a £1 single for all those aged

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

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

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

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

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has introduced a new smartcard for use on the city’s tram and bus services. The ‘get me there’ travel card is the latest phase in the phased introduction of smartcard technology by the authority. TfGM has been working with

Cost estimates and funding envelopes for some of Network Rail’s biggest rail enhancement projects are reported in letters released by the DfT.  The letters were sent in January  to the senior DfT official responsible for each of the projects. Each was written by the then DfT permanent secretary, Philip Rutnam, and the chief executive of the Treasury’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Tony Meggs.  Brian Etheridge is the senior responsible owner (SRO) for five ma

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

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

Drivers will see an end to tolls on the Severn Crossings in 2018, Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns has announced. The UK government said it delivering on a promise by Prime Minister Theresa May in May. The pair of bridges over the Severn are used by more than 25 million vehicles using the M4 motorway. The bridges are currently run by

The subject of road pricing made a return to the pages of the mainstream media this month, initially due to reports that a congestion charge around Heathrow Airport is being mooted to enable the facility to meet air quality targets. On 7 July London’s Evening Standard said that: “A new ‘H-charge’ on motorists to tackle toxic air around Heathrow was today backed by two of Britain’s leading airport experts. Sir Howard Davies, who chaired Britain’s Airports Comm

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

The Wolfson Economics Prize is billed as the most significant economics prize after the Nobel Prize and the £250,000 prize money is certainly not to be sniffed at. So there was huge interest in transport circles last year when prize sponsor, Lord Wolfson of Apsley, announced that the question for 2017 would be: ‘How can we pay for better, safer, more reliable roads in a way that is fair to road users and good for the economy and the environment?’  An esteemed set of judge

The DfT should conduct ‘pre-mortem’ inquiries into major projects in which officials imagine what could go wrong with scheme delivery, a report commissioned by the Department has recommended.    The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), a social purpose company joinly owned by Government,  was appointed by the DfT last year to look into cognitive biases in decision-making (LTT13 May 16). The team conducted interviews with 13 officials and reviewed documents from the DfT&rs

The UK’s fledgling dockless bike hire industry was this week urged to work with public authorities – or risk having their bikes removed from the streets. The warning from London’s walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham came after thousands of bikes were delivered to the capital’s streets by Singapore firm oBike.  Hammersmith and Fulham Council used Highways Act 1980 powers to slap obstruction notices on some of

The first occupiers of thousands of future new homes in Cardiff will be offered a year’s free bus travel. Concerns have previously been expressed about the road network’s capacity to accommodate additional car journeys arising from the city’s expansion. The City of Cardiff Council’s local development plan (LDP) aims to reduce the proportion of journeys made by car so that there is a 50:50 split between car and ‘sustainable’ modes by 2026. Section 106 plannin

The Welsh Government’s trial of free long-distance bus travel commences this weekend, with all passengers entitled to travel without charge on the seven Government-funded TrawsCymru routes.  Ministers have agreed a budget of up to £1m for the trial this financial year. The Government is not expecting substantial compensation claims from operators that compete with TrawsCymru, saying it expects the trial to increase bus patronage overall. The initiative was announced as a 12-mo

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

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

The UK’s first Mobility as a Service (MaaS) pilot scheme is due to start in the West Midlands this autumn. A test group of 500 people will arrange their multi-modal journeys using a smartphone app. The project will be overseen by Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), an executive body of the West Midlands Combined Authority. “We are planning to recruit a control group alongside the initial 500 to test how MaaS works with other types of customer,” said TfWM’s managing direc

On 12 June The Guardian devoted a lengthy article to the proposed ‘dockless’ bike hire due to open in Manchester at the end of the month. Describing the concept of dockless bike hire schemes as having “the potential to reshape the look and feel of many cities”, the paper suggested that this ‘Uber for bikes’ model “has seen virulent competition and bikes littered haphazardly around cities or dumped by the hundreds in bushes and alleyways” in the con

Sixteen London bus routes carried more than ten million passengers a year in 2015/16, according to figures released by Transport for London. The busiest route was the 25  connecting Oxford Circus with Hainault in east London. It carried almost 20 million passengers a year (see table).   TfL has supplied the London Assembly’s transport committee with patronage figures for every route in the capital. Bus patronage in the capital has fallen since 2015/16.

In January the Scottish transport minister Humza Yousaf announced that there would be a consultation on the future of Scotland’s concessionary travel scheme. The current scheme, which was set up in 2006, has faced criticism on the grounds of escalating cost – £207.8m in 2016/17 – and also from bus operators, who have seen reimbursement levels fall in recent years to a new low of 56.9% of the standard adult fare. However, the review is also timely in providing an opportun

A ‘TravelBot’ that ‘chats’ to customers and offers real-time travel information has been launched by Transport for London (TfL).  The tool, which is powered by artificial intelligence, communicates with customers using Messenger (Facebook's instant messaging service) and tells them when their bus is due to arrive, and provides service updates and Tube maps. The new technology makes it easier for customers to get information on the Messenger platform in a way that i

Transport received far less media coverage than many other issues in the run up to the General Election, with the possible exception of Labour’s proposals to renationalise the railways (see Media Monitor 26 May). An exception to this was a lengthy article in The New Statesman that went through the major transport policies of each of the major parties in some detail. “Education gets around five pages of the Tory manifesto,” NS writer John Elledge noted on 31 May. “The NHS

The Welsh Government is coming under fire for not consulting stakeholders on the next 15-year Wales and Borders franchise specification, which could include radical changes such as the conversion of some lines to light rail operation. The specification is being developed through “competitive dialogue” with the four bidders. The procurement timetable does not include a period for consultation on the specification. Simon Jones, the Government’s director of transport, told a Nati

What the feature in the last issue on heavy goods vehicles shows is that bold freight policies are needed (‘Can’t live with them, can’t live without them: whither the HGV?’ LTT 12 May). We receive many requests for advice from the public on how to ameliorate the adverse impacts of lorries using unsuitable urban and rural roads. In the past, freight, which does not have a vote and was not seen as sexy, was often overlooked by politicians and officials alike. Growing aware

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

Fare-paying bus passengers using services provided by the two main operators on Merseyside – Stagecoach and Arriva – have grown 9.7% in the last two years, according to Merseytravel.  The performance is close to the target set in the Liverpool City Region Bus Alliance for a 10% increase in fare paying passengers by the end of 2017/18 for the area covered by the five Metropolitan districts (Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley and St Helens) (LTT 29 Apr 16). Halton is part of the

In theory, the collection of robust and (where possible) impartial data allows people and organisations to make informed decisions about policy and investment. This could be about geographical patterns of travel demand, trends, and better understanding of what might drive demand into the future. In practice, this may not be borne out in reality, as shown elegantly in the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s recent report The end of the road? Challenging the road-building consensus (LTT 31 M

App-based private hire company Uber complements urban public transport and can help reduce private car trips in cities, a senior company official said last week.  The message was given by Fred Jones, Uber’s head of cities in the UK and Ireland, delivering the latest in the University of West of England’s Bristol Distinguished Address Series.  Uber’s website now lists 20 operating areas in the UK and there is emerging evidence that  its operations may pose a thr

