Local Transport Today Issue 797

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LTT797 01 May - 14 May 2020

POLICY | PLANNING | FINANCE | DEVELOPMENT

Delay CAZ because of virus, Bristol tells ministers p4 TransportXtra.com/ltt

Bus industry in talks over new grant for Covid recovery stage

BUSES

by Andrew Forster

In London, buses can now only be boarded through the middle doors to reduce the risk of infection to drivers

cles as passenger numbers start to climb.

The Labour Party, the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT), and the Urban Transport Group have urged the Government to publish social distancing guidance for buses.

“We’re pushing for Government guidance, there needs to be clarity,” Tom Bartošák-Harlow, the CPT’s external relations manager, told LTT this week.

Scottish transport secretary

Michael Matheson said this week that his officials had been doing some work on the matter. “Initial thinking suggests that capacity on our public transport system could be reduced to between 10 and 25 per cent of previous levels,” he said. “While social distancing has to be applied, buses will very often only have a quarter of the capacity that they would normally be expected to have.”

Because of the limited capacity, Matheson said many people

‘Vote for your bus service to return’ How bus operators will respond to the easing of the lockdown was one of the topics in last week’s LTT online discussion about Covid-19 held on Zoom.

Former Brighton & Hove Bus Company managing director Roger French said: “How are bus and train operators going to cope with social distancing rules and expectations for at least 12-18 months, particularly at peak times?

“In the Midlands, there’s a food warehouse distribution factory where Stagecoach have had to now run four buses instead of one to get workers to work – simply because of social distancing. In the short-term the Government are paying for that, but that’s going to have to continue for 18 months or so.”

Bus company director Julian Peddle said he was waiting to see how TfL delivers social distancing on the Tube. “I’m interested in how the Central Line’s going to work. Because if I can see how that works, my somewhat emptier buses might be able to work.”

Ian Wright of transport user watchdog Transport Focus said the organisation would quiz passengers to gauge their attitudes to social distancing. “It’s quite possible that anything more than a quarter-full is going to

look ‘full’ to a passenger. It’s about trying to get an understanding of ‘what’s the new full?’, and it’s certainly not going to be the ‘old full’.”

Asked how bus operators would go about ramping up services as patronage returns, French said: “You’re always trying to keep the supply slightly ahead of the demand. Now, actually, about half the network is being run on both buses and trains for about five to ten per cent of the normal passenger traffic. That gap between demand and supply is quite unique, and it’s a question of when the demand hopefully begins to recover.”

Peddle said: “We’ve written some software so we can put a voting system on our website.

We’re going to put up our old timetables, and then people can vote for journeys, so that will give us some idea of how demand’s building.

“I’m really very much in the dark at the moment about how we’re going to go from where we are. We certainly can’t afford to put the timetables back as they were because in a few weeks we’d be dead financially. One of the things we need to know is whether the three months of support [from Government] we’ve been getting will be continued in any form at all.”

>> READ MORE?

Covid-19 coverage

pp2-9

13 BEVs: not so green after all?

12 Legal bid to halt road strategy

5 Home working must stay, say Scots

11 Liverpool to trial new pedestrian crossing designs

21 Richard Dilks

TOP10

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Pandemic: an opportunity to change – or soon back to normal?

Funds sought for two Devon rail revivals

Covid-19 ‘could alter the terms of UK bus franchising debate’ Seize the moment and shift the dial

UK transport remains in deep freeze as lockdown extended

Treasury studies DfT’s case for light rail emergency cash pot

Bucks HS2 station resurfaces

Planning for walking?

Whatever will they think of next?

Edinburgh approves major shake-up to city centre streets

10. Travel demand in week 4 of Covid-19 lockdown

most read LTT stories on

17 April - 30 April 2020

THE BUS industry is in talks with the Government about a new round of funding to support the sector as Covid-19 travel restrictions start to be eased.

The DfT is providing £166.8m over 12 weeks to meet the cost of providing services in England outside London during the lockdown. Traditional grant payments by the DfT and devolved administrations are also being maintained.

Attention is now focusing on how public transport should respond to the gradual easing of travel restrictions. A review of the restrictions takes place on 7 May. Even with their relaxation, social distancing guidelines will remain in place, possibly for more than a year, depending on the progress to develop a vaccine.

Public transport operators, the DfT, devolved administrations, and transport authorities are all wrestling with how to maintain social distancing on board vehi-

would have to continue working from home.

One operator source told LTT they expected the DfT to let bus operators in England set their own social distancing policies.

Within the bus industry, three options are being discussed.

One would see passengers prohibited from sitting in every second seat, thereby enabling 50 per cent occupancy. Passengers would sit in a ‘zigzag’ formation down each side of the aisle.

People from the same household would have to sit apart.

The second option would see every second set of double seats sealed off. Two members of the same household would be allowed to sit side-by-side but solo travellers would have to sit on their own. If all passengers were solo, only 25 per cent of seats could be occupied.

Neither of the above options satisfy the Government’s social distancing guideline that people should stay at least two metres apart. The third option adheres strictly to this recommendation and allows only about 15 per cent of seats to be occupied.

Seats could be sealed off and signs and stickers could indicate where passengers can sit. Passengers are likely to have to enforce the rules. “If someone sits in the wrong place, the driver isn’t going to get out their cab, walk up the aisle and say ‘you’ve got to sit somewhere else’,” an operator told LTT. The social distancing arrangements will add to operators’ costs, requiring more buses and drivers to meet demand. BartošákHarlow said funding support for the bus industry during the recovery stage should be “flexible”.

“It’s likely the level of financial support from the Government will have to change with time, reflecting the changes the Government makes to the restrictions.

Nobody really knows how long this next stage is going to go on for.”

PROVIDING INDEPENDENT NEWS & ANALYSIS SINCE 1989

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LTT797 01 May - 14 May 2020

LTT Online Reader Discussion

M

The psychology of change

How might the COVID-19 prompt different travel and transport behaviour? Luis (Pilo) Willumsen and Cliff Edwards took part in the latest LTT online discussion. Juliana O'Rourke was listening in...

y business is forecasting, with the help of transport models,' said Pilo.

‘I’m very interested in what may happen after the lockdown and how it will affect my own forecasting. In general terms, forecasting is not that difficult, because most people do not change their minds that often as it takes a lot of energy and effort.’

But this pandemic is affecting travel in unprecedented ways, he noted, setting out three main parameters impacting possible long-term change: Government interventions, the recession, and the way companies and citizens adapt to a ‘new normal’.

“We’ve heard a lot about possible change: companies will adapt to allow more work from home, at least parttime, people will have acquired new skills and will continue to use them, internet shopping has become the norm. The need for business travel will be scrutinised more closely as businesses adapt to distance working.

Covid-19 has increased, globally, awareness of the (negative) impact of travel on the environment, and it seems likely that virtual tourism will replace some physical visits in future.’ It is, noted Pilo, important that there is a recognition that ‘we’re all in this together’.

He outlined six different influences on the pandemic’s impact on travel. First, reducing transmission to save lives and avoid overwhelming the health system; second, relaxing restrictions to return, eventually, to the ‘new normal’; third, the recession; fourth, Government changes in priorities and actions to recover the economy; fifth, business adaptations to gain resilience and productivity; and finally, possible changes in travel behaviour resulting from the first five.

Lockdown, he said, directly affects travel, with a negative impact on the economy, especially for tourism, hospitality and personal services: ‘The longer it is imposed, the more negative the impact on GDP and the viability of transport business.’ Government interventions will be needed to support transport operators. The careful process of removing some restrictions will mean that social distancing will be retained in most cases, some activities will recover faster than others, and these effects will probably last until a vaccine is available.

Trip generation will moderate

The recession will be deeper, he added, and perhaps even longer, than the 2008 global financial crisis. It will moderate trip generation, and the effects will last for years.

Some companies will not survive, but there will be a recovery.

Government intervention will be key. Measures to support employment and a partial nationalisation of rail and public transport companies all increase public debt.

Priorities now favour health and resilience, but sectors such as construction will provide employment and are ‘good economic multipliers’. Inevitably, Government will play a greater role for a while, and we may accept more radical measures than in the past for the common good. ‘The pandemic caught us with very long supply chains for some key elements and we should improve on that,’ he said.

‘We will have to adjust business models. Pure profit motive will be less acceptable, and there will be a need to consider all stakeholders (shareholders, employees, customers, and the environment). Tourism, hospitality and aviation will face long-term challenges, and all of this will affect how, and how much, we travel.’

People are also changing their priorities, paying more attention to health, family, work and resilience. They have accepted restrictions that would have been unthinkable in the past, and have a clear recognition of how key roles have changed and are valued: 'These are positive ele-

There are already signs that, without interventions, as lockdowns lift, established patterns return

ments, as we have a new recognition of workers in the NHS, distribution and those involved in public transport.’

‘Hopefully,’ he adds, ‘we also have greater awareness that these are global problems that require collaboration rather than competition. Government policies have changed our habits, we are now exploring new ways of organising our supply chains and our lives. Only 9% of people say they want life to return to how it was in 2019, with 63% of UK citizens wary of visiting pubs post-lockdown (YouGov April 2020). ‘I’m skeptical about whether change will actually materialise in these percentages, but there are clear indications that some people intend to change their habits. We have new temporary habits in the increased use of bicycles and scooters.’ So what will the new normal look like?

Governments will need to increase taxes to pay for stimulus and protection; some may ask if this is the time for Clean Air Zones and Road User Charges? Cycling and walking have enjoyed boosts, but will public transport patronage recover? CAVs seem less glamorous, and automakers will have less cash to invest. In terms of sharing, says Pilo, would you be willing to share a ride in a small vehicle used by other members of the public?

‘Ultimately, how much we really change depends on us and the new policies adopted; and we have an 18 month window for this,’ he said.‘This could be a good opportunity to speed up implementation of many socially beneficial policies that we have been thinking about, but have always been slow to implement. I have a lot of respect for Mark Carney (ex Bank of England Governor), who thinks that the big test will be whether we really give climate change – another risk multiplier – the high priority it deserves as we think about ‘new normality’.

Necessity is the mother of invention

In the second talk of the session, behavioural psychologist Cliff Edwards began by talking about how people create models of their world so that it works for them.

Chaos is not chaotic, it’s just really complicated,’ noted Cliff. Change can happen.’ The way society works, travels and interacts will change to suit the environment, as with the Industrial Revolution and the cyber revolution. Now we have been forced to work remotely, some will have adjusted and prefer it.’ But, he adds, there is also evidence to suggest that many of us commonly use ‘scripts’, or processes, that we expect to follow.

By starting a familiar process, for example brushing our teeth, it ‘keys in the rest of the script’. If change is

inescapable, inevitable, beneficial, and required, then we find a way to change. But when that change is established, practiced and routine, going back to the old order becomes the change. The key is in understanding how different groups of people (resister, adopter, experimenter, risker, adapter, etc) react to outside stimuli. Cliff also considered the rate of epidemics since the 1950s, which is, he said, accelerating. ‘The driver is the density of population and the travel-ability of the population. We can’t outrun this trend, the only response is for us to get smarter.’ Read Cliff’s own account on the opposite page..

Question time

A lively discussion followed, kicked off by Chair Andrew Forster with a question for Pilo: What would be your advice to government, local authorities and consultancies on modelling and doing business cases now?

Clearly, there are uncertainties going forward, so what would the base year be? Pilo responded: ‘We can no longer have one single future scenario, we need to have several different scenarios depending on how long the situation lasts, and until we find a vaccine and so on. We should use scenario planning and look at different possible futures. And then research very carefully the schemes that we have in mind for those we know that will survive under all these different scenarios. Adaptability is key: a bus rapid transit scheme is more adaptable and flexible than a light rail network.’

Regarding trend change, it was noted by many participants that a lot of people ‘can’t’ change their habits, as only office workers can really work from home. Builders, scientists and manufacturers can’t work remotely, nor can everyone can make an individual choice. One local authority contributor replied that ‘some of the barriers to change come from those who are reluctant to move away from the old working patterns’, and added that ‘we are engaging with them to break down those barriers’.

Many trips are not discretionary

Others wondered: are transport planners blinded by the fact they are office workers? It’s only office workers who have the capability to telecommute. Are we, as a profession, in danger of assuming everyone can do what we are doing? Working from home also depends on yourcircumstances, said one participant. Young in a shared flat, not so easy, boss with a big house, not unpleasant. But it was also understood that many are thinking about

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Ultimately, how much we really change depends on us and the new policies adopted; and we have an 18 months window for this

working from home one or two days a week, which will still make a big difference in terms of travel and emissions. Plus, as many office workers begin to work differently, this will have implications for the levels of transport services required at different times of the day.

Regarding the evidence base, one academic participant said ‘there have been studies indicating suppressed demand for telecommuting; people who have the preference, but not the options available. As employers’ hands have been forced, it may be that this suppressed demand is released.’

There was a general consensus amongst participants that we are certainly seeing a change in attitude, with senior managers who were previously sceptical about home working now realising that it can increase efficiency. A reduced need for office space may become even more important once the economic impacts hit home. Several participants agreed that many public transport trips are not discretionary, for example commuting for those who cannot work from home (most people).

This suggests that local bus, the tube, trams will bounce back, even if not to pre-Covid levels. But a lot of public transport trips are discretionary, long distance rail for example. These might take a lot longer to come back. It didn’t go unnoticed that, as a country, we have just given HS2 Phase 1 and 2A the go ahead...

There are opportunities to ‘reset’ the bus and rail service networks and timetables as these have traditionally evolved over time, and not always provided the best fit with where people need to go. Much public transport focuses on access to the city centre, whereas major employment sites (manufacturing, distribution, hospitals) are located at the edge of the city and are not served by orbital services. It was also noted that the service patterns required by many women and carers, and those likely travelling from home, are different from the traditional ‘home-city centre’ commuter services.

One over-arching theme was: do we think that the psychology of the wider public will change? After some time of being instructed, might people be more willing to follow what they are being advised to do? And, will that advice be governed by politicians’ thinking? Surely, it was suggested, they are going to be desperate to boost the economy. Are they not likely to be encouraging the public to travel, buy, and consume again in an unrestrained way, and so pick up on unsustainable lifestyles?

At the same time, taxes and charges will influence behaviour. Which policy objectives should be emphasised to motivate desirable behaviours and outcomes? Will health, clean air, local community, and nature motivate people more than wider issues of climate change, for example? In terms of tackling the climate change agenda, there was a clear agreement. ‘I think, as other speakers have said, that climate change is not the agenda to push publicly or psychologically, as people will relate much more immediately to the health benefits of more walking, cycling and clean air.’ Definitely food for thought. l For more coverage see page 8

Watch the full discussion – and join our next one

You can watch a recording of the full online discussion on TransportXtra bit.ly/35mDWXB

Our next discussion will take place at 2pm on Friday 7 May The topic will be: CV-19 AND AFTER: TRANSPORT APPRAISAL AND PLANNING IN A TIME OF IMPERATIVES, LED BY PROFESSOR PHIL GOODWIN See page 8 for further information

LTT Online Reader Discussion

Last week’s contributor, psychologist Cliff Edwards, was asked how the pandemic and action on climate change might be linked.

Here he expands his thoughts on that subject

Climate change, sustainability and better places: winning hearts and minds

T

he LTT online discussion on the Psychology of Change raised two very interesting questions: Can the pandemic experience and the upheaval it has brought be linked to the issue of climate change? Also, what might shift public thinking and behaviour in that regard?

The answer is ‘yes’ to both, but there are some important concepts from the world of psychology (and associated areas such as sales, marketing and counselling) that need to be understood.

The territory is fertile, and the approach can be effective when used well. We know that even long term ‘deep differences’ between people can sometimes be overcome with a shift in approach.

That often requires a move from for, instance, ‘I will explain what you need to understand’, to ‘May I check what you need?”

In order to engage the target audience, we must first offer them a sense that their view is important and that we are eager to genuinely hear it. Not as thinking man’s comedian Bob Monkhouse put it, ‘The most important thing in life is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you have it made.’ Always imagine how people will feel about us if we approach them with a ‘musty’ attitude: ‘you must understand, you must do this or that…I am sure everyone knows that a person’s inner psyche will likely react to someone asserting that they have a superior viewpoint by finding a reason that the ‘superior’ person is wrong!

Linked to this is an important truth that the most compelling context for engagement is based on a ‘fear of loss’: lost opportunity, lost standing, losing tribal position (rejection), or more general loss. So, what might be lost from not addressing the issue of climate change?

One example is the need to seize the moment and the opportunity for each individual to make a real difference, that would always be in some way attributable to them. This will give them membership of the ‘Make a Difference’ (MAD) group.

In the context of the current pandemic lockdown, people are incurring ‘losses’ due to personal isolation. But the value from these could be recovered by their making use of the lost time and feelings through support of a relevant cause/revolution. Carving your name in the 2020 register of ‘agents of change’, and offering support for future generations to talk about, is weighty and powerful.

Then there’s a lesson from the world of sales.

Never offer a choice with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ option!

Recent consumer research indicates that giving three options not only increases engagement, but also pushes up risk-taking behaviour. A research experiment showed that offered two phones, the cheaper was often most popular. Offer a third, even more expensive than the other two, and the middle option increased in sales. So in seeking to prompt support for our cause, we might ask, for example, which of these three options (and additional benefits) could rally support: ’climate change’ alone, ‘climate change and better cities’, or ‘climate change, better cities and quieter streets’.

It's also helpful to point out that this is too great an opportunity to waste. During the lockdown and

Change or resist? The key is to be able to predict whether people will adapt to, or resist, change.

Will the 'change state' last long enough to re-code people?

the national emergency, people have seemed ready to address the dominance of wealth over sanity and sharing. The virus has exposed the neglect of some significant issues of public concern, and the ability for the system to ignore the needs of the many ‘ordinary people’. So now is a good time to make historic shifts in the voice of citizens and get ‘them’ to take ‘us’ seriously.

A societal shift often requires someone who is respected for being down to earth and sensible, but not elitist, to express a general view and bring people together. Equally, getting the opposite view from someone not acceptable nor plausible, might drive people away from the opposite argument and towards your argument.

Finally, to prompt response, proposed action must have a falling ‘imminence’. This means that the opportunity to be part of history (immortality) is passing. A technique called ‘infrequent reward’ encapsulates this, although I think a better name is ‘reward schedule’. A reward schedule is a sequence of wins and losses that are designed to engage the subject/player, and to build their need to continue. It uses a combination of excitement, reward and insecurity; replacing insecurity with certainty in an addictive manner, and is used by video gaming, gambling, and some co-dependent relationships. Highlighting the steps that bring reward, and the need to seize them, can be done by interrupting the sequence so that the ‘up’ point becomes demonstrably important and urgent to act upon.

The methods described here are being used every minute of every day in business and politics to distract people from their better judgements. But they can be used ethically too, especially if the audience is aware that they are being used. In this case, the audience understands that they can benefit from encouragement and energy which supports their personal positive acts.

To summarise, here are the commitments to understanding, necessary to support change, that I believe its proponents need to make: n What do they need us to understand for them to join us? n What would they like to have as motivation? n What can make this dire time less of a loss to them? n Cliff Edwards is a psychologist and behavioural analyst.

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4 News

Economic damage of Covid-19 means CAZ must be delayed, says Bristol

ROAD TRAFFIC

by Andrew Forster

BRISTOL’S PROPOSED clean air zone will have to be delayed because of the economic damage caused by Covid-19, the council has told ministers. Meanwhile, the proposed diesel car ban could be dropped altogether for other reasons (see panel).

Bristol’s Labour mayor Marvyn Rees has written to transport secretary Grant Shapps urging the Government to rethink its requirement for the council to implement a Class C CAZ in the city next April.

In a report to councillors, Adam Crowther, Bristol City Council’s head of strategic transport, said Rees’ letter had highlighted the “disastrous effect that complying with the timeline, as set out within the legal direction, will have on businesses in Bristol during this unprecedented time of uncertainty for them”.

Crowther went on: “Businesses in Bristol are already being hugely and significantly impacted by the restrictions that have necessarily been put in place due to Covid-19 and many businesses in the city are becoming untenable. The implementation of a charging CAZ that commences in April 2021, as directed by the Government, will mean that a huge number of businesses will be significantly financially impacted.

“Many SMEs, while grateful for the lifeline that is the [Covid-19] Business Interruption Loan Scheme, are understandably extremely concerned about their futures during this time. It is important that we work with Government to ensure that they aren’t burdened any further during a time of huge economic uncertainty and financial precariousness.”

Crowther acknowledged the legal requirement to comply with nitrogen dioxide legal limits. “We understand and fully support the moral, environmental and legal imperative to achieve clean air compliance and are as committed as ever to achieving this. While we recognise our duty to implement clean air in the shortest possible time, it is important to stress that we also have a duty to support our city’s economic prosperity and the Covid-19 crisis means that supporting businesses meaningfully is a huge challenge for everyone but absolutely essential.”

