Local Transport Today Issue 801

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LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

POLICY | PLANNING | FINANCE | DEVELOPMENT

Drop e-scooter trial plans, says blind group p6 TransportXtra.com/ltt

Bus seat reservations trial for Bristol

BUSES

BUS PASSENGERS in the Bristol area will be able to reserve a seat on socially-distanced bus services in a trial expected to be launched by First West of England this summer.

Passengers will use an app to pre-book a seat on a service.

“Subject to the effectiveness of the pilot, the project has the potential to expand onto other routes across the network where demand is expected to be at its highest and capacity at a premium,” Peter Mann, the West of England Combined Authority’s head of strategic transport, told councillors. He said the trial was

expected to launch in late-July.

LTT understands FirstGroup’s current thinking is the reservation system will be offered on duplicate services – the additional services provided to facilitate social distancing on a busy bus route. The normal services on the route would remain open access.

FirstGroup now displays ‘bus full’ signs on vehicle digital displays when their maximum social distanced capacity is reached. The message is currently being displayed at some point on the journey of about five per cent of services across First’s UK operations. This is likely to increase as ridership recovers.

TfL reviews office requirements as home working ‘here to stay’

COMMUTING

by Andrew Forster

TfL says the virus presents a “unique opportunity” to cut office costs.

he said: “Aligned to Government and our own advice on using the transport network, we expect all colleagues that can work from home to continue to do so, for at least a number of months.

“In the interim, the only staff working in an office will be those that cannot work from home, due either to the nature of their work or their personal circumstances.”

Craig said the changes would be long-lasting. “Even as lock-

Virus may alter capital’s economic geography An increase in home-working could change London’s economic geography, Graeme Craig, TfL’s director of commercial development, has suggested.

“It appears that the pandemic is speeding up existing trends, including increasing home-working and flexible working environments,” Craig told TfL’s finance committee this week.

“This is potentially leading towards a so-called ‘polycentric London’ with increasing growth in London’s town centres, and more active travel and greater dependency on digital infrastructure.”

Deloitte says office construction in the capital will slow

down restrictions are lifted, we expect that the organisation will work very differently. Whilst it is clear that most of our staff want to work from home for a significant portion of the week on an ongoing basis, we recognise that this will not be attractive (or even possible) for everyone.

“We will need to provide the right spaces for people when they are in the office, supporting activities such as collaboration and project work.

“Clearly this will have a profound impact on our future office requirements in terms of size, location and design. This is a unique opportunity to move to a model of working that delivers substantial cost savings and efficiency gains.”

TfL was already in the process of rationalising its office estate before the virus pandemic. In 2016 it had 37 properties housing 15,000 workstations, with annual operating costs of £83m. Capacity fell to 12,000 at the end of

15 Garden communities: new name, same old?

7 Mixed micromobility fleet for Brighton?

9 Truce in Cambs busway battle?

10 Stockport 10mph 21 Phil Goodwin

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E-scooters are dangerous and will harm active travel - PACTS

Transport appraisal ‘at odds with decarbonising transport’

TfL won’t return to preCovid spending levels anytime soon Driving licence requirement for escooters ‘excludes key users’

Footway blow for restaurants

Motoring groups unite to fight traffic plans

1989 – not a bad year to launch a transport magazine

Let’s hear it for e-scooters

Bus operators restore routes but ask: what happens if the money runs out?

10. West Mids e-scooter trial plans most read LTT stories on

12 June - 25 June 2020

TRANSPORT FOR London is looking to reduce its office estate as Covid-19 prompts a permanent shift towards more homeworking by many of its desk-based staff.

TfL revealed its plans this week. Many other organisations are undertaking similar reviews and the outcomes have potentially profound implications for commuting patterns nationwide.

Graeme Craig, TfL’s director of commercial development, told the finance committee how Covid-19 lockdown restrictions had affected the way TfL’s deskbased staff work.

“When restrictions in movement were introduced, we immediately went from having some 12,500 people working in our major office hubs to having the vast majority working from home with only 500 people in business critical roles still working in offices.”

Explaining the arrangements as lockdown restrictions are eased,

March 2019 through actions such as property disposals, sub-lets, commercial leasing of three freehold assets, and mothballing.

Craig said in January 2019 that, by 2022, with the sale of 13 freehold sites, annual office operating costs could be cut to £66m and capacity cut to 8,400 workstations (LTT 18 Jan 19).

This week Craig said the new review would cover “our entire office estate to identify further opportunities to add value”. “As well as the head office portfolio, this includes our commercially let offices, offices in operational locations, and sites in our office development pipeline.”

Consultant Deloitte describes the shift to home working as “the largest workplace experiment ever seen”. “As we settle into the new routines and new working pracrtice is normalised, more people are expected to continue working from home on a regular basis.”

But the consultant said homeworking was “unlikely to herald the end of the office”. “Some businesses will undoubtedly look to remove working to reduce their real estate footprint, while others will seek to future-proof their existing offices wtih ‘dedensification’ likely to take place.

