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

The 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

Former Oxfordshire  County Council transport and planning officers have urged councils in the county to rethink  plans for tens of thousands of new homes, saying the county risks becoming covered by car-based suburban sprawl. They also want the Government to abandon the proposed expressway road between Oxford and Cambridge.  The recommendations feature in reports published by a group called POETS (Planning Oxfordshire’s Environment and Transport Sustainably). The report aut

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

Projects submitted by local authorities were among the winning entries in a competition to identify transport schemes that should be funded if HS2 were scrapped. The ‘Great British Transport Competition’ was organised by pressure group the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) in conjunction with prominent critics of HS2, including the Labour peer Lord Berkeley and quantity surveyor Michael Byng. Former rail industry manager Chris Stokes, who is also a vehement critic of the Government&rs

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

Councils in Tyne and Wear have been inundated with responses to their consultation on introducing road charges to help meet EU legal limits for nitrogen dioxide.   Newcastle, Gateshead and North Tyneside councils have received more than 19,000 submissions about the proposals.  The consultation (LTT 01 Mar), presented two options.  One approach would see a Class D charging clean air zone (CAZ) introduced covering central Newcastle, part of Gateshead, and the A1058 Coast Road in

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

Transport for London is to start capturing depersonalised wi-fi connection data from millions of London Underground passengers’ phones from early July.       TfL ran a four-week pilot of capturing wi-fi data in 2016 and has developed the system in-house. When a device such as a smart phone has wi-fi enabled, it continually searches for a wi-fi network by sending out a unique identifier – known as a Media Access Control address – to nearby routers.  TfL sa

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

My words this time are directed squarely, and I trust fairly, at transport practitioners.  They’re prompted by the fact that, every year since 2011, May has been celebrated by Living Streets as National Walking Month. Living Streets is, of course, the UK charity for everyday walking and its purpose is to achieve a better walking environment and inspire people to walk more. That ought to be a doddle, no? After all, barring a very few exceptions, everyone walks. And walking’s d

The UK’s green revolution moved from the protestors on the streets of London to the corridors of Whitehall last week as the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) issued a report recommending that the Government sets a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Climate Change Act currently sets an 80 per cent reduction target by 2050 against 1990 levels.  The advice represents a U-turn by the Committee. Just three years ago, in the aftermath of the Paris Agreement on climate

The rail industry is calling for Transport for London-style rail concessions to replace franchising in the biggest urban areas of England.  The proposal features in the Rail Delivery Group’s submission to the Government’s Williams Review, which is considering the future structure of the rail industry. All passenger and freight rail companies are members of the RDG, as well as Network Rail and HS2. The RDG says the current system of franchising should be replaced by different t

Transport for London should introduce a distance-based road charging scheme, initially for inner and central London but potentially eventually covering the whole of the capital, a think tank has said.   TfL has already said that it is exploring a “next generation road user charging” system as a way of managing road traffic demand and raising funding. Its current business plan describes charging as a “key proposal” in the mayor’s transport strategy to achieving

There have been plenty of transport project delivery disasters in recent years. Most of the really big ones have affected rail schemes, for instance: the delay and cost overruns to Crossrail; last year’s new timetable meltdowns on Northern and Thameslink; the mushrooming cost and delays to Great Western railway electrification; the unravelling of Network Rail’s enhancement programme; and, going back a little further to 2012, the collapse of the DfT’s West Coast Main Line franch

Arriva has launched its app-based demand responsive transport service ArrivaClick in Leicestershire, with funding from a Section 106 agreement for a major housing development.  Arriva Click operates across an area of 29 square kilometres with a population of 70,000 west of Leicester, stretching from Leicester Forest East in the north to Enderby in the south, and including Leicester city centre and the Meridian Business Park. The service operates 6am to 11pm. ArrivaClick already operates i

The draft London Plan’s transport infrastructure priorities will prove to be nothing more than a “wishlist” unless a way can be found to fill a £3.1bn a year funding gap, a borough has said. The London Borough of Bexley says there is little likelihood that all the schemes listed in table 10.1 of the draft plan will be delivered during the plan period to 2041. “The draft plan states that ‘most of the schemes in Table 10.1 are currently unfunded’ and tha

The Welsh Government has agreed to part-fund a Pembrokeshire bus route under its TrawsCymru banner, and says  funding could be available for routes tendered by other councils. The new T11 service began on Tuesday, replacing two previous services tendered by Pembrokeshire County Council. The Government meets 50 per cent of the cost, enabling daytime frequency to increase to hourly, six days a week. The service, branded TrawsCymru Connect, uses four vehicles and links Haverfordwest to Fishg

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

The gruesome saga of Crossrail and its 40 brand-new trains sitting in sidings at Old Oak Common in West London quietly rusting until 2021 at least, not to mention their nearly 500 drivers with little to do, tells us much about rail project completion dates and budgets (‘Crossrail opening: 2020 or 2021’ LTT 26 Apr). It is not good enough to say it’ll be great when it’s done and everyone will forget; this scale of incompetence must not be forgotten. It is naïve to thi

The DFT has outlined its research priorities for improving the quality of transport analysis to underpin decision-making.   The work programme includes valuing urban realm and other locational impacts of transport improvements, more coverage of active travel modes, and greater use of distributional analysis in appraisal.  Research is underway to inform revised optimism bias values for project costings.  A prototype ‘uncertainty toolkit’ to help scheme promoters asse

The DfT’s new document, Appraisal and modelling strategy: informing future decisions, outlines the Department’s priority areas of work to improve the quality of transport analysis for decision-making. The work is grouped under five themes as follows: People and place  Quick wins: Locational attractiveness and urban realm: a scoping study will explore options for new guidance on incorporating locational attractiveness and urban realm into appraisal. The DfT says the consultati

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

Regarding the letters from Paul Biggs and Malcolm Heymer (Letters LTT 12 Apr), it is a fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere has been rising since the Industrial Revolution, and is doing so exponentially. Moreover, it has been growing in parallel with the rise in the global temperature. That cannot be ignored – nor indeed can its implications for the future as we emit more gases. As for the criticism that their concentration was probably much higher a mill

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

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

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

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

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

ClientEarth has successfully challenged the UK Government in court three times over its failure to get to grips with illegal and harmful levels of air pollution across the country. We have done this to enforce what we know is the Government’s legal, and moral, duty to protect people’s health from toxic air. The UK Government’s response has been to pass the buck to local authorities and we have long argued against this approach. But this is where we are now. Our main concern is

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

The Scotsman’s transport correspondent, Alastair Dalton, was scathing in the extreme about the poor state of cycling provision north of the border in a column on 15 March. “Bike lanes in some Scottish cities are now in such bad condition they look like archeological evidence of a past civilisation that once encouraged cycling,” he began. “Fading paint and semi-obscured markings shout utter disdain at those choosing to ride rather than add to congestion and pollution by dr

Our lifestyles are motivated by self-interest combined with a determination to improve ever-rising standards of living that are nearly all dependent on fossil fuels. However, as we are learning to our cost, any use of these fuels adds to the concentration of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. It is their concentration, not the emissions themselves, which cause temperatures to rise. This is a fact that seems to be overl