He said the travel restrictions imposed by the Government because of Covid-19 meant the city’s air quality was probably currently compliant with the EU limit values. “With most working from home and restrictions in place on travel, many are commenting on nitrogen dioxide levels being within legal limits and asking what can be learnt from this experience.”

Bristol submitted proposals to the Government last November for a Class C CAZ covering the city centre and much of the inner city (LTT 08 Nov 19). Charges would be imposed on buses, taxis, HGVs and light goods vehicles that fail to meet the emission standards.

The council’s clean air plan also featured

Bristol: the council recognises its duty to deliver clean air but “we also have a duty to support our city’s economic prosperity”

additional measures to ensure compliance with the legal limits for nitrogen dioxide, including a diesel car ban covering the city centre and harbourside and operating between 7am and 3pm.

A proposed 3.5-tonne weight restriction on Upper Maudlin Street has since been dropped because it is regarded as “undeliverable and unenforceable”, the council said last week.

Other proposed complementary measures include: grants and loans to residents and local businesses to replace non-compliant diesel vehicles; concessions for blue badge holders, low income families and emergency vehicles; and cycling, walking, bus and traffic management infrastructure schemes.

The CAZ and diesel car ban are both controversial. The latter has attracted nationwide media interest because it would apply to all diesels, even the newest Euro 6 models. This would be the first such restriction in the country.

In March, environment minister Rebecca Pow responded to Bristol’s submission by signing a direction requiring the council to comply with the legal limit for nitrogen dioxide by 2023.

In an accompanying letter to the council, Pow said she expected the CAZ with additional measures to “begin to be in place by in place by 1 April 2021 at the latest”. She has asked Bristol to submit a full business case for its clean air plan by 18 September.

The Government has committed to award Bristol £12m to implement the CAZ but it has not given Bristol funding to install the diesel car ban.

In his report to councillors last week, Crowther set out the council’s thinking on the way ahead. “As a pragmatic approach, it has been recommended to Government that we continue with the planning and development work in order to meet the requirements within the direction but we have urged the Government to rethink how our scheme might be discharged in a way

that will protect businesses from being further financially penalised.

“It is impossible to ignore the impacts of the pandemic and associated restrictions in establishing a sensible way forward for a CAZ in Bristol.

“Given the circumstances regarding Covid-19, we know that this will affect the implementation timeline within the direction and in which the clean air zone can now be delivered, and that being able to comply with the direction in a practical delivery sense is now extremely unlikely.”

Bristol says businesses with vehicles that don’t comply with the CAZ standards may require additional financial assistance because of Covid-19.

The council also says that “due to the legal timeframes set in place for this project [the clean air plan], we may not be able to offer as many exemptions and concessions as we would have liked”.

The Government’s joint air quality unit (JAQU) of DfT and Defra civil servants has invited councils with CAZ proposals to make representations on how Covid-19 affects their plans. “JAQU has written to all authorities seeking information about any potential anticipated delays to the delivery and implementation of the CAZ programmes,” said Crowther.

JAQU’s joint heads of department, Andrew Jackson, Isobel Pastor and Suzanne Trueman, notified councils on 9 April that no CAZs would be implemented before January next year. This affects Leeds and Birmingham, which had been due to go live this summer (LTT 17 Apr).

The officials said the delay to implementation would be kept “as short as possible”.

Doubts grow about proposed diesel car ban Bristol City Council’s proposed diesel car ban in the city centre and harbourside made national headlines when announced last autumn. But it may never come off the drawing board.

Environment minister Rebecca Pow’s letter of 13 March to the council, which has just been released, raises the possibility that the ban could be replaced by a small area Class D CAZ within the larger Class C CAZ, or the Class C CAZ could itself be strengthened to a Class D. The difference between the two classes of zone is that a Class D includes cars.

Said Pow: “In the event that your preferred option of a medium CAZ C with additional measures, which could be either a diesel ban or small area CAZ D, is either not deliverable or is shown through further modelling to not deliver compliance in the shortest possible time, I expect you to pursue an alternative option for compliance, including a medium-size class D CAZ.” A Class D CAZ would still be

controversial but it would eliminate the criticism that the ban applies to all diesel cars, including the newest Euro 6 models. Under the Government’s guidelines for CAZs, Euro 6 diesels would be exempt from charges.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Alliance of British Drivers criticised Bristol over its diesel ban last autumn. The ABD said Euro 6 cars have comparable NOx emissions to petrol in real world driving conditions.

Adam Crowther, Bristol’s head of strategic transport, told councillors last week that, since submitting its clean air plan to Government last November, the council had engaged with the Government’s Joint Air Quality Unit to discuss technical questions about the diesel car ban, “in particular the area of the ban and assumptions around behaviour change”.

The proposed boundary of the ban has been revised to allow movement between the A370 and A4 and access Cabot Circus car park from the M32.

The discussions with JAQU have

also raised practical questions about the ability to deliver the diesel ban as the Government has not yet provided the appropriate powers to Bristol City Council to implement a ban by passing the necessary secondary legislation.

The council’s equalities assessment of the clean air plan, published last week, raises concerns about the equality implications of the ban.

“A ban on diesel cars may correlate with some equalities groups such as older people, and may also disproportionately affect those people who need to use a car more, such as disabled and elderly people,” it says.

“The requirement to replace a diesel vehicle to continue trip-making may have a more significant impact, especially for households with only one diesel car.

“In the event that a small zone a CAZ D [is pursued] rather than banning all diesels, the impacts would change.

They would likely become more focused on the ability of the public to pay the charge and adapt their vehicles.”

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News: Covid-19 5

Social distancing on bus & rail likely to prolong home working

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

by Andrew Forster

MILLIONS OF office workers may have to continue working from home for months to ensure public transport networks are not overwhelmed with passengers as Covid-19 travel restrictions are eased.

The Government and devolved administrations are grappling with how to ease the lockdown restrictions and at the same time ensure that the two metre social distancing recommendation is achieved. A review of the lockdown policies will take place on 7 May. The Scottish Government last week became the first administration in the UK to discuss how the lockdown could be relaxed (see story below).

Scottish transport secretary Michael Matheson this week told MSPs that policies on easing restrictions would have to be consistent with the limited capacity available on public transport because of social distancing.

Matheson said officials from

Matheson: “a very complex piece of work”

across the Scottish Government, including Transport Scotland, were “undertaking a significant amount of work to understand any changes that might be made to the existing restrictions that are in place, however small they may be, by assessing what impact they would have on our transport system and whether the transport system would be able to cope with demand, given the need to maintain social distancing”.

“The reality is that we cannot just switch the transport system

Cover face on public transport, Scots told

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

THE PUBLIC in Scotland has been advised to wear a scarf or other clothing to cover their nose and mouth when on public transport, to help stop the spread of Covid-19.

The recommendation appears in guidance published by the Scottish Government last week.

The UK Government has not issued anything similar.

Announcing the policy, Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “I am talking here about face coverings made of cloth or other textiles, such as

Sturgeon: wear a scarf

a scarf. I am not talking about medical grade face masks that health and social care workers wear.”

The guidance applies to confined spaces such as on public transport or in shops.

Sturgeon said the benefit of covering the nose and mouth was thought to mainly arise in cases “where someone has the virus but isn’t aware of that because they are not experiencing symptoms and therefore not isolating completely”.

“Wearing a face covering in these circumstances may reduce the chance of that person transmitting the virus to others.

“Given that the evidence is relatively weak, we are not at this stage making this mandatory or suggesting that it will be enforced, though we will keep that under review as we go into future phases of managing and tackling the pandemic,” she said.

The covering must be washed at 60 degrees centigrade after each use, or disposed of, she added.

back on. While we apply social distancing, it is not possible to meet the demands that people normally expect to be able to make on our transport system.

“For example, while physical distancing has to be implemented, a train carriage might be able to carry only a fifth of the passengers that it would normally be expected to carry.

“If a train leaves Edinburgh Waverley station and heads to Glasgow, how do we manage the passengers who are getting on the train and the flow of passengers at different stations in between to make sure that we maintain social distancing?

“There are real challenges in managing the demands that may be made on our rail network, as well as the demands on our bus network.

“While social distancing has to be applied, buses will very often only have a quarter of the capacity that they would normally be expected to have.”

Turning to the implications for employers, he said: “While social distancing is required, businesses that can have staff

work from home need to continue to do so.

“We have to continue to explore and consider the means by which we can reduce the need for people to travel.”

Matheson said some people may be able to return to their normal activities by walking and cycling. “But for someone coming from West Lothian into Edinburgh, it may not be [practical]. If people simply jump into their cars, we will have gridlock because the cities will not be able to cope.

“My officials and I are involved in a very complex piece of work on those issues, along with colleagues in health and other parts of Government.

“I do not for one minute want to give the impression that it will be an easy thing to resolve – it will be very challenging.

“We will be required to have a new normal and change our ways of working in order to meet the on-going challenges that are associated with maintaining physical distancing and its impact on the transport system.”

Procedures to relax lockdown outlined

TRAVEL

THE SCOTTISH Government has indicated how it plans to approach relaxing the Covid-19 lockdown.

The current UK-wide restrictions will be reviewed on 7 May. The Scottish Government said last week: “While we will continue to operate within a four nation UK framework and align our decisions as far as possible, we will take distinctive decisions for Scotland if the evidence tells us that is necessary.”

Like the UK, the Scottish Government is trying to keep the R (reproduction) number – the number of cases each infected person passes the virus on to – below 1.

The Scottish Government last week thought the R number was between 0.6 and 1 in Scotland, a figure achieved by the restrictions on people’s movement.

“It is likely that we will need small, incremental steps initially in terms of easing the measures,” it said. “We are likely to require

that gathering in groups, for example in pubs or at public events, is banned or restricted for some time to come.

“Our assessment is that now is not the right time to relax restrictions. Over the next few weeks, based on the evidence and expert advice, a number of options will be considered, not all of which may be selected.

“These are likely to include the easing of restrictions in a phased manner; opening up different parts of the economy sector by sector; considering different restrictions in different areas dependent on how the pandemic is progressing; and considering options for different groups of the population – as is currently the case with those shielded for clinical reasons.

“It may be that restrictions on some outdoor activity are eased before those on indoor activities.”

Covid-19: a framework for decision-making is available at https://tinyurl.com/ybb53cyz

Local Transport Today provides fortnightly coverage of the total urban and regional UK transport scene from the viewpoint of planners, policy makers, traffic engineers, analysts, investors and managers of resources involved.

Editorial Office Apollo House 359 Kennington Lane London SE11 5QY. Tel: 0207 091 7875 Email: ed.ltt@landor.co.uk Publisher/Editorial Director Peter Stonham Editor Andrew Forster Design & Production natalie.clarke@landor.co.uk Managing Director Rod Fletcher

SPECIAL NOTE: The majority of LTT staff are currently furloughed. For all enquiries, including sales and subscriptions, please contact the editorial office – details above.

Commercial Director Daniel Simpson Tel: 0207 091 7861 E-mail: daniel@landor.co.uk Advertising and Recruitment Sales Executive Jason Conboy Tel: 0207 091 7895 E-mail: jit@landor.co.uk Subscriptions Christina Pierre (Mondays-Thursdays 10:00-17:00) Tel: 0207 091 7959 E-mail: subs@landor.co.uk Subscribe on line TransportXtra.com/shop Accounts Irina Cocks Tel: 0207 091 7854 Registered office 359 Kennington Lane London SE11 5QY Printed by Stephens & George Print Group Goat Mill Road Dowlais Merthyr Tydfil CF48 3TD Tel: 01685 388888 www.stephensandgeorge.co.uk ISSN 0962 6220. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher.

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LTT797 page 6.qxp_LTT759_pXX 01/05/2020 06:55 Page 4

LTT797 01 May - 14 May 2020

6 News: Covid-19

Bus industry at risk, says expert

Travel demand in week 5 of Covid-19 lockdown

BUSES

COVID-19 THREATENS the future of commercial bus operations across the UK, an industry analyst has warned.

Chris Cheek predicted that bus patronage could shrink by a quarter as a result of the economic downturn and lifestyle changes brought about by the virus and the Government’s policies to restrict travel.

Cheek is author of the annual Bus Demand Jigsaw. The 2020 version was published this week.

It assesses underlying trends in bus demand over the last decade, by area and region. Travel is analysed by journey purpose, by age and gender, by income and by socio-economic classification.

The report identifies three influences on bus patronage resulting from Covid-19: social distancing; lifestyle changes resulting from people’s experience of the lockdown; and the nature and extent of economic recovery.

Cheek predicts that demand will recover to no more than 55 per cent to 60 per cent of precrisis demand during an initial period of social distancing.

“In the medium-term, lifestyle changes and economic issues could keep demand between 18 per cent and 26 per cent below pre-crisis levels,” he said, the range reflecting the assumptions made. “It’s pretty clear that current levels of commercial service provision would not be sustainable, whilst other areas such as London and Northern Ireland already under public sector control would also need ongoing government assistance.”

The report sees some cause for optimism about the industry’s long-term future, suggesting that climate change concerns could lead to more people switching from private to public transport.

A one per cent switch from car to bus would increase bus patronage by more than 19 per cent.

But Cheek cautions that relying on climate change concerns to deliver modal shift is risky. “We don’t know whether and to what extent any measures taken to drive modal shift will be acceptable to the electorate (and the tabloid press) and therefore deliverable politically.”

The Bus Demand Jigsaw 2020 is available from www.passtrans.co.uk, price £25.

Road traffic was three per cent higher on Monday of this week than Monday of last week, but was 56 per cent lower than the first week of February, according to the Government’s monitoring of travel demand during the Covid-19 pandemic.

UK-wide travel restrictions to limit the spread of the virus were introduced on 23 March, taking legal effect on 26 March. Emergency powers make it an offence for any person to leave their home without “reasonable excuse”.

Exceptions include: to obtain basic necessities; to exercise; to seek medical assistance; and to travel for work if it is not possible to work from home.

Transport Scotland this week published travel data for the period 2026 April, showing: concessionary bus journeys down 85 per cent; rail journeys down 95 per cent; ferry journeys down 95 per cent; plane journeys down 90 per cent; and car journeys down 70 per cent.

Cycling journeys are up 120 per cent.

The previous week, Transport Scotland reported cycling up 35 per cent.

The Scottish figures compare actual journeys against Transport Scotland’s estimates of typical journey patterns at this time of year taking account of figures from a range of sources including the DfT’s National Travel Survey, previous editions of Scottish Transport Statistics, and data collected across the transport network.

DfT explains how trip data is collected for Covid-19 updates

DATA

THE DFT has explained how it compiles the data on travel demand that are presented at the daily Government press conferences on Covid-19.

The charts (see above) have documented the plummeting levels of road, rail, bus and Tube travel as a result of the pandemic and subsequent restrictions on travel and businesses imposed by the Government.

The DfT supplies data for the charts to the Cabinet Office “as near to real-time as possible”.

Road traffic estimates cover all road types and all motor vehicle types in Great Britain.

Data is supplied from 275 automatic traffic count sites that are used for the DfT’s quarterly road traffic national statistics series.

The sites should be representative of national traffic.

The data gives an indication of traffic change rather than actual traffic volumes, and is indexed to the first week of February. The daily comparison is to the same day of the week, i.e. an index score of 100 would mean that traffic is the same as the equivalent day in the first week of February.

A deserted London Victoria: Network Rail has sensors at 17 of its stations to monitor pedestrian volumes

Rail passenger journey data comes from the train operators’ revenue settlement service for ticket sales, LENNON (Latest Earnings Networked Nationally Overnight). It processes information from the majority of train ticket sales across Britain, and then allocates daily revenue to each train operator within 24 hours of the ticket being purchased. Season tickets are assumed to make 480 journeys a year.

The number of rail journeys for the week-to-date for 2020 is

summed and expressed as a percentage of the equivalent week in 2019.

The DfT says there are some “quality issues” with the LENNON data, for instance, it covers generally 75–90 per cent of the eventual sales receipts that will be included for that day.

A separate chart is sometimes published showing rail station concourse footfall. This data comes from 17 of the 20 Network Rail managed stations, including eight central London termini. A network of sensors

count how many people enter and exit the stations for all purposes.

Transport for London’s Tube and bus routes data is based on entry and exit data from Tube stations and bus boarding taps, with numbers compared to data from one year ago.

The data for non-TfL buses is based on passenger boarding data on around half of bus services in Great Britain outside London. This is provided by electronic ticket machine firm Ticketer. Data is compared with a reference week of the third week of January.

Bus passenger boardings will include physical ticket sales as well as smart cards (commercial or concessionary), QR tickets, and where the driver counts passengers (such as school runs).

“Bus data from other sources (including non-Ticketer operators) has been used to validate these figures and is generally consistent with the trends presented,” says the DfT.

Covid-19 transport data: methodology note is available at https://tinyurl.com/y82pofzy

LTT797 page 7.qxp_LTT759_pXX 01/05/2020 07:11 Page 1

TransportXtra.com/ltt

News: Covid-19 7

TfL furloughs 7,000 workers, as door policy makes bus use free

LONDON

TRANSPORT FOR London this week placed 7,000 staff – about a quarter of its workforce – onto the Government’s Covid-19 job retention scheme as it battles to save money in response to plummeting revenues.

TfL said staff going onto the furlough scheme were those whose work had been reduced or paused as a result of Covid-19.

They are largely in back office and support functions and are not critical to enabling an increase in service levels as travel restrictions are eased.

Under the furlough scheme, the Government will pay 80 per cent of employees’ usual monthly wage costs up to £2,500 for an initial three weeks. TfL will pay the remainder of their salaries and continue paying pension contributions. It expects to save £15.8m every four weeks as a result of the decision.

There is still no news of a

The middle door entry policy aims to reduce drivers’ risk of infection

financial settlement between the Government and TfL to cover the organisation’s massive revenue losses resulting from the pandemic. TfL said “constructive discussions” were continuing.

Tube journeys have fallen by 95 per cent and bus use by 85 per cent, meaning that most of TfL’s income has disappeared.

London transport commissioner Mike Brown said: “Our work with the Government about the support that we need is ongoing and constructive. We hope for an urgent agreement so that we can continue to provide

the city with the vital transport it needs now and going forward.”

TfL has now implemented a policy of bus boarding through the middle doors only across the network, in order to help protect drivers from contracting Covid19. Twenty-eight bus workers in London have lost their lives after contracting Covid-19. The total number of employees of TfL and its contracted operators who have died now stands at 34.

Middle door boarding has the effect of making bus travel free because the payment readers are located at the front doors beside

‘Publish Covid-19 bus guidance’ BUSES

LABOUR WANTS the Government to publish guidance for the bus industry on social distancing to protect passengers and drivers from contracting Covid-19.

Shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon has written to transport secretary Grant Shapps urging the Government to act. As well as calling for advice on passenger social distancing (see front page), McMahon says guidance is needed on whether drivers should be handling cash or if there should now be a total ban on using cash on buses.

“If the latter is supported, then that can only be realistically achieved by the Government covering all revenue risk, in the same

way it has with train operators,” said McMahon.

He said other aspects of the guidance should cover: • whether drivers should be issued with gloves, masks, and other personal protection equipment items and, if there isn’t sufficient PPE, whether buses should run • whether physical barriers (ie. screens) for drivers should be in place on all buses • how frequently buses should be cleaned and to what standard • if a set number of seats from the driver should be unusable • how queuing and boarding should be managed • whether, if possible, all passengers should board from doors other than the front, as in London McMahon conceded that the

issues were complex. “There is a mix of overlapping and at times contradictory scientific advice and guidance in circulation.

While this is understandable during an unprecedented time, the job of Government should surely be to cut through that noise and give those that need it clear, unified and constant guidance and direction.

“The fact that different bus operators have diverging views on the best approach is confusing matters further.

“It does appear that the fragmentation of the bus market has, in part, caused the lack of clear guidance and advice from being passed both from Government to drivers but also from drivers up to your Department.”

TfGM revises funding conditions

BUSES

TRANSPORT FOR Greater Manchester has asked bus operators to agree to a revised protocol in exchange for payments during the Covid-19 pandemic.

TfGM wrote to operators on 27 March asking them to agree to 11 conditions (LTT 03 Apr). LTT understands it withdrew the proposal in early April.

On 24 April, however, TfGM chief executive Eamonn Boylan

wrote again to operators, this time asking them to agree to a sevenpoint protocol for collaborative working. In return, TfGM says it will pay English National Concessionary Travel Scheme, local concessions (excluding ‘Our Pass’), tendered services, and scholars pass payments at preCovid-19 levels.

Operators are angry at TfGM’s decision to make reimbursement payments for Our Pass holders, its scheme for 16-18 year olds, on

the basis of actual levels of patronage.