“Industries such as financial services, insurance or the legal sector will find it considerably more challenging to function away from the office due to cyber security risks.”

Discussing the London office market, Deloitte said “we will inevitably see fewer new [office] construction starts”.

PROVIDING INDEPENDENT NEWS & ANALYSIS SINCE 1989

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LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

4 News

Upheaval for buses – WECA BUSES

COVID-19 WILL cause lasting damage to the bus sector in Bristol and the surrounding area, the West of England Combined Authority has warned, and could demand new thinking on the regulatory framework for the industry.

Peter Mann, WECA’s head of strategic transport integration, told the combined authority last week: “It cannot be overemphasised just how significant an impact the Covid19 crisis has had on the long-term prospects of a commercially successful bus network in the West of England [WECA covers Bristol, South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset].

“The huge loss of core customer base upon which significant investment has been built over recent years is likely to take many more years to reestablish and operators are likely to incur sustained losses unless they cut back their network to reduce costs and/or increase fares.

“Both of these actions will reduce the attraction of travelling by bus and risk generating a vicious circle, which the authorities in the West of England have worked so hard to break out of in recent years.

“Whilst to a large extent the Government funding, through Covid-19 Bus Service Support Grant and importantly the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, has allowed many businesses to survive, such support may not continue indefinitely.”

Discussing the ramp up of service mileage, he said: “Inevitably, the operator focus has to be on getting people to work in the short-term, but this may be at the expense of wide geographical network coverage, which may have to follow once the funding situation is clearer.”

Mann said local transport authorities might have to play a new role in bus service provision. “The role may change depending on how the Government responds to the longer-term funding challenge.

“For the foreseeable future the bus system is likely to need to work on the basis of coordination, co-operation and partnership rather than competition.”

One metre social distancing unlikely to boost bus capacity

BUSES

by Andrew Forster

THE GOVERNMENT’S decision to reduce social distancing policy from two metres to ‘one metre plus’ may have little impact bus capacity, operators have said.

The Prime Minister announced this week that, from 4 July, the two metre recommendation would be reduced to ‘one metre plus’ in England. This means staying one metre apart, plus mitigations that reduce the risk of transmission. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will announce a review of the two metre guideline by 2 July. The advice in Wales remains two metres. Northern Ireland moves to one metre on Monday.

Commenting on the one metre guidance, an operator told LTT it might allow an extra one or two people on a double decker. “But

Social distancing in Bristol

you’re not going to get to 50 per cent capacity on the back of this.”

Operators do not expect the Government to provide detailed guidance on the one metre distancing. “The Government does not seem interested in giving clear advice, which is understandable because it’s difficult,” said the

Scots launch £47.6m bus support package

BUSES

THE SCOTTISH Government has announced a £47.6m eightweek grant for bus operators to pay for enhanced service levels as the country comes out of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

Bus mileage in Scotland has been operating at about 30-40 per cent during lockdown, facilitated by the Government continuing to pay operators concessionary fares reimbursement and Bus Service Operator Grant at pre-Covid-19 levels. This had amounted to £34.3m as of last week.

Until now, the Scottish Government has not supported services with a specific grant akin to the DfT’s Covid-19 Bus Service Support Grant (CBSSG). This is because Scotland’s nationwide concessionary travel reimbursement rate is more generous than the local schemes that operate in England (LTT 15 May).

LTT understands that there were also no ‘Barnett consequentials’ for the devolved administrations from the DfT’s grant spend because the money was found from within other budget lines rather than amounting to new public expenditure.

The final details of Scotland’s scheme were resolved this week and service ramp-up will start next week. Stagecoach said that,

from 29 June, it would provide around double the number of services that have been running as part of its emergency timetable since March.

The expectation is that the Government will request service mileage to be progressively ramped up, so for instance, 60 per cent for the first two weeks, 70 per cent for the next two, 80 per cent for following two, and 100 per cent in the final two.

The Government is not expected to make these figures compulsory. LTT understands it will instead request that operators provide about 77.5 per cent of their mileage over the eightweek duration of the grant.

The grant scheme could be extended for more time.

Bus operators and local authorities in Scotland are also grappling with the resourcing and funding of home to school transport. Scottish schools are likely to return at the end of the summer holidays in mid-August (the holidays end a month earlier than in England). Challenges includes how to maintain social distancing, and the affordability of service provision if more vehicles are needed to transport the same number of pupils.

Nicola Sturgeon has said she will review the two metre social distancing rule on 2 July.

operator.

Public Health Scotland has been looking at the idea of installing screens on the back of bus seats to divide passengers, as a way of allowing one passenger to sit in each set of double seats.

One operator questioned the wisdom of the idea, telling LTT the screens could be costly and quickly become redundant if the recommended social distancing was changed.

Another operator said the screen would make bus travel akin to “sitting in a Serco prison van”.