London mayor Sadiq Khan has confirmed the introduction of a £10 emissions surcharge on older vehicles driven in the central London congestion charge area.  The ‘Toxicity Charge’, or T-Charge, will be introduced on 23 October and apply mainly to petrol and diesel vehicles registered before 2006.  It will operate during the hours of the congestion charge (Monday to Friday 7am to 6pm) and will be in addition to the congestion charge itself, meaning the cost of driving

The government has today awarded £4m in funding to projects designed to cut congestion, speed up journey times and help clean up the environment. Apps that notify motorists of congestion and free parking spaces, as well as real-time journey information for visually impaired passengers, are among the projects that have received a share of the funding. Nineteen councils across England will get between £50,000 and £300,000 for their ideas to improve journeys through digital inno

Network Rail is considering its options after a court ruled it was liable for reductions in house prices caused by Japanese knotweed on its land. Two residents of Maesteg, South Wales, claimed the invasive plant had spread from a railway embankment and halved the value of their homes. After a four-day hearing, County Court Recorder Andrew Grubb ordered Network Rail to pay each of the residents £4,320 for knotweed treatment and £10,000 in recognition of the drop in house values.&nbs

The launch by Stagecoach South East of high-frequency minibus services in Ashford, Kent, from 11 February (LTT 03 Feb), marks a striking revival of a concept widely used in the 1980s and 1990s. Large increases in frequency using smaller vehicles provided a much more attractive service, by reducing roadside waiting times and providing a schedule more likely to suit users’ activities. Costs were reduced by better fuel consumption and lower maintenance costs. Speeds tended to be higher (due t

The DfT is consulting on the first tranche of regulations and guidance associated with the Bus Services Bill.  The 151-page document features draft regulations on:  • Advanced Quality Partnership Schemes;  • Franchising: service permits and transitional provisions; • Franchising and enhanced partnerships: TUPE, pensions and information from operators; • Enhanced partnerships: the operator objection mechanism; • Information on varied or cancelled serv

It was all going so well for Vivarail. A clever idea that had been turned into reality and been applauded by many in the rail industry. And a high profile trial, due to start in the West Midlands, which was designed to show what its D-train concept could achieve. But then an engine caught fire during the final stages of an extensive testing and certification process and it all came to an abrupt halt. Or did it? Those who’ve been to Vivarail’s Long Marston depot in Warwickshire can&rs

Glasgow City Council has awarded Nextbike UK a seven-year contract to operate the city’s public bike hire scheme. Nextbike has operated Glasgow’s mass automated cycle hire (MACH) scheme since its  launch in 2014. The new contract will see the scheme expanded from the current 435 bikes and 43 docking stations across the city, to 900 bikes and 100 stations. The contract includes the option of  two further one-year extensions.  By the end of the procurement process, Nex

Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM) has appointed consultants to prepare a roadmap for the introduction of contactless ticketing across all public transport in the conurbation. PA Consulting Group will set a vision; review available back office facilities (including Transport for London’s); estimate the costs and benefits of contactless; and develop a delivery timeline.  TfWM wants the system to have a capping facility, whereby the user would be charged the cheapest fare based on

Diesel car drivers will have to pay more to park in pay & display bays in the Marylebone area from 3 April under plans announced by Westminster City Council.  The pilot scheme will apply only to visitors to Marylebone, with resident permit charges remaining unchanged. The diesel surcharge will add 50% to the current parking rate of £4.90 an hour for on-street parking. Drivers are currently able to park per minute up to a maximum of four hours, meaning that charges will be 8p per

Council leaders in the Sheffield City Region have approved a 5% cut in the levy paid to the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive in 2017/18. Further cuts of 2.5% a year are planned for 2018/19-2020/21. The PTE’s levy in 2017/18 will fall by about £3m, from £60.5m to £57.4m.  It is then expected to fall to £56m in 2018/19, £54.6m in 2019/20, and £53.5m in 2020/21. Adult concessionary fares reimbursement to bus operators will be cut by &po

Stagecoach is to introduce high frequency minibus operations in the Kent town of Ashford later this month, in echoes of the minibus revolution that followed bus deregulation in 1986.  Thirty Mercedes 17-seater minibuses will go into service on 12 February on town routes B and C. Branded ‘Little and Often’, the north-south cross-town route B will operate up to every six minutes during the daytime Mondays to Saturdays, with services up to every 15 minutes in evenings and on Sunda

Low cost measures to reduce car use, such as personalised travel plans, car sharing, and free trials of public transport, may not be as effective as previous studies have claimed, according to research commissioned by the DfT. The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) worked with Heathrow’s Commuter Team to test a range of ‘smarter choice’ behaviour change interventions with Heathrow Airport’s 76,000 employees, who are employed by 350 different companies. BIT is a social purpo

The publication by the London Assembly’s transport committee of a report advocating the widespread use of road pricing for the capital, to replace the existing congestion charging scheme (LTT 20 Jan), produced a flurry of letters in London’s Evening Standard newspaper, which had reported on the report’s contents in depth. “Congestion in London costs business billions of pounds every year,” the right-wing lobby group the Adam Smith Institute observed, leading off a s

The tolling regime on the M4 Severn crossings has been set in aspic since the Severn Bridges Act 1992 enabled the Government to award a concession to Severn River Crossing PLC. The company’s remit was to build a second bridge and maintain both bridges for the concession period. The Act authorised Severn River Crossing (SRC) to increase tolls annually in line with inflation but did not permit any variation in the times when tolls apply or the proportional relationship between prices for dif

London mayor Sadiq Khan should reform the central London congestion charge and develop a road pricing scheme to ultimately replace it, the London Assembly’s transport committee said this week. It also wants a borough to deliver a workplace parking levy. In the foreword to a report on the capital’s traffic, committee chair Caroline Pidgeon said the congestion charge, introduced in 2003, was “no longer fit for purpose”.  “It is a blunt instrument using old techn

There is much about the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) that has been generating widespread enthusiasm worldwide from many different interests. From everyone concerned with climate change and pollution, to those involved with transport sharing service schemes from car to bike, to rail and bus operators and public transport authorities, to transport ticketing and payments software suppliers, and even car manufacturers recognising the potential for car pools. These are just some of the man

The cost of Britain’s rural railways could come under scrutiny because of a new method for allocating fixed costs across the network. Network Rail’s disaggregated method for allocating fixed costs will give funding bodies a clearer picture of how much different sections of the network cost to operate. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) plans to use the data to inform changes to access charges paid by operators.  Currently the way fixed costs (such as operating costs, maintenanc

Back in 2015, the Government announced that 35 councils would be awarded £7.8m, in grants of between £18,000 and £750,000, to deliver integrated transport pilot projects in rural areas. These Total Transport pilots would run for two years, with learning and networking between the authorities and DfT co-ordinated by myself. While around £2bn is currently provided every year through numerous agencies for local transport, the Government claimed this sum often went “unc