Julian Peddle, a director of D&G Buses, who criticised TfGM’s first proposed set of conditions, said this week: “You really do have to be naive to expect operators to welcome an agreement mandating ‘collaborative working’ when they have neither seen the document nor had the opportunity to comment.” l Letters – page 23

the driver.

The policy was introduced on 20 April, following a trial on nine routes. This gave TfL confidence that the low number of people currently using the network can maintain a safe distance when entering and exiting through the same door.

TfL said middle-door boarding would “need to be adjusted as the Government reviews in future the travel restrictions currently in place across the country”.

It has worked with trade union Unite on a wider package of measures to protect bus drivers.

Signage asks passengers not to sit in the seats near the driver’s cab and improvements have been made to the drivers’ protective screen.

TfL is exploring the installation of completely sealed partitions for drivers that still allow for both communication and ventilation.

Regular announcements on buses emphasise the need for social distancing.

Financial lifeline for light rail systems LIGHT RAIL

THE GOVERNMENT has promised Covid-19 emergency financial assistance for the operators of five light rail and metro networks in England.

The funding will keep the systems in Greater Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, West Midlands and Tyne and Wear operating during the current lockdown period.

Funding allocations have yet to be finalised.

No funding appears to have been promised for the Blackpool Tram.

Merseytravel is also expected to receive financial support to reflect its exposure on the Merseyrail franchise.

The Urban Transport Group welcomed the news of a funding deal. But it said the mode-bymode deals the Government has set up for buses, light rail and heavy rail, left authorities with uncovered general expenditure increases, such as for cleaning and personal protective equipment, and lost income from rents and advertising.

Channel cash via us – UTG

FUNDING

THE GOVERNMENT should channel emergency funding for urban public transport during the Covid-19 recovery phase to transport authorities rather than direct to operators, the Urban Transport Group has said.

A new UTG briefing paper says: “The conditions will change markedly during the start-up phase, where the costs of providing a public transport network will be higher as a more regular (or even enhanced) level of service will be required but with much lower than normal levels of patronage due to reduced demand and any social distancing requirements.”

Operating costs could also rise because of higher cleaning standards and more staff being needed to regulate access to stations and vehicles.

The UTG says the Government should pay funds during this stage to its members rather than to operators, “wherever practicable”.

Doing so would ensure decisions about how to allocate funding are taken “in a holistic way and in light of local circumstances, rather than funding being directed modeby-mode on the basis of a national formula that is insensitive to local circumstances and conditions, and which makes the coordination of services across modes more challenging”.

The UTG also calls on the Government to give its member authorities “greater flexibilities to dynamically manage the public transport networks as a whole, in an agile and integrated manner, in the same way that London already can.”

In Brief

Tendered bus route demands ‘to grow’ Local authorities will face bigger demands for tendered bus services if operators deregister commercial services because of Covid-19, a council has warned.

Hertfordshire County Council officers told councillors: “Due to reduction in passenger numbers causing loss of income, operators may cease certain contracts and commercial routes unless Hertfordshire subsidises them.”

LTT797 p08.qxp_Layout 1 01/05/2020 11:13 Page 8

Every fortnight we bring you your LTT magazine with unrivalled news, comment and analysis about the local transport scene. And now every fortnight – in the week between LTT issues – we bring you a discussion online that helps our audience of professionals keep connected with the key issues and each other during this time of isolation in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

We’ve so far had two highly successful online discussions, the first involving 50 LTT readers, and the second nearly 100.

Next Thursday we will be holding our third 60-minute conversation, again chaired by editor Andrew Forster and introduced with a presentation from one of the country’s leading transport thinkers and a regular LTT columnist.

CV-19 AND AFTER: TRANSPORT APPRAISAL AND PLANNING IN A TIME OF IMPERATIVES LED BY PROFESSOR PHIL GOODWIN 2pm, Thursday 7th May The format will be an informal and friendly gathering on Zoom with an introductory presentation by Professor Phil Goodwin, and participants then invited to raise questions and comments.

We’ll again incorporate an opportunity for some semi-social connections to be made, and for participants to exchange thoughts on how things are working out for them in the current circumstances, and share creative ideas about using online frameworks to help keep us all connected.

You’ll see from the report of the second forum, on pages 2-3 and this page of the current issue, that a stimulating and lively debate is sure to take place. Certainly, Professor Goodwin has an enviable reputation for stimulating and provocative thoughts.

Please join us for this important opportunity in transport professional interaction!

Please join us for this important opportunity in transport professional To register your place email Tom Daldry at: interaction! tom.daldry@landortravelpublications.com or visit: Transport To register yourXtra.com/events place email Tom Daldry at: tom.daldry@landortravelpublications.com We’ll be limiting the active audience to 100 people or visit:a Transport Xtra.com/events to ensure manageable discussion, and priority will We’ll be given to ‘admission’ by audience LTT subscribers. be limiting the active to 100 people to ensure a manageable discussion, and priority will be given to ‘admission’ by LTT subscribers.

Further outcomes from the LTT online discussion

Repurposing space for active modes Is it back to normal, or forward to better?

T

he past is a foreign country, we do things differently there. Or do we? With a sharp decline in traffic, repurposing urban space to allow for more walking and cycling during lockdowns has become a global activity.

From Brighton to Bogota, cities are re-claiming space previously dedicated to vehicles. Most are re-allocating space from roads, but Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius (left) has gone further by announcing plans to hand over swathes of its public space to hard-hit bar and restaurant owners so they can put their tables outdoors and still observe physical distancing rules.

Brighton and Hove City Council was the first UK council to close a major road along the south coast resort’s seafront to motor traffic in favour of walkers and cyclists. Such road space allocations are already being rolled out successfully in New Zealand, the USA, Italy, Canada, Germany and elsewhere. But will the trend last post-lockdown? Vehicle use is fast returning to ‘normal’ levels in China and other post-lockdown countries. In the UK, Dixon's and fast food chains are already suggesting boosting 'drive-in and ‘drive-by facilities' in order to comply with social distancing guidelines.

These issues were keenly debated in the LTT session. The majority of participants were keen to see this trend become the ‘new normal’ – and a few to share notes on why this might not be so easy.

Tactical urbanism in the UK?

Many wondered why ‘quick and dirty’ reallocation of road space is not happening widely in the UK, compared to other countries. It was also noted that many cars are driving faster, which makes some nervous about cycling.

However, one participant responded: “My daughter feels much safer cycling at the moment, even on bigger roads. We need to take advantage of the slowdown, but higher vehicle speeds are certainly evident, hence the need for segregation.”

Several speakers noted that road space reallocation “requires politicians to make decisions, which is difficult at the moment with councils only running limited meetings”, while also noting that local authorities globally have the same pressures, and are acting nonetheless. It was also suggested that reluctant elected members may “not believe the current demand for cycling, unless it can be demonstrated”.

Other suggestions received general assent.

In some areas, highways teams are currently stood down apart from emergency maintenance works, with staff re-deployed. There is a recognised need to focus more on pedestrians in high street environments, ensuring that they have sufficient space for social distancing whilst queuing outside shops. Is there, it was asked, any appetite councils to “be radical” and to use Covid-19 as an opportunity to really change things, or are they being prodded/cajoled by

Phillip Capper CC 2.0

Join us next time...

external lobby groups?

“Entire lanes on normally busy roads could be neutralised for the next months with close to no impact on congestion as traffic is extremely low,” suggested one participant. “We would be disappointed if, within the next three months, there can’t be some sort of move towards repurposing public spaces. It’s now 13 years since Manual for Streets was published,” said another. One local authority participant suggested that cycling and other micro-mobility modes might be more sanitary options than travel by car, and asked if anyone is aware of any scientific data to back this? “We are asking our teams to snap pictures of the amount of cycling happening, so as to document the current trend and show how roads and streets could be amended to give active travel more space.”

Political double-think?

A participant joining from Milan explained that, despite re-allocating space to cyclists, his city is also easing its low emissions zones, enabling more cars to travel to the city centre as public transport will have less capacity due to Covid-19 induced constraints. However, he suggested that expensive parking may have an impact, and one alternative might be more flexible opening / working hours. He also felt that cycling wasn’t a commuting option for the general population: “We have a good cycling environment, still, there’s very little mode share… not sure if 35+ km of new cycling lanes will really increase the use. An average Italian middle-aged man like me may be willing to cycle 30 minutes.” Others agreed that there is a limit to how many people can actually use cycling for going to work or shopping, but one cycling advocate argued that “30 minutes is enough for most residents in most cities to reach the centre; covering 5 miles / 8km reasonably easily without being fit.”

Several among the 80-plus participants sounded a cautious note, suggesting that we need to be careful in drawing too many conclusions from what is a short-term response to the current situation, compared, that is, with what we might actually plan to achieve? Now there’s a topic for a good debate. Watch this space...

Reporting and reflections by Juliana O’Rourke

LTT797 page 9.qxp_LTT759_pXX 01/05/2020 07:35 Page 1

TransportXtra.com/ltt

News: Covid-19 9

£10m to fund temporary active travel facilities in Scotland ACTIVE TRAVEL

by Andrew Forster

THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT has invited councils to bid to a £10m fund to deliver temporary walking and cycling routes, or temporary improvements to existing routes, to ensure social distancing is maintained during the Covid-19 outbreak.

The UK Government’s guidance is that people should remain at least two metres apart from other citizens who are not part of their household. This poses challenges for pedestrians and cyclists, and will become a greater challenge as travel restrictions are eased. Social distancing requirements could remain in place for more than a year, only ending when a vaccine has been developed.

The £10m ‘Spaces for People’ fund will be administered by Sustrans Scotland. The pot has been created by diverting part of this year’s Places for Everyone Fund budget, which is also managed by Sustrans.

Councils will not have to provide match-funding to deliver measures.

Announcing the new fund to Parliament this week, Michael Matheson, Scotland’s cabinet secretary for transport, infrastructure and connectivity, said he

had told councils the ‘Spaces for People’ initiative was “designed with agility and pace in mind”.

“I very much hope that local authorities will come forward with bold, ambitious plans to implement temporary active travel measures, following the example of cities, towns and places around the world.

“Our communities need this support quickly, especially with the welcome increases in cycling we are seeing across the country. At the same time, almost every journey starts and ends on our pavements in some way, and so it is vitally important that people can physically distance for those essential trips or for exercise.”

MSPs asked if the temporary measures could become permanent changes.

Matheson replied: “As we eventually move out of social distancing, some local authorities might consider the temporary infrastructure arrangements that they have put in place and choose to continue with them permanently, but that will very much be a matter for local authorities.

“Should local authorities wish to consider putting in permanent infrastructure, they will have to go through a more detailed process, because of the implications of such an approach. A

legal process must be gone through to put in permanent physical infrastructure of that nature.”

The Scottish Government has issued guidance explaining how councils can use existing powers for temporary traffic regulation orders (TTROs) and notices (TTRNs) to quickly implement measures such as road closures or road space reallocations to benefit pedestrians and cyclists.

TTROs can be used to introduce measures for up to 18 months and require no prior consultation.

TTRNs can be used where councils “consider it necessary or expedient that the measures should come into force without delay”. TTRNs for the reason of

danger to the public can last for up to 21 days if necessary and can be renewed.

“TTRNs allow traffic authorities to respond very quickly to urgent circumstances when necessary but are not to be used for long periods of time,” Transport Scotland explains. “They can allow time for traffic authorities to put in place longer term measures if they consider it appropriate.”

The Government has also drawn councils’ attention to the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020. “Local authorities making traffic regulation orders can consider whether the adjustments made by the Act in relation to publishing or making available documents are applicable.”

Cyclists seek more space Campaign group Cycling UK has written to council leaders across Britain urging them to implement low cost measures to help cyclists and pedestrians maintain social distancing. It suggests: • creating temporary and wider cycle lanes using cones and planters • widening footpaths • stopping rat runs by closing residential streets Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s head of campaigns, said: “A small number of councils are leading the way across Britain by being proactive in their measures against Covid-19.

Introducing measures to make cycling and walking safer and social distancing easier is essential not just for right now, but also for the future when lockdown restrictions are relaxed.”

£3.2bn Covid aid for DfT relaxes TRO rules councils ‘not enough’ during virus outbreak

FUNDING

THE GOVERNMENT has awarded local authorities in England an extra £1.6bn to help meet the costs of Covid-19, taking the total amount of support to £3.2bn. But councils say the funds are unlikely to be enough to cover their additional costs and income losses.

None of the grant is ringfenced for a particular purpose.

The Barnett consequentials mean an extra £300m for the devolved administrations: £155m for Scotland, £95m for Wales and £50m for Northern Ireland.

Newcastle City Council’s latest estimate is that the impact of Covid-19 on the council’s finances in 2020/21 will be in the region of £50m. “We expect this number to rise significantly over the coming weeks and months,” said Matt Wilton, Newcastle’s

head of policy.

Newcastle received just over £10m in the Government’s first emergency allocation of £1.6bn to councils.

The London Borough of Waltham Forest received £7.5m in the first round of funding but estimates that the cost to the council over 12 weeks to the end of June will be £25.6m, including the loss of £5m parking income.

The County Councils Network (CCN) has urged the Government not to scrap funding pledges such as the Housing Infrastructure Fund, which is paying for scores of transport projects, because of Covid-19.

As well as Covid-19 placing additional costs on councils, the CCN warns of the loss of income from council tax, retained business rates, fees and charges, commercial income and asset devaluation.

TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

THE DFT has issued temporary guidance to councils in England concerning the advertising of traffic regulation orders (TROs) during Covid-19.

The guidance is a response to the difficulties councils face in complying with the rules on publicising permanent or temporary TROs. Problems include advertising in a local paper when it has moved to online publishing only; posting notices on affected roads; and making documents available for public inspection in council offices.

On newspaper advertising, the DfT says: “An online newspaper that is circulated locally is likely to satisfy the requirements to an extent.”

Additional efforts should be made to publicise the TRO because some people do not have

internet access, it says. “This could include the use of other media, for example, letter or leaflet drops, local radio, circulation of information via council mailing lists, publication on local authority websites.”

The DfT acknowledges that local authorities are “understandably concerned about the safety of staff posting on-site notices”.

Councils should consider effective alternative options, such as the other media listed above.

With council offices closed, the DfT suggests authorities consider posting a notice on the authority’s website or outside offices, or at any other relevant place to inform the public of alternative arrangements.

“The notices could include a telephone number or email contact to request copies, or details of the publication of the documents on its website.”

Herts lists impact of virus on delivery

ROADS

HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY Council has outlined how Covid-19 is impacting the delivery of road and traffic projects.

Officers said highway services firm Eurovia had ceased operations on 1 April until further notice to ensure the safety of their teams and members of the public. “This will have a significant impact on remaining programmes of work and will affect all carriageway resurfacing/ reconstruction schemes,” said Hertfordshire’s director of resources, Scott Crudgington.

“Eurovia were scheduled to deliver 220 schemes during 2020/21, with more than half of these planned between April and September 2020.”

The council would make some savings in fees paid to consultant WSP, which holds the client support contract for highways, he added. “Due to the impact of Covid-19 on their global business, WSP have taken the difficult decision to reduce the salaries of all their staff, including those engaged in delivering services for the county council, from 1 April 2020 for a three-month period.”

The council’s payment to WSP is related to staff pay.

A separate officer report said one expected impact of the lockdown would be that “a number of smaller scale construction companies involved in the supply chain are likely to close permanently”.

Assuming a 12-week virus impact to manage, officers estimate the additional cost of keeping a worksite open on the A120 Little Hadham bypass could be £960,000, and on the New River bridge scheme in Hoddesdon £240,000. “If, however, the virus results in slowing of works progress as a result of labour, plant and materials shortages or delay in the supply chain, [this] is likely to delay the scheme progress resulting in more significant impacts.”

Discussing safety critical highway works, officers said “to maintain social distancing, teams that usually travel together will need to travel in separate vehicles, and that will put up costs”.

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Bamford seeks Government backing to build 3,000 hydrogen buses

J

Jo Bamford the new owner of bus manufacturer Wrightbus, wants the Government to help fund a programme to build 3,000 hydrogen buses, which, he says, could kickstart the hydrogen economy. Andrew Forster spoke to him o Bamford is often described as the heir apparent to his father Anthony Bamford’s JCB digger empire. But, right now, Jo has his hands full with his own business interests of buses and hydrogen. Last autumn he hit the headlines with the purchase of troubled Northern Ireland bus manufacturer Wrightbus. Less well known is that he is executive chairman of Ryse Hydrogen, a company with big ambitions to produce and supply hydrogen to the transport sector.

Bamford this week fused these two interests into one, calling on the Government to fund a programme to deliver 3,000 hydrogen buses into the UK market. It may all sound like self-interest, and no doubt that’s part of it, but Bamford is adamant that hydrogen buses are good for the environment and good for UK plc.

Wrightbus has developed the world’s first double decker hydrogen bus and Bamford says his company has taken orders for 60: 20 each for London, Aberdeen and Birmingham as part of the JIVE (Joint Initiative for hydrogen vehicles across Europe) project. And last year, incidentally, Ryse was awarded the contract to supply green hydrogen for TfL’s new fleet.

Strange times

The outlook for the UK bus market looked rosy a few months ago, with the UK Government and the Scottish Government both pledging to put some serious money into the industry. And then along came Covid-19.

No sooner had Bamford restarted production at the Wrightbus factory in Ballymena than he had to shut it down again and put staff on furlough.

Covid-19 is “not helping”, is all he wants to say about the matter for now.

Unsurprisingly, operators are slashing their capital investment plans, which is perhaps all the more reason for Bamford to seek a Government programme to build the hydrogen bus market.

Wrightbus will, of course, supply buses with whatever form of propulsion the customer wants. “I have a factory to fill, I will give customers what they want.”

That includes diesel buses. They still have a future, he thinks, and the Euro VI is really quite clean. “We’re going to continue making them.” It will be a political decision if the market for them ends.

But Bamford thinks that, no matter what the long-term economic impact of Covid-19 is on the UK economy, the

Batteries are not a bad solution. I just don’t think the UK has any advantage in them. Playing catch-up is never a cool place to come from.

Jo Bamford demand for zero emission public transport won’t go away. “Look at the air quality concerns, I don’t think that goes away.”

If you want a zero emission bus then there are only two choices, he points out, battery electric or hydrogen.

As things stand, he thinks the overwhelming emphasis of the Government and the bus industry is on battery electric. A briefing paper prepared by Ryse and Wrightbus says: “We are in regular contact with Government ministers and officials to seek their support for our plans. We are finding there to be a significant preference towards batteries, and a lack of detailed policy and technical understanding of hydrogen technology.”

It points to the DfT’s All-Electric Bus Town funding competition. “We believe this is an illogical and impractical decision, and will ultimately see most of this fund used to purchase batteries made in China, rather than supporting jobs in the British bus manufacturing sector at this crucial economic and social time.”

“Wouldn’t it be cool to do an allhydrogen bus city?” says Bamford.

“Wouldn’t it be good to spend 50 million quid on an all-hydrogen bus town?”

Bamford isn’t anti-battery electric vehicles (BEVs), he just thinks that, when it comes to buses, hydrogen outscores them on operations, the environment, and on what’s good for the UK economy.

Take operations. “The question is, how do you get a zero emission solution that does everything a diesel does?”

Battery electric buses have long charge times – four-and-a-half hours, he says – and their performance can suffer in cold weather. They also can’t complete the same mileage as a diesel. A BEV may be fine for town and city routes, but “20 to 30 per cent of routes you can’t do with a BEV today. How do you do rural routes? BEVs won’t cut it.”

Hydrogen, on the other hand, can deliver the same range as a diesel bus and a vehicle can be refuelled in seven minutes.

As for the environment, he thinks the green credentials of BEVs are overplayed. Looked at on a lifecycle basis, battery-powered buses are only about 15-20 per cent better than diesel in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, he says, explaining how the batteries are manufactured. The cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, shipped to China, where the batteries are manufactured using electricity generated by coal-fired power stations, and then shipped to the UK...

He can see a day when people will look at the growing pile of end of life batteries and demonise BEVs in the same way that diesel is demonised today.

Good for the economy

And then there’s the economic argument. “Batteries are not a bad solution,” he concedes, “I just don’t think the UK has any advantages in them. Playing catch-up is never a cool place to come from.”

The big battery plants are in China.

He points to Elon Musk’s decision to choose Germany over the UK for a Tesla battery plant as an indication that we’re not a serious player in the battery market. “Whether we like it or not, the reality is we’re not in Europe [the EU].”

But if the UK has missed the boat on batteries, we could still become a world-leader in hydrogen, he thinks.

The race is on and our competitors are China, South Korea and Germany.

Bamford reckons that hydrogen fuel cell manufacturers such as Cummins and Ballard, both Canadian, could be

enticed to locate plants here if the UK became a global leader in hydrogen as a transport fuel.