There are also concerns that passengers would potentially leave the virus on the screens and that the additional corners and edging of the screens could pose new injury risks to passengers.

Face coverings are now mandatory on public transport in

England and Scotland. They are optional in Wales or Northern Ireland.

Bus operators in England are taking different approaches to ramping up services. Nottingham City Transport is reinstating all services from Sunday 28 June and running normal timetables on all routes from that date.

In contrast, First West of England has introduced duplicate services on the busiest corridors but has not reinstated services on some more marginal routes (LTT 12 Jun).

One operator said that companies restoring normal timetables across their networks could encounter problems if vehicle capacity remains limited but passenger numbers build up.

“They might find the network is not sustainable if they’re leaving people behind at bus stops on high demand routes.”

No cash to increase bus services in Wales

BUSES

BUS OPERATORS in Wales have offered a gloomy assessment of the prospect for running additional services, with no sign of additional funding coming from the Welsh Government.

Bus operators in England have received additional grant from the DfT to fund the rampup in services as lockdown restrictions are eased. The Scottish Government has just announced a funding deal worth £47.6m over eight weeks to do the same (see left).

No such funding has been forthcoming from the Welsh Government, even though it is gradually easing lockdown restrictions.

Stagecoach in South Wales said last week: “As long as social distancing of two metre remains on buses, bus operators will not be able to meet the cost of ramping up services with very little extra revenue generated from the ramp up.

“We are concerned that the lock-down relaxation from next Monday (22) and the following two Mondays, is not coordinated with the ramping up of bus services, as the demand for travel will increase and continue to increase placing pressure on already limited capacity for passengers on buses.”

Another operator said the sit-

uation in Wales was “looking quite stuck”. “There’s no indication of when they [the Government] might address the problem or how they want to address it.”

Operators suspect the Government does not have the funding to pay for a scheme, though the considerable sums going to keep rail services running and support active travel have not gone unnoticed.

Bus mileage in Wales fell to levels below those seen in England during lockdown because the level of support from the Welsh Government, in the form of Bus Service Support Grant and concessionary fares reimbursement, was lower than England.

FirstGroup’s mileage in Wales is estimated to be currently at about 40 per cent of normal.

A recent exchange on Facebook between a passenger and Cardiff Bus highlights capacity problems. The passenger complained that they had just travelled on a bus that was “rammed full”. “Pretty sure the only empty seat was the one next to me with my bag on it!”

Cardiff Bus replied: “We’re working with the Welsh Government on new timetables.

Currently buses can carry up to 50 per cent capacity, which includes sitting and standing passengers.”

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TransportXtra.com/ltt

News 5

GM puts bus franchising on ice as Covid-19 costs are itemised

FUNDING

GREATER MANCHESTER Combined Authority has kicked a decision on its bus franchising plans into the long grass because of Covid-19.

Presenting a report about the franchise consultation exercise to this week’s meeting of the GMCA, Eamonn Boylan, the chief executive of Transport for Greater Manchester and the CA, said: “It is not considered appropriate for the GMCA to publish a formal response to the consultation as required by the Bus Services Act, or for the mayor to make a decision in respect of the proposed bus franchising scheme

at this time.”

He said that, before any final decision on franchising could be taken, consideration had to be given to the impacts Covid-19 may have on Greater Manchester’s bus market and the options considered in the assessment. It would be necessary to consider how Covid-19 “impacts on the assessment, audit and consultation already undertaken, and the potential need to reconsider some of that work”.

“The outcome of that work will determine if there is a need to repeat some or all of the process set out in the Bus Services Act.” The GMCA has meanwhile shared further details of the finan-

cial pressures facing the ten metropolitan districts as a result of the virus pandemic.

The councils face an expected shortfall in 2020/21, after Government grants are taken into account, of £460m. This falls to £368m after taking into account the use of council reserves.

The £368m includes an expected £32m shortfall on Metrolink operations (£57m lost income minus £25m Government grant). TfGM’s non-Metrolink shortfall is £8m (extra costs £1.5m, reduced income £6.5m).

The anticipated income lost from the Manchester Airport Group dividend is more than £100m. Manchester City Council

Boroughs must wait for Covid19 Freedom Pass savings FUNDING

LONDON BOROUGHS will have to wait until 2021/22 for Covid-19 savings in the concessionary travel reimbursement they pay Transport for London.

Boroughs are facing huge funding shortfalls in 2020/21 because of the additional costs and income losses resulting from Covid-19. This has prompted councillors to question why they are continuing to pay TfL for concessionary travel made by Freedom Pass holders at preCovid-19 trip rates.

London Councils’ chief contracts officer, Stephen Boon, told its transport and environment

committee that the amount boroughs paid TfL in any one year for the statutory element of the Freedom Pass was based on journey numbers in the previous two years. The 2020/21 settlement is therefore based on journeys made in 2018/19 and 2019/20.

“Notwithstanding significant pressures on local authority budgets in the current financial year, London Councils believes that the existing agreement should be honoured,” said Boon.