Cardiff Council is at odds with the Cardiff Capital Region Transport Authority (CCRTA) over the future of regional transport governance in Wales. The Welsh Government’s transport White Paper, Improving public transport (LTT 14 Dec 18), put forward two options for new statutory bodies to oversee public transport: a national Joint Transport Authority (JTA) with regional delivery boards, or a national JTA and three regional JTAs (LTT 14 Dec 18). The possible bus powers of the JTAs are listed

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

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

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

New mobility services such as ride hailing apps have had only a marginal impact on public transport demand in the capital and it remains unclear if their impacts are detrimental or beneficial, says Transport for London. Shashi Verma, TfL’s director of strategy and chief technology officer, discussed the impact of new technology and new mobility business models on TfL’s public transport demand forecasting, in a paper presented to this week’s finance committee meeting. “W

Bath and North East Somerset Council has dropped a plan to include cars in a charging clean air zone for Bath, saying new analysis shows nitrogen dioxide concentrations can be reduced to legal levels with less drastic action.  Councillors have approved a Class C charging CAZ covering the centre of the city. This will see daily charges for the lorries, buses, coaches, vans, taxis and private hire vehicles that fail to meet the zone’s minimum emission standards.  Bath and North E

Councils in southeast Wales have criticised the Welsh Government’s plan to introduce new bus powers of enhanced partnerships and franchising, saying existing bus powers are adequate.  The Government’s Improving public transport White Paper (LTT 14 Dec 18) proposes giving Welsh councils enhanced partnership and franchising powers that English authorities already have access to via the Bus Services Act 2017. A Public Transport Bill is expected to be published by the Welsh Governm

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

The government should hold auctions for electric vehicle charging concessions just like the auctions used to allocate bandwidth between mobile phone networks, according to a new report.    The idea features in a discussion paper written by consultant Peter Brett Associates (part of Stantec) and architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. They see a need for a national network of rapid chargers, but say the current approach to delivering such charging points is flawed.  “Th

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

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

On 5 March the chairs of two House of Commons select committees, Lilian Greenwood (the Labour chair of the transport committee) and Neil Parish (the Conservative chair of the environment, food and rural affairs committee), co-authored a ‘Red Box’ column in The Times which asserted that it is: “Time we taxed cars in proportion to how polluting they are. “The current vehicle tax system should be made much fairer through reflecting each vehicle’s individual contributi

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

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

Coventry City Council has ruled out introducing a charging clean air zone (CAZ)  even if the Government rejects the council’s bid for £80m to deliver an alternative package of measures to bring nitrogen dioxide concentrations down to legal levels.  In 2017 the Government ordered Coventry to draw up an action plan to comply in the shortest possible time with the EU NO2 annual mean limit value of 40μg/m3 . The direction was issued because modelling suggested that, without

Two non-executive directors have been recruited externally to replace two councillors on the board of troubled municipal operator Cardiff Bus. The appointments come as questions are raised about the influence of the Unite trade union on the board of the company, which has employee costs of 69 per cent, much higher than other operators.  Cardiff Bus has registered the withdrawal of eight routes, along with night operations on four other routes, at the end of this month as it tries to return

Councillors in Edinburgh are expected to give final approval later this month to extend the city’s tram line from the city centre to Newhaven in the north.   The 4.6km extension should have been built as part of the original tram line from Edinburgh Airport but the project’s massive cost overrun forced the council to truncate the line at York Place in the city centre. Councillors heard this week that the extension had an expected outturn cost of £207.3m. The actual cost

The outcome of a hearing into a community transport provider’s use of Section 19 and Section 22 permits will hinge on whether the services provided are “exclusively” non-commercial. The decision by Welsh traffic commissioner Nick Jones will be of interest to community transport organisations and bus operators around Britain eager for greater clarity on how the permits can and cannot be used. At the end of the one-day hearing this week, Jones reserved judgment on Accessible Ca

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority has approved next year’s budget for its bus reform work, which is exploring the case for franchising.   The combined authority last year approved a 2018/19 budget of £11.5m for the work, which is being led by Transport for Greater Manchester. However, a TfGM spokeswoman told LTT this week that the likely outturn expenditure  in 2018/19 is likely to be just  circa £6m. “The pace at which we can progress has largely

On 22 February former transport secretary Andrew Adonis painted a dire picture of the post-Brexit landscape for transport vehicle manufacturing in the UK in The New European magazine. “Honda this week gave its 3,500 staff the same notice of closure – two years – as the UK gave of its intention to leave the EU,” he began. “Two years seems to be the going rate for deliberately planning an economic and social catastrophe. It takes much longer to build afresh. Witness t

Road charges may be necessary in Newcastle city centre for some types of vehicle under proposals to improve air quality being published for consultation next week.   The consultation is expected to feature a Class D charging clean air zone (CAZ), which would impose charges on cars, buses, coaches, taxis private hire vehicles, light goods vehicles (LGVs) and HGVs. It will also suggest  tolls on city centre bridges connecting Newcastle and Gateshead over the Tyne.  Views will

Almost 1,800 air quality monitoring sites across the UK  breach the EU annual mean limit value for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) of 40 μg/m3, according to analysis by environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth. FoE found 1,758 breaches in the most recent local authority annual air quality status reports submitted to Government.    The ten worst locations were:  1. Earls Court Station, Kensington & Chelsea, London – 129.5 μg/m3 2. Junction North Circul

20mph campaigners have been accused of “dubious morality” by one of the authors of the DfT’s evaluation into the effects of signed-only 20mph limits. The criticism comes in response to comments about the research made by the campaign group 20’s Plenty for Us in evidence to the Scottish Parliament.  The Parliament’s rural economy and connectivity committee is currently taking evidence on Green MSP Mark Ruskell’s Restricted Roads (20mph speed limit) Scotla

On 3 Februay The Guardian’s economics editor, Larry Elliott, indirectly criticised the Government’s planned HS2 high-speed rail project by suggesting that the money earmarked for the scheme could be far more productively spent improving the country’s bus infrastructure. “Britain has a productivity problem,” he began. “And a lot of it has to do with buses. Public transport really matters.” Taking the city of Birmingham as an example, Elliott observed th

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

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

The City of London Corporation is to begin design work on the next phase of changes to Bank Junction, which could see some of the junction’s five arms closed to traffic. The ‘Bank on safety’ project introduced in 2017 saw all motor vehicles except buses banned from crossing the junction between 7am and 7pm Monday to Friday. The City made the scheme permanent last September. ‘Bank on safety’ was always regarded as an interim project, ahead of the more substantial &

The Traffic Commissioner for Wales still has no office, more than two years on from when it was formed, with commissioner Nick Jones having to work from home and rely on support staff from traffic areas in England. The UK Government agreed to the creation of a separate Welsh traffic area following years of pressure from the Welsh Government. Previously Wales was managed from Birmingham as an adjunct of the West Midlands traffic area. The separate Welsh area was created in September 2016 but no