Buses are just the first stop on the way to a hydrogen economy. “If you give us volume on buses that would give volume for hydrogen production,” he explains. He reckons that in the UK there could be a “quarter of a million jobs minimum in the hydrogen economy”.

Within transport he can see other opportunities for hydrogen fuel. Lorries, trains and even ferries. “How do you stick enough batteries in a ferry?”

Making it all add up

The need for Government financial support becomes evident when Bamford turns to the numbers. A new diesel double decker costs about £240,000.

The equivalent BEV costs about £450,000, and a hydrogen bus about the same, perhaps a little more.

The core to his proposal is a Government programme to support the delivery of 3,000 new hydrogen buses to the UK market by 2024, which would account for about ten per cent of the UK bus fleet.

With that sort of volume the cost could come down from £450,000 to, say, £350,000, he thinks. And that’s where the circa £300m Government funding support comes in, a subsidy of, say, £100,000 per bus to bring the cost of each hydrogen bus onto a par with the diesel.

With this sort of market, Ryse would build five hydrogen production plants in economically disadvantaged coastal locations to take advantage of renewable electricity from offshore windfarms. Bamford says the most advanced plan is for a plant in Kent. It would produce enough hydrogen for 300 buses in London, with lorries transporting the fuel into the capital.

For Bamford it all makes perfect sense. Now the only thing he needs to do is convince the Government to see things that way too. The UK Government is currently a bit behind the devolved administrations in thinking about hydrogen’s potential, he says.

“The regions funnily enough are currently more pro-this.”

The Scottish Government gets it.

“They’re very pro-hydrogen”, and he points to Aberdeen’s plan to bring about a hydrogen economy. This enthusiasm north of the border has a lot to so with geography, he thinks, pointing out that Scotland has “shitloads of water and shitloads of wind”, the two essential ingredients for renewable hydrogen production.

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In Brief

Liverpool and Hull to trial new pedestrian crossing designs ROAD SAFETY

by Andrew Forster

TWO NEW pedestrian crossing designs are to be trialled in Liverpool and Hull in an experiment backed by the DfT. The puffin crossings will feature psychological prompts to encourage pedestrians to use them. One design will be trialled in the city centre, at a location where people on nights out account for a high proportion of casualties. The other design will be trialled on a busy high street.

The two designs have been developed by Liverpool-based behavioural science firm SoMo, which has undertaken in-depth investigation of pedestrian accidents in the city with the help of Road Safety Analysis.

Liverpool had the worst record of all metropolitan district councils for the number of pedestrians killed or seriously injured in 2014-2018, with 466 KSIs. Liverpool City Council, the Merseyside Road Safety Partnership and SoMo are collaborating on the trial, which has received a £196,253 grant from the Road Safety Trust. Trials should begin next January and are expected to run for 23 months.

The designs will also be trialled in Hull, which has been chosen because it has a comparable road network and socio-demographic profile to Liverpool. Hull City Council and Safer Roads Humber are project partners.

The crossing design to be trialled in the city centre is called

How the Gold Standard crossing design may look. Projector lights could project customised patterns onto the crossing

the ‘Gold Standard’. An illustration shows the poles for the traffic signals and push button facilities coloured gold, with the push button pole capped by a ‘cross here’ sign in white lettering and a white star lightbox above.

On each of the four traffic signal poles 50W rotating projector lights could be installed, projecting customised patterns onto the crossing area, such as a constellation of stars.

A customised audio system woud play cheering and applause and a “subtle musical score”.

“The beeping sound will be heard over the custom audio,” says Liverpool. “The audio will only be played for the duration of the beeps.”

The crossing surface itself would be given a bespoke colour.

Gold footprints could be installed on the footway leading up to the crossing and a star-shaped symbol inset with feet could be installed in the waiting area.

Liverpool says the detailed design for the Gold Standard

crossing has been agreed with the DfT and developed into a fullscale prototype.

The crossing to be trialled on a high street is at a less advanced stage of development. Dubbed ‘faster boarding’, it will feature reduced waiting times for pedestrians after they press the push button unit.

The crossing design could also feature gold footprints on the footway leading up to the crossing point, and signage on lampposts (possibly light boxes), pointing in the crossing’s direction.

A light box on top of the signal head might depict a pedestrian in the middle of a stopclock. Travelator arrow markings could be projected onto the crossing when it is used correctly.

The push button display may be surrounded by a light unit with ‘chasing fading lights’ going round in a clockwise direction.

The audio at the crossing could be a “simple ticking sound with

pleasing positive completion sound when it’s time to cross”.

The sound would “turn off if you cross too early”.

The effectiveness of the designs will be judged by: • an increase in the number of crossings made inside the crossing area (from a 40 metre radius) • an increase in the number of pedestrians waiting for traffic to stop before crossing inside the crossing area.

Liverpool City Council plans to trial a Gold Standard crossing at the Bold Street/Hanover Street/Church Street junction in the city centre. The location has the highest number of pedestrian casualties of any city centre junction, mainly featuring collisions during weekend evenings and nighttimes, and involving pedestrians on a night out.

Officers had proposed that the ‘faster boarding’ crossing be installed on the Prescot Road, one of the main arterial roads in the city. The council said this week, however, that the location for this trial had still to be determined but that it would be on a busy high street in the outskirts of the city, at a location with high pedestrian casualty figures.

Nicola Wass, chief executive of So-Mo, said: “Liverpool should be proud of the fact that they are taking an imaginative, intelligent approach to road safety.

“These crossings have been informed by the science but designed with a deeper understanding of the people who use them.”

Liverpool hails results from 20mph limits SPEED LIMITS

LIVERPOOL CITY Council has expressed pleasure with speed and collision data from its signed-only 20mph speed limit project.

The council implemented the lower limits across the city in a £1.65m programme over four years, 2011/12-2014/15. The city was split into seven areas for implementation purposes.

Officers last week presented area-based results of speed surveys, comparing average speeds before implementation and 12 months after.

The data shows average speeds fell in four areas but rose in three. “Across the city, on average, speeds have reduced by

3.5mph,” said officers, adding that this was much higher than the anticipated 1.2mph reduction, based on experience elsewhere.

The report does not explain how the 3.5mph figure is calculated. LTT found that adding up the average speeds of the seven areas in the ‘before’ period and subtracting from that the sum of the average speeds for the areas in the ‘after’ period resulted in a figure of 25.5. Dividing this by seven (the number of areas) gives a figure of 3.6mph. This approach takes no account of the difference in the traffic volumes between areas.

The report reveals a huge reduction in average speeds in two areas: area 2, where they

fell from 34.2mph to 22.7mph, and area 5, where they dropped from 38.1mph to 23.2mph.

LTT asked the council how it had calculated the 3.5mph figure and why the reductions in two areas were so large. We had not heard back by close of press.

Although recorded average speeds increased in three areas, the number of injury collisions fell in all seven when comparing 2008-2010 with a three-year after period. Overall injury collisions dropped from 3,315 to 2,740. But the number of killed or serious injury collisions increased in five areas.

“What the data shows is that across the whole study area, we have seen a reduction of around 191 collisions per year,” said

officers. “This is far above the original expectations and equates to a saving to society of around £18.8m per year.” This showed the programme had delivered “exceptional value” though it “is difficult to state with certainty that all collision savings can be attributed to this scheme alone”.

Liverpool is considering how to improve compliance, including repositioning and/or increasing the number of 20mph speed limit terminal and repeater signs; placing the 20mph terminal signs on grey or yellow backing boards; introducing “20” roundels on the road surface at the entry points; and ‘gateway’ and road narrowings.

Westminster approves 20mph Westminster City Council has approved the implementation of 20mph limits across its road network, saying the idea was supported by two-thirds of respondents to a consultation launched last autumn. Final design and delivery on the street will be subject to the ongoing changes to the council’s services as it manages Covid-19 and “when an agreed point in the future is reached where the delivery of new schemes can be re-activated again”.

Aberdeen to retender for bike hire Aberdeen City Council is to retender a bike hire contract after failing to find an operator in the initial procurement. The council issued a prior information notice on 16 April saying the tender should be advertised in the next two to six weeks though “timings will be dependent on the Covid-19 situation as it unfolds”. Aberdeen launched the first procurement for a fiveyear bike hire contract late last year (LTT 06 Dec 19). The council told local media in February: “The tendering process was disappointing. A survey is being done to see what went wrong and why there was a lot of interest in the beginning but (which) whittled down.”

As with the previous tender, the new procurement will specify that the operation must be at no financial cost to the council.

Eastbourne cyclists’ plea rejected East Sussex County Council has rejected calls for cycling to be permitted in a pedestrianised street in Eastbourne town centre. East Sussex and Eastbourne Borough Council consulted over the winter on the second phase of a movement and access programme for the town centre, including extending pedestrianisation of Terminus Road, the street connecting the railway station with the seafront. Cyclists criticised the proposals and said a ‘share with care’ policy should be implemented on the street. But East Sussex says allowing cyclists to use the pedestrianised section would be “inappropriate” because of the high footfall. “‘Share with care’ signs are non-prescribed advisory signs used for shared footway/cycleway routes,” it says. “They are not considered appropriate for town centre areas. We recognise the aspiration for cycling provision between the rail station and the seafront and as a consequence are developing options to achieve this.”

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In Brief

UK vehicle parc surpasses 40 million The UK’s vehicle fleet has surpassed 40 million for the first time, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. In 2019 there were 35 million cars, 4.5 million vans, and more than 600,000 lorries, a one per cent increase on 2018.

Climate committee advises on Covid-19 The Committee on Climate Change is to advise the Government on how the economy can recover from the Covid-19 pandemic in a way that supports efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Committee will write to ministers in the coming weeks to set out initial advice on ensuring that rebuilding efforts support a “just transition” towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen the UK’s preparedness for climate change.

Meanwhile, the Committee’s advice on the sixth carbon budget (2033-2037) will be delayed from September until December to give the Committee more time to reflect on the impact of the virus.

“Responding to the pandemic is, rightly, the immediate priority for everyone,” said CCC chief executive Chris Stark. “Eventually, thoughts will turn to the need to rebuild after coronavirus – the climate priorities can help shape these efforts. The Committee will offer advice to Government on constructing a resilient recovery.

Coronavirus is teaching us all the value of prudent planning for global shocks.”

Climate commission for Cambs CA The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority is to establish a climate change commission. A chair is being recruited for the body that will have eight members, four drawn from the business community and four from the voluntary/community sector. Politicians will not be represented.

Climate Assembly UK meets virtually The Climate Assembly UK has replaced its final weekend gathering with three virtual weekends because of Covid-19. The first of the three virtual sessions discussed sources of electricity.

Glasgow studies climate district Transport will be one of the themes in a feasibility study for a “climate neutral Glasgow innovation district” being procured by the University of Strathclyde on behalf of a partnership involving Glasgow City Council and a number of other public and private organisations.

Judicial review sought ROADS

by Andrew Forster

ENVIRONMENTAL CAMPAIGNERS have launched a judicial review challenge against the DfT’s new road investment strategy (RIS2) that sets out Highways England’s five-year programme of road improvements.

The case is being brought on climate change and air quality grounds and mirrors in key respects the successful case brought against the Airports National Policy Statement (NPS) earlier this year. In that, the Court of Appeal ruled that the NPS, which supports a third runway at Heathrow, was illegal because it did not take account of the UN Paris Agreement on climate change of December 2015.

The Transport Action Network Ltd (TAN) is bringing the case against the road investment strategy. It is being represented by the same team from Leigh Day solicitors that won the airports NPS case, David Wolfe QC and Pete Lockley.

TAN has launched a fundraising exercise, seeking to raise at least £38,000 and preferably £100,000 via the Crowdjustice platform to cover legal fees. This week it said it had raised £25,000 from 750 people in the first seven days.

TAN director Chris Todd said: “The DfT has fiddled with ideas like green number plates while the planet overheats. Road transport is now the single biggest source of UK carbon emissions.

How can the DfT claim to take

climate change seriously when it is set to burn billions on the ‘largest ever roads programme’ to make things worse?”

The DfT published RIS2 on 11 March, soon after the Court of Appeal made its ruling on the Airports NPS. TAN points out that on 26 March the DfT then published its Decarbonising transport: setting the challenge policy paper in which transport secretary Grant Shapps said that public transport and active travel would become the “natural first choice for our daily activities” and “we will use our cars less” (LTT 03 Apr).

Said Todd: “In the last few weeks ministers have said they want to go ‘further and faster’ to tackle climate change, finally recognising we need ‘to use our cars less’. Planning for RIS2 started in 2015, quite simply a different era. This massive roads programme is like a juggernaut that’s out of control. We have no choice now but to go to court to prevent an unfolding disaster.”

Leigh Day’s judicial review claim challenges the “lawfulness of the adoption and publication of RIS2” by the Secretary of State.

The strategy commits the Government to spend £27.4bn on the strategic road network in the period 2020/21-2024/25 (LTT 20 Mar). This includes £14bn for capital enhancements. The funding comes from the new National Roads Fund of ringfenced Vehicle Excise Duty.

On climate change, Leigh Day points to the legal framework created by the Paris Agreement, which the Government signed in

RIS2 is incompatible with net zero, say lawyers

December 2015, and the amendment to the Climate Change Act 2008 last June that commits the UK to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“The Paris Agreement enshrines a firm commitment to restricting the increase in the global average temperature to ‘well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and [to pursue] efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels’”, Leigh Day explains, “as

well as an aspiration to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions during the second half of the 21st century.”

Turning to the Climate Change Act, it notes that, as well as achieving net zero emissions by 2050, “the UK Government is also under a duty to set amounts for the net UK carbon account for each five-year period and to ensure that the net UK carbon account for a budgetary period does not exceed the carbon

Oxfordshire consults on £234m road package ROADS

A GROUP of academics and retired local government officers in Oxfordshire have criticised the county council’s plan for four major new road schemes to serve Didcot and the surrounding area in the south of the county.

The schemes are: • dualling the A4130 road that connects Didcot to the A34 trunk road • a new road from Didcot to Culham to the north, featuring a new bridge over the River Thames. This project will relieve the narrow Thames bridges in the villages of Culham and Clifton Hampden • a new bridge over the Great Western Main Line railway west of Didcot, to connect the

A4130 into the site of the old Didcot A Power Station, which will be redeveloped • a bypass of Clifton Hampden The combined estimated cost of the projects is £234m.

The Government has offered £218m from the Housing Infrastructure Fund, with the remaining funding coming from developer contributions.

Oxfordshire County Council this week completed an online consultation on the projects.

Public exhibitions had to be abandoned because of Covid19.

The investment package has been criticised by Poets (Planning Oxfordshire’s Environment and Transport Sustainably), which comprises academics and

former local government officers.

“The proposals put forward in this consultation sadly show that Oxfordshire’s councils have yet to adapt to the new reality,” it says.

“Despite Oxfordshire County Council having many sound transport policies in place, where in this package of measures is there anything to attract road users out of the cars and on to public transport?

“Where is the core rapid transit link from Didcot/Milton Park [a major business park] to the rest of the county and beyond that would reduce traffic on local roads and reduce traffic on the A34 and other strategic routes?”

Describing the land take

needed for the A4130 dualling as “astonishing”, Poets says: “Dualling this length of road would provide a huge and unnecessary increase in capacity for motor vehicles.

“This would encourage rapid traffic growth and deposit substantially more traffic on to the A34 (and the Milton Interchange) and in to Didcot.

“There needs to be a genuine attempt to encourage more people on this corridor to use public transport, rather than private vehicles.”

Oxfordshire says that it is in “the final stages of negotiating the details of the [HIF] funding agreement with Government”.

It hopes construction of the schemes can start in 2022 with opening in 2024.

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News 13

In Brief

t of roads programme budget”.

Leigh Day continues: “According to the UK Government’s own statistics, transport is now the largest sector for UK greenhouse gas emissions (27 per cent), of which road transport accounts for over 90 per cent.”

It points to data that TAN has obtained from the DfT showing that the “combined additional carbon created by five key schemes funded under RIS2 alone amounts over the next 60 years to approximately ten million tonnes”. The schemes are: the Lower Thames Crossing; A27 Arundel bypass; the A417 Missing Link; the A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down (Stonehenge) improvement; and the A5036 Port of Liverpool access project.

Leigh Day says that, though the Secretary of State has “considered” climate change in preparing RIS2, “he has not lawfully taken into account the net zero target before publishing RIS2”. Nor has he considered “whether RIS2 is in line with the Paris Agreement: the Paris Agreement is not mentioned at all in RIS2”.

“These errors flowed from the fact that the research phase documents that informed the publication of RIS2 were either completed prior to, or based on assumptions and data predating, the net zero target coming into force.”

Leigh Day points to the DfT’s decarbonising transport policy paper, which identified a gap of 16MtCO2e in 2032 between transport emissions on current

policies and those set out in the 2017 Government’s Clean Growth Strategy (LTT 03 Apr).

They say the Government appears to believe road building is compatible with the net zero objective because all vehicles will soon be zero emission.

“Since electric vehicles will be ‘zero emission’ by 2050 – the reasoning seems to run – any number of them can be compatible with the net zero target for 2050.”

But, says Leigh Day, “since the sale of new conventional cars and vans is currently only to be ended in 2040 (and with the consultation on bringing that date forward, proposing an alternative date of 2035), it is obvious that providing additional road capacity will increase emissions from road transport in the short to medium term, making it all but impossible to meet the UK’s statutory obligations in relation to the fifth carbon budget.

“In short, by treating (in the context of RIS2) electric vehicles as a silver bullet in meeting the 2050 obligations, the secretary of state has unlawfully failed to consider his medium-term statutory obligations relating to carbon budgets.”

Turning to the Paris Agreement, Leigh Day says: “By adopting the approach that he did in RIS2 of focusing on the ability of electric vehicles to deliver the net zero target in 2050, the secretary of state unlawfully failed to take into account the UK’s commitments and objectives under the Paris Agreement.

“Importantly, the Paris Agree-

ment sets temperature-based goals for the mitigation of climate change. What is important in assessing the UK’s contribution to meeting a temperature-based goal is not the level of UK emissions in a given year such as 2050, but the UK’s cumulative emissions up to that date. Put another way, the shape of the emissions curve to 2050 is important.”

A second aspect of the climate change ground in the legal challenge concerns the Government’s failure to developed a metric to measure the carbon emissions from users of the strategic road network, despite repeated promises to do so since 2015.

Moreover, the RIS2 only sets Highways England a target to reduce its own emissions, which Leigh Day says is a “departure from what was promised”. “Such a breach of legitimate expectation vitiates the RIS2,” it says.

The second ground for the challenge concerns the air quality legal framework.

Leigh Day says RIS2 contains no evidence to demonstrate that investments will not cause locations to exceed legal limit values for pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, as set out in the EU 2008 air quality directive, implemented into domestic law by the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010.

RIS2 states that the Government expects all the locations “within Highways England’s control will meet air quality targets before the end of RIS2, and emissions of the key pollutants will keep falling”.

Says Leigh Day: “What is notably missing [from RIS2] is any evidence that the road expansion schemes funded by RIS2 will not cause levels of those pollutants to exceed limit values and/or will not jeopardise the maintenance of levels in compliant zones.

“Properly applied, regulation 17 of the 2010 Regulations prohibits the material worsening of air quality anywhere across the Strategic Road Network and across roads with exceedances that feed into the SRN, which means that RIS2 cannot cause any new breaches of the limits or the slowing down of any progress already made to reducing levels below the limit values.

“Regrettably, the Secretary of State has both failed to adequately assure himself that such material worsening of air quality will not be a consequence of the schemes funded by RIS2 going ahead, and to consider whether compliance with emission limits will not be jeopardised by RIS2.”

Leigh Day also says the Government was legally required to prepare a strategic environmental assessment of RIS2 before it was adopted.

“This should have involved an evaluation of cumulative effects (such as the carbon impact of the significant greenfield house building programme that RIS2 will facilitate) and reasonable alternatives (such as investing in sustainable transport that in turn unlocks compact, public transport orientated housing, instead of increasing road capacity).”

Council questions ethics of backing BEVs ELECTRIC VEHICLES

A COUNCIL has questioned the ethics and environmental benefits of battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

The Government and the Committee on Climate Change are both championing BEVs as the main means by which cars can become zero emission to support the statutory net zero greenhouse gas emissions target.

But South Gloucestershire Council has questioned the wisdom of promoting BEVs. “There are a wide range of clear and well-researched equalities issues in respect of EVs,” says an officer report.

“These range from the use of child labour in the mining of

BEVs: not so good after all?

cobalt in the world’s largest cobalt-producing country, which accounts for 60 - 70 per cent of global cobalt production [the Democratic Republic of Congo], to mining of rareearth metals such as neodymium that releases radioactive contaminants and

toxins (the mining of which is only permitted in one country globally [China - Ed]) – elements that are needed to make EV motors run.”