Trying to reopen the 2020/21 payment would risk a long and costly legal process with an uncertain outcome and could

mean “local authorities pay more per journey than if they had waited until next year”.

“This is because TfL could then legitimately revisit other aspects of the agreement,” explained Boon, adding: “The per person cost of providing transport has increased significantly as fewer people are now travelling.”

He said the lower Freedom Pass trip rates made in the current year meant there were “likely to be significant savings” for boroughs in 2021/22 and 2022/23.

“Current best estimates suggest that savings in 2021/22 could be between £30m and £45m, and possibly more the following year.”

Huge drop in TfL’s streets spend

FUNDING

TRANSPORT FOR London’s financial crisis caused by Covid19 will badly hit this year’s expenditure on active travel and other street projects, Caroline Russell, a Green Party member of the London Assembly has said.

Russell said TfL’s chief finance officer Simon Kilonback had confirmed to her that all but a few schemes in the mayor’s ‘healthy streets’ programme had been paused this year. TfL reported the 2020/21 programme last July as being worth £417m, including: • £75m of transformational schemes such as Wandsworth gyratory, Vauxhall Cross, and

Cycleways: funding cut

Old Street roundabout • £17m for bus priority • £46m for TfL schemes such as safer junctions • £99m for borough-delivered schemes • £121m for cycleways

• £32m for borough cycle schemes Projects already underway, such as Old Street roundabout, are proceeding.

Russell said some cycleway schemes would be implemented with temporary rather than permanent works.

She pointed out that boroughs would have received £131m of the £417m.

Transport for London’s £80m Streetspace for London is the only new funding source. This comprises £55m from the Government’s extraordinary funding agreement for TfL (of which £45m is for boroughs), and £25m is the capital’s share of the £250m DfT’s new fund for cycling and walking.

is most badly hit because it has a 35 per cent equity stake in the airport. “The financial impact of the loss of at least two years dividend cannot be sustained without a significant impact on the council’s budget position,” said GMCA. “There is now the combined impact for the Greater Manchester local authorities and Manchester City Council in particular, of the loss of income and due to the lack of an airports support package from Government, the need to step in, along with the private sector investment partner, to fill this gap and provide significant additional shareholder support.”

Axe road tunnel, say greens

ROADS

ENVIRONMENTAL CAMPAIGNERS are calling on Transport for London to cancel construction of the twin-bore Silvertown Tunnel under the River Thames in East London.

TfL awarded a design, build, finance and maintain contract for the tunnel to the RiverLinx consortium in November 2019.

The crossing has been promoted as providing relief for the adjacent Blackwall tunnels.

The groups calling for the scheme to be axed are the Transport Action Network, which is leading legal action against the Government’s Road Investment Strategy 2; the Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition; Speak Out Woolwich; and Extinction Rebellion Greenwich.

They say the road is incompatible with the mayor’s declaration of a ‘climate emergency’ in 2018 and Covid-19 has produced unprecedented changes to travel, which means the traffic forecasts underpinning the tunnel’s business case are invalid.

“The Silvertown tunnel project should be cancelled, and the financial, management and other resources freed up should be directed primarily to projects that support reducing the number of trips required, and modal shift.”

The Silvertown tunnel is in a whole, so stop digging is available at https://tinyurl.com/ya92fk44

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LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

6 News

In Brief

Withdraw e-scooter trial plans, visually impaired urge councils

E-SCOOTERS

by Andrew Forster

THE NATIONAL association representing blind and partially sighted people is calling on councils to shun the Government’s plan for trials of rental e-scooters.

The National Federation of the Blind in the UK (NFBUK) is writing to local authority chief executives and leaders across the UK, asking them to withdraw any plans they have to take part in e-scooter trials. It has also written to the DfT and MPs asking them not make rentable escooters legal.

E-scooter companies are clamouring to enter the UK market, following the Government’s announcement in May that it would fast-track trials of rental schemes. The DfT said escooters would offer people a new way to travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, encouraging “more people off public transport and onto greener alternatives”.

More than a dozen e-scooter firms are looking at market opportunities in the UK, in echoes of the dockless bike

E-scooters: the first trials are still expected this summer

scheme craze of a few years ago.

Ministers had promised trials before the end of June but as LTT closed for press (25th) there was no indication this would be achieved.

The NFBUK has issued a press release highlighting research by a US law firm, McGee Lerer Associates, depicting injuries caused by e-scooters in St Monica, USA. “This is not for the faint hearted, as there are graphic nauseating photos of the injuries,” says the release.

It includes accompanying text from McGee Lerer Associates, which reads: “Ever since [escooter operators] Bird and Lime dumped their electric

scooters all over Santa Monica, our personal injury law firm has been inundated with calls from people injured in electric scooter accidents.

“The calls come from riders as well as pedestrians. We believe everyone needs to know about the quantity of calls we are getting, the seriousness of the injuries, and the commonality of the fact patterns.