The Scottish transport minister Humza Yousaf is today expected to give details of £3m the Scottish Government said will be invested in "targeted fare reductions" for train travellers. The Scottish finance secretary Derek Mackay told MSPs at Holyrood that he would not back a rail fares freeze as some of them had demanded, which he said would have a cumulative cost by 2020 of £58m, "compromising the investment programme". But he instead announced £3m of fare reductions "to ease

Local authorities in the Bristol area are having to find more than £12m to cover the increased costs of the MetroBus programme.  The midpoint forecast outturn cost of MetroBus has risen from £203.4m to £215.9m. Most of the increase has occurred on the North Fringe to Hengrove part of the project – this has risen from £101.8m to £113.3m. Officers told the West of England’s joint transport executive committee: “A number of risks have materialis

The DfT this week issued corrected guidance on concessionary travel reimbursement after local authorities spotted an error implying they should be increasing payments to bus operators by millions of pounds a year.  The reimbursement guidance issued by the Department last week included a table setting out ‘reimbursement factors’ (RFs) for PTE and non-PTE areas. The RF is central to the calculation of operator reimbursement for the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (EN

Sixteen youths from Oldham have been fined a total of more than £2,600 for dodging fares on the Metrolink tram network in Greater Manchester. The youths were caught during operations to tackle fare-dodging by Transport for Greater Manchester’s (TfGM) Travelsafe Unit and Metrolink owner RATP Dev Ltd. Since the unit was established 18 months ago, uniformed Travelsafe Unit (TSU) officers have also been visiting schools across the region to educate youngsters on the dangers, impacts and

A £250,000 prize is on offer to anyone who can design a road user charging scheme that is politically deliverable. Changing how drivers pay for road use is the topic of the 2017 Wolfson Economics Prize. It asks: “How can we pay for better, safer, more reliable roads in a way that is fair to road users and good for the economy and the environment?”  Announcing the competition, Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise, the chief executive of Next and a Conservative peer, said the deve

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

“You have not explained what ‘Mobility as a Service’ is and I don’t know what you want us to do.”  I hear this sort of comment a lot. MaaS is best understood within a specific context of local cultural, economic, geographical and political variables – it will be different in Manchester and in Helsinki. There are, however, some common threads across cultures. The Transport Systems Catapult has defined MaaS as “using a digital interface to source and

Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM) has set out its ambitions for smart ticketing in the conurbation, including the possibility of working with Transport for London to deliver contactless bank card ticketing.  TfWM is keen to introduce further ‘smart’ ticketing products, building on the Swift smartcard that was launched in 2012. Matt Lewis, TfWM’s head of Swift, told council leaders on the West Midlands Combined Authority that the number of journeys made using Swift ha

The RAC Foundation is calling for a review of how parking on private land is enforced after discovering that enforcement companies pursued drivers for  more than a million penalty charges in just first three months.  Figures published by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) show it supplied 1.07 million vehicle keeper records to private enforcement companies in the first quarter of 2016/17. The companies request details of vehicle keepers from the DVLA in order to send driv

With former London mayor Boris Johnson now ensconced as foreign secretary, there has been a growing body of criticism of his accomplishments (or otherwise) when running the national’s capital. “It said much about Boris Johnson’s eight-year performance as mayor of London that when the reviews came in, the highlight was often a fleet of buses,” said columnist Catherine Bennett in The Guardian on 25 July. “Three years and the latest heatwave on, consumer experience con

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

Nottingham City Council has outlined the next stages of its plans to expand smart ticketing on public transport. The Robin Hood smartcard was launched last December and is available in two formats: pay-as-you-go (PAYG) and prepaid season tickets.  The PAYG version is the only card in the UK outside London to offer daily capping. It can be used on bus services provided by Nottingham City Transport, Trent Barton, Kinchbus, and Linkbuses, as well as the Nottingham Express Transit light rail

Public transport operators have criticised the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into public transport competition issues arising from Arriva’s takeover of the Northern Rail franchise. Andrew Forster reports The Competition and Markets Authority’s detailed investigation into Arriva’s takeover of the Northern Rail franchise is exploring whether there could be a substantial reduction in the competition for the supply of public transport in the area because of

The UK Smart Mobility Lab in Greenwich has been presented with an award by Intelligent Systems (UK). The lab has been set up by TRL to provide a real world test bed for testing connected and automated vehicle technologies. It has been created with the support of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, CCAV, Innovate UK and DfT. Key partners include RSA, Direct Line, Telefonica, Shell, Sony, Jaguar Land Rover and Oxbotica. ITS (UK) is a not-for-profit public/private sector association that provides a

Paul Maynard is the government’s new rail minister. He takes over from Claire Perry, who quit the role on 15 July in the wake of concerns over the operation of the Southern Rail franchise. He will be responsible for: rail major projects and growth;rail infrastructure, safety and security; passenger services; strategy, funding and sponsorship; integrated delivery and accessibility; and rail fares and ticketing. Maynard has been Conservative MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys since

SADIQ KAHN is consulting on plans to charge drivers of older vehicles a supplement to drive within the central London congestion charging zone.   The £10 emissions surcharge on the congestion charge – which Khan acknowledged has been dubbed a T-charge, or toxicity charge – could be introduced towards the end of next year. It would apply to all vehicles with pre-Euro 4 emission standards – broadly speaking, those registered before 2005. A 90% discount would apply to

TRANSPORT FOR Greater Manchester has criticised the conurbation’s bus operations and says franchising could improve matters.  TfGM executive director Michael Renshaw told councillors that most bus services were provided by local subsidiaries of three multi-national transport companies who rarely competed against each other. “Instead, they can and do compete with tram and local rail.  “Understandably, bus operators focus on the most profitable journeys, making decisi

Allow me a bit of a reminisce, to almost 30 years ago when we concluded the successful management buy-out of Brighton & Hove from the National Bus Company. It really was exciting; after working for someone else for many years suddenly the buck stopped with a team of five of us. But it was also a scary time with responsibilities to provide a livelihood for hundreds of employees and run a comprehensive high profile bus network attracting thousands of people to use buses to travel around every

A multi-modal app-driven approach to transport in San Francisco has led to a dramatic fall in car usage in the US city, according to Timothy Papandreou, chief innovation officer and director at San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). Speaking at the Imagine Festival in Milton Keynes on Tuesday, Papandreou said that SFMTA had set itself the target of reducing car use from 60% to 50% of miles travelled by 2018. But thanks to a range of ‘connectivity’ measures it achieve

Monmouthshire Council in Wales is planning to host a trial of hydrogen fuel cell cars. The trial will also test a ‘mobility as service’ payment plan, which some analysts say is the future for transport pricing.   Councillors this week approved a proposed 12-month trial using the Rasa, a two-seater car built by Riversimple Movement Ltd, based in Llandrindod Wells, Powys.  Riversimple launched its demonstration Rasa in February and says the vehicle has a range of 300 miles.