South Gloucestershire adds: “The Swedish government has recently reported that manufacturing an average electric vehicle battery alone releases as much CO2 as eight years of driving an average petrol vehicle.

“These negative equalities issues require further research and reporting in order that the council is fully informed of impacts and is equipped to make balanced judgments talking account of all factors.”

LTT asked the Government’s Committee on Climate Change what it thought of South

Gloucestershire’s remarks. A spokeswoman said: “We don’t have a comment to make on this occasion.”

The concerns of South Gloucestershire echo the comments of British industrialist Jo Bamford, owner of bus manufacturer Wrightbus and hydrogen production and distribution firm Ryse Hydrogen.

He told LTT he could see a day when battery electric vehicles are demonised in the same way as diesel vehicles are today because of the disposal problems associated with BEV batteries (see page 11).

A joint Wrightbus and Ryse policy paper promoting hydrogen buses speaks of “uncertain and unethical mining practices” required for battery production.

Chancellor urged to help hauliers Road hauliers face going bust because of Covid-19, the Road Haulage Association has told the Government. A recent survey by the Association found that 46 per cent of the UK’s truck fleet is not operating and 25 percent of drivers are furloughed. The RHA this week wrote to the Chancellor with a plea to help the sector by taking five actions: • a 100%, government-backed, invoice financing package (debt support) • moving to a weekly furlough of staff to provide a flexible return to businesses • a suspension of fuel duty and a rebate for hauliers • a business rates holiday for all hauliers’ sites • a lorry retention scheme for vehicles not being used (sector specific)

Electric bus town bidding extended The disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has prompted the DfT to extend the deadlines for local authority bids to the £50m All-Electric Bus Town and the £20m Rural Mobility Fund (LTT 07 Feb). The deadline for both has been extended from 30 April to 4 June. The bidding for the £70m Superbus fund has been delayed (LTT 17 Apr).

Scots prepare for infrastructure restart Transport Scotland is exploring ways in which Scotland’s major transport projects could restart in the event of construction sector guidance about Covid-19 being relaxed. Scottish transport secretary Michael Matheson said this week that work was also under way to identify potential capital initiatives and infrastructure projects “that could be progressed as part of any wider economic recovery plan, should funding become available”.

Scots rail recovery taskforce A Covid-19 rail recovery taskforce has been formed in Scotland involving Network Rail, ScotRail, Caledonian Sleeper and Transport Scotland. Scottish transport secretary Michael Matheson told MSPs that social distancing would have a huge impact on train capacity. “The way in which we manage passengers on and off trains will be greatly complicated by social distancing, so the capacity of rail services will be greatly reduced as a result. Detailed consideration is being given to plans for how we can manage that.” He envisaged there would be “a phased increase in rail service levels”.

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News 15

Inspectors criticise council for trying to stop rail freight depot

PLANNING

by Andrew Forster

PLANNING INSPECTORS have criticised St Albans District Council for obstructing the delivery of a strategic rail freight interchange (SRFI) facility to serve London and the South East.

The freight depot is proposed for the former Radlett Airfield site, a parcel of Green Belt land south of St Albans. It would be connected to the Midland Main Line that passes the site to the east.

The Government granted planning permission for the SRFI in 2014 but St Albans Council, which has always opposed the development, subsequently designated the land for the Park Street Garden Village in its new draft local plan (LTT 22 Jul 2016 & 15 Feb 2019).

Planning inspectors examining the local plan held three days of hearings in January but cancelled further sessions because of “serious concerns” about the plan’s legal compliance and soundness (LTT 06 Mar).

The SRFI’s promoter, Helioslough, told the inspectors that the freight depot was a “strategic matter” under the

National Planning Policy Framework and that the council therefore had to either facilitate its development or work with neighbouring councils, under the duty to co-operate, to identify how the SRFI could be delivered elsewhere.

St Albans Council did neither of these things. It argued that, because it had allocated the land for housing, the “SRFI was not a strategic matter for the purposes of the plan”.

In a letter to St Albans, the inspectors, Louise Crosby and Elaine Worthington, say the council’s approach to the SRFI is “illogical”. The draft plan will probably have to be withdrawn because of its serious failings, they add.

“In our view, the SRFI is a strategic matter for the purposes of the duty to cooperate, as are allocations for housing development to meet identified housing need,” say the inspectors. “Thus, the use of the land at the Radlett site, whether as a SRFI or a housing allocation, is a strategic matter that the council should have been engaging and cooperating with neighbouring authorities about.”

Crosby and Worthington imply

that the council’s position actually had the support of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. “Whilst the council referred to verbal conversations with senior members of staff at MHCLG who were aware of the approach to the SRFI in the plan, a lack of objections from MHCLG is not an indication that the duty to cooperate has been met.

“Overall, there is no evidence of effective joint working or cooperation on this important strategic cross-boundary matter regarding a nationally significance infrastructure scheme.”

The inspectors note the difficulty finding suitable sites for SRFIs in the South East, with a proposed site at Slough failing to secure planning permission in the 2000s and another at Dartford being rejected in 2019 (LTT 24 May 19).

“Indeed, it seems that the Radlett site in St Albans is the only realistic option and there is robust and compelling evidence to demonstrate that the SRFI needs to be located there,” they say, noting that Network Rail supports the Radlett SRFI. The inspectors remark: “The requirement for the SRFI, an

important piece of national infrastructure, is long-established and specific to the Radlett site.

Whilst the provision of housing is also an important requirement and a focus and priority recognised in the [National Planning Policy] Framework, it is not fixed in location in the same way as the SRFI. “In this instance there are compelling reasons to look to provide both, and we are not convinced that the two requirements should be regarded as competing. Bringing these matters together, we consider that the plan does not meet the development needs of the area and fails to make sufficient provision for infrastructure for transport, in conflict with the [NPPF].”

The inspectors will reach a final conclusion after the council has responded to their letter.

“However, in light of our serious concerns regarding the duty to co-operate, we consider it a very strong likelihood that there will be no other option other than that the plan is withdrawn from examination or we write a final report recommending its nonadoption because of a failure to meet the duty to co-operate,” they conclude.

Heathrow’s global status at risk, says NIC

ECONOMY

THE NATIONAL Infrastructure Commission is consulting on how to measure the effect of infrastructure investment on the UK’s competitiveness. In doing so, it appears to warn about the potential damage to the UK’s competitiveness if Heathrow Airport is not allowed to expand.

Improving competitiveness is one of the NIC’s three charter objectives, alongside supporting “sustainable” economic growth and improving the quality of life.

Noting that there is no single definition for competitiveness, the NIC proposes three yardsticks: • Improving access to markets • Access to mobile labour and capital • Supporting and being a source of globally significant clusters and assets Discussing the third measure, the NIC says Heathrow Airport could be considered a “globally significant infrastructure asset”.

It then appears to warn about the potential of the airport’s status diminishing, in what may be seen

as a comment on the Government’s willingness to see the airport’s third runway plan fail following the Court of Appeal ruling in February. The court ruled that the Airports National Policy Statement, which supports expansion, did not take account of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change (LTT 06 Mar).

Says the NIC: “The nature of international aviation means that London Heathrow’s main competitors are hub airports in Europe and the Middle East, rather than other UK airports. This adds a national strategic significance to the performance of these infrastructure assets.

“The shift from London to Rotterdam as the centre of freight shipping in Europe in the 1960s is an example of how competitive advantage of a global asset can be lost if there is a resistance to change and to adopting new innovations.”

Turning to the impact of infrastructure on business clustering, the NIC says: “Understanding the exact role of infrastructure in cluster success will be difficult to

measure, as successful clusters are usually the result of a unique and complex combination of factors and interactions.”

On assessing the role of infrastructure in improving access to markets, the NIC suggests using its existing transport connectivity metric to measure changes to market access within Great Britain. This measures the effectiveness of transport networks at moving people within an urban area or between different places.

“Extending this measure to include connectivity to international gateways would help to measure international market access,” it says.

Nevertheless, it adds: “Evidence indicates that improvements to transport, including global gateways such as ports and airports, have a particularly positive effect on international trade in lower income countries, while improvements to digital communications infrastructure play a bigger role in higher income countries.

“This may be because higher income countries already have

relatively mature transport networks whereas digital communications technology is improving rapidly, and is particularly important to service industries, which account for a bigger share of high income economies.”

On access to mobile labour and capital, the NIC says that, although transport project promoters often claim their scheme will bring new jobs to an area, “the current literature on the link between infrastructure and inward migration or investment is weak”.

Surveys suggest infrastructure is one of many factors affecting investment. “The availability of skilled labour and political stability are found to be more important.”

The NIC wants to see more research on this topic but, until the quality of evidence improves, it will treat this measure as a “secondary consideration”.

Improving competitiveness is available at https://tinyurl.com/y7emkxzc

DfT sifts 60 new rail plans

RAIL

SIXTY PROPOSALS for railway reopenings in England have been submitted to the ideas funding stream of the DfT’s Restoring Your Railway fund.

The applications will be considered by a panel chaired by rail minister Chris HeatonHarris. The other members are: Simon Clarke, the minister for regional growth and local government; Sir Peter Hendy, the chair of Network Rail; Jackie Sadek, the chief executive of UK Regeneration; and Isabel Dedring, global transport leader at consultant Arup.

The DfT will write to applicants in May to update them on the progress of their application.

Unsuccessful applicants will receive advice from the Department, to help them develop their application for consideration in a later round.

The deadline for the second round of applications is 22 May to register an interest and 19 June to submit applications.

In recognition that many council staff are pre-occupied with Covid-19 issues, a third round of applications will take place in November.

In Brief

SEStran awards rail freight facility study Consultant AECOM has won a £150,000 contract to explore rail freight opportunities in southeast Scotland. The study is being commissioned by the South East Scotland transport partnership (SEStran) and Forth Ports, the owner of six ports in the area: Grangemouth, Leith, Rosyth, Methil, Kirkcaldy and Burntisland.

Grangemouth has active rail freight facilities, and Leith and Rosyth have rail connections that are rarely used. Methil lies on the closed Levenmouth branch for which there is a reopening campaign. The project will consider the potential for freight consolidation centres at key locations, with the use of rail as a key mode for movements. It will also consider the obstacles that multi-modal freight terminals face in trying to encourage more traffic, and assess the feasibility of reinstating/introducing rail freight facilities where appropriate. The project is funded by the Scottish Government’s Local Rail Development Fund.

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16 News

Leeds may borrow for new flyover

ROADS

LEEDS CITY Council will borrow £26.4m to replace a flyover on the Inner Ring Road if it is unsuccessful in a bid to the DfT’s Local Highways Maintenance Challenge Fund.

The scheme is vital to the council’s objective of removing traffic from City Square in 2023.

The three-span Regent Street flyover was built in the late 1960s and carries the A64(M) Inner Ring Road over the A61 Regent Street to the east of the city centre.

Leeds says the flyover’s load-bearing capacity is deteriorating and the most cost-effective solution is to replace the structure. The cost of designing and implementing the scheme is £31.0m.

The council bid for £20.4m from the DfT’s Local Highways Maintenance Challenge Fund.

Leeds had expected a decision in December but says it is not now expected until the summer.

The council says the delay means it must “proceed at risk”. If the grant bid is unsuccessful, the council will fund the works using £26.4m of borrowing and £4.6m of local transport plan funding.

Leeds says project delivery must proceed “at pace” because it is the first in a number of projects needed to deliver the council’s objective of closing City Square to general through traffic by 2023.

“Over the next five to ten years Leeds city centre will be the focus of major changes through a series of infrastructure investments aimed at betterment and transformation of public transport and public realm,” Martin Farrington, Leeds’ director of city development, told councillors. “The reliability of Regent Street flyover is fundamental to the resilience of the highway network during construction of this extensive programme of works.”

Because of Covid19, Leeds is to tender the scheme with a two-stage phased award.

“This will allow a further assessment of where the industry confidence and supply chain capabilities are at the end of stage one (likely to be late June 2020), before awarding the demolition and main works under a second stage to the contract,” said Farrington.

Cambs plans to withdraw from Cambridge joint committee GOVERNANCE

CAMBRIDGESHIRE COUNTY Council looks poised to withdraw from two committees that provide a forum for discussing transport and planning matters with Cambridge City Council.

The county council’s constitution and ethics committee last week voted 5-3 in favour of withdrawing from the Cambridge area joint committee this summer. The Conservatives voted in favour of withdrawal and the Lib Dem and Labour members against.

The joint area committee has a central role in deciding on many local transport matters, such as cycling schemes, pedestrian crossings, parking restrictions, traffic calming, dockless bikes, and electric vehicle charging points.

County councillors also voted by 5:3 to withdraw from a joint development control committee

for the Cambridge fringe, which also comprises Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire district councils.

A final decision on the withdrawals will be made by Cambridgeshire’s full council on 19 May. Fiona McMillan, Cambridgeshire’s director of governance and legal services, said the case for abolishing the Cambridge joint area committee was two-fold. “The first is that it is not considered reasonable or appropriate that one area in the county should receive a different service than others. Withdrawing from the committee will provide equity of service across Cambridgeshire and allow officer time to be used more effectively on schemes across the county.

“Secondly, there is already a clearly established alternative process to make the decisions that are currently made in the Cambridge joint area committee and

this is working well across the rest of the county. This involves decisions being made by officer delegation or when appropriate, issues being considered by the appropriate [county] council committee.”

The proposals have angered the city council, as well as transport pressure groups.

Camcycle, the Cambridge Cycling Campaign, said: “Whilst it is entirely appropriate that the rural councillors who run the county council have oversight of budget and some say in transport matters in Cambridge, that is very different to withdrawal of any guarantee that there will be a majority of people from Cambridge deciding these questions.

“These proposals would mean that no councillor, or indeed, resident would have any meaningful say in any transport plan or project suggested or mooted for the city.”

Campaign group Smarter

Cambridge Transport has launched a petition opposing the county’s withdrawal from the joint area committee.

Campaign founder Edward Leigh also criticised the county’s proposed withdrawal from the Cambridge Fringes joint development control committee. He said the committee was “critically important to ensuring spatial and transport planning decisions are made in a co-ordinated way”.

Leigh told LTT the county council’s proposal to withdraw from both committees was “symptomatic of a breakdown of relationships” on transport between the Conservative-controlled county and the Labour-controlled city.

The county has blocked further residents parking schemes in the city, against the city council’s wishes. The county has also been critical of the city council’s support for some form of road charging in the city (LTT 10 Jan).

Birmingham to dual Cambs saves £10m section of radial road with bridge retender

ROADS

BIRMINGHAM CITY Council has outlined plans to dual about a mile of radial road in the northwest of the city.

The £29.5m A457 Dudley Road improvement scheme involves dualling the road between the A4040 outer ring road and the A4540 ring road, a distance of about 0.8 miles. The A457 connects the Black Country with central Birmingham.

Birmingham says the scheme will support the delivery of thousands of new homes, including many on the Birmingham City Hospital site beside the road. The hospital was due to relocate by 2018 but is not now expected to do so until 2022.

A segregated cycleway will be installed along part of the northern side of the carriageway.

The Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership is contributing £22.4m to the project from its Local Growth Fund allocation, subject to final approval of the scheme business case by the DfT. The council is prepared to provide the remainder of the funding from prudential borrowing and its integrated transport block. The borrowing will be repaid from bus lane enforcement

ROADS

Dudley Road: dualling

revenue. Birmingham’s contribution will be reduced if West Midlands Combined Authority is successful in a bid for £5m from the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) towards the scheme.

Negotiations with land and property owners are continuing but compulsory purchase orders may be necessary.

In a report to cabinet last week, officers warned that Covid-19 could disrupt the delivery plans.

A council spokeswoman told LTT this week the report had been withdrawn to allow some additional updates, “including future project mitigation measures in response to Covid-19”. It will be resubmitted to councillors in due course.

CAMBRIDGESHIRE COUNTY Council expects to save almost £10m after retendering the contract to replace a railway level crossing with a bridge.

About 14,000 vehicles use King’s Dyke level crossing, on the A605 near Whittlesey, between Peterborough and March, each weekday. Congestion often builds up because the railway handles about 120 trains a day.

Cambridgeshire appointed Kier on a two-stage design and build contract for a bridge in 2017. Last August the council decided to reprocure the construction contract on the open market after Kier raised its target cost a second time. The contractor had initially quoted £7.9m, then upped it to £15.8m, before raising it again to £26.2m (LTT 30 Aug 19).

Kier’s second rise would have taken the project cost to £41.6m.

Cambridgeshire’s approved budget for the scheme was just £30m, of which about £8m has been spent so far.

The £30m comprises £5.6m from the county council, £8m of Local Growth Fund, and £16.4m from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Author-

ity’s share of the DfT’s Transforming Cities Fund grant (LTT 09 Nov 18).

Steve Cox, Cambridgeshire’s executive director for economy and place, told councillors last week that the preferred bidder’s quote meant the scheme budget would increase to £32m. But he said this was still almost £10m below the cost if Kier’s revised price had been accepted.

The council is to ask the combined authority to fund £1.2m of the £2m additional budget requirement, in line with a 40/60 per cent funding agreement for the scheme between the county and combined authority.

Cambridgeshire envisages construction commencing in December 2020, with the bridge opening in December 2022.

Cox said Covid-19 could have a “significant impact” on the project, however. “Given the rapidly changing position with the virus and government responses, it is difficult to accurately quantify the risks. This is made even more challenging by it not being possible to discuss the impact with the preferred bidder until the notification of award has been issued following committee approval.”

The council is to establish a £1.5m Covid-19 contingency budget for the project.

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News 17

In Brief

Swindon adds more pledges to town centre travel strategy

TOWN CENTRES

Fleming Way: bus boulevard

by Andrew Forster

SWINDON BOROUGH Council has revised a town centre movement strategy after the draft version was widely criticised during a consultation.

“It is clear that the draft of June 2019 has drawn little support from any interested parties or from the public,” said officers in a report to the council’s cabinet last week. “A significant re-draft has therefore been necessary.”

Among the most frequent criticisms were that the strategy focused too heavily on road traffic and gave little consideration to place-making. Bus operator Swindon’s Bus Company called the strategy “unimaginative” and said it could create “serious operating and commercial difficulties for bus operators”. It was a missed opportunity to support mode shift away from the car, it added.

The council has now published the revised strategy featuring 25 proposed interventions. The 13 of the draft document have been “simplified and clarified” and supplemented “with a range of other interventions that reflect suggestions made by consultees”.

One of the key interventions that featured in the original draft and remains in the final version is the creation of a bus boulevard on

Fleming Way, between Milford Street and Princes Street (LTT 29 Mar 19). The street is already served by most of the town’s bus services and in future it will handle all services including National Express services. This will allow the closure of what the council says is the “unattractive” and poorly connected bus station that currently handles inter-urban and regional services.

“As well as providing a stateof-the-art bus facility, the bus boulevard scheme will deliver significant urban realm improvements, not least of which is the lowering of Fleming Way to allow the existing pedestrian subway to be replaced with a surface-level crossing,” says the council.

General vehicle traffic will be prohibited from the bus boulevard section of Fleming Way but taxi access will be retained.

The railway, which runs eastwest across the town, creates a

West Mids procures framework for DRT

BUSES

THE WEST Midlands Combined Authority is inviting bus operators to apply to join a framework for demand responsive transport (DRT).

WMCA wants to set up “intelligent” DRT operations when funding becomes available.

“A flexible arrangement is required to capture various locations that may come online during the framework, which is to be for a period of no longer than ten years,” says the combined authority.

Operators should be in a position to deliver services towards the end of 2020.

“The solution needs to be high frequency and demand responsive, capable of integrating with the WMCA's Swift ticketing, and operate on-

demand plus pre-booked pickup and set-down journeys in each area concerned.”

The framework will consist of two lots: • A technology platform, including a customer app, dispatch engine operating system, and driver app/interface • An operating platform featuring vehicles, fleet maintenance and operations WMCA says a maximum tenyear framework agreement is required because “not all funding streams and potential DRT locations are known at the time of tendering”. “This will allow operators and technology providers sufficient time to invest in suitable vehicles, staff and equipment to service the needs of the framework.”

Awards under the framework will usually be made via a minicompetition.

barrier to town centre movement, separating the traditional town centre to the south from the designer outlet shopping centre to the north.

The council wants to improve pedestrian and cycling accessibility across the railway and will explore improvements to the Bristol Street and Sheppard Street underpasses. It also wants to work with Network Rail on a new crossing west of the station as a longer-term aspiration.

Station Road and Holbrook Way, which parallel one another south of the railway station, will be reconfigured, retaining the “required highway capacity” but reallocating “unnecessary traffic space” for improved footways, cycle facilities and landscaping.