“Not only does the public need to know, but so do city council members in other cities who are considering allowing in electric scooters, the scooter companies themselves (Bird and Lime), and anyone considering investing in these companies or renting their scooters.”

The NFBUK says the DfT has “underestimated the overwhelming negative impact e-scooters will have on rider safety, other vulnerable road and public space users, on active travel in urban areas and the ability of people to be able to socially distance from other people”.

“E-scooters create dangerous, frightening and intimidating urban environments for blind, disabled, elderly people and vulnerable people, who need more than ever safe space to walk, to use their mobility aids for exercise, health and well-being,” it adds.

The NFBUK believes local authorities pursuing e-scooter trials “are not fully aware of the significant dangers they bring with them and the headaches they create for public bodies trying to regulate their use”.

The comments follow the highly critical position paper on e-scooters published by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety last month.

PACTS said e-scooters would be dangerous and would largely replace trips made by walking, cycling and public transport (LTT 12 Jun).

Harmonised signage for Herts 20mph Hertfordshire County Council is setting a consistent policy for signage in its 20mph areas, to reduce public confusion.

National policy distinguishes between 20mph limits, which require signs every 200 metres but no traffic calming, and 20mph zones, which are selfenforcing areas with engineering measures every 100 metres and limited signage. “To avoid confusion between the two national definitions (limits and zones) the proposal is to use the collective term 20mph ‘areas’,” says Hertfordshire. “Whilst these will be designed in accordance with national guidelines, there will be a speed limit sign [or roundel] at least every 200 metres within these 20mph areas.”

More average speed cams for Coventry Coventry City Council is to install average speed enforcement cameras on more roads.

The council has approved installations on Longford Road, Bell Green Road, Burnaby Road and Sky Blue Way. Cameras were installed on London Road and Ansty Road in January 2019 and on Binley Road and Henley Road at the start of this year. Sites have been chosen on the grounds of casualty records.

E-scooter trials attract interest Birmingham’s default

E-SCOOTERS

THE GOVERNMENT’S plan for e-scooter rental trials is attracting considerable interest from councils across Britain.

Shared transport charity CoMoUK has set up a local authority e-scooter forum. Last week’s meeting attracted about 40 authorities.

London Councils has reported that, by early June, 19 of the capital’s 33 boroughs had expressed interest in participating in multi-borough rental e-scooter trials. Three boroughs said they would not participate.

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority has invited e-scooter firms to take part in a market engagement event ahead of possible trials.

LTT understands, however, that Transport for London has written to transport secretary Grant Shapps raising concerns about allowing e-scooters on London’s streets. Their safety record is thought to be a key worry.

London Councils reports that more than ten e-scooter companies have approached boroughs and itself with a view to partici-

pating in trials.

CoMoUK now has 14 escooter firms in its membership, though this is not the full number of companies looking to launch trials in Britain. The charity offers accreditation schemes for bike hire and car club operators but CoMo chief executive Richard Dilks said it was too soon to be thinking of an accreditation schemes for e-scooters, particularly because the Government is only proposing trials at this stage.

“It might be something we do down the line,” he said.

The Government had promised e-scooter trials by the end of June but this looked unlikely as LTT closed for press. As well as changing regulations, matters such as data agreements, e-scooter specifications, supply chain, storage and software systems all need to be agreed.

Dilks said it would be important – and it was realistic – to get trials up and running in the summer because e-scooters will have a seasonal pattern of use.

It is unclear how long the trials will run for, though Dilks said a year was the general expectation.

Paulium Mackela, London

Councils’ principal policy and project officer, told this month’s meeting of the transport and environment committee that the e-scooter trials made the need for a pan-London byelaw on dockless bikes and other vehicles all the more important.

Work on the byelaw has been delayed by Covid-19. “If, following the proposed rental e-scooter trials, these micromobility vehicles are legalised in the UK, but no new powers are provided for local authorities to manage the rental market, it will be essential that transport authorities in the capital are as well-equipped as possible to manage these schemes.

“As such, the case for the proposed byelaw, which uses the term ‘dockless vehicles’ (as opposed to ‘dockless bikes’, so as to apply equally to bikes, e- bikes and e-scooters) remains compelling.”

The next step in the byelaw’s preparation is a review of its wording and the supporting documentation by a QC. London Councils must then seek ministerial agreement for the byelaw. If that is forthcoming, a public consultation will be held.

20mph plan rejected SPEED LIMITS

THE DFT has rejected Birmingham City Council’s request to pilot default 20mph limits on urban roads.

Birmingham has already implemented signed-only 20mph limits in large parts of the city but said a default 20mph limit would “significantly” reduce the implementation costs of further schemes (LTT 23 Nov 18).

A default 20 would apply to restricted roads – those roads with streetlighting not more than 200 yards (183 metres) apart. These currently have a default 30mph limit.

Transport minister Baroness Vere wrote to Birmingham’s cabinet member for transport and environment, Waseem Zaffar, this month to rule out the council’s request.