URBAN TRANSPORT policy needs to return to the road traffic  demand management agenda of the late 1990s if bus services are to flourish, according to a former Government transport adviser. The message comes in a new report from bus lobby group Greener Journeys, written by transport economist David Begg. Begg was a member of the advisory panel that helped produce John Prescott’s 1998 Transport White Paper, Transport: the new deal, which represented the high water mark of demand managem

Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin is right to say that benefit:cost ratios (BCRs) do not mean everything if a transport project has a development function (‘BCRs don’t mean everything’ LTT 27 May). But that does not help him ward off the criticism that HS2 does not deserve even the unimpressive BCR officially calculated. HS2 does not have an important development function, and as a way of closing the North-South divide it could even be counter-productive. BCR calculations

The Government's 'Northern Powerhouse' initiative is wrong to focus on intra-urban transport links to make northern England one single economy when the success of other European regions is based upon in better transport within cities, according to a new report. The Centre for Cities studies Ranstad and the Rhine-Ruhr, two areas on the continent that perform better than their national averages, and find that their success does not appear to be based on greater or easier commuting between city re

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating the implications of Arriva taking over the Northern Rail franchise for the area’s public transport market. In April, Arriva Rail North Ltd, a subsidiary of Arriva, which is itself a subsidiary of German state rail operator DB, took over the Northern Rail franchise from Serco/Abellio.  The CMA points out that Arriva operates rail services in the area – the CrossCountry and Wales & Borders franchises and the open a

London mayor Sadiq Khan has proposed tougher measures to improve the capital’s air quality, including expanding and earlier implementation of the Ultra Low Emission Zone, and tougher  London-wide emission standards for lorries and other heavy vehicles. In his first major announcement since being appointed mayor this month, Khan said a consultation on measures would start imminently, including:  • extending the proposed ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) beyond the existing cen

Labour’s Sadiq Khan (pictured) has been elected London’s new mayor, succeeding Conservative Boris Johnson, who served two terms. Khan served as a transport minister from 2009 to 2010 in the Labour Government. As LTT closed for press he was expected to name former Labour transport secretary Andrew Adonis as his deputy mayor for transport.

The London Cycling Campaign has condemned as "hugely disappointing" the refusal of the Labour and Conservative candidates for London mayor to back its calls for an expansion of protected cycle lanes and to ban unsafe lorries.  LCC said the capital urgently needs more protected space for cyclists on main roads and at junctions, and is campaigning for a tripling of the number of miles of protected cycle lanes "to help people of all ages and abilities access roads by bike" and for a cycle-fri

The European Commission today calls for standardised road tolls across the continent in order to better tackle climate change. Transport commissioner Viotela Bulc told a conference that "clear and common rules are important to allow transport operators to be as efficient as possible" and that action is also needed to reduce CO2 emissions given transport's rising share of total emissions. "De-carbonisation of transport will require measures aimed at promoting low carbon technologies for vehicles

Plaid Cymru has pledged to make the M4 Severn crossings free for all people who live in Wales if it wins next month’s National Assembly for Wales election.  Free travel across the Severn estuary would be available to all owners of the National Smart Card, which the party proposes. The card would be used for current entitlements and new ones, the latter to include unlimited rail and bus travel throughout Wales for a one-off annual fee.  The party’s manifesto does not expla

On 3 April comedian David Mitchell used a column in The Guardian to take aim at the nation’s allegedly privatised rail industry. “In modern times, private investment hasn’t really taken off in the track-maintaining part of the railway business,” he began. “Investors prefer to limit their liabilities to the trains, ticket machines and refreshment carts – the bits for which passengers pay money – and leave the bits that cost money to be paid for by the sta

Faster rail connections between some of the North’s biggest cities could deliver small rises in earnings for local people, according to the report by Frontier Economics.   Frontier began by examining both rail and road commuting patterns between the North’s Travel to Work Areas (TTWAs) using definitions based on 2011 census data. TTWA boundaries are drawn using ‘containment rules’ such that at least 75% of the population that work in a TTWA also live there and 75% o

Politicians in Westminster and Holyrood have committed to achieving a three-hour rail journey time between London and Edinburgh/Glasgow. How that will be achieved remains unclear but two new reports appear to point to building bypasses of parts of the West Coast Main Line, rather than an entirely new high-speed route  The question of whether the UK Government’s high-speed rail network will ever extend to Scotland has been a hot topic in the media for some time, with plenty of reports

Council-owned Cardiff Bus has received permission to operate 20 vehicles under the banner of a low-cost subsidiary company. Vale Busline Ltd will initially take over marginal Cardiff Bus routes, in an attempt to make them financially sustainable. However, industry watchers believe the longer-term aim is to allow a stronger response to competition than Cardiff Bus can mount, with its historic employment conditions and pensions requirements. Vale Busline was incorporated in 1995 as a wholly-owne

Phil Goodwin (‘Long-forgotten ideas: free buses’ LTT 18 Mar) recalls the experience of the low fares in South Yorkshire in the 1970s and early 1980s, which provided a more favourable patronage trend than for PTE bus services as a whole at that time, and might eventually have led to free travel given the ever-lower proportion of costs covered from revenue. As he notes, longer-term implications included effects on the travel behaviour of young people. One must, however, question how f

The London Assembly has asked Transport for London to consider how the central London congestion charge could be used to reduce van traffic.  “A feasibility study could be carried our to assess whether changes to the congestion charge could help reduce light commercial traffic during peak times,” says transport committee chair Val Shawcross in a letter to London transport commissioner Mike Brown. “The study could also consider how an improved road charging system might &l

Global trends are disrupting traditional ways of providing services to people and businesses in urban areas. Smart mobile in combination with the Cloud will provide packages of mobility services profiled to an individual’s needs and values. This emerging market is attracting new, non-traditional players who have the skills and expertise to provide such services. These changes will bring huge benefits to users and cities, but also disruption and threats to existing business models and gover

Picture the scene: Six livewire transport personalities, hungry for funding, with an appetite for smart ideas and willing to do anything to get their hands on the lion’s share of the ‘Totally Smarter Transport Fund (TSTF)’ – in the wilds of… Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes, wild? (Cue jungle drums). More funding you didn’t know was available? (Cue louder drums?). Okay, it’s a virtual pot of money available for one day only (18 March) at Smarter Travel LIV

Innovate UK is to invest £260,000 in developing an app which will help disabled rail passengers obtain real-time assistance during their journey. SMART (Spontaneous Mobile Accessible Rail Travel) is an 18 month project which will provide a demonstrator and pilot trial for a means of enabling disabled persons to request assistance when travelling by train. Current practices mean that assistance needs to be booked 24 hours in advance, reducing flexibility in travel planning as well as caus

Road safety, traffic management, cycle parking and data visualisation systems are among the many systems in contention for the Intertraffic Innovation Awards. The competition is open to innovative systems that will be on show at the exhibition, which takes place at RAI Amsterdam between 5-8 April. An international jury has scrutinised 91 candidates and shortlisted 15 finalists. Awards will be presented in five categories – Infrastructure, Traffic Management, Safety, Parking, and Smar