The parallel Farnsby Street/ Milton Road and Commercial Road/Cromby Street corridors will be similarly treated.

The council is to explore ways of relieving congestion on Corpo-

ration Street, a north-south road that passes under the railway east of the station. The investigations will focus on the section of the road between Great Western Way north of the railway and Manchester Road to the south. The works will improve car access to the town centre and reduce congestion on Great Western Way. Great Western Way serves as a western and northern bypass of the town centre, extending as far as junction 16 of the M4 on the western edge of the town. The council plans to improve the road’s operation by junction investments and installing an urban traffic management and control (UTMC) system.

“Similar to the ‘managed motorway’ initiatives now being rolled out by Highways England, a UTMC system will allow strategic control of traffic signals and signing along the corridor,” says Swindon. “Monitoring equipment will allow decisions about signal timings to be made in direct response to changing traffic patterns, allowing queues to be better managed.”

A town centre parking strategy in December 2017 reported that there were 20 public car parks within the central area offering 5,100 spaces. Demand “falls comfortably within the available capacity”, says the new strategy.

Council forced to rethink P&R operation

BUSES

WOKINGHAM BOROUGH Council is rethinking how a new park-and-ride site will be served after the owners of a nearby business park requested significantly more cash to serve the facility with their shuttle buses.

The 258-space park-and-ride site is located at Thames Valley Park, at the end of the A329(M), on the eastern edge of Reading and adjacent to the Thames Valley Business Park.

During the planning stages of the site, Wokingham reached in principle agreement with the business park’s management that its shuttle buses between Reading town centre and the business park would serve the facility. The council would have provided a 50 per cent share of car park revenues to contribute towards the upkeep of the

service.

Wokingham has now abandoned the plan, saying the business park subsequently asked for a “significantly higher financial contribution”.

The council now plans to tender a dedicated park-and-ride contract, operating between 07.00 and 19.00 Monday to Friday.

A £6 all-day parking fee will apply at the site from Mondays to Fridays, regardless of the duration of the stay. At weekends and bank holidays parking charges will be £1.50 an hour up to a maximum of four hours, and £6 for longer.

“It is intended that the bus service will be funded by the council using revenue collected from on-site parking,” said Sarah Hollamby, Wokingham’s director for place and growth, in a report to councillors last week.

Exact fare-only on buses in S Wales Stagecoach in South Wales will introduce an exact fare system for bus passengers paying with cash from 4 May in order to reduce the risk of transmitting Covid-19. The policy is in line with an instruction given to bus operators in Wales by the transport minister Ken Skates last month. “Where contactless payment facilities are not available on your services I ask that you immediately adopt a ‘no change given’ policy whereby passengers will not be offered change when purchasing travel tickets on the bus,” Skates told operators in a letter. “This will further reduce the need for close contact between the driver and passengers, as well as unnecessary cash handling.” Stagecoach said its policy was a temporary arrangement. Any additional revenue it generates will be donated to the NHS Charities Together Appeal that supports NHS staff and workers.

‘Make EV charging signs green’ AA members have backed the idea of changing the colour of the P for parking on electric vehicle charging signs from blue to green. The idea was supported by more than eight out of ten of the 17,500 members surveyed.

Micromobility review extended The Government has extended the call for evidence period for its Future of transport regulatory review until 3 July because of Covid-19. The review is considering micromobility, flexible bus services, and mobility as a service (LTT 03 Apr).

NHS trials drones to serve Isle of Wight Trials of drones to transport medical supplies from the mainland to St Mary’s Hospital, near Newport on the Isle of Wight, were due to get underway this week. The Government has fasttracked the trials because of Covid-19. They form part of Solent Transport’s Future Transport Zone programme, which the DfT awarded £28m to in March, of which £8m is for the drone trials (LTT 22 Nov 19). The drones were always to be tested first with the NHS, partly because public perception is expected to be more favourable if they are used for health purposes.

Virus puts spending review on ice Covid-19 has prompted the Government to postpone the spending review that had been planned to take place this summer.

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News 19

BUSINESS

FirstGroup seeks £300m loan to cope with virus disruption PUBLIC TRANSPORT

FIRSTGROUP HAS requested £300m from the UK Government’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility (‘CCFF’) scheme to increase its liquidity during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The £300m is the maximum allowed based on First’s credit rating. It will increase the company’s committed headroom and free cash to circa £800m. Of the remainder, £190m is free cash and £310m bank credit facilities.

First outlined the impact of Covid-19 on its five business divisions last week. Chief executive Matthew Gregory said: “As an organisation we have taken rapid action to manage our costs, preserve cash and protect the group’s financial position. The long-term fundamentals of our businesses remain sound.”

FirstBus is operating about 40 per cent of normal capacity and passenger volumes are about 90 per cent below normal. The DfT, Scottish and Welsh governments have all put in place financial

First: bus passengers down 90 per cent

support packages for the bus industry. First welcomed Transport Scotland’s commitment to maintain concessionary fares, Bus Service Operators Grant and tender revenues through to March 2021.

All UK rail franchises are operating under the Government’s emergency measures agreements announced on 23 March, and will continue to do so until at least 20 September. Operators are being paid a fixed management fee during this time.

First operates four franchises:

Great Western, TransPennine, South Western (with MTR) and West Coast (with Trenitalia). Its open access operator Hull Trains suspended operations on 29 March, initially for eight weeks.

First has placed a “substantial proportion” of its workforce in the UK and North America onto Government furlough schemes.

Gregory and First’s chief financial officer have taken 20 per cent salary reductions for an initial three months. The chairman and non-executive directors have taken the same reduction in fees.

A wider group of senior employees across the company have made voluntary salary reductions and deferrals for the same period.

Covid-19 has disrupted the sale process of First’s three North American businesses: intercity coach operator Greyhound, education transport provider First Student, and workplace transport provider First Transit.

First said Greyhound was wellplaced to receive funding from the US federal stimulus package (the ‘CARES Act’) signed into

Garages make way for EV charging

EV CHARGING

HUNDREDS OF lock-up garages in London and the Home Counties could be replaced by electric vehicle charging stations under a business agreement struck between SSE Enterprise and InfraTech Property Solutions (IPS).

SSE Enterprise is part of energy business the SSE Group.

IPS manages hundreds of garage sites across the capital and Home Counties.

The companies envisage building ‘digital community hubs’ featuring rapid electric vehicle

stations, 5G, and Edge computing on the sites. The latter brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, to improve response times and save bandwidth.

Each facility would have between ten and 20 charging bays.

SSE Enterprise will design, develop and operate the facilities, with the aim of rolling them out at up to 1,000 IPS managed sites across London and the Home Counties. The concept will be piloted near Heathrow Airport terminal 4 later this year, providing charging for local delivery vehi-

cles and electric taxis.

Solar and battery technology, as well as distributed energy generation, will be deployed at the hubs to ease pressure on the electricity grid.

Kevin Welstead, SSE Enterprise EV sector director, said: “Space in the capital to build charging hubs is like gold dust, but thanks to the network of lockup garages tucked away across the city managed by IPS, we can build a network that could charge a tenth of all EVs in London.”

Iceni Projects is advising SSE Enterprise and IPS on planning and property matters.

HE frameworks for concrete roads ROADS

HIGHWAYS ENGLAND is to appoint consultants and contractors to three frameworks for managing its concrete roads.

HE’s Strategic Roads Network (SRN) includes about 600 miles of concrete pavement, termed ‘Legacy concrete’, which is either exposed concrete or concrete with a covering of no more than 50mm of asphalt.

HE says the concrete has

exceeded its design life and anticipated traffic loads.

It wants to repair the good concrete and maintain it in a safe condition until full reconstruction becomes needed. About £330m is earmarked for the work in roads period 2 (2020/21-2024/25).

Three frameworks will be procured: • Design – two suppliers • Lifecycle extension works – a multi-lot specialist contractor framework that will deliver

repairs to maximise the life of the existing concrete pavement • Reconstruction works – two suppliers on a design and build arrangement with works to include demolishing existing pavement and replacement; overlaying of concrete pavements; and changes to or replacement of associated assets such as subsurface drainage.

The tender for the three frameworks is due to commence in June.

law on 27 March. This allocates $326m in emergency funds to US states to support continued intercity bus transportation. First expects Greyhound to be a “major recipient” of the fund.

Greyhound has seen revenues fall circa 80 per cent since the start of the virus outbreak. It is providing just over a third of its pre-outbreak mileage.

First Student expects negotiations with clients to result in circa 53 per cent of normal home-toschool revenue being secured during the virus outbreak. A number of clients have reduced payments to reflect First’s ability to mitigate certain labour and fuel-related costs while no services are running. Adjusting for this, First says its effective recovery rate is circa 61 per cent of pre-crisis expectations.

First Transit is operating at approximately 60 per cent of its activity levels prior to the outbreak. It expects to recover the equivalent of 75 per cent of the divisional revenue expected prior to the crisis.

‘Keep consultancy work flowing’ Public authorities have been urged to keep a steady flow of transport consultancy opportunities coming forward to help the sector through the Covid-19 pandemic. Writing on Linked-in, David Young, a director at transport consultant SCP, said there had been a “significant drop-off” in the number of tender notices advertised on the OJEU [Official Journal of the European Union] portal. “During Covid-19 it is essential that we keep people and businesses working wherever possible. This avoids jobs at risk and furlough costs to the taxpayer. Local government needs to continue to put opportunities out to the market and barriers, like funding confidence and lack of resources, need to be addressed.”

Traffic Scotland contract extension Transport Scotland has extended Amey’s contract for Traffic Scotland operations and infrastructure services by 15 months until October 2021, with an option to extend by an additional five months to March 2022. The extension will ensure service continuity during and after the Covid-19 outbreak.

Failure of aviation virus deal attacked

AVIATION

THE LABOUR Party this week criticised the Government for failing to agree a bespoke funding deal to help the aviation sector through the Covid-19 crisis.

The criticism came as British Airways’ owner International Airlines Group announced plans to make 12,000 BA staff redundant.

The Government initially promised an aviation sector deal, only to backtrack on the commitment (LTT 17 Apr).

Shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: “The Government should have stepped in and done more to protect their jobs. The whole aviation industry is critical to the UK economy. It was always clear aviation needed a sector-specific deal to alleviate the immediate financial pressures that exist, yet the Government has failed to act leaving people without jobs.”

IAG’s letter to BA staff, headlined ‘Collective consultations – preparing for a different future’, said: “The impact on British Airways and the industry in general is like no other previous crisis we have gone through before. We are now at a critical juncture and must table proposals for structural change so that our business is in a credible position to respond to what will be a challenging and uncertain trading environment for a sustained period of time."

The aviation sector does not expect to recover quickly.

Gatwick Airport’s owners said last week they expect it to take three to four years for passenger numbers to return to the levels seen before Covid-19.

The airport has slashed costs in response to the plummeting passenger demand. On 1 April operations were consolidated into its South Terminal and scheduled flights were limited to between 14.00 and 22.00.

The airport’s capital investment programme has been deferred and more than 90 per cent of eligible staff have been put on the Government’s job retention scheme.

Gatwick has secured a £300m loan from a consortium of banks to improve liquidity.

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LTT797 Richard Dilks.qxp_LTT758_p0 01/05/2020 07:36 Page 23

TransportXtra.com/ltt

Comment 21

MOBILITY MATTERS

Social inclusion on wheels

Richard Dilks CoMoUK

B

lind spots. We all have them.

When cycling I am often (every few seconds if I am being good) checking mine. It can be quite amazing what you find lurking there: buses; other riders; a shouting moped-rider once (I was the innocent party. No, really).

Shared transport, like a lot of services, has something of a blind spot in terms of socio-economic inclusion. So too does public transport, come to that. Poverty premia are a well-established concept in consumer markets from banking to energy and beyond and they apply to transport too of course. If we are on the road to net zero greenhouse gas emissions then that is one of many things that will have to change. Poor or non-existent provision of sustainable transport risks sending an unwritten message to people: get a car as soon as you can afford one.

It might be tempting at this point to reach for the subsidy bowl. To a degree this is correct – in the sense that we accept that some parts of public transport are profitable and some are not but that there is a greater societal goal to be served and hence subsidies are justified. But simply throwing public money at an issue will always be a blunt tool, however necessary it might be.

That’s because not all the barriers can be solved by money and because we need to be clued-up about where any subsidy should go.

What I want to focus on here are the subsidy-light routes, where significant capital spending is not needed.

We at CoMoUK speak from experience here – the experience of adapting a social inclusion bike share idea from the United States (known as Better Bike Share) to Glasgow, delivered with a range of fantastic partners (the Scottish Gov-

ernment; Bike For Good; Nextbike as the scheme operator in Glasgow; Paths For All; the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and Cycling Scotland). Without each of those partners, the project would not have happened – which is a learning point in itself.

This was not a scheme to build a new bike share system, although we did get plenty of feedback that residents would like more bike share provision in poorer parts of Glasgow (which is where the argument for intelligently-directed subsidy does become part of the picture).

Rather, this was about getting different people onto the existing shared bikes the city has. In this case, we managed to get very different people onto those bikes: 28 per cent of them unemployed; 76 per cent not owning their own property; 36 per cent with either asylum seeker of refugee status; 49 per cent from a black or other minority ethnicity; 61 per cent coming from an area within the 20 per cent most deprived in Scotland.

These are far from the normal range of statistics for any transport scheme’s users. For example, our national bike share user surveys reported 66 per cent of respondents as White British in 2019, down from 73 per cent in 2018.

We achieved 12,262 extra rides, which gives an interesting indication of untapped demand. So what was done differently, and what can we all learn from that?

I think there were three key things we and the partners did: identifying and then lowering barriers; working with community groups; and sticking at it while learning as we went along.

This was not something that was perfectly mapped at the start and then merely implemented for three years; it was more iterative and interactive than that, which I see very much as a strength and not a weakness. Too much emphasis in transport service and infrastructure planning goes on getting it right from the start; too little on adapting to lessons learned, feedback and changing needs. One of the key reasons aviation safety has taken such giant strides in the last few decades is the sector’s ‘no fault’ accident investigation practice.

We took time with the partners to understand the barriers that people on lower incomes, who are more likely to not have English as a first language, and more likely to live in economically deprived areas or areas

of multiple deprivation, faced in accessing a bike share scheme. One person’s mountain is another’s molehill, and requirements that are insignificant for those on higher incomes were real blockers in this case. So we took away the need to have a bank account or a smartphone, and we cut the annual membership fee from £60 to £3. We waived damage payments and offered a freephone telephone number.

Yet just because someone can now access something does not mean they will use it. So we also worked with organisations that were on the ground already dealing with a host of other (mostly more important) issues including but not limited to housing associations, the Red Cross, asylum and refugee groups. There were staff on hand to help people sign up.

Transport schemes have a habit of ‘helicoptering’ in with solutions (and

– it takes away both the need for upfront capital spend on a car or bike (or monthly payments to make) as well as the risk of theft or breakages.

There are also common lessons here for other forms of inclusion.

The work I have been describing focused on economic inclusion and certain kinds of social inclusion in particular, but of course there could be other variants. Age is an obvious one, reminding me of the story of how Vienna’s transport system takes all those qualifying for their free age-related transport pass on a tour of the system to show how it works and answer questions – all rounded off with coffee and cake.

There are also lessons here about how to fine-tune an offer to users – which transport must get better at – how to give people what they want, even if they don’t quite yet know it is what they want.

I am hopeful that other places in

We managed to get very different people onto bikes: 28 per cent of them unemployed; 36 per cent with either asylum seeker or refugee status; and 49 per cent from a black or other ethnic minority. then buzzing off again); this was more about weaving transport into lots of other daily life issues and using trusted channels of communication that were already there rather than trying to quickly establish them on a particular topic. Combine these two steps for best effect – then you can listen to what potential users are saying and do something about it.

So now we have someone able to get on a shared bike who likely would not have been on it otherwise, and we have them trying it out. How do we keep them involved rather than it be a one-hit wonder? Again, listening was really important: organised group rides; women-only rides; navigation rides – all designed to boost confidence and all based on what users and potential users said they wanted to see.

There are common lessons to be drawn out from this work that could apply in so many parts of the country. If we are to hit those greenhouse gas emissions that people like me are always droning on about then we cannot do that only with people with above-average earnings. In fact shared transport is well-placed here

the UK can benefit from this sort of approach. Many places around the world have understood the crosssubsidy point to at least some degree – witness US cities who grant more permits to micromobility operators if they agree to operate in areas that the city wants to give extra more sustainable transport options to that the market on its own would fail to provide for. This shapes where the bikes or e-scooters are based.

Even better would be to combine these approaches with investment decisions on infrastructure. That way routes can join up with the transport assets and the people using them. To plan a rail line but have no trains to run on it would be quite a large blind spot, after all.

Richard Dilks is chief executive of CoMoUK, the charity that promotes the social, environmental and economic benefits of shared transport. He was previously programme director for transport at the capital’s business lobby organisation, London First. Email: richard@como.org.uk

LTT797 Viewpoint and letters.qxp_LTT759_pXX 01/05/2020 07:21 Page 20

22 Comment

VIEWPOINT

LTT797 01 May - 14 May 2020

We’ve pressed pause on the capital’s transport system, now let’s press reset Emma Gibson London TravelWatch

I recently asked the team at London TravelWatch whether they thought their travel patterns would change once the office re-opened. Worries about crowded commuter trains and having to touch handrails on the Tube came flooding out, no doubt echoing the fears of people all over London and the commuter belt.

At London TravelWatch we’re privileged to be able to do our jobs from our bedrooms and kitchen tables at the moment. But many Londoners aren’t as fortunate and have either lost their jobs, been furloughed, or are having to try and get to work despite the risks.

So what can we expect to be different when we all get back to work and school?

Firstly, there is no doubt that home-working is here to stay. Before the crisis, I knew several CEOs who were sceptical that remote working could work for their business. But with many offices now in the swing of using Microsoft Teams and Zoom for video meetings, this isn’t a scepticism that will be allowed to continue.

A recent Yougov poll showed that 40 per cent of people thought they could work from home. So bosses need to brace themselves for a deluge of requests to keep working at home, at least for some days of the week. If an institution as archaic as the Houses of Parliament can do debates and select committees by Zoom then that’s proof that most office-based businesses can do it too. And with social distancing looking set to continue

People who are able to work at home will probably be the last allowed to come back onto public transport.

In Passing

Some people are never happy. As we report elsewhere, Swindon Borough Council has made changes to its town centre movement strategy after the draft document attractive a few brickbats during a consultation. But it’s all too little for one consultee who told the council, “You need to think bigger, demolish the town centre and start again.”

One of the mild irritations that comes with this job is trying to make sense of projects that often go by vague names. Such as the ‘Western corridor smarter travel scheme’ or the ‘Making our healthy streets safer areabased phase 1 improvements’. It’s reassuring, however, to report that it’s not just hacks who get a little hacked off at this. Sub-national transport body Transport for the South East has been trying to fathom out how many of its trunk road priorities made it into Highways England’s new five-year plan, the Roads Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2) published in March. And the answer is, er, um, dunno.

for some time, people who are able to work at home will probably be the last people allowed to come back onto public transport.

In the longer term, not only will more homeworking halt the inexorable rise in demand for public transport in London, it will give many of us a better quality of life, allowing us to be there to help with our kids’ homework, go for a run in the morning or start an evening class.

Allowing employees to work more flexibly will also enable people to travel at less busy times, allowing them to continue with social distancing advice. If I changed my hours from the current 9-5 and instead worked 11-7 I’d be able to travel into London on an off-peak train, instead of being crammed in with my fellow commuters. It would also save me money. The argument for part-time rail season tickets has never been stronger. If many of us reduce the number of days a week we come into the office, then paying for a seven-day-a-week season ticket that we only use twice a week makes no sense at all. With employers already starting to talk about bringing in staggered ‘shift’ patterns for their staff, enforced flexible working is already looking inevitable for the short to medium term.

I can only hope that one unintended benefit of this pandemic will be that we’ll all become more responsible commuters, mindful of hygiene and staying at home if we’re not feeling well. instead of spreading our germs to fellow travellers and colleagues. Fewer people off will surely help with our economic recovery.

In terms of lowering the risks of virus transmission, London has had the foresight to bring in contactless travel in terms of both the Oyster card and contactless card payments. In that sense London is way ahead of other parts of the UK where using cash on buses is still the norm.

Another trend that it would be great to ‘bake in’ is the increased number of us walking and getting on our bikes at the moment. People are telling me how great it is to cycle on near-empty roads in the last few weeks and surely that’s a change we need to make permanent.

The mayor of London wants more of us to walk and cycle and that might mean following in the footsteps of Milan and making more roads off-limits to cars once the pandemic is over. If we want to realise the mayor’s ‘Healthy Streets’ vision then perhaps we need to realign investment so that it supports tailored changes at a local level, rather than investing in big ticket projects that take decades to complete.

