Better transport : the route to a greener future

“We know what to do and we have the technology, but what we lack is the means of affecting behaviour change.”

That was the gist of what one of the experts said on the final panel of the Better Transport Conference at King’s College London on 21 June. The conference was organised by the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) and funded by the SYSTRA Group. It took place towards the end of Better Transport Week, billed as: “Celebrating better, greener, fairer transport: Buses and coaches, trains and trams, walking and wheeling, cycling and shared transport are ready to take us to a greener future.”

A CBT leaflet neatly summarised reasons why:

Transport makes more carbon emissions than any other sector, 96% of it from cars, vans and lorries.
If we all switched two car journeys per month to the bus, this would yield £15bn of health benefits.
Each car club replaces 20 private cars.
Air pollution costs £20bn a year, mostly from road traffic.

A transport to-do list for the next government

CBT was started in 1973 to promote public transport. This was at a time when UK policy-making was fixated on the private car. Now, for the 2024 general election, they have published a manifesto (not yet on their website).

On page one under “encouraging modal shift” is the to-do list for the next government:

Prioritise public transport and active travel over road-building.
End the cut in fuel duty and use money to make rail fares affordable.
Require all new developments to better provide for public transport and active travel.
Facilitate further expansion of rail freight.
Require local authorities to make specific carbon reduction budgets in their local transport plans.

There is then a page of recommendations for each of rail, buses, roads, and aviation. The final page is on “Government Alignment” which advises a shift to more local authority control of transport.

The Clarksons of Great Britain (and Toad of Toad Hall) would fulminate at this attack on the private motorist, such as favouring low-traffic neighbourhoods and school streets and shifting fuel subsidies away from planes and private cars to rail journeys.

I loved the experience of meeting kindred spirits at this conference. For example, one woman told me that she lives in the London suburbs and she had just given up her car. She said she feels physically healthier. We rhapsodised about how being outside, to walk to a station or wait for a bus, means using all your senses: you hear and smell more, as well as noticing more details visually.

Linking rail and Royal Mail

There was a woman from rural Somerset with whom I shared our problem with Southeastern Railway having closed often well-designed and beautiful station facilities at most medium-size stations. What is needed is other business activities to utilise the space on these old stations. Constant use prevents needless vandalism.

How about getting Royal Mail to set up collection points at stations? They are often conveniently located, with good drop-off and pick-up parking, and even better for rail passengers and cyclists. Surely this is better than having Amazon Prime vans going down suburban streets several times a day, parcel by parcel, or even trying to deliver down more rural lanes.

I voiced this proposal at question time in a session about freight. On that panel there were two representatives of cargo bikes, firms that are making headway in large cities with ‘last mile’ deliveries. But the convener who represented logistics firms did not think it would be feasible because trains no longer mix freight with passengers. This is owing to the time it takes to unload freight at a station delaying journey times. I think this ignores the fact that more freight could be shifted by rail at night, and left at these collection points (which would then have 24-hour staffing).

Better bus timetabling and cross-Channel trains

Another problem I voiced, after a discussion on local transport, was that bus operators in Kent – Stagecoach and Regent – do not plan their timetables to fit each other. I gave the example of a missing link in Faversham to get to Whitstable. When I followed this up, the bus drivers each said that Kent County Council (KCC) controlled the timings. But I got nowhere trying to find out who makes decisions about bus timetables at KCC. There was an academic researcher from Birmingham University in the audience who contacted me afterwards, keen to interview me for research. So, such a conference is great in enabling academics to get details from the grassroots.

Meeting in person this way can bring together politicians and business. I was pleased to note that Ashford councillor Diccon Spain, who is a spokesperson, and the political liaison officer for the BBET campaign to bring back cross-channel trains to Ashford station, was deep in conversation with an attendee from Eurostar competitor Virgin about the merits of the various existing International stations for cross-channel services. This is something Virgin have stated an interest in.

I was impressed by the calibre of what SYSTRA claims they do in their modelling tools to assist planners. Their land use model, the Delta package, used to “predict and provide”; now it is designed to “decide and provide”. Similarly, modelling of cycling – which they used to calibrate from observed cycling data to map demand – is now, in their CYCLOPS GIS planning system, bringing together data from a greater variety of sources. This allows changes in different scenarios to be mapped.

Rethinking transport investment

In the final panel discussion, the rail industry speaker was keen to state that their problem is the indecisiveness of government. What the industry needs is long-term planning for stable investment decisions. We know that, unfortunately, politics in the UK at present spins around in crazy short periods. We also know that public utilities, particularly water and transport, are in dire need of large dollops of infrastructure investment – in billions. I think the solution is public benefit companies, with tax incentives to attract pension money and requirements on ISAs to invest in them. There is a need for investors to wait out returns over decades, rather than the life of lettuce.

There was an audible hiss from the audience when one of this panel mentioned the Treasury. Obviously many in the room believe that the lack of investment necessary to shift to better transport is caused by wrong decision-making in the Treasury. Their calculation of loss and gain, for government debt reduction which is the underlying motivation of austerity, uses misplaced notions of value. When social and health value is taken into account, expenditure on public transport and planning for active travel becomes a gain, not a loss.