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

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

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

THE DfT should not lead on active travel policy but should instead be the delivery arm for other client departments, MPs have been told. The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) makes the comments in evidence to the House of Commons transport committee’s new active travel inquiry.  PACTS believes the DfT will struggle to orchestrate cross-departmental active travel initiatives. “The DfT is not a powerful department in Whitehall. PACTS has seen how diffic

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

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

Wales’ Future Generations Commissioner has accused transport consultants of failing to  understand how the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 affects transport scheme development. Too often they jump to the conclusion that road schemes are the solution to transport problems, she says. Sophie Howe said Wales’ transport appraisal guidance, WelTAG, had been revised as a result of her team’s work with the Welsh Government’s transport department. “We

Rail stations are changing, as any traveller who uses Birmingham, Sheffield, London St Pancras or London Bridge stations, will clearly see. They don't feel like stations. They feel like upmarket retail malls and grand food courts with trains (and buses, bikes and taxis) added, imposing city gateways, art exhibits, pianos and, increasingly, the centrepieces of new communities and developments. Stations' evolving role as new 'city centres' is driving development activity, growth and revenue. Gl

The DfT has announced regulatory reviews to smooth the way for “micromobility vehicles” on Britain’s streets, Mobility as a Service products, and new forms of flexible bus service.  The work programme is outlined in the DfT’s new future of mobility strategy for urban areas.  On micromobility, it says: “We are seeing the rapid development of vehicles such as electric scooters and skateboards, low-powered last mile delivery solutions and a blurring of prev

Transport bodies this week gave more reflections on the DfT’s report into the effectiveness of signed-only 20mph limits (LTT 23 Nov).  In a letter to LTT (see page 31)  Rod King, founder of campaign group 20’s Plenty for Us, voices dissatisfaction with the report, saying it fails to address the original objectives set, and its findings are marred by data limitations.    David Davies, executive director of PACTS, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport S

HS2 lines to central London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds should all be axed, with the project’s purpose reduced to a capacity relief scheme between Old Oak Common and Crewe, a peer has told MPs. Labour peer Lord Berkeley wrote to every MP this week saying the Government will find it impossible to deliver the whole project, from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, within the official funding envelope of £55.7bn (2015 prices). He says ministers face three choices for the

Carwyn Jones has stepped down as first minister of Wales without taking a decision on building the M4 Relief Road around Newport.  Mark Drakeford, who became first minister on Wednesday, has been ambiguous about the controversial ‘black route’ being promoted by the Welsh Government. Assembly Members who oppose the 14-mile black route now claim that the construction cost has increased to at least £2bn. The Government recently issued a prior information notice for the

Transport for London this week put back the date for achieving an operating surplus by a year, to 2022/23, blaming the delayed opening of the Elizabeth line (Crossrail) and a  decline in bus passenger numbers.   The new business plan assumes that the delay to Crossrail opening will have a net operating impact (income and cost) of £600m over the next three years – £200m in 2019/20,  £300m in 2020/21, and £100m in 2021/22. The major impact is delayed p

Whether autonomous vehicles are considered as the central plank of Britain’s industrial future, the mode that will dominate all travel, or an overhyped fantasy that will sooner or later subside into more modest niche markets, they are going to exist in law, and the laws have not yet been devised... The Law Commissions have launched a review for public consultation – pedantic, detailed, thoughtful, serious, unexpectedly easy to read, and very big. It has 212 pages, no colour pictures

The ‘Gilets Jaunes’ who rioted on the streets of Paris and forced the French Government to abandon its fuel tax increases have a message for transport planners, one that we – as well as politicians – ignore at our peril. Britain may not have suffered violence on that scale (three dead so far) but we have been there before. The fuel tax protests of 2000 and the successful campaigns against road pricing from 2004 to 2007 should remind us of how rising transport costs can tr

Rail passenger demand growth over the last 20 years has been heavily influenced by factors that are omitted from forecasting models, such as changes to the structure of the UK economy and population distribution, a new report concludes.   The Independent Transport Commission report explores factors underpinning the more than doubling of rail passenger journeys since privatisation in 1995/96, a period when population grew by only 15 per cent.  The report’s authors are Ian Willia

A four-route bus rapid transit network for Cambridgeshire could be delivered over the next seven years, under plans of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority and the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP).  The network, dubbed CAM, would feature surface routes and  a tunnelled section in the inner city and city centre. A map shows  routes radiating from Cambridge to serve Cambourne to the west, Waterbeach to the north, Newmarket Road and Mildenhall to the east, and t

Proposals for a light rail network serving Leeds and the wider conurbation have been published by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. It wants the system up and running in time for HS2 reaching the city, supposedly in 2033.  Alan Reiss, WYCA’s director of policy, strategy and communications told councillors: “Based on analysing the evidence around the current and forecast levels of demand, especially into Leeds city centre, by the time of HS2 opening in 2033 there is a need

For over 30 years Adrian Davis has been at the forefront of the drive to connect and carry forward the disciplines of public health and transport planning. As he observes, for much of this time he has been paving a way into new territory: “In terms of my own journey, there has not been a route map, because the job had previously not been invented.”  His work has recently taken a new turn with his appointment to the part-time post of professor of transport and health in the Tran

This has been a year of historical landmarks: 100 years since the armistice that ended the Great War and 100 years since women in the UK were first given the vote. While not quite as momentous on a global scale, 2018 also marked 50 years since SYSTRA began delivering transport planning in the UK. Big anniversaries of all kinds invite us to take stock, to look at how the world has changed around us, what we have learned, and to speculate about what it all means for the future. And for transport

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

Leeds City Council is proposing short-term exemptions from its charging Clean Air Zone (CAZ) for some types of vehicle, to soften the blow of the scheme. The council plans to introduce the CAZ on 6 January 2020 but says there is “high potential” for legal challenges from those who think the plan is either too draconian or not strict enough. Both Client Earth and Friends of the Earth want the scheme to cover cars, something the council has refused to countenance.  Leeds will in

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

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

Transport Scotland has published its first Scotland-specific forecasts of road, bus and rail demand. The forecasts present a ‘primary forecast’, which represents “what is considered to be the most probable future based on what we currently know”. Assumptions on future population, economic growth and fuel prices were also combined to create ‘high’ and ‘low’ alternative growth scenarios for road traffic.  The primary road traffic forecasts for

People born more recently display lower rates of driver licence holding, car access and mileage compared to earlier generations, according to a new DfT report.  Car travel econometrics draws on data from the National Travel Survey to study factors affecting licence holding, car ownership and use.  “Being born more recently is associated with lower rates of licence holding, car access and mileage relative to those born earlier than 1955,” says the DfT. “This could in

Locational information about many bus stops in a dataset used by journey planning apps is inaccurate to some degree, according to a public transport app and website company. Journey planning apps such as Traveline, Citymapper and Google Maps all take data from NaPTAN (the National Public Transport Access Nodes) dataset. NaPTAN identifies all 400,000+ public transport points including bus stops, coach stations, railway stations, taxi ranks and ferry terminals. Public transport app and website b