The owners of the M6 Toll in the West Midlands are to put the asset up for sale. The decision has prompted calls for the Government to buy the road and maximise its congestion-relief benefits to the conurbation. Midland Expressway Ltd holds the concession to design, build, operate and maintain the 27 miles of road between Cannock and Coleshill. The concession ends in 2054, when the road will be handed to the Government.  Following a financial restructuring in 2013, the road is  owned

If you are under the impression that the digitisation of passenger transport planning, information and payment is still a far-off train heading for your station, you need to check the real-time departure board app on your phone. When you do, you will find that it's already sped past you, and catching up with it will be no mean feat. Over the past 18 months FWT has been developing the CartoGold suite of online interactive travel planning solutions. By using scheduled and real-time passenger tran

A travel planning partnership between Liftshare and Stagecoach Midlands has been successful in breaking down barriers to employment, significantly increasing both sustainable travel and economic growth at a North Warwickshire Business Park. Demand for growth by major occupiers at Birch Coppice Business Park had generated the need to employ over 1,000 people, but the recruitment drive was being hampered by a local labour shortage. But there was a large group of unemployed people living 12 miles

The cost of rail travel normally surfaces only twice a year, once in the middle of year when the annual headline price increases for commuter tickets are announced and then again in late December/early January when they are implemented, but in late January the subject was considered sufficiently important for London’s Metro news paper to feature it on its front page on 26 January. “It’s not fare,” was the paper’s headline to a story that concerned a commuter travell

TfL has published figures showing that traffic volumes started to increase over the last year, including by 3.4% in central London. The figures come as the London mayoral and Assembly elections debate started in earnest, with candidates vowing to tackle congestion. They follow a net reduction of more than half - 53% - of the number of people using the car to enter central London, leaving the weekday morning peak mode share for private vehicles at five per cent last year, above that for cycling

A major programme to review the structure of charges in the rail industry is underway. John W E Helm explores the current system and discusses some of the possible changes  Following concerns that there is a mismatch between what Network Rail raises in charges and how it apportions costs between different parts of the network, the Office of Rail and Road has issued a consultation document for PR18 (the 2018 periodic review). Responses have to be in by 4 March and the findings will help ORR

Council leaders in the West Midlands conurbation have approved a new transport plan.  Movement for Growth is touted as a 20-year plan covering the seven metropolitan district councils, who will soon establish a combined authority overseeing transport. The plan will complement the Midlands Connect transport strategy covering a larger area and focusing on national/regional transport connections. The conurbation plan approved by West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority includes a proposa

A London-style pay-as-you-go smartcard for public transport travel has been launched in Greater Nottingham.    The ITSO-compliant Robin Hood card features an e-purse and gives passengers the best fare on the day trips are made.  The card is accepted by operators who provide 95% of services in the Greater Nottingham area: Nottingham City Transport, Trentbarton, Kinchbus, the city council’s Linkbus network, and Nottingham Express Transit (the tram). The card should be extend

The House of Commons recently debated a Private Member’s Bill seeking to ensure free hospital parking for carers. While being able to access free parking is an important issue, something significant has been overlooked from the debate: parking availability.  In 2015 the Department of Health published the Health Technical Memorandum 07-03: NHS car-parking management, aimed at improving car parking management for patients, visitors and staff. In the feedback undertaken in preparation o

Although the annual ritual of increased rail fares at the start of the New Year was, on the face of it, nothing particularly spectacular (the rise for regulated commuter rail fares was a mere 1.1%), it nevertheless generated an entirely predictable raft of media commentary on the cost of rail travel in the UK. “If you are smarting at increased rail fares introduced this weekend… you might be forgiven for wondering how complacent railway companies get away with it year after year,&r

The concept of ‘Mobility as a Service’ (MaaS) is one that I like and I think will gain traction, as a generality, in terms of people’s payments for transport and will affect ownership patterns.  One potential MaaS model was mapped out by Sampo Hietanen, chief executive of ITS Finland, at the Intelligent City Mobility debate, which took place at the end of the

A new method of car sharing is offering users greater convenience, believes DriveNow’s Joseph Seal-Driver. He tells Deniz Huseyin why he thinks this approach will help ease congestion and suppress car ownership The traditional car club model is being challenged – there’s a new operator on the block that is allowing users to pick up and drop off a vehicle in any on-street parking space. This differs from the more established method where vehicles can only be parked in dedicated

According to Mike Wilson, chief highways engineer at Highways England, “ As technology develops, ultra low emission vehicles, including pure electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell electric vehicles, will play an increasing role in the way we travel for leisure, to work and for businesses to get their goods to market. These vehicles are already on the market in significant numbers, and in the coming years will become a common sight in our towns and cities and on the strategic road

The new TransportXtra brings 2 years of user research, design and development and stunning new features to this sector leading online resource. Transport ‘your way’ You told us you wanted a better way to access the breadth of depth of what TransportXtra offers. Without confusion. Launching today, the new TransportXtra.com intelligently pulls relevant content from across the entire spectrum on a single page. We’ll keep it relevant for you. Tap your specialism Explore Transpor

Plans to introduce the UK’s first bus Quality Contract Scheme in Tyne and Wear were scrutinised by a Quality Contract Scheme board last month. The board, chaired by North East Traffic Commissioner Kevin Rooney, must consider if the proposal of Nexus meets the statutory public interest criteria and if due process has been followed in the scheme’s preparation. The parties have until 11 September to make final written submissions and the board is committed to publishing its conclusions

This content is part of the feature: Rooney weighs the evidence for Tyne & Wear’s pioneering bus QC Under cross-examination, Tobyn Hughes, the North East Combined Authority’s managing director of transport operations – a role that incorporates director general of Nexus, addressed the operators’ suggestion that Nexus was biased in favour of the QCS and had not conducted a fair comparison between the QCS and the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA): “It wa

I do not think that Roger Sexton and/or smartphones are a substitute for smartcard Oyster-style ‘ticketing’ (“‘Are smartcards obsolete?’ asks Transport for Greater Manchester, as ticket contract axed’ LTT 07 Aug). A contactless payment card (I own one) is clearly useless for season tickets, whether point-to-point or (such as my Nottingham Kangaroo ticket) valid on public transport within a defined area. Contactless payment cards will work for a short point-t

Transport for Greater Manchester this week terminated its contract with Atosto design, build and operate an Oyster-style smartcard for the conurbation, after the contractor was unable to deliver to the specifications.  Announcing the termination, TfGM alsoquestioned whether the conurbation actually needs a smartcard, saying the technology is being superceded by other media such as smart phone apps and contactless payment cards.  TfGM contracted Atos in 2012 to design, build and opera

“We can make a greener, more liveable London and expand Heathrow Airport,” Gareth Thomas, Harrow West MP and a London mayoral candidate for the Labour Party, suggested in The Guardian on 9 July. “London can still become a world-leading green city with a third runway at Heathrow as long as it backs solar roofs, electric cars and a bigger congestion zone. “Top of the incoming mayor’s agenda should be a commitment to extend and refine the congestion zone,” Thoma