Vere said no single city could undertake such a trial.

“It would have to apply nationally, to avoid the confusion engendered if the significance of street lighting

differed in different parts of the country.”

The minister also questioned whether default 20mph limits would be observed. She said the evidence suggested that “average speeds tend to fall to compliant levels only if previous speeds were already low, around 24mph”.

“To be effective, such a change would need enforcement and publicity and would put a significant strain on our police forces at a difficult time.”

Vere added: “I think, too, that the implications of such a national change would be very large indeed, both for authorities wishing to retain 30mph limits and those wishing to change to a default 20mph.

“Not only would there be a need to meet the cost of the planning, traffic management and installation of millions of new 20 terminal signs and 30 repeater signs, but traffic authorities would need to amend large numbers of traffic regulation orders.”

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News 7

Brighton proposes mixed fleet of rental bikes and e-scooters

SHARED TRANSPORT

by Andrew Forster

BRIGHTON AND Hove City Council is planning to procure a mixed fleet rental scheme of pedal cycles, e-bikes, and escooters – if the latter are legalised.

The proposal would see the council purchase the bikes and e-scooters and appoint a contractor to operate the hire scheme under a concession contract. The council says experience shows that public bike hire schemes struggle to survive without capital funding and ongoing revenue support from the public sector.

The council’s current bike hire scheme, BTN Bikeshare, was launched in September 2017, and now features 620 bikes. South Coast Bikes Ltd bought the operator Hourbike last month.

Brighton is targeting the launch of a new contract in March 2022. It is exploring extending the operating area along the coast, subject to approval from neighbouring district/borough councils, possibly as far as Worthing in the west and Seaford in the east.

In a report discussing the new scheme’s operating model, Nick Hibberd, Brighton’s executive director for economy, environment and culture, told councillors: “Many other transport and local authorities in the UK are adopting traditional concession contract routes with private sector operators. Ownership of the assets gives the local authority control, which they can use to help deliver wider policy objectives.

Brighton: the new scheme could cover a bigger geography

“If hire and sponsorship revenue is not sufficient, capital and revenue funding from local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and developer contributions could be justified on these wider policy grounds.”

The new contract could require the council to make estimated capital expenditure of £2.3m over four years. This assumes the purchase of 265 e-bikes at £2,500 each; 300 e-scooters at £450 each; 600 pedal bikes at £1,500 each (bought in three phases to replace the existing bike fleet) and two ecargo bikes for conducting e-bike battery swaps at £5,000 each.

The council says e-bikes will be useful in

hillier parts of the operating area. They will have swappable batteries to avoid the need for recharging facilities at docking stations. “‘Smart’ bikes equipped with GPS can notify the operating system when their swappable batteries are running low and can be easily replaced with a recharged unit by a mobile team,” explained Hibberd.

The inclusion of e-scooters in the concession appears partly intended to ensure that they do not compete and undermine the viability of bike hire.

Said Hibberd: “E-scooter provision within the scheme for seafront leisure areas and inner city commuting will ensure the council-owned assets retain their viability.

This will give the operator the exclusivity recommended by ComoUK to maximise overall viability.”

Shared transport charity CoMoUK has just launched new procurement guidance on bike sharing schemes.

The council envisages a system of tiered tariffs according to mode (pedal, pedal electric and e-scooter). This will incentivise use of pedal bikes “which deliver the greatest health benefits for short journeys”.

Brighton and Hove has no plans to participate in the DfT’s trial of rental e-scooters, despite the council recently having been approached by no fewer than ten e-scooter rental operators from around the world. The companies have been invited to present an overview of their systems and asked about their willingness to work in partnership with a bike hire operation.

Councils take more control of rental schemes Local authorities appear to be increasingly favouring public sector ownership of the assets for bike hire contracts.

Brighton & Hove City Council officers this week presented councillors with a summary of how schemes are being procured in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and the Liverpool.

LTT contacted TfGM, WMCA and Liverpool to confirm the details. TfGM approved its text below; WMCA said details were still to be finalised and so much of what follows for the West Midlands is from the original tender. We did not hear back from Liverpool.

Transport for Greater Manchester is using grant funding from the DfT’s Transforming Cities Fund to buy a bike fleet and docking stations. The procurement process for a five-year contract to operate the scheme is due to get underway this summer, with a scheme launch expected next summer.

The appointed operator will be paid an annual flat fee. A revenue sharing agreement will also feature to incentivise the operator to grow trip numbers.

The first phase of the scheme will cover the three district councils in the regional centre: Manchester, Salford and Trafford, with 1,500 bikes the target. The

contract will allow the scheme to be expanded to other parts of the conurbation at a later date.

Greater Manchester’s fleet will include e-bikes, probably using swappable batteries, though other options have not been ruled out.

The West Midlands Combined Authority is preparing for a new bike hire scheme after last summer cancelling its contract with Nextbike, which was awarded in 2018.