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

My title this month is the conflation of two matters arising from events over the past two days. The first of these was a talk on road pricing by a chap called Paul Buchanan. The second will take me a little longer to explain. But here goes… The Tuesday after this episode of Local Transport Today is published will be the first ever Transport Planning Day (13 November). Great credit for the initiative is due to Lynda Addison, chair of the Transport Planning Society. The core purpose of TP

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

A new regional transport coordination centre is coming to the West Midlands, and here’s why. The West Midlands is growing at an astonishing rate.  By 2043 there will be an extra 444,000 people living, working and studying here and demand for travel will have increased by 22 per cent. That’s the equivalent of 100 extra people travelling every single day, filling 1.5 buses or 84 cars.  Last year I was given the task of ensuring we have an integrated transport system that ca

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

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

The Local Transport Summit takes place at the Mercure Letchworth Hall Hotel in Hertfordshire on 29-30 November.  It can seem at times that having begun to make progress with one set of issues, those concerned with local transport will almost inevitably have another batch dropped in their lap. Traffic management, accessibility, maintaining roads and public transport, encouraging sustainable travel, regulating new modes and technologies, embracing shared mobility, addressing air quality

Just pause for a moment and think about your last holiday or visit to a National Park. How did you get around? How did this compare with your routine day-to-day ways of travelling? It may seem like a different world from the frenetic global mobility disruptions, but just maybe these aren’t as far apart as we think.  To what extent did getting on that shuttle bus, renting that bike or walking to the shop change your views on public transport or active travel for the other 48 weeks of

Mayor of Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham addressed a full house at Smarter Travel LIVE! hosted by Merseytravel and Liverpool City Region and organised by Landor LINKS. They said that radical change is needed across the North if mayors are to be allowed to deliver for their regions. “The economic growth of our city region is asking questions of the transport system it can’t answer,” said Burnham. More than 500 people attended t

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

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

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

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

Electric vehicles have a great future in the UK – but there is a long way to go, with plenty of risks, and this month’s Budget could be a setback. That was the gist of a Westminster Forum conference on the Government’s Road to Zero strategy held earlier this month. Chair Helen Goodman MP, who has Sunderland’s Nissan plant in her constituency, set the tone. She contrasted the Labour Party’s new commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050 with her own “not good&rdq

Paul Hammond, global practice leader for economics at Mott MacDonald, an event partner for Smarter Travel LIVE!, echoed the calls from Mayors Rotherham and Burnham for better integrated transport infrastructure across the North, and is ready to support delivery. 'As many of the presenters at Smarter Travel LIVE! pointed out, the challenges and solutions are myriad and should not be seen in isolation. Active travel, for example, is a key aspect of a healthy community and an integral part of the

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

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

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

Prime Minister Theresa May’s announcement that fuel duty will again be frozen in the Budget has given renewed impetus to calls for the introduction of road pricing to address air quality and congestion in urban areas. Supporters and critics of May’s decision told LTT this week that local authorities tasked with reducing urban air pollution needed more targeted methods of driving behaviour change, including road pricing. As further evidence of a “disconnect” in governmen

Bristol City Council has suggested introducing a workplace parking levy or a congestion charge to fund significant investments in public transport infrastructure. The prospect of new levies on motorists is raised in the Bristol Transport Strategy, which sets out how the city’s council plans to tackle challenges affecting journeys such as traffic congestion, growth in housing and jobs, inequality and health problems caused by inactivity and air pollution. Marvin Rees, mayor of Bristol, sa

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

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

The point of traffic forecasting is to appraise transport policies and projects, and as usual the new DfT forecasts intend to describe the future before allowing for the feedback effects of the new policies and schemes. This is tricky, and there are many continuing controversies and unresolved arguments. But in this column I want to ask a simple question. Taking the forecasts as they are, how should transport professionals use them in practice? My proposition is that a simple application could h

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

The French philosopher Voltaire reportedly said: “Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.” The transport sector is becoming increasingly alive to how uncertain the future is. There is significant or ‘deep’ uncertainty about the extent to which existing trends, relationships, technologies, economic and social forces, preferences and constraints will carry into the future.  Uncomfortable though it may be, there is a need in transport

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

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

For years, the public transport world has been divided by a bitter dispute: namely, is it ever correct to describe a super-duper bus as a tram? The discussion took an unexpected turn with the launch of Belfast’s Glider bus rapid transit network earlier this month. The Belfast Telegraph and the BBC have both run stories in which the vehicles are described – by persons un-named – as “trams on wheels”. LTT wonders how those persons, and the journalists who quote them,

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

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

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

Dock-based bike hire operators this week spoke of their enthusiasm to set up schemes in Greater Manchester as dockless operator Mobike said it may pull out of the area because of continuing vandalism and theft to its fleet of bikes.   Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has already hinted that it is preparing a tender for a conurbation-wide bike hire scheme (LTT 20 Jul) and dock-based operators Nextbike UK and Serco told LTT this week they were keen to bid. Chinese-owned Mobike launch

Brexit could bring an unexpected boost to the Channel Tunnel rail freight market if lorries experience lengthy delays at ports, a report for the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) suggests.  Currently, rail and road freight  to/from the EU crosses the Channel without the need for customs declarations. Trains are, however, subject to technical and security inspections at Dollands Moor in Kent and near Calais in France.  In a report for the RDG, SNC Lavalin says rail freight could become m

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

The pace of change in the UK mobility landscape is arguably now the fastest ever. Even the arrival of the railways took a couple of decades to begin to change the face of our countryside and urban geography. Likewise the impact of the motor car, which began with driving being a very minority activity amongst the well-off for quite a long time. In contrast,the past twelve months, let alone the last few years, have seen major developments in all parts of the personal mobility sector. From shared b

Clean air zones and low emission zones, safer lorry schemes, alternative fuels, Brexit... Central and local government is presenting the road freight sector with a plateful of policy challenges, making life busy for industry bodies such as the Freight Transport Association. “The workload is certainly increasing greatly, particularly in the areas of the environment and Brexit,” says Natalie Chapman, the FTA’s head of urban policy and the South of England.  Think about the

Abandoning the valuation of travel time savings in transport appraisal would be a “fundamental error”, three of the UK’s leading transport economists have said.   The comment comes in a paper responding to David Metz, an honorary professor at the Centre for Transport Studies, University College London and a former chief scientist at the DfT.  Metz had a paper published in the journal Case Studies on Transport Policy last summer (LTT01 Sep 17), arguing that the trave

The West Midlands traffic commissioner has fined Diamond Bus for failing to meet the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s punctuality targets. Nick Denton called the operator to a public inquiry after monitoring about 1,440 Diamond Bus services in Redditch and Kidderminster last year by Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) officers found about 21 per cent were outside the Commissioners’ one minute early and five minutes late window for timekeeping. Denton had also received customer