During the lockdown Transport for London has seen ‘hotspot’ stations, mainly in East London where at certain times of day, for short periods, social distancing has been harder to maintain. It may well be that people living in those areas are less likely to have the kind of jobs where they can work at home, so tailored solutions such as Santander Bikes points at those stations could be considered for those areas.

Finally, there’s lots of talk about a ‘green recovery’ from Covid-19. Although some people are using their cars to get to work when they used to use public transport, there has not yet been a large switch to car use in London. This has resulted in huge improvements in air quality, and people new to cycling are reporting feeling much safer because of the relative lack of traffic. In our climate-changing world, surely a recovery that rebuilds public trust in walking, cycling and using public transport is preferable to one in which we allow the car to dominate our precious shared space.

Only time will tell if people’s behaviour and expectations will change in the long-term or if, like in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, there is an initial wariness to return to public transport but that confidence eventually bounces back. However we emerge from lockdown, it’s crucial that the views of transport users be heard so that the services on offer build confidence and meet their needs.

Three definitely made the grade, another five are in the pipeline for RIS3, and six didn’t make it. But TfSE is unclear about another four because “the titles used do not necessarily enable the scope of the schemes to be determined”. “The DfT have been asked to provide further clarity on exactly what has been included within the schemes set out in the RIS2 programme. A further update will be provided once that information is available.”

final pieces of correspondence in the file adds a few extra whistles to BoJo’s plan. “I would like to submit to you the exciting Power Bridge in response to your desire to link Portpatrick [in Dumfries and Galloway] and Larne,” begins the unnamed Stockholm-based architectural office, showing it misunderstands who’s championing the project. “Our concept is to combine a complete transportation infrastructure with a wind turbine farm. The foundations of the bridge are extended upwards into pylons each supporting a 1,500 MW wind turbine. 140 of these pylons placed along the length of the bridge will carry an equal amount of turbines producing 210 000 kWh of electricity, about 1,800 million kW per year. Regarding transportation, the bridge will boast four car lanes on the upper level separated by a service lane dedicated to the wind turbines' maintenance as well as two train lanes on the lower level.” As they say, you read it here first. And quite possibly, last.

Boris Johnson’s idea of a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland has already morphed into a tunnel but things could yet get a whole lot more ambitious. Following a Freedom of Information request, the Scottish Government has released a 76-page file of correspondence about the link idea. Most of it comprises emails from members of the public and journalists, enquiring about the Scottish Government’s position on the project.

To all, the Government responds with broadly the same bland lines – we have no plans blah blah blah. One of the

Emma Gibson was appointed director of passenger watchdog London Travelwatch in January, having previously worked for Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

LTT797 Viewpoint and letters.qxp_LTT759_pXX 01/05/2020 07:21 Page 21

TransportXtra.com/ltt

Climate assemblies speak for nobody but themselves

I was alarmed to read that the climate change citizens’ assembly set up by the London Borough of Croydon has decreed that folks not backing the Government’s net zero greenhouse gas emissions target should be “identified and punished” (‘Punish people who don’t back Net Zero’ LTT 3 Apr).

I wonder what they had in mind exactly: burning at the stake for eco-heretics, perhaps? Stocks for the climate sceptics? Or show trials demanding recantation and a one-way trip to the nearest gulag? The mind boggles.

What crackpot ideas will they come up with next?

No doubt they will add a new word to the English language in due course – one probably ending in -ite or -ist – to label anyone who dares to think for themselves, or hold an opinion different to the one they are supposed to have on environmental issues.

Only people who have no confidence in their cause act like this.

Climate assemblies do not represent me or millions of other people. They do not speak for us either, and I very much resent the privileged status they enjoy to pontificate on issues that most of them are unqualified to make.

They are the nearest things to soviets seen in this country. They can deny it is as much as they like, but these set ups are invariably composed of the usual suspects – i.e. by the self-appointed, self-opinionated and self-serving clique of professional whingers and busybodies – for whom life is simply not complete without their need to micro-manage the affairs of everyone else.

Whether that be lecturing us on what we should think, say and do, or how we should travel, eat and spend our money, etc.

And guided as well, I note, by “special advisers” – or tinpot commissars to just about everyone else – to make sure they think the right thoughts and vote the right way.

Most mature adults in a civilised country can usually agree to disagree, and leave things at that. They do not go on to denounce, demonise or dehumanise their opponents.

But that’s not how eco-warriors see things. The increasingly fanatical and intolerant tactics they use simply betray the fundamentally Marxist nature of this movement; it’s a sign of their unique footprint.

John Helm Chatham ME4

TfGM’s handling of Covid-19 shows it isn’t fit to run buses

I completely agree with Matthew Moll’s comment about the challenges Covid-19 presents the bus industry, but I draw exactly the opposite conclusion (“Covid 19 ‘could alter the terms of the UK bus franchising debate” LTT 17 Apr).

The deregulated bus industry has reacted with great speed to the changing circumstances and unprecedented fall in demand.

It has shown itself to be: • efficient – it is a low-cost industry in comparison to other modes. I estimate the weekly cost to the taxpayer of Covid-19 on the railways to be £180m, and to Transport for London about £103m. Whereas the provincial bus industry has been offered and is grateful for its additional £14m.

• a quick mover and willing to take commercial risk, adapting operations to suit lockdown in just ten days whilst maintaining critical services without knowledge of any additional financial assistance.

• able to work flexibly adapting to Public Health England guidance throughout its operations, and adopting social distancing • trustworthy – when existing rules and regulations have been relaxed, the industry has not abused these relaxations

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

• capable of working collaboratively with local authorities and between operators to introduce coordinated timetables, interavailable tickets, multi-operator publicity and agree reduced networks that still meet the needs of key workers • reliable and dependable – service performance is at an all-time high now that traffic congestion is removed, and despite the fact that large numbers of buses are still running, air quality has dramatically improved, proving that buses are not part of the problem, but the solution.

Contrast this to the situation in Greater Manchester, home to the arch proponents of bus franchising. Mayor Andy Burnham and Transport for Greater Manchester have decided to use the Covid-19 crisis to try to introduce franchising by the back door.

Despite Mr Burnham saying on Question Time that this “is not the time to play politics” he has done exactly that in his dealings with bus operators. TfGM attempted to delay Government support for the industry with a demand that operators agree to 11 conditions in an attempt to wrest control of the network from operators (‘Operators riled as TfGM attaches 11 conditions to tendered services cash’ LTT 03 Apr). It only backed down at the last moment when even it realised its demands were untenable.

Throughout the crisis, TfGM has shown itself to have incoherent decision-making, poor leadership and flawed policies. It continued running full tendered networks for three weeks after they became unnecessary based on passenger numbers carried; continued to run double deckers on school contracts with one or no children travelling; and changed its mind on service changes on several occasions.

Passenger information for tendered service changes has been issued late. For instance, it had been known that Manchester Community Transport would cease operations on 19 April for many weeks, but revised timetables including the withdrawal of three services were only available between one and three days before introduction.

TfGM’s stance has diluted the goodwill of operators and wasted considerable management time. It has exposed operating staff to potential harm when there was no need.

In this time of national crisis, the deregulated bus network and its operators have shown the ability to rapidly react to changing circumstances and provide essential transport for key workers. Contrast that to TfGM, which could have used this as an opportunity to demonstrate how well a centrally planned system might work, but has displayed inefficiency and arrogance, thus making a difficult situation far worse.

Julian Peddle Ipswich IP8

Virus has given a platform for progressive transport policies

The unplanned rapid demise of road traffic and other transport resulting from Covid-19 is a great boost to the environment, highlighting what could be achieved with progressive and sustainable transport policies for road, rail, sea and air. Removing traffic congestion and pollution has been beneficial to everyone, with cleaner air, less noise, reliable deliveries and so on.

It won’t stay this way but it has been good to see what a drastic reduction in demand looks like and also the increased walking and cycling.

The lack of financial support for airlines by the Government is entirely reasonable and is a move towards clearer skies and cleaner air. Similarly at a standstill, > MORE ON P24 SEND letters to be considered for publication to: Local Transport Today, Apollo House, 359 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5QY Email: ed.ltt@landor.co.uk (Letters may be edited)

Comment 23

Busload of problems As if coping with the Covid-19 lockdown was not challenging enough, Britain’s public transport providers are now facing an even more complex problem in planning for the phased lifting of restrictions on social and commercial activity.

The Government’s general message is one of caution, and measured steps out of the current social isolation policy towards more normal activities. It doesn’t want a sudden surge of people moving about in close proximity for journeys to work, school, shopping and leisure.

Is this the beginning of good news for bus and rail operators, who have seen massive drops in public transport use and revenues?

Perhaps not. First of all, continued social distancing is likely to be a requirement of any resumption of activities, which means that the numbers of people allowed to travel on individual buses and trains will be strictly limited. Managing that will be something of a nightmare, both operationally and commercially. Allowing loadings of only half or less of normal levels means providing capacity well beyond anything commercial for a considerable time going forward, and designating and enforcing appropriate seating layouts will be an enormous management challenge.

On the commercial side, the Government has already effectively picked up all the financial responsibilities on rail by suspending franchise arrangements. A deal for London’s transport remains in negotiation. For buses outside London, there will be a huge revenue shortfall to cover, and that will need either routing new Government money to the operators directly, or possibly via combined authorities where they exist. That choice is likely to be a controversial one in its own right.

There will be the opportunity for political grandstanding amongst those who have been wanting to shake up the bus regulatory system for some time. ‘If the industry cannot pay its way, why don’t we take it into public ownership?’ may be the argument. It could even be one that some amongst the exasperated and commercially damaged operators might be happy to go along with.

Another group of politically active campaigners will be calling for greater use of public transport and less use of private vehicles as part of their ‘let’s use the pandemic experience to make the case to tackle climate change’.

Just when you thought the climate argument was a timely opportunity for buses to play a bigger role, another problem has come along to stop them doing that job.

LTT797 Viewpoint and letters.qxp_LTT759_pXX 01/05/2020 07:21 Page 22

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (continued)

24 Comment

the cruiseliner business has boomed but is now bust for the time being with huge ships no longer consuming vast quantities of fuel to satisfy the lust for leisure.

The pandemic could be the start of a ‘decline and provide’ approach – in which we plan for fewer air miles, less consumption of resources, and a true balance between environmental rhetoric and action.

Alongside this should be the heavy promotion of rail and bus services once we have learned how to deal with social distancing. It certainly points the way towards ‘decide and provide’ with a much greater emphasis on the ‘decide’ part of the process.

Coach operators, an overlooked sector, are facing significant problems. Many of them, especially the smaller ones, will go out of business due to their market collapsing. This will be to the detriment of home-toschool services with fewer tenderers and higher prices, a loss of contracted journeys for larger businesses to get their staff to work, fewer scheduled services for people travelling to airports and student travel, plus the many leisure-related activities they enable. It also means that operators who provide both coach services and local bus services will shrink to survive. All in all, it’s an unpalatable picture with many expensive vehicles doing not very much or in most cases nothing.

On the plus side, freight services are temporarily avoiding the congestion caused by unfettered car use.

Given the huge shortage of drivers in the freight and delivery sectors, there may be job opportunities for those who have been ejected from their current roles.

Behind this is the point that we don’t actually need many of the items that we are inclined to buy. Therefore it doesn’t need to be carried anywhere – recent prioritisation suggests that some journeys and consignments are more important than others but also prompts a move to a more sustainable culture.

Nick Richardson Portsmouth PO6

Lockdown policies should be based on infection rate data

England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, has said that the lockdown or social distancing may last a year. He should wait for data before making such economically damaging comments.

For example: (a) The Lancet of 30 March suggests that the death rate for those under 60 who have been clinically diagnosed with Covid-19 is 0.32 percent (or three per 1,000) and 11 percent for those over 801 (b) data from two research groups in California suggest the infection rate may be (i) 50 to 80 times or (ii) 28 to 55 times higher than the official case count2 So, if, following the Californian studies, we (very

conservatively) assume the infection rate is 20 times higher than officially recorded, then the death rates per infection amount to 1.5 per 10,000 for the under 60s, and one per 200 among the over 80s. It’s against those numbers that questions about the lockdown policy should be judged.

However, since the studies cited above are preliminary and since the data may not apply globally, or to the UK in particular, a priority should be a UK survey to find the deaths per infection, subdivided by age. Only then should the professor speak, or rather, advise the Government so that it may speak, and only then when the economic effects of a prolonged lockdown are understood.

The subdivision by age may be particularly important. For example, I’ve heard that 90 per cent of deaths are among the aged and that most of them have preexisting health conditions. If so, the net effect of Covid-19 will be to end lives a few months prematurely, leading to a trivial effect on annual death rates.

Likewise, we need to know the extent to which those who have contracted Covid-19 may catch it again, or carry it.

The Government says it will be guided by the science. Without data, however, there is no science.

Instead of bleating when Sir Keir Starmer or others ask about an exit timetable, the Government should say that the timetable cannot be developed in the absence of data, as above, and that data is being collected as fast as possible.

That said, one could support the present policy in so far as it is intended to avoid the NHS being overwhelmed. Even so, Sweden’s relaxed approach has lead to a lower death rate than the UK’s3, perhaps because of lower population densities. Who knows?

1 https://tinyurl.com/vo6hzak

2 https://tinyurl.com/y7mtqnd5 3 The Times, 25 April

Paul Withrington Director, Transport-Watch Northampton NN2

Dos and don’ts for policy-makers after Covid-19

Please, oh please, UK Government, don’t let us return to what was our ‘normal’ when we emerge from the coronavirus emergency.

Don’t: • return to the contradictory transport policies we have seen so far in the 21st century which, on the one hand, call for reduced/zero carbon emissions but, on the other, promote aviation and the provision of more highway capacity that leads to more road trips and poor air In World War Two there was plenty of poster art to deliver equivalent messages to those we are now seeing about the war on the Covid-19 virus, writes Peter Stonham.

One of the most famous was ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’, produced by designer Bert Thomas (left).

It’s been reused a number of times – including the need to reduce travel for environmental purposes, and now to support the national lockdown to deal with the pandemic.

With our obvious transport connections, and the massive impact on the sector, we were sent an alternative version with another twist (right). As the death rate has started to plateau, the debate about the lockdown’s duration and coverage has grown because of its adverse consequences for individuals and the economy.

Paul Withrington explores the subject in his letter.

LTT797 01 May - 14 May 2020

quality • hold back from funding investigations into ‘green’ technologies/alternatives to fossil fuels • further weaken the planning system and making it ever easier for unsustainable housing and highway projects to be built whilst not making it compulsory that all new developments meet high eco standards and provide green lungs/open spaces • demand more housing and other infrastructure than is justified by the latest population data • remove from elected local authority representatives the right to determine local planning/transport interventions, but require them to take air quality into account in making decisions • retain the current, flawed, transport appraisal system which is based on assumptions that traffic will increase (not now likely to materialise) and that all time spent on trains is wasted • prioritise the economy to the extent that the environment is put at risk, for instance by rushing to support travel for the sake of it or poorly designed schemes to get things moving • try to pretend that the whole Covid-19 thing, (or something similar), could never happen again or that its rapid spread had nothing to do with international travel And don’t fail to learn from best practice in other countries. Be looking around now to learn lessons.

For a better future, do: • seize the moment to promote environmentally sound practices and sustainable lifestyles, shortened supply chains (eg. more local foods for local markets) and transport innovations • re-prioritise ‘reducing the need to travel’ by encouraging self-sustaining local communities • discourage unnecessary travel with a fuel pricing system that recognises the environmental damage done by traditional fuels and by reconsidering a road pricing system • make it easier to work from home by requiring all new homes to be designed with a proper work/study area or office and ensuring all homes have access to fast broadband • confine road investment to local safety improvements for the foreseeable future in view of the exponential rise in home working and the reduction in commuting (which was apparent prior to the Covid-19 crisis). Refocus transport spending on sustainable modes/active travel.

• scrap the roads programme and treat land as the finite resource it is, requiring sequential land-use policies that prioritise regeneration initiatives and ‘brownfield first’ and protect areas with special designations, important open spaces and countryside for their health/wellbeing value • In view of hugely reduced business travel forecasts, re-evaluate HS2’s economic case versus its environ-

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mental impacts and rescind the notice to proceed. Refocus instead on providing new stations and more passing loops, re-opening closed stations and lines, providing better rolling stock/more carriages, upgraded signalling and station facilities and longer platforms • support zero carbon, carbon capture and tree planting schemes (including a return to tree-lined streets in urban areas). Ensure adequate funding for maintaining newly-planted trees • help to suppress the re-emergence of demand for overseas travel by investing in initiatives aimed at reinvigorating the UK holiday, hospitality, leisure and entertainment sectors • have in place robust Covid-19 recovery plans that factor in climate change mitigation and also resilience plans (and the emergency supplies necessary to back them up) for future epidemics/ cataclysmic events which will prioritise food and medical supplies and the safety and health of key workers, including those who keep transport systems functioning.

Lillian Burns Prestbury, Cheshire SK10

Life after the virus: don’t return us to where we came from

The scope of the DfT’s transport regulatory review is too limited and too reliant on technological fixes that will only have a very limited impact on travel habits, and tackling the adverse effects of excess travel (‘Regulatory review to unleash transport’s innovating spirit’ LTT 03 Apr). What is urgently needed is policy changes, without which the Government’s stated aims of reducing the dominance of the car, and thereby killed and serious injuries and air pollution, will not be met.

Covid-19 has shown that: • pollution can be dramatically reduced – by a third to a half • we have more than enough roadspace for essential journeys and all freight • congestion can be avoided – so can most road deaths and serious injuries (KSI) • it is possible for many people to work at home at least some of the time • people are flexible, e.g. using local shops within walking / cycling distance can replace many (car-based) trips, as can home deliveries The choice now is: do we want to go back to ‘normal’ where: • many die prematurely from pollution levels way above safe World Health Organisation limits • congestion is chronic on both urban and inter-urban roads • KSIs are at epidemic levels – deterring people from cycling / walking • there is severe overcrowding at peaks on all forms of rail / but under-use off-peak • daily commuting is the norm for most people five days per week • people drive to the supermarket and ignore local shops • few people walk, very few cycle; • we have high levels of obesity • traffic models assume all driving is essential Or, do we want to go forward to a better, safer, more civilised society?

The DfT’s recent cycling and walking investment strategy safety review failed to result in any significant policy changes – despite several sensible proposals from consultees.

We need changes as soon as possible, such as: • driver liability presumed when vulnerable road users are injured – as per EU countries • drivers must give way when turning – we need zebra crossings at side road entries (without belisha beacons) • driving licence retest every ten years, and every five years for elderly drivers • taxes on car use – not car ownership • workplace parking charges to deter car commuting,

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Comment 25

with only disabled parking exempt • no free parking at supermarkets/leisure centres/parks • congestion charges on all Thames crossings (and £2.50 is too low) and to enter Heathrow Airport • no exemptions for taxis / private hire from London’s congestion charge, nor from banned turns etc • advisory (or narrow) cycle lanes should be illegal • all cycle lanes / tracks should pass through major junctions – not end before • motorised traffic should be slowed down through junctions, with no extra lanes in and out of them • prevent left hooks – install ‘Hold left turns’ at traffic light-controlled junctions • prevent right hooks – don’t permit uncontrolled right turns at traffic light-controlled junctions • all pedestrian crossings should allow pedestrians to cross the carriageway in a single phase • 20mph limits should be implemented on all minor roads – not at the discretion of local authorities • prevent rat-running Finally, stop traffic modelling – its sole purpose is to defend the status quo.

Rik Andrew London SE6

Bristol’s local government leaders lack transport vision

During a Zoom meeting last week of campaigners frustrated at the lack of progress on a rail-based tram/tram-train plan for Bristol and Bath, a fear was expressed that public transport may face a hard future once the current coronavirus lockdown eases.

Already the railways have effectively been re-nationalised, and bus services financially municipalised – both heartily welcomed – as a reaction to the economic impact of the collapse in passenger numbers.

But in a future in which the public might consciously avoid public transport in order to avoid social proximity, and double-decker buses might be officially restricted to 20 users (and single-deckers ten), public transport would cease to be viable.

Will those of us not choosing to walk, cycle or work from home all return to cars? Will transport planning go backwards?

After all, at the moment the mayor and deputy mayor of the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) are continuing to bid for DfT funding mostly for specific new highway schemes, backed by an assortment of ill-thought-out public transport consultancy ‘studies’, while the mayor of Bristol is pursuing an expensive type of ‘Underground’ rail system already dismissed (in favour of trams) by the city’s twin city of Bordeaux.

Both are dominated by links with commercial (very often greenfield) site developers.