Unlike the original scheme that featured no public funding, WMCA has offered public funds for the new scheme, for which a competitive dialogue procurement commenced last autumn (LTT 25 Oct 19). Transport for the West Midlands said a risk-sharing approach would create a commercially-viable scheme.

“The new scheme has taken securing sponsorship out of the equation,” says Brighton & Hove. “The view now is that with the mix of authorities in a region with such varying population sizes and densities, one scheme was never going to work without direct subsidy.”

The WMCA board is expected to receive a report on the outcome of the procurement exercise on 24 July.

The initial procurement notice said the scheme was expected to feature a

minimum of 1,500 bikes within the first two years, of which a minimum ten per cent would be e-bikes. TfWM wants the bike hire payment system to be integrated with its Swift public transport payment system.

The specific procurement model is unclear but Brighton says TfWM has examined in-house management. The scheme is expected to be up and running before the mayoral election next May. Liverpool City Council brought the operational side of its bikeshare scheme in-house in 2017, Hourbike having operated the scheme since launch in 2014.

Brighton says that, by 2019, the number of available bikes in the Liverpool scheme had fallen to about 350 (from an initial 1,000), with no funding available to repair bikes.

Liverpool has apparently been losing money on the in-house operation. “The scheme has no sponsor and no promotion or marketing takes place,” says Brighton.

In January, Liverpool launched a procurement with partner authorities across the city-region for a concession contract. However, Covid-19 has apparently prompted the council to keep the operation in-house for another year.

Virus ‘will change travel habits’

TRAVEL BEHAVIOUR

COVID-19 MAY have a big impact on the long-term travel patterns of office workers, according to a survey by workplace travel consultancy Go-Travel Solutions.

Go Travel surveyed 829 commuters from 49 employers in May. Most were members of its ‘SmartGo’ green travel schemes in Leicester, Milton Keynes and Stevenage. Many were non-car users.

Commuters were asked about their preferred commuting choice before the pandemic, and whether it would change when restrictions are lifted. First choices changed as follows: • Bus fell 36 per cent (from 222 to 143) and train fell 45 per cent (from 85 to 47) • Cycling increased 77 per cent (from 44 to 78) • Walking/running increased 37 per cent (from 38 to 52) • Car driving alone fell four per cent (from 306 to 295) Seven per cent thought working from home would become the norm.

Eighty-two per cent were currently working from home.

Of these, 13 per cent thought it made them more effective, 32 per cent less effective, and 55 per cent reported no change.

Robin Pointon, managing director of Go Travel Solutions said: “We need to exercise caution in believing perceptions of the future will become reality. However, the research reflects that Covid-19 will make an unprecedented impact on workplace travel.”

In Brief

Green recovery call An alliance of public transport and green transport groups is calling on the Government to invest in public transport and active travel as part of the country’s economic recovery plan from Covid-19. The initiative brings together Bus Users, the Campaign for Better Transport, Community Rail Network, the Community Transport Association, Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK), Greener Journeys, Living Streets, and Sustrans. “Covid-19 has turned our communities upside down, and brought much suffering,” they say.

“However, many people have also seen glimpses of healthier, greener, more peaceful and friendly streets, cities, towns and villages: how things can be if we reduce the dominance of the private car.”

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8 News

Car clubs seek support

CAR CLUBS

CAR CLUB operators are seeking financial assistance to see them through the Covid-19 pandemic, which has badly hit the sector.

The London Borough of Richmond reported this month that operators have scaled back operations “and requested contractual relief”.

Shared mobility charity CoMoUK has been discussing with Government whether there is a way to compensate local authorities that would allow them to, in turn, waive parking permit fees for car club operators.

Car clubs have, meanwhile, introduced enhanced cleaning regimes to build public confidence in their product.

Enterprise Car Club’s cleaning regime is understood to be the strictest. People making a booking must ensure that the vehicle is not booked in the subsequent 48 hours after the end of the hire. This enables Enterprise to fulfil its promise to clean vehicles between each rental.

“You do not need to include the 48 hour buffer in your booking, rather you just need to ensure that this time exists before the next reservation,” explains the company’s website.

ZipCar has enhanced its cleaning regime. Its website also advises: “Members can help our car sharing community by bringing disinfectant wipes to wipe down the car for yourself and others, keeping their hands clean and using anti-bacterial hand gel before and after each trip.” And it adds: “You should only travel in a Zipcar with members of your household.”

In Brief

Euston station review The DfT has commissioned a review of options for the Euston station rebuild, to inform a decision in the autumn. HS2 minister Andrew Stephenson told MPs this week: “In response to the Oakervee Review, the Department has commissioned a study looking into the efficiency of the future station as a whole, with the objective of selecting an optimised design and delivery strategy for the HS2 Euston station in the autumn.”

SPT warns of cuts as ministers fail to fund extra Covid costs

FUNDING

by Andrew Forster

STRATHCLYDE PARTNERSHIP for Transport (SPT) has warned of deep cuts to public transport spending if it does not receive financial support from the Scottish Government for the additional costs and income losses from Covid-19.