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

A damning assessment of the HS2 project was prepared by a Government-appointed adviser just two months before MPs passed the hybrid Bill for the phase one London-West Midlands line, a leaked report reveals.  The confidential report from January 2017 rated the project as between ‘amber-red’ and ‘red’, and said HS2 was likely to go  over budget, which could have negative consequences for spending by other departments. The project was also likely to be judged a fa

The DfT has issued a call for evidence on how to increase the use of electric cargo bikes and electric vans for delivery services in urban areas.  The DfT says e-cargo bikes have “huge potential” but asks if financial support is needed to make them commercially viable.  It asks if their widespread use requires changes to infrastructure, such as roads, parking, loading zones, and cycle lane design.  “What level of training should riders have?” the DfT add

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

Britain’s energy regulator Ofgem is consulting on reforms to how consumers are charged for using electricity that would smooth the path to electrifying road transport. The consultation has been launched alongside a new report looking at the challenges electric vehicles pose for the electricity network. Ofgem says two principles should drive the electricity industry’s approach to facilitating electric vehicles (EVs): system costs for all consumers should be minimised by making more e

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

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

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

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

The Scottish Government is awaiting the findings of DfT research into the effects of raising the speed limit for lorries in England and Wales before deciding whether to follow suit. In April 2015 the speed limits for HGVs over 7.5 tonnes were increased in England and Wales from 40 to 50mph on single carriageways and from 50 to 60mph on dual carriageways.  The limits in Scotland remain 40mph and 50mph on single and dual carriageways respectively, except on the A9 between Perth and Invernes

Bus stops in the constituency of Welsh transport secretary Ken Skates still display timetables printed one or two years before dominant local operator GHA Coaches went bankrupt in July 2016. None of the 11 bus stops surveyed by LTT in Skates’ Clwyd South constituency displayed current service times. The most recent poster was dated April 2015. Others were from May 2014. Display cases were empty at several stops. Electronic passenger information screens were present at most of the stops b

The government should introduce new local funding  mechanisms to help local authorities raise funds for transport and other infrastructure, the National Infrastructure Commission has said.  The Commission discusses a variety of ways to raise additional  funding locally in the National Infrastructure Assessment published last week.  “Local funding for infrastructure can strengthen local accountability, sharpen the incentives for scheme designers to maximise local benef

Local transport authorities in south-west England are being asked to approve plans for two shadow sub-national transport bodies.  The South West Peninsula STB would cover Somerset, Cornwall, Plymouth, Torbay, Devon and Dorset.  The Western Gateway STB would cover Gloucestershire, Bath & North East Somerset, Borough of Poole, Bournemouth, Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and the West of England Combined Authority.  A report sent by the councils to t

You wait ages for a consultation about bus information and then two come along at once. The DfT has just published proposals that will require operators to broadcast audio-visual information about services to help passengers with visual and/or hearing impairments, and for making data such as fares, routes and timetables ‘open’ so that they can be used in apps and other digital products.   The consultation on audio-visual information applies to the whole of Britain, and sets out

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

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

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

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

Our little branch line between Oxenholme and Windermere has been in the national news lately as a result of a vintage train being hired to operate on the route whilst franchise operator Northern suspended all of its trains and replaced them with buses. Resulting claims of “showing the Lake District is still open for business” and the area “even resorting to hiring a preserved train to protect this important visitor season” fall considerably wide of the mark. Let’s b

A fleet of refurbished former London Underground trains will be delivered to the Isle of Wight if the Government accepts franchise operator South Western Railway’s costed plan to revitalise the island’s railway.  The Island Line between Ryde and Shanklin currently uses former Tube stock dating from the 1930s. The track and the third rail power supply is also life-expired.  South Western Railway, which is run by FirstGroup and MTR, consulted on the line’s future last

Lincolnshire’s bus market is too fragile to support the new partnership powers in the Bus Services Act 2017, according to the county council. The legislation contains three  new regulatory models, each giving local authorities progressively more influence: advanced quality partnership schemes (AQPS), enhanced partnerships (EPs), and franchising. The franchising powers are only automatically available to mayoral combined authorities. But Richard Wills, Lincolnshire’s executive

A London-wide byelaw to manage dockless bike share schemes is being explored by  London Councils and Transport for London.  The plan was presented to London Councils’ transport and environment committee (TEC) last week. Owain Mortimer, London Council’s principal policy officer, said: “TfL and London Councils are exploring the feasibility of putting formal mechanisms in place for the regulation of dockless bicycle operators, restricting their operation other than by c

Go-Ahead Group subsidiary Go North East has acquired East Yorkshire Motor Services, Britain’s largest family-owned bus company, for an undisclosed sum.  Hull-based EYMS has been operated for the last three decades by the Shipp family, under the leadership of Peter Shipp, 74,  who is executive chairman and majority shareholder. He passed  his managing director’s position to son David Shipp last October.  Shipp senior this week told the Hull Daily Mail: “We

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

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

“When I hear someone say they have a data platform I reach for my shotgun,” Professor Jonathan Raper declared earlier this year. Raper was in a Q&A session with Graham Hanson, the DfT’s Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) policy lead, at the Catch! showcase event at the Future Cities Catapult in Clerkenwell Green. Raper reflects mounting concern amongst transport data experts that people have a misplaced understanding of what data platforms should provide to qualify as use

In my early days campaigning for sustainable transport I put a huge effort into submitting evidence to local plans in an effort to get public transport more squarely on the map. Finally I realised that my efforts were largely in vain, because local public transport of the quality that I envisaged was desperately under-funded, and because local plans were more or less dominated by a single theme. This was how to accommodate targets for new homes on ‘strategic’ sites. Transport, it see

There are concerns in Wales that marginal bus services could be threatened by a new requirement for second-hand buses to be fitted with audio/visual next stop displays. One council transport officer said the change suddenly introduced by the Welsh Government on 1 April had “driven a coach and horses” through the agreed quality standards that are linked to payment of Bus Services Support Grant.  BSSG replaced Bus Service Operators’ Grant in Wales in 2013, with the total f

A trial taxi feeder for bus services has been launched in north Bristol.  Bus operator First West of England has teamed up with Bristol-based technology start-up Esoterix Systems to deliver the taxi service, branded MyFirstMile. CityFox is providing the taxi service under a hackney taxi licence using eight-seater cabs. The trial service, which will run to the end of September, operates from 06:00-10:30 for outbound trips, and 15:00-20:00 for return trips  on weekdays, excluding bank

A bus operator that uses the easyCoach and easyBus brand is suing Shropshire Council in the High Court. The news comes as the company expands its operations with a new route between Shrewsbury and Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Shrewsbury-based TSL Ltd has the rights to use the easyBus and easyCoach brands of Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s easyGroup outside London. It operates several commercial and tendered local bus routes, including one under contract to Shropshire Council. Director Andre

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

Walking is a basic human activity but its fundamental character can make it difficult to identify and categorise as a mode of transport and consequently to occupy a prominent position on the policy agenda. In order to find its political identity it must be given a context. For example, this can include walking for a purpose, such as for leisure or as part of a journey to work, or how walking interacts with its environment, including urban and suburban townscapes, and more natural rural landscape