Tessa Jowell, the former Labour cabinet member who is the favourite to become the party's candidate for the Mayor of London, today urges a review of the HS2 project.  Jowell said on the Andrew Marr Show this morning that whilst she was "broadly in favour of the infrastructure that the country needs," she was "concerned about the highly disruptive effect of HS2 as presently planned on central London at Euston". She wants to see what could be done to take advantage of the meeting o

The chief executive of Dutch state railways NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen), Timo Huges, has resigned, and the chief executive of subsidiary Abellio Holdings, Jeff Hoogesteger, has been dismissed in the aftermath of tendering irregularities uncovered in the Dutch province of Limburg (LTT 1 May). Huges quit after it became clear that his contact and communications with NS subsidiary QBuzz managers during the internal NS compliance investigation into the Limburg tender was ‘different’ tha

Co-Wheels has won the contract from Glasgow City Council to provide a car club in the city, ousting City Car Club, which has run Glasgow’s club since launch in 2010.  The new contract commences on 13 July and runs for five years with the option to extend for a further two periods of up to 12 months each.  Pierre Fox, a director of Co-Wheels, which is a community interest company, told LTT the Glasgow win was “hugely significant”. The company has grown incrementally

A smartcard developed for the Glasgow subway is to become a smartcard for Scotland’s rail network too. Dan Schoenhofen, ticketing project manager at SPT, explained developments at last week’s Scottish Transport Applications & Research (STAR) conference in Glasgow.  Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and East Kilbride-based Ecebs set up a joint venture company, Nevis Technologies, for the back office and smartcards for the subway. Schoenhafen said 77,000 of the ‘Br

When gauging long-term toll road performance, traffic forecasting consultants' forecasts can be arbitrary, inconsistent, frequently opaque and often without justification, and yet are potentially important when it comes to asset valuation. This is what I found when, in response to a seemingly innocuous question regarding the common industry practice of ‘dampening’ longer-term traffic forecasts (attenuating growth in the outer years), I recently examined the subject in some detail.&nb

The City of Edinburgh Council is in talks with outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux about establishing a bike hire scheme for the Scottish capital. Edinburgh signed a new outdoor advertising contract with JCDecaux last November, which included an option for establishing a bike hire scheme.  JCDecaux operates bike hire schemes in 67 cities in ten countries, though none in the UK.  John Bury, Edinburgh’s acting director of services for communities, said the council had started discu

Oxford’s bus operators have criticised pteg’s report on the city’s SmartZone interoperable smartcard ticket, saying the conclusions are based on “guesswork”. pteg’s review, revealed by LTT last month (pictured), said SmartZone had further complicated ticketing arrangements in Oxford and its adoption in PTE areas would represent a “backwards step”. The context for the report is the threat of franchising hanging over the bus industry in England&rsqu

The Government has dropped plans to reduce rail service frequencies where demand is low in the north of England but is to press ahead with eliminating fare anomalies that see ticket prices in PTE areas sometimes significantly cheaper than those from stations just beyond their boundary.  The main headline-grabbing item in the invitation to tender (ITT) for the Northern and Transpennine rail franchises is the elimination of the fleet of unpopular 1980s-built Pacer trains (Class 142/3/4) from

Technology has revolutionised traffic management and control in the last 30 years and many local authorities have established traffic control centres, with walls of CCTV screens monitoring the road network, supplemented by data from other sources such as in-road sensors. The centres conduct data analysis, put in place operational plans, and feed out information to the public through media such as websites, social media, radio and TV.  But what is the future for these centres in the increas

The West Yorkshire region has been looking hard at the introduction of smartcard public transport ticketing for some 10-15 years, John Henkel, acting director of transport at the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, concedes, but is only now starting to implement smartcard tickets on a widespread basis. So why has it taken so long to get things up and running? “It’s due to a combination of factors,” Henkel says. “The world we operate in is quite complicated. We don’t

THE BUS industry’s efforts to head-off the threat of bus franchising by offering inter-operable ‘smart’ tickets have been given short shrift by pteg, the organisation representing strategic transport bodies in England’s six biggest city regions outside London.   Stagecoach and Go-Ahead this month launched a SmartZone ticketing scheme in South Tyneside. When loaded on to a smartcard, the ticket allows passengers to use services of both companies for journeys in the d

Government support for bus operators in Britain has been cut by £508m (15.7%) since 2010/11, according to the latest study by industry analysts TAS.  The updated Economics of bus operation report shows total spending was £2.718bn in 2013/14 as against £3.226bn in 2010/11 (adjusted for inflation).  Support for the industry falls into four categories: concessionary fares; TfL tendered services in London; local authority tendered services outside London; and Bus Servic

When Nottingham’s workplace parking levy (WPL) was launched in April 2012 it had a good many detractors among the city’s business community. Firms complained that the scheme would erode their profit margins and Nottingham’s biggest company, Boots, threatened to move its 3,000 parking spaces outside the city boundary to avoid paying the levy. But, more than two years on, most of the misgivings about the scheme appear to have subsided. And, importantly, the WPL is fulfilling its

The annual introduction of increased rail fares, even though the average increase for the fares that are regulated by the Government was a comparatively modest 2.5%, attracted what has become a predictable burst of commentary in the media. “For ten years or so, successive governments have taken a conscious decision to get more money out of rail passengers through higher fares,” the BBC’s transport correspondent, Richard Westcott, noted on the corporation’s website on 2 Ja

Oyster-style smart ticketing on all local bus services should be delivered in Sheffield, in a city deal announced by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and a Liberal Democrat MP in the city.  Some of the transport aspects of the deal are vague, and some observers have also pointed out that the pledges are notably weaker than the recent devolution announcement for Greater Manchester. The Sheffield press release lists four transport components: • the “opportunity for the city

Councils in England spent just over £1bn last year on the statutory concessionary travel scheme for older people and the disabled, data compiled by the Department for Communities and Local Government reveals.  Total reimbursement paid to bus operators rose to £1.06bn, up from £1.04bn in 2012/13. A further £154.5m was spent on discretionary schemes, up from £153.4m in 2012/13. Councils spent £993m on supported bus services in 2013/14, up from £934m

Vouchers offering free bus travel to motorists can deliver lasting changes to travel behaviour, according to a new guide prepared by bus industry lobby group Greener Journeys. The guide draws on lessons from trials held in Manchester, Sheffield and Leicester conducted by consultant Transport for Quality of Life, with support of operators and councils. Greener Journeys says car drivers are the “bulls-eye target” for modal shift and recommends targeting marketing at ‘moments of

People in Nottingham and West Yorkshire will soon be able to use their public transport smartcards to hire car club cars, thanks to funding from the DfT.  Transport minister Baroness Kramer (pictured) awarded grants to four local authorities to expand car club provision.  Nottingham City Council  receives £37,500 to create car club stations at five bus, train and tram intersections. The Nottingham Citycard, which covers travel on trains, trams and buses, will be the &lsquo

Sometimes it feels like travelling by public transport is some kind of endurance and intelligence test, with deliberate obstacles in the way to trip up passengers or to leave them in a state of complete confusion.  I have sought answers to the following: Why should it be close to impossible to find out how much my bus journey is going to cost, before the bus actually arrives and I ask the driver? Why is it that if I get on a bus in London, I can use a smartcard, a contactless car