Similar concerns for public transport arose at another Zoom meeting, this time including Bristol local authority representatives, but here some possible ways forward were suggested. All public transport staff, but also all passengers, should be obliged to wear masks to protect both the staff and other passengers (a suggestion repeated the following day by a national source, though without any apparent promise of enactment, but in force in Belgium). The cities also could reallocate roadspace and parking facilities to pedestrians and cyclists (as announced for Milan): in part so that today’s temporary cyclists on traffic-freed roads can be persuaded to continue cycling when the traffic returns.

Bristol City Council in particular could press ahead with removing the traffic congestion points already notified to it by operator First Bus as part of their joint endeavour to make the city’s buses more efficient.

And as to air pollution – a problem magically reduced as road traffic has shrunk – we could take the opportunity to deal with otherwise burgeoning traffic rat-runs through inner city residential streets. Rat-runs will only get worse if people return to their cars and as main roads are constrained by bus, cycling and walking

traffic improvement measures.

Now, too, is the time finally to imitate Nottingham City Council’s workplace parking levy or London’s road user charging: ideas often cited in Bristol, but never progressed.

Regrettably, there is no great hope that either WECA or the city council will actually do any of these things, even though voters seem up for them now (judging by the consultation report published in January regarding WECA’s draft joint local transport plan 4). However, there has been almost zero progress on traffic management here – or tram planning – since Avon County Council was abolished by John Major in 1996.

So the actions suggested above are not particularly likely to occur. They are merely what a properly functioning transport authority would do, riding on a wave of public assent.

Meanwhile, public transport in East Asian countries with higher population densities than ours is running around with full vehicles of masked passengers, and coronavirus death rates far lower than ours – so there ought to be room for hope. Perhaps one day we will get a decent transport link between Bristol and Bath.

Gavin Smith Research officer Transport for Greater Bristol Alliance Bristol BS2

Split anglo-Scottish HS2 trains at Preston, not Carlisle

The bizarre announcement of the green light for HS2, a project we cannot afford nor will ever need, beggars belief (‘Get building HS2, contractors told’ LTT 17 Apr).

There has been speculation that the green light was given because contractors were getting nervous and talking of delay payments. Let us hope that when HS2 is cancelled the compensation payments will be smaller than any delay payments would have been.

Meanwhile, there’s the suggestion that the Euston developers will pull out, a claim their same old guff denial does nothing to dispel (‘Euston developer rejects Berkeley claim’ LTT 17 Apr).

As for William Barter’s letter, which you titled ‘Peer’s plan for Euston is nonsense on stilts’ (ibid), the only thing that fits that description is a madcap project suggesting 1,000-seat capacity trains running in both directions every four minutes. And this is after the Oakervee whitewash of the project; the original HS2 plans were even more insane.

I see from the DfT’s new business plan for the project that trains for Edinburgh and Glasgow will join/split at Carlisle and not Carstairs. The decision to use Carlisle is based, as usual for HS2 Ltd, on a wrong premise. At a ‘pop-up’ meeting in the city they claimed that Carlisle was the farthest south on the West Coast Main Line that trains could split. This is patently wrong. The trains are planned to stop at Preston, where the station will be enlarged, so there is no reason why they could not split there and avoid the cost of extending Carlisle station.

Splitting northbound trains at Preston would allow one half to go non-stop alternately to Glasgow and Edinburgh and the other half to service the four stops to the north: Lancaster, Oxenholme (for the Lake District and justifying the Windermere branch line), Penrith (more Lakes) and Carlisle (not really the Lakes at all).

This would please everyone and cater for all existing trade. But that is of no interest to HS2 Ltd. It lives in an alternative universe where tens of thousands of people will appear from nowhere wishing to be whisked quickly from London to Scotland. They don’t exist now and certainly won’t in the future. HS2 may well provide jobs in the days of the high unemployment we face but, in terms of providing something the country needs, it will be as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

Roger Davies Kendal LA9

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Consultants, Researchers & Suppliers

The LTT Directory 27

To get your profile in print and online call us on 020 7091 7895 or email jason@landor.co.uk

Air Quality Consultants Ltd provides independent expert advice on ambient air quality. Established in 1993, the Company has completed many assessments of road, rail, shipping and airport schemes. Its staff have presented expert evidence at numerous Public Inquiries. The Comapny plays a central role in the development of air quality management and assessment in the UK and abroad, and has developed guidance and many of the tools used for assessment.

Bristol contact: Penny Wilson on 0117 974 1086 London contact: Chris Whall on 020 3873 4313 Email: aqc@aqconsultants.co.uk www.aqconsultants.co.uk

C4ST is independent, clear-eyed, and practical. We provide you with the analysis, evidence, advice and the support you require at the point where key elements of modern transport meet – energy efficiency, vehicle emissions, “mobility as a service”, shared mobility services and demand reduction. C4ST is lead by two very experienced transport professionals who often work together but take separate commissions around their special interests.

Visit: www.c4st.uk Chris Endacott PhD: +44 (0)1743 366 182 Richard Armitage FCILT M: (0)7973 538 556 Incorporating Richard Armitage Transport Consultancy and Gfleet Services

CEC are a civil engineering consultancy with over 30 years’ experience, and an enviable reputation for quality, reliability and value. We provide transport planning, water management and civil engineering detailed design services including; access appraisals and feasibility studies, technical input to masterplans, Transport Statements & Assessments, Travel Plans, Travel Plan Co-ordinator role, Road Safety Audits, Flood Risk Assessments, drainage strategies, river modelling, highways and drainage detailed design, highway condition surveys and expert witness services.

Please contact: Swindon: Brett Farmery Tel: 01793 619965 Email: bfarmery@coleeasdon.com Bristol: Doug Hickman Tel: 01454 800474 Email dhickman@coleeasdon.com www.coleeasdon.com

Specialist consultancy providing highway, traffic and transportation advice to both the public and private sectors. Transportation Strategies, Transport Assessments, Sustainability Appraisals, Travel Plans, Policy Advice, Expert Witness Support.

Forester House, Doctor’s Lane, Henleyin-Arden, Warwickshire, B95 5AW Tel: 01564 793 598 Fax: 01564 793 983 inmail@dtatransportation.co.uk www.dtatransportation.co.uk

Gateway TSP

Gateway TSP offers cost effective and comprehensive Road Safety Engineering consultancy advice including:

• Road Safety Auditing • Road Safety Studies and Assessments (AIP) • Design of Local Road Safety Schemes • Walking, Cycling and Horse-riding Assessment and Review

Contact us on: 01483 679350 or by email at: info@gateway-tsp.co.uk Gateway TSP, 84 North Street, Guildford GU1 4AU www.gateway-tsp.co.uk

Independent sustainable transport planning and research consultancy, formed in 1998.

Our expert team of professionals works in partnership with public, private and third sector clients around the world, specialising in: • Sustainable Development • Data & Analytical Tools • Policy & Strategy • Public Transport • Smarter Travel • Research Web: Contact: Tel: Email:

www.itpworld.net Nick Ayland 0115 824 8250 ayland@itpworld.net

Intelligent Data are the market-leading providers of Traffic, Transport and Environmental data. To find out more about our ATC, MCC, ANPR, Environmental Data and Parking surveys please contact: info@intelligent-data-collection.com or call: 0845 003 8747

Specialists in all aspects of traffic signal design, analysis and training. As the producers of industry standard software such as LinSig, JCT is unrivalled in its ability to offer clients correct and appropriate solutions to their traffic problems. In particular, JCT is highly regarded for its expertise in signal roundabout and complex junction design having been involved in numerous projects and providing advice to Government at both National and Local level.

JCT Consultancy Ltd, LinSig House, Deepdale Enterprise Park, Nettleham, Lincoln LN2 2LL Tel: 01522 751010 Fax: 01522 751188 Email: anthony.gerundini@jctconsultancy.co.uk www.jctconsultancy.co.uk

Mayer Brown is a leading Consultancy for Transport Planning, Infrastructure Design and Environmental Assessment in the UK. Services include Transport Assessments, Travel Plans, Transport Planning, Accessibility Studies, Highway and Infrastructure Design, Air Quality and Noise Assessments, Road Safety Audits, Pedestrian and Cycle Networks, Regeneration Studies, SuDS, Drainage and Flood Risk Assessments, Topographical Surveys.

Offices in Woking (head office), London, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Isle of Wight Contacts: Paul Stocker (Transport Planning) pstocker@mayerbrown.co.uk Tim Moore (Highway and Infrastructure Design) tmoore@mayerbrown.co.uk Tel: 01483 750508 www.mayerbrown.co.uk

Transport economics and logistics consultancy providing research services, freight transport modelling and advice to the public and private sectors since 1982, based on maintaining trade and transport databases and the specialist expertise of its consultants. Owner and operator of the GB Freight Model (GBFM), which forms the freight module of the DfT’s National Transport Model. Multimodal expertise in road, rail and urban freight, ports and shipping, ferries and inland waterways, air freight and warehousing The consultancy’s services for public sector clients in the freight and logistics sector include:

• Freight strategy and policy development at a regional, sub-regional and town/city level • Freight transport modelling using the GBFM • Regional and sub-regional analysis of international trade in goods • Forecasting of the strategic supply and demand for warehousing • Freight demand forecasts, capacity analysis and feasibility studies for freight terminals, infrastructure networks and freight services • Evaluation of user and non-user benefits of freight projects and strategies • Global supply, demand and economic analysis of ferries and container shipping • Rail, planning and commercial advice concerning the development of Strategic Rail Freight Interchanges.

Contact Chris Rowland Tel: 01244-348301 Email: chris.rowland@mdst.co.uk

Nationwide Data Collection (NDC) provides specialist data collection services for transport planning, traffic engineering and market research. Our staff have unrivalled experience in organising large scale data collection exercises with particular expertise being available in conducting manual & automatic traffic counts, roadside interviews, pedestrian counts & interviews, ANPR, Infrared video, radar speed surveys and parking studies.

UK offices in Scotland, Ossett, Warwick and London. Ireland offices in Dublin and Athlone. European office in the Netherlands enquiries@nationwidedatacollection.co.uk www.nationwidedatacollection.co.uk

We are a transport planning consultancy, covering all modes of transport including railways, public transport, highways, cycle, walk and air transport. We specialise in advanced multi-modal transport modelling, forecasting and appraisal together with its market research and computer software.

Over 25 years experience in a wide range of UK and international projects including specialist toll road model audits. Our innovative transport planning software, Visual Choice for advanced demand modelling and Visual-tm for everything else combines fast, powerful multi-modal modelling with a friendly user interface.

S2, S3, S4 Audley House, Northbridge Road, Berkhamsted, Herts HP4 1EH Tel: +44 (0) 1442 879075 mail@peter-davidson.com www.peter-davidson.co.uk

PFA Consulting has over 30 years’ experience of providing development advice and solutions to the public and private sectors. Services include: access appraisals and feasibility studies; transport assessments and statements; junction assessment and microsimulation modelling; sustainable transport and travel plans; planning appeals and expert witness; flood risk assessment and drainage strategies; highways and drainage design; walking, cycling and horse-riding assessment and review; input to legal agreements; and construction supervision and management.

PFA Consulting Ltd, Stratton Park House, Wanborough Road, Swindon SN3 4HG Tel: 01793 828000 Email: admin@pfaplc.com www.pfaplc.com

Q-Free offers a complete range of ITS products, solutions and professional services based on the most advanced and cost-effective technologies with an established UK Office and Production Facility based in Weston-Super-Mare in the South West of the UK. Products, Solutions & Services include: Traffic Counters & Classifiers; Cycle & Pedestrian Monitoring; Bluetooth™ Traffic Monitoring; Weigh-In Motion Systems; Tolling Systems; Parking Systems & Solutions.

Contact us: Tel: 01934 644299 Email: sales.uk@q-free.com www.tdcsystems.co.uk

Severnside TDC specialise in the provision of Transportation Data Collection Studies.

Our client focus and attention to customer satisfaction allows us to provide a professional service for every piece of work. Our services inlude but are not restricted to Video based Transport Surveys, ANPR, Drone Surveys, Public Transport, Cycle/Pedestrian Studies & Parking Studies.

Contact: Stephen Jones Email: steve@severnsidetdc.co.uk www.severnsidetdc.co.uk

Specialists in all types of Traffic and Transport Survey and Data Consultancy Operating throughout the UK, Ireland and internationally, we utilise the best and most appropriate technology, techniques, skills and experience available to deliver data solutions. Our central support and technology teams together with our network of operational bases employing over 200 full time specialists allows us to deliver some of the largest and most complex data collection contracts in the UK alongside individual local projects all utilising the innovation and skills Tracsis are known for. Technologies we use include digital ANPR, Video, Bluetooth, WiFi, ATC, Video Analytics, GIS asset management and Mobile Phone Network Data Analytics. See our website for local office details or contact our Head Office at: Tel: +44 (0)1937 833 933 Email: TaDS@Tracsis.com www.TracsisTraffic.com

The Transportation Consultancy (ttc) is a dynamic and innovative transportation consultancy that specialises in transport planning, traffic engineering, sustainable transport and transport economics. Our people have over 100 years of combined technical knowledge and can offer you expert advice covering the whole transportation sector, helping you to make sound decisions in today’s complex environment. Our advice is underpinned by innovation, technical excellence and expert opinion, enabling our clients to make sound decisions in what is often a complex and challenging environment. “ttc” has a set of values that guides us in our everyday business and continues to drive our ambition to provide unrivalled advice that helps deliver the best transportation solutions to our clients.

Please contact Alan Bailes Tel: 07803 894686 Email: info@ttc-transportplanning.com www.ttc-transportplanning.com

The CIVINET UK & Ireland Network is the sustainable transport network for local authorities. Members can access European and national funding information, comprehensive sustainable transport expertise and networking events. Private organisations are welcome as associate members.

Tel: 0117 907 6520 Email: civinet-uk-ireland@civitas.eu www.civitas.eu/civinet-uk-ireland

PTRC Education & Research Services Co Ltd is a company within CILT (UK). PTRC is the leading international organisation specialising in the training of transport, highways and planning professionals.

Tel: 020 7348 1970 Emai: info@ptrc-training.co.uk www.ptrc-training.co.uk

Join the Transport Planning Society – the professional home for transport planners and transport planning qualifications!

The TPS facilitates, develops and promotes best practice in transport planning and provides a focus for dialogue and debate between all those engaged in it, whatever their background or other professional affiliation. TPS works closely with its four partners ICE, CILT (UK), CIHT and RTPI to further the profession and in the development of professional qualifications, such as the Professional Development Scheme (PDS) and the Chartered Transport Planning Professional (CTPP). We also hold great events, bursary competitions, awards and much more – check out our website for details.

Tel: +44 (0)20 7665 2238 Email: info@tps.org.uk www.tps.org.uk

Specialists

View their full CVs at TransportXtra.com/consultants

BURGESS Peter. M.Sc. (Econ), B.A.(Ind.Econ), Cert.Dip. AF, MCILT Transport Economics Limited DfT Business Case Support. Economic Impact Reports. Mode Split Revenue Support Grant. Waterbourne Freight Grant.

European Funding (Evaluator): (INEA) Connecting Europe Facility; (EASME): HORIZON 2020 (SMART cities and Urban Mobility).

Innovate UK bid support: Economic and Environmental Impact criterion Email: peter.burgess@transportecon.com www.transportecon.com HURDLE David. DipTP, MA, MRTPI, FCILT Transport Planning Consultant Travel Plans, Transport Policies/Strategies and Active Travel Audits.

Broomfield, 20 Holt Road, Sheringham NR26 8NB Tel: 01263 822300 Mobile: 07808 533165 Email: d.hurdle@btinternet.com www.davidhurdle.co.uk STAVELEY Peter. MSc CMILT Public Transport Consultancy Railway and bus operational planning, public transport strategy, railway timetabling, capacity studies, software development, data manipulation.

247 Davidson Road, Croydon, CR0 6DQ Tel: 07973 168742 Email: Peter@PeterStaveley.co.uk www.PeterStaveley.co.uk

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LTT797 01 May - 14 May 2020

News

People

TfSE tenders area studies, as DfT grant news awaited

GOVERNANCE

TRANSPORT FOR the South East has invited tenders for five area-based transport studies that will help identify the region’s investment priorities. Only one will definitely proceed this year, however, with the progress of others reliant on TfSE receiving a grant from the DfT. TfSE has made the outer orbital area study its top priority. This will assess the investment needs from Thanet/Herne Bay in Kent all the way along the south coast to the New Forest on TfSE’s western boundary. The non-statutory sub-national transport body already has funds to commence this piece of work.

Of the other four studies, one will cover TfSE’s inner orbital area from the Medway Towns to Reading/Basingstoke, round the south of London.

The three other area studies are described as radial studies, each covering a segment of the TfSE area. From west to east these are: • South West – from TfSE’s western boundary across to Chichester and Guildford.

• South Central – a slice from Redhill down to the coast, extending from Chichester to Eastbourne • South East – the eastern chunk of the TfSE area, roughly from Hastings/Bexhill eastwards Each area study is expected to cost £350,000. TfSE envisages phasing them over two financial years. They will inform its strategic investment plan.

Since March 2018 the DfT has provided TfSE with £1.6m.

Clubb: grant discussions continuing

Rupert Clubb, TfSE’s lead officer, told shadow partnership board members last week: “Although positive discussions are continuing with the DfT, confirmation of grant funding for this financial year has not yet been received.”

TfSE has developed three budget scenarios, ranging from a £1m grant to zero.

Clubb said starting the year under a zero grant scenario would still enable some technical work to continue, including completing the transport strategy and a future mobility strategy (the latter by WSP), and the commencement of the outer orbital study.

TfSE also intends to prepare a freight, logistics and gateways strategy. A scoping exercise for this was awarded to consultant AECOM in January. The commissioning of the strategy proper depends on DfT grant.

TfSE’s staffing costs are met from member local authority contributions, which amounted to £498,000 in 2019/20. This funds

a team of 7.8 full-time equivalent staff based at East Sussex County Council, TfSE’s accountable body.

Clubb said TfSE’s forecast £530,000 staff costs in 2020/21 could be fully covered from council contributions, including a small amount of unspent funding carried over.

“In the event that TfSE receives funding from the DfT, it is proposed that additional resource is recruited to support the delivery of the technical programme,” he added.

Staff costs for 2021/22 depend on ongoing contributions from member authorities. “In addition to this, TfSE has made representations to the DfT that future grant funding should have some flexibility to cover core staff costs, as well as the technical programme,” said Clubb. “This reflects the arrangements in place in Transport for the North and Midlands Connect.”

TfSE staff were recruited from September 2018 on fixed term contracts for two years. Once staff have been in contract for two years they become eligible for full employment rights, including redundancy costs.

“As such, consideration should be given to converting the fixed term contracts to permanent contracts,” said Clubb. A decision to extend contracts would “only be made once TfSE has certainty about the DfT grant funding for 2020/21”, he said.

TfSE plans to apply to the DfT to become a statutory sub-national transport body following the completion of its regional transport strategy this summer.

Afra is Camden’s head of capital works Susanne Afra (pictured) has joined the London Borough of Camden as head of capital works. She was Westminster City Council’s head of programme for the Oxford Street district from August 2018 until October last year. Her previous posts include a senior project manager with FM Conway (2017-2018), a programme manager for Movement Strategies (2015-2017), and an associate transport planner with SKM Colin Buchanan (2007-2014).

McGeachie joins LowCVP James McGeachie has joined the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership as technical and programme director. He moves from motorsport and advanced technology company Prodrive where he was director of engineering. McGeachie has also worked for Jaguar Land Rover. He has been involved in electric and hybrid vehicle technology developments throughout his career.

Robinson joins Jacobs from Arup Rick Robinson has joined consultant Jacobs as director of smart places and digital infrastructure. He moves from Arup where he was digital property and cities leader.

Freight on Rail reaches end of the line Philippa Edmunds is working as a freelance transport consultant following the closure of the Freight on Rail campaign, which was part of the Campaign for Better Transport.

Edmunds worked for the rail industry-funded campaign for 19 years and was its manager for the last 13.

Barker leaves Infrastructure Commission Dame Kate Barker has left her post as a commissioner on the National Infrastructure Commission to become chair of the Universities Superannuation Scheme.

Jakeman is ITS UK’s new vice-chair Karla Jakeman of Innovate UK has been appointed vicechair of the UK intelligent transport society, ITS (UK), following Ryan Hood’s appointment as chair earlier this month (LTT 17 Apr). Jakeman is the lead for connected transport innovation at Innovate UK and is a former Honda product design quality engineer. Meanwhile, James Bullen of consultant Atkins is the new chair of the ITS (UK) young professionals forum. Ashik Mohammed Nazar from consultant Arup has been elected its new vice-chair.

If you would like to be included in this column please call 0207 091 7875 or email ed.ltt@landor.co.uk