Walking is a basic human activity but its fundamental character can make it difficult to identify and categorise as a mode of transport and consequently to occupy a prominent position on the policy agenda. In order to find its political identity it must be given a context. For example, this can include walking for a purpose, such as for leisure or as part of a journey to work, or how walking interacts with its environment, including urban and suburban townscapes, and more natural rural landscape

What twerp used the expression “gondola” in respect of a cable car system in the Lake District (‘Gondola could replace car trips to Lake District attraction’ LTT 11 May)?  Gondola is a term used for the actual cars, the boxes swinging from the cables, but the use of the term to describe the system is wrong and should be avoided as there are other uses of gondola, as with the steamship on Windermere, for example. As for managing car trips into Keswick, the old railw

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

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

Police have fined a community transport operator for operating a local authority schools transport contract with a Section 19 permit. The fines have been cited as an example of the “confusion” caused by the DfT’s proposed reforms to community transport regulations. DANSA Integrated Community Transport, based in Neath, South Wales, has been fined £600 after a South Wales Police officer noticed two DANSA vehicles operating under Section 19 permits, while conducting a spot

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

The West Midlands Combined Authority has an ambitious agenda to build a healthier, happier, better connected and more prosperous region in the broadest sense of ‘build’ – not just the urban fabric and infrastructure, but also in our industrial capability, community well-being and environmental resources.   When we talk about strategic transport modelling we mean modelling that connects transport forecasting to the higher-level aims outlined by the Mayor: economic pro

National Express’s dominance of the West Midlands conurbation’s bus market may be at risk as Transport for the West Midlands begins a global search for an operator(s) of the proposed Sprint bus rapid transit (BRT) network.  TfWM has launched a market sounding exercise for Sprint, saying it wants “to engage with operators who can offer or partner with BRT experience, and help the West Midlands realise the vision of Sprint as part of an integrated transport system”.&n

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

Councillors in Middlesbrough are calling on the Tees Valley Combined Authority to introduce bus franchising.  The recommendation features in a report of Middlesbrough’s economic development and scrutiny panel, chaired by Labour member Matthew Storey, and presented to the council’s executive last week.  Middlesbrough is run by Labour elected mayor Dave Budd and the town’s MP is Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, who is a champion of franchising. Labour th

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

The 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

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

Allowing parents in England to choose schools for their children has increased morning peak traffic and congestion, and in Wales it seems that centralisation of schools is having a similar effect. In the Senedd this week, AMs queued up to take pot shots at education secretary Kirsty Williams over school closures, which are initiated by local authorities but signed off by the Welsh Government. Williams, the Assembly’s sole surviving Liberal Democrat, urged parents to ensure children “

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

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

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

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

Birmingham City Council is preparing a £16m public realm and traffic management programme for the Snow Hill area of the city centre.  Nine individual projects are proposed for delivery in three phases of works. Phase one is expected to commence in October and phase two next April. Phase three is dependent on securing further funding. Phase one includes reducing traffic flows on Colmore Row by banning right turn movements into the street from Livery Street, which runs down the west s

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

FirstGroup is to sub-contract the operation of one of the three new Metrobus routes in the Bristol area to a community transport operator. Bristol Community Transport (BCT) was this week named as the operator of the M1 Metrobus route, connecting Cribbs Causeway to Hengrove Park via the University of the West of England and Bristol city centre. BCT will operate the route under contract to First West of England, which will operate the other two Metrobus routes directly: the M2 (Long Ashton park-

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

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

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

The Government has responded to the West Yorkshire Combined Authority about the masterplan to redevelop Leeds railway station to accommodate HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail services, and more local services. The HS2 station will adjoin the existing station to form a T-shape. A masterplan, drawn up by parties including the city council and the WYCA, was launched last autumn (LTT10 Nov 17).  It includes plans to create a single concourse for the existing station and HS2 services, three million

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

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

Bus passenger journeys fell across Great Britain in 2017, according to statistics published by the DfT.  The number of passengers carried in England fell 1.8 per cent, a reduction of about 79 million journeys. Passenger journeys outside London fell 4.3 per cent and there was a 0.6 per cent fall in the capital.  Patronage in Scotland fell 2.1 per cent and in Wales 4.1 per cent.  The local bus fares index increased by an average of 3 per cent in England in 2017, with a 1 per cent

The Treasury has rejected London mayor Sadiq Khan’s request for a proportion of Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) revenues to be devolved to Transport for London to help pay for the capital’s roads.  The Government is to ringfence VED in England for a new National Roads Fund from 2020/21 to fund Highways England and the new Major Road Network (MRN) of the most important local authority roads.  But the mayor and Transport for London say a portion of the fund should be devolved to

These are interesting times for the transport sector. Advances in technology have resulted in the launch of lots of new initiatives in recent months including dockless bike hire schemes and pre-bookable shared services such as the Chariot bus routes in London. Most of these are in urban areas and there seems to have been little discussion so far of the role that innovative transport services could play in rural areas. Perhaps that is because there is an assumption that all rural households have

Network Rail expects to hear from the DfT this month about which of many rail enhancements deferred from the existing five-year control period  (CP5) will be delivered in CP6. NR’s strategic business plan documents released last month (LTT16 Feb) show many CP5 (2014/15-2018/19) schemes still await authorisation or funding.  The strategic business plan sets out Network Rail’s spending plans for control period 6, covering 2019/20-2023/24. It is based on the DfT’s stat

The Campaign for Better Transport is searching for a new chief executive following Stephen Joseph’s decision to retire later this year after 30 years in post.  Joseph told LTT he was planning to leave in October, after a handover period to his successor. Having worked for the organisation for three decades, he said now felt an appropriate time to leave. “I’ve seen far too many organisations where people have gone on for too long,” he said, noting that  sometime

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

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

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

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

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

Five parts of England are to explore the use of air-borne drones in their areas.  Bradford, London, Preston, Southampton and the West Midlands have been selected to take part in the Flying High Challenge run by UK charity and global innovation foundation Nesta and the Government’s innovation agency Innovate UK.  Transport for London said:  “The capital has the busiest and most heavily regulated airspace in the UK, and the Nesta challenge will allow the city to have s

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

The Welsh Government has shed light on the proposed arrangements for the transfer of the Core Valley Lines to its ownership, including a transition period when liability for “latent defects” will remain with the UK Government. Updating Assembly Members this week, Welsh transport secretary Ken Skates said: “Welsh Government, HM Treasury and Department for Transport officials are developing the process for the transfer of owners, which is purely an administrative process between

A new Institute for Government (IfG) report has targeted three key aspects of policy to improve infrastructure decision-making in the UK. Over the past year, the Institute for Government has explored how the UK can improve infrastructure policymaking in areas including transport, energy, flood defences, digital communication, waste and water. Pulling together the findings of our work, this report identifies how competing needs and perspectives can be balanced to improve three vital aspects of