Tram passengers in London could be charged a premium over bus travel in order to fund further investment in the network.  Unveiling a 15-year strategy for Tramlink this week, Gareth Powell, TfL’s director of strategy and service development for London Underground and London Rail, said: “Investing in the network will allow more demand to be accommodated and revenue to be generated but requires upfront funding. Tram fares are currently the same as bus fares with a relatively low

London Mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled a new fare structure aimed at giving a better deal to part-time workers, making up a fifth of the capital's workforce. Whilst he

In the wake of the Scottish referendum, there is renewed interest in devolving decision-making within England. This is a cross-party consensus, with the Chancellor talking about a “northern powerhouse” and Labour promising more funding and powers for local bodies.  Transport has become a big part of this debate, and there are good reasons for this. At present, transport in England is highly centralised – local government outside London has limited transport powers, limite

A huge funding gap has emerged between how much councils in England spend on the statutory concessionary travel scheme for older and disabled people, and how much the Government provides them for the scheme, according to the North East Combined Authority (NECA).  Officers of the combined authority and Nexus, the PTE,  say Department for Communities and Local Government data, based on returns from councils, suggest that local authorities will  pay bus operators £1.11bn in 20

FirstGroup has lost the Scottish rail franchise to Abellio, the international arm of the Dutch State Railways. Transport Scotland has awarded Abellio a ten-year franchise from 1 April 2015, though it will be subject to a five-year review and could be terminated after seven years if stringent performance targets are not met. The result is a further blow to FirstGroup, which has failed to win any of the UK’s recent franchise awards.   Abellio saw off opposition from Arriva, MTR, Nati

The report on Tyne and Wear bus policy going to next week’s meeting of the North East Combined Authority runs to more than 900 pages, surely making it one of the longest council transport reports of recent times. The length is an indicator of the high stakes involved: if the  seven council leaders decide to pursue a bus Quality Contract Scheme (QCS) for Tyne and Wear, then the conurbation’s bus operators face being stripped of their right to operate services. The PTE, Nexus, wil

Two decades ago the railways were privatised. However, unlike other important milestones in rail history, this event was not marked by a one-off ‘big bang’ – there was no overnight transformation from an old order to a newer one – as was the case with the 1948 nationalisation of the railways or the 1923 grouping of the railways into four major companies. Instead, rail privatisation was characterised by a steady succession of smaller bangs of varying sizes, which were spre

ON 21 SEPTEMBER, Peter Hendy, commissioner of Transport for London, used an interview in The Guardian to warn of London’s potential future transport problems in apocalyptic terms. “London could see riots again unless more trains and buses are provided at affordable fares for the poorest communities as the population soars,” the paper said, quoting Hendy. “He [Hendy] said low-paid workers now lived on the outskirts of the capital rather than in inner-city neighbourhoods, a

There must surely have been a sharp intake of breath, a few shivers, a cold feeling of doom among the readers of LTT’s story last month ‘Lawsuits pile up in Oz for toll road forecasts’ (LTT 08 Aug). No fewer than five lawsuits are in progress in Australia against consultants Arup, AECOM, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Booz Allen. They forecast good revenue from toll roads, and investors lost a lot of money when the actual traffic was a lot less than forecast. In two cases companies h

FirstGroup has stepped up efforts to persuade West Yorkshire’s political leaders to embrace a partnership approach with bus operators, rather than  Quality Contracts, and to scrap the trolleybus plans for Leeds.  FirstGroup chief executive Tim O’Toole this week visited West Yorkshire with a green-liveried New Bus for London. He was joined by Rachel Reeves, the Labour MP for Leeds West, and shadow secretary of state for work and pensions (pictured). The bus operator this w

According to Shashi Verma, director of customer experience at TfL, in a few weeks the biggest change to public transport ticketing in London will take place. From mid-September travellers will be able to use their contactless debit or credit card to use the buses, the Tube, trams, DLR and Overground rail services. “Offering the option of contactless payments will make it easier and more convenient for customers to pay for their travel... and help them get on board without delay,” he

The new transport minister Claire Perry has in her first interview in post set her sights on convincing the Chancellor to rule out any increases in rail fares above the rate of inflation.  Perry told The Express she was "very proud" the Government had last year in a "revolutionary" move in the autumn statement spiked plans to increase rail fares by one per cent above inflation, and wanted "a similar delivery for fares next year". She was quoted: "There will be lots of conversations with th

Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin has put off a  decision on where to locate a new Lower Thames Crossing until 2016 and asked the Highways Agency to draw up detailed plans for two locations. A preferred location for the road crossing had been expected last December but ministers instead only narrowed the choice down from three to two and said the preferred location would be made this May (LTT 23 Dec 13).  The DfT has now asked the  HA to conduct further work on the two loca

Fully automated vehicles may still be decades away but there is a huge amount of interest today in automated technologies and their implications for travel. As well as the technical questions about the transition to a fully automated future, there are more fundamental ones, such as who will control a vehicle’s speed – the occupant or the authorities? Will they lead to a surge in travel demand? And will we actually own automated vehicles, or merely hire them when we need one?  C

Stephen Hammond, transport minister for less than two years, is reportedly to be replaced in the Prime Minister's reshuffle today. Hammond, parliamentary under-secretary of state since September 2012, was charged with overseeing the Highways Agency reform plans and the trial of longer lorries, and since last October's reshuffle has been responsible for rail franchising and operations. A shadow transport minister from 2005 to 2010, Hammond earlier this year found himself in the media spotlight o

A vigorous debate is underway about the future of the north of England’s railways. The Chancellor last month called for a high-speed railway between Manchester and Leeds – which he has since dubbed High Speed 3 – as part of his vision for a Northern economic ‘powerhouse’. The faster route would come on top of the ongoing electrification programme of existing routes and the £600m Northern hub project to increase capacity across Manchester. Osborne’s upbea

“CCTV CAMERAS that automatically issue parking fines are to be made illegal in a victory for motorists,” The Daily Mail noted approvingly on 21 June. “Parking guidance to councils will also change to prevent aggressive action by bailiffs over unpaid fines, support local shops and reinforce the prohibition against parking being used to generate profit… The new rules are aimed at curbing over-draconian parking fines used by town halls to raise extra cash from motorists.&rd

Rail passengers in the North of England could face higher fares, frequency reductions on some lightly-used lines and stations, and lower staffing levels when the new franchise commences in February 2016. The DfT and the Rail North partnership of 30 local authorities have just launched a public consultation on the new Northern and TransPennine Express franchises and the DfT has separately launched the pre-qualification process for franchise bids. “While there have been some important deve

Edinburgh’s express bus service to the airport should be cheaper and quicker than the city’s new £776m tram line that opens this weekend.   Fares on the 14km (nine mile) tram line are harmonised with  the bus fares of municipally-owned Lothian Buses except for journeys to/from the airport. The single adult fare on Lothian Buses’ Airlink 100 bus  is £4 but the tram is £5. The bus service operates at least every ten minutes from 04.00 to midnigh

A Government scheme offering tax savings on purchasing a bicycle appears to deliver good value for money but its impact on travel behaviour and health is limited by the fact many people taking advantage of it are already keen cyclists. The findings of an economic analysis of the Government’s  Cycle to Work scheme were presented last week at the Scottish Transport Applications and Research (STAR) conference in Glasgow by Anne Clarke of consultant Arup.  Clarke surveyed more than

FirstGroup will introduce fare rises on its UK bus networks in the coming months, amid confidence that the division’s performance is turning round. First has cut fares in some parts of the country in recent months as part of its efforts to boost patronage.  Speaking to analysts last November, chief executive Tim O’Toole said: “The important thing is that while you will see our competitors are able to present a more impressive revenue increase number, because they’r

ON 13 MAY, London’s Evening Standard editorialised not just on the plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport, but on how the road network would cope with expansion. “What has caught the imagination most in the latest version of Heathrow’s expansion ambitions is highways not runways,” The Standard began. “The M25 plans referred to in its July submissions as simply ‘mitigation’ turn out to be a 600-metre tunnel stretching the length of one junction, co

the city of York Council is to pilot free parking in its city centre car parks to combat competition from out-of-town retailing and internet shopping.  York has been one of the leading authorities for trying to encourage fewer car trips and the city has a network of five bus-based park-and-ride sites. But with new out-of-town retailing about to open, the council and businesses want to attract more people into the city centre by all modes.  The pilot free parking scheme in eight counc

transport for London is exploring the possibility of building a new tolled tunnel in inner London to replace the capital’s Inner Ring Road.  Four major new studies are getting underway to explore how the capital’s road network can cope with TfL’s prediction of burgeoning travel demand and rising traffic congestion. The studies build upon the work of the mayor’s roads task force, which last summer recommended a major increase to road investment and the exploration of

Discounted fares now account for more than 40% of all rail passenger fare income and generate nearly £3bn, according to the Office of Rail Regulation’s financial review of the industry. The report covering 2012/13 says the £12.3bn cost of running the nation’s railways has remained consistent for the last three years. Government support for the industry was £4bn, mainly for Network Rail track access charges, and was funded through the DfT (£2.8bn), Transport S

The Government’s policy of reducing fuel duty on road transport since 2010 has boosted the country’s GDP, according to modelling results published by the Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs. Fuel duty raised £26.6bn in 2012/13 – well below the high of over £30bn in 1999/2000 –  and is the fifth largest source of government revenue.  But the duty rate is forecast to fall in real terms by 13% over the life of the current Parliament as a result of the

Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, has died aged 52. The union say that Crow died in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Crow had been general secretary of the RMT since 2002, having been elected to the role following the death of previous leader Jimmy Knapp. Normal 0 false fals

Middlesbrough Council is to continue a free parking policy in council-owned town centre car parks after retailers attributed higher sales to the initiative. But one of the town’s major bus operators has warned it will have to cut services because the policy is hitting passenger numbers.    The council, led by independent elected mayor Ray Mallon, introduced a range of parking incentives last February in an effort to attract more shoppers, visitors and businesses to the town cent

Transport for London is preparing a new vision for how the car club sector could play a bigger role in meeting the capital’s travel needs.  Ben Plowden, TfL’s director of surface strategy and planning at TfL, told LTT a ‘Car Lite’ working group was developing proposals . “TfL will be presenting the outcome of the group’s work to the industry,” he said.   Zipcar, the UK’s largest car club operator, has just published a new report in whic

  A new business rate levy, fare rises, and devolved property taxes could help fund Crossrail 2, the project to link south-west and north-east London, according to a new report by the capital’s business lobby group, London First. Construction costs for Crossrail 2 (CR2) range from a low base estimate of £12bn (at 2012 prices) to £20bn if contingencies are included. The DfT is insisting that over 50% of the cost of the project must come from non-Exchequer sources. The Lo

Thousands of drivers a week are receiving penalty charge notices (PCNs) for ignoring an experimental ban on general traffic crossing a bridge in York city centre. Since the end of August the Lendal bridge has been restricted to buses, taxis, cyclists, pedestrians and emergency vehicles between 10.30 and 17.00 seven days a week.  The ban’s aims are to reduce congestion, create a bus priority corridor, and improve the environment for pedestrian and cyclists. Figures show that between

The Government has applied to the European Commission for permission to introduce fuel duty discounts of up to 5p per litre in 17 of the most rural parts of mainland UK.  “High fuel prices in areas where cars are a necessity not a luxury is a major issue in rural communities across the UK,” said chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander. “Reaching agreement with the Commission will not be easy, but we will now get on with making the case as strongly as we can.&rdqu

Although the early weeks of the new year are supposed to be a rather depressing period, I write this piece as someone with a smile on his face. If you’ve ever been cautioned about objectivity by the Alliance of British Drivers (as I was in a recent letter to LTT), you’ll know the happy feeling this can imbue.  This month I want to talk about the Department for Transport’s Consultation on local authority parking (Google it). The consultation period ends on 14 February, and

Cardiff Council could become the first local authority outside London to enforce moving traffic contraventions such as banned turns and yellow box junction infringements. The council is to apply to the Welsh Government for the powers and hopes to begin enforcement in July.  Civil enforcement is intended to help boost traffic management because the police rarely prioritise enforcement of the offences. But it has also proved controversial parts of London, with the media reporting yellow box

London’s modal shift from private to public transport, cycling and walking continues apace, and is the main theme behind TfL’s annual Travel in London publication now in its sixth year. The 250-page document – which generally reflects the 2012 calendar year and the 2012/13 financial year – says that journey stages in the capital by private transport have declined from 46% in 1993 to 33% in 2012, whereas those made by public transport have increased from 30% to 44% during

Hidden behind the headline grabbing figures on road traffic growth, accident casualties and public transport use in the latest DfT Transport Statistics GB, comes the reminder that Government expenditure on UK transport has declined for four consecutive years: it currently stands at £19.3bn, well down from the £23bn (at outturn, not 2012/3 prices) of the 2009/10 peak. These cuts affect both capital and current (revenue) expenditure, and they apply to the whole of the UK. Treasury fig

It is a feature of many big transport projects that they go through massive wobbles. The third London Airport, the Channel Tunnel, HS1 and Crossrail are all examples and the very name Thameslink 2000 is a reminder of the syndrome that HS2 is now experiencing.   My overall position having had the benefit of membership of HS2’s analytical challenge panel until March 2012 is that HS2 is not a stupid ill-conceived vanity project but neither is it a game-changing transformational project

Tourist-friendly trains and patronage targets for rural lines, and strict controls of regulated fares are among the eye-catching features of Transport Scotland’s specification for the new ten-year ScotRail franchise, which begins in April 2015.  The Government’s requirements are set out in a draft invitation to tender and the five pre-qualified bidders – Abellio, Arriva, National Express, MTR  and FirstGroup (the incumbent) – have until next April to respond. T