Increasing traffic congestion across mega cities and large urban centres, coupled with the resulting loss to the economy, is driving the need for more efficient modes of urban transportation. Flying cars are being explored as an alternative form of future mobility, making use of the underutilised domestic airspace.  Flying cars are set to disrupt the personal mobility space of the future with at least ten early entrants expected to launch various versions of flying cars by 2022. OEMs and o

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

Highways England is to procure a new free-flow road charging system that is initially likely to see use on the Dartford crossings but must be capable of deployment elsewhere.   The ‘scalable free flow charging system’ will go into service between 2021 and 2024. As well seeing use on the Dartford-Thurrock river crossing, HE says the system will “be a potential enabler to realising any longer term aspiration of interoperability between charging schemes,” that will del

Guidance on how to make new developments bus-friendly has been published by the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT).  Buses in urban developments includes advice on matters such as street design, bus priority, traffic calming, and the location of bus stops. Its principal author is independent transport and planning consultant Tim Pharoah.  Streets used by buses “should be direct and without severe curves or frequent turns to minimise operating distances

Merseytravel is commissioning consultants to help prepare an outline business case for rail station devolution.  The possibility of station devolution features in the Liverpool City Region devolution agreement and Merseytravel’s initial focus is on the stations served by the devolved Merseyrail Electrics franchise. Consultant KPMGwas appointed in 2016 to explore six options, with each involving progressively more devolution (LTT29 Apr 16). The options were:  • MELalliance

The fall in the average number of trips made by people over the last 30 years can be largely explained by a sharp reduction in trips of less than a mile in length, according to a new analysis of National Travel Survey data.  “The overall trip rate increased from 935 per person per year in 1975 to 1,094 in 1990, remained at 1,094 in 1996, then fell steadily to 914 in 2015,” says independent research Kit Mitchell in a paper published by the DfT.  From the peak of trips in 1

Plans for a bus-based, and ultimately autonomous, rapid transit system serving Cambridge and its surroundings are to be developed by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.  The CA board, chaired by elected mayor James Palmer, this week approved a new £600,000 study into a system dubbed Cambridge Autonomous Metro (CAM). The decision follows a review of three different mass transit technologies by consultant Steer Davies Gleave.  SDG examined: • light rail

The National Infrastructure Commission has issued a call for evidence for its study into the future of the UK freight sector, ordered by the Chancellor, Philip Hammond (LTT 24 Nov 17).  The Commission poses more than 20 questions, including: • what are the key freight corridors that matter the most? • what investments could deliver the best value for money? • are the benefits of freight captured in transport infrastructure investment planning? • what regulatory and

A major probe into the changing travel behaviours of young people has been published by the DfT. The DfT commissioned the report from  researchers at the Centre for Transport & Society at the University of West of England, and the University of Oxford. The research team was led by UWE’s Kiron Chatterjee. The team’s focus was the 17-29 age group but the researchers also explored how travel patterns in this age cohort change as they grow older.   The trend for young ad

A central London borough and the capital’s passenger watchdog have voiced concern about Transport for London’s plan to cut bus mileage in the capital by six per cent by 2019/20. The draft mayor’s transport strategy says services will be cut in inner and central London, with resources shifted to outer London, “where the potential for mode shift to buses is greatest, and to areas of housing growth where demand is forecast to rise the most”. TfL’s business plan,

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

Although he remained in post after the Prime Minister’s cabinet reshuffle on 8 January, transport secretary Chris Grayling has become the target of a veritable barrage of personal criticism from the media in the early weeks of 2018. On 5 January, for example, Times columnist Edward Lucas suggested that: “Chris Grayling’s gimmicks have failed rail users. The transport secretary’s decision to bail out Virgin and Stagecoach shows his inability to see what the network needs.

In 1999, after an exhaustive review, SACTRA (the Standing Committee on Trunk Road Assessment) found a “strong theoretical expectation” that transport investment could boost economic growth but that direct evidence was “weak and contested”. By 2013, when George Osborne unveiled a radical change in spending priorities (Investing in Britain’s Future), all doubt had evaporated. Henceforth, roads, rail and airport expansion would help us build our way out of the worst re

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation could have far-reaching consequences for companies and public authorities of all sizes, from central government all the way down to sole traders. Any entity that collects, holds or uses personal data must comply with stricter governance policies and provide information about data on request. Data breaches will be punishable by substantial fines. For the past two decades, the UK’s main legislation in this area has been the Data Protection A

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

Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM) is sounding out light rail manufacturers about  plans to procure 50 trams to operate on an expanded Midland Metro network.  The vehicles will be needed to cover the extensions to Edgbaston and Eastside in Birmingham (seven-nine); Wednesbury to Brierley Hill (22); and East Birmingham and Solihull (20).  They must be capable of operating in catenary-free environments, such as with fuel cells. Sections of route in Birmingham and Wolverhampton

Buses could be removed from some of Oxford city centre’s busiest streets under proposals to make the centre more pedestrian and cycle-friendly. Oxfordshire County Council and Oxford City Council have invited comments on options suggested in a movement and public realm study by consultants Phil Jones Associates and ITP. Their work is intended to inform the city council’s next local plan and the county council’s update to the Oxford transport strategy. The consultants have revi

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority is to delegate some of its transport functions to Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council. The change comes as the combined authority (CA) admits that the current administrative landscape for transport is confusing. In a report to the combined authority board, officers said there was currently a “complex environment with a variety of bodies with different powers and responsibilities promoting, developing and delive

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

The National Infrastructure Commission is exploring the transport investment needs of England’s cities outside London,  and using a new method to assess priorities.  A £90,000-£100,000 consultancy study to inform the work will get underway next week. The Commission will make its recommendations to Government in the National Infrastructure Assessment (NIA), due for release this summer.  The NICwants to explore how  available funding should be prioritised be

Planning ahead to take advantage of future opportunities is vital – but so, too, is confronting the here and now. The difference is striking in terms of our road infrastructure, so vital for the efficient, safe mobility on which our economy depends. Autonomous vehicles and disruptive technologies dominate public debate and government research. We had more of the same on a recent front page of The Times, previewing the latest Highways England progress report with a piece about fibre optic

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

A vision for new walking and cycle-friendly settlements on the East West Rail line has won top prize in a competition run by the National Infrastructure Commission.  The NIC’s Cambridge-Oxford Connection: ideas competition invited the infrastructure sector to submit ideas for how new communities  should look.  The VeloCity concept was drawn up by a team led by Jennifer Ross of consultant Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design, and including Featherstone Young; Khaa; Marko and

Network Rail’s new method for allocating fixed costs between train operators could prompt a renewed debate about the future of secondary routes and branch lines, the Urban Transport Group has warned. The method, developed by Brockley Consulting (LTT10 Nov 17), loads more of the industry’s fixed costs onto regional operators and freight, with a reduction in costs borne by intercity operators (see table). Network Rail has been consulting on whether to use the method to allocate fixed

Scotland’s transport minister Humza Yousaf has refused to guarantee the future of the country’s seven regional transport partnerships as a review of transport governance progresses.   Yousaf’s thinking on the RTPs  is revealed in a letter that he sent to Gordon Edgar, the chair of the South East Scotland partnership (SEStran), last October and which was released last month.  “I am clear that the functions performed by RTPs will continue but that the exact

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

Clean Air Zones may not  deliver expected air quality improvements because vehicle emissions are frequently much greater than the official Euro standard of the vehicle suggests, a manufacturer of a real-world emission monitoring system has warned.  Clean Air Zones (CAZs), or Low Emission Zones (LEZs) in Scotland/London, will use Euro emission standards as the criteria for determining whether vehicles can drive within the zone without paying a charge. In Scotland, the Government is pro

Transport for London has cut its expectations of public transport fare revenues over the next five years by £1.6bn.  The organisation’s new business plan to 2022/23, published just before Christmas, features markedly lower fare revenue projections than those in the business plan to 2021/22 published in December 2016.  The December 2016 plan projected fares revenues of £4.877bn in 2017/18. The new plan forecasts revenues for the year of £4.638bn – £

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

We need to talk about freight and in particular managing road freight transport more efficiently. Heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) only accounted for 5.1 per cent of overall road traffic, doing 17.2 billion vehicles miles in 2016. But they have a disproportionate impact on the road network and other road users because of their scale and weight. For example, in busy road conditions they can take up the space of four passenger car units after their extra braking and manoeuvrability space is allowed for

Local authorities in Cambridgeshire are to consult early next year on bus rapid transit or light rail options for  a radial route into Cambridge from the south-east. The Greater Cambridge Partnership, which comprises the City Deal authorities (Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council), has been exploring bus-based improvements for the A1307 corridor between Cambridge and Haverhill and has narrowed the choice down to three options. 

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

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

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

As so often, my reason for looking at the issue I’m about to raise is that it’s one I’ve encountered in different ways over the past few weeks. I’ll refer to three ‘case studies’ that all reflect on the same question: how is public opinion taken into account when making decisions about the public realm? As Exhibit A, I present the edited highlights of a series of tweets from a journalist at a classic public ‘consultation’ event. ‘I’m a

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

Dockless bike share operator Mobike is revising its service in Manchester/Salford after learning lessons from the pilot scheme launched this summer. The scheme was Chinese firm Mobike’s first foray into the UK market. The scheme was launched this summer with about 1,000 bikes. It quickly attracted negative publicity after bikes were left in inappropriate places and vandalised.  Steve Pyer, general manager of Mobike UK, said this week: “Manchester has been a hugely valuable lea

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

The DfT should abandon its emphasis on time savings in transport scheme appraisal and instead assess the likely impact of transport investments on land values, a leading transport economist has said. Paul Buchanan, a partner at consultant Volterra, told the Local Transport Summit in Manchester last week that the DfT’s appraisal system was “bust”. He endorsed the argument put forward by academic and former DfT chief scientist David Metz that time savings, which typically form t

Judging from his upbeat disposition, Paul Campion seems to be relishing his new role at the helm of the Transport Systems Catapult. Having spent more than 30 years at IBM, his deep understanding of technology trends will no doubt help him to gauge intelligent mobility’s potential. “I wouldn’t have left IBM for any other opportunity,” he says. “This is a once in a lifetime chance to help grow the UK economy and create jobs. This is an extraordinary moment in history

Shadow sub-national transport body Transport for the South East has revealed more details of its work programme and administration.  TfSE covers an area with a population of 7.5 million people  and 16 local transport authorities: Kent, Medway, East Sussex, Brighton, West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton, Isle of Wight, Reading, Bracknell Forest, Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead, West Berkshire, and Wokingham.  Itis currently identifying a major road network for t

The DFT should continue monitoring developments in Hyperloop technology but an operational system is still probably at least two decades away, according to the Department’s Science Advisory Council (SAC).     The SAC’s Hyperloop position statement draws on two recent meetings held to consider the technology’s potential both as a method of transport for the UK and as a commercial opportunity for UK businesses.  Hyperloop was first promoted by US entrepreneur Elo

On 23 October the introduction of a ‘toxicity charge’ by mayor Sadiq Khan for the most polluting vehicles entering central London was welcomed in The Guardian by Professor Chris Griffiths, co-director of the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research. “It’s a vital first step towards cleaning up the UK’s dangerously dirty air,” he said. “Air pollution is largely invisible, so it is hard to grasp how much damage it is doing to our health. But… poor air

Dockless bike share schemes will not be welcome in the West Midlands conurbation, as the combined authority focuses on procuring a single dock-based system.   Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM) will commence the procurement of a scheme with between 3,000 and 5,000 bikes later this month/early next month. A contract should be awarded next spring. The decision to pursue a dock-based system follows an options reviewcommissioned from consultant ITP this summer. Nine suppliers of dock-base

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

Local transport has long held an important place on the political agenda, though it moves up and down the rankings as other challenges and issues assert their own significance. Global level matters like Brexit, terrorism and international conflicts apart, there are things with a degree of equivalence in the political landscape – the NHS, education, policing and social welfare, for example – jockeying for position with congestion, the state of the roads (or railways), cycling, parking

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

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

Shell Oil has announced the launch of a new on-forecourt Electric Vehicle (EV) rapid charging service - Shell Recharge. The service is available at three petrol stations, one in the London area, Shell Holloway, Shell Whyteleafe, in Surrey, and Shell Derby, with a further seven opening within Greater London and Reading by the end of 2017. Shell describes the move as the very start of its entry into the alternate fuel market, acknowledging that the chargers will be available at just 10 of its 1,0

Automated pods are being tested between Cambridge Station and Trumpington park & ride to look at the feasibility of launching a driverless bus system.  The £250,000 project, funded by Innovate UK, is being delivered in partnership with Connecting Cambridgeshire and the Smart Cambridge Programme. The automonous PodZero vehicle has been developed by Coventry-based RDM Group. The trial aims to pave the way for 10-seater driverless buses on a guided busway after 8pm, filling the cur

A semi autonomous delivery robot could be seen exploring the vast exhibition area at last week’s Smarter Travel LIVE! in Milton Keynes.  The robots are designed to offer the local delivery of packages, groceries and food on demand, within 15-45 minutes to destinations inside a two-mile radius, said developers of the system Starship Technologies. The company was launched by the Estonian co-founders of Skype, which saw an “opportunity to revolutionise the last-mile delivery indu

Network Rail has surprised Oxford City Council by objecting to development plans for the city’s railway station. It has expressed concerns over several aspects, including financial viability and flexibility for future track alterations to meet passenger growth. The council recently consulted on its Oxford Station Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), which brings together proposals for comprehensive redevelopment of the station area to create an integrated transport hub and to counterbal

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

The emergence of dockless bike share was, not surprisingly, the central topic of discussion at this year’s Bikeplus conference, hosted by Transport for Greater Manchester. The rise of the dockless model has been extraordinary; since last year’s conference it has quickly evolved from a mere possibility into reality, with several schemes now in operation. Indeed, delegates were able to use Manchester’s Mobikes to get to the conference, and enjoy a social ride on co-sponsors&rsqu