SPT has continued operating the Glasgow Subway and some socially necessary bus services throughout the pandemic. But, despite making repeated requests to ministers, it has received no financial support to cover additional costs or the collapse in passenger-related income on the Subway, and the loss of bus station departure charges and advertising. Subway patronage fell 97 per cent at the height of the lockdown.

SPT assistant chief executive Valerie Davidson told councillors this week that the estimated deficit for 2020/21 was in the range £12.5m-£20m.

SPT chair councillor Martin Bartos said: “Unfortunately, we’ve seen not a penny in Covid-19 support come to SPT to help either our bus or Subway efforts.

“Meantime we’ve watched two rounds of Government financial support announce-

SPT has not received any grant to cover losses on the Subway

ments for private bus companies, we’ve seen the Government stepping in to take on heavy rail losses, and we’ve even seen the UK Government supporting London Underground and light rail across England.”

SPT says the Subway and Edinburgh Tram are the only modes of public transport in Scotland not to have received some kind of financial support from Transport Scotland.

Davidson told councillors that SPT set a balanced budget for 2020/21 on 6 March, which agreed local authority requisitions of £35.5m and generated income via various sources of £28.1m, mostly from the Subway.

The £12.5m deficit estimate

assumes virtually no income for the initial 12-week period in 2020/21, 20 per cent of normal income for quarter 2, 30 per cent for quarter 3, and 40 per cent for quarter 4.

SPT’s general reserves are circa £7m. The organisation will review its earmarked reserves to see if there are any opportunities for them to cover losses.

“A release of earmarked reserves is considered to have significant implications for key projects, including funding of the subway modernisation and the associated infrastructure works, and the future financial health of the organisation,” said Davidson.

She said SPT’s preliminary assessment was that “the scale

of the deficit can only be addressed by introducing significant service reductions to the very services that have played a key role in the response to Covid-19”.

Davidson said Transport Scotland had asked if SPT’s constituent councils may be able to provide additional funding.

But she said that “strategically and practically, a request for additional funding at a time when their own resources are under significant strain, and importantly, they do not have the statutory responsibility to deliver transport services, is unlikely to be positively received”.

Asked about SPT’s financial predicament, a Transport Scotland spokeswoman told LTT this week: “We appreciate the important role that the subway and trams play in our two biggest cities and have undertaken detailed discussions with SPT and Edinburgh Trams to understand the implications of Covid-19 on their operations.

“We are currently exploring what appropriate support may be available in the context of the very challenging financial situation, our published Covid-19: Framework for decisionmaking, and the Transport Transition Plan.”

Councils stare at huge losses from virus

FUNDING

MORE LOCAL authorities have revealed the size of the funding pressures they are facing because of Covid-19.

London boroughs are projecting additional spend and income loss of £1.8bn in 2020/21 (additional spend £709m and lost income £1.1bn). Taking into account Government grant payments, the funding shortfall estimated by boroughs is £1.3bn.

The London Borough of Merton’s estimate of the net cost to the council is £35m after Government support and including a shortfall in council tax and business rates.

The London Borough of Redbridge this week wrote to communities and local government secretary Robert Jenrick requesting more Government support. “The Government has compensated Redbridge Council just £15.7m and we have received no commitment from

the Government that we will receive any additional funding to bridge the forecast £45m shortfall this financial year,” it said.

Bath and North East Somerset is predicting a deficit in 2020/21 of £43.2m, after taking account of the £10m it has received from the Government.

“We are facing a ‘double whammy’ – increased costs and drastically reduced income due to the collapse of our visitor economy,” says the council’s position statement. “We have the highest dependency on income from things such as heritage services of any of our neighbouring councils.”

Birmingham City Council is projecting a shortfall of about £115m in 2020/21, after taking into account the £70.3m it has received from Government. The council is predicting a further shortfall of £87m in 2021/22.

Cornwall Council is citing costs of £45.2m against Government support of £34.4m, leaving

a shortfall of £10.8m.

“The council’s financial position is currently unstable, but our cash and reserves position are strong, which gives us resilience in the short-term. We are, however, a large council and the longer-term financial impacts will be equally large,” said chief executive Kate Kennally.

Cumbria County Council’s estimate is £47.3m against Government grant of £25.2m. This excludes reductions in council tax and business rates as these are collected by district councils.

Isle of Wight Council estimates a shortfall of £9.8m in 2020/21 (including lower council tax and business rate revenues) after taking into account the £9.0m of emergency funding received from the Government.

Nottingham City Council has received about £20m from the Government. “This funding is clearly insufficient and our ability to deliver even basic

levels of resilience and public services is being undermined by increased service demand and reduced income as a direct result of Covid-19,” Theresa Channell, the council’s head of strategic finance, told councillors. “The council does not have sufficient reserves to deal with a financial impact of this scale and more Government funding to meet the additional costs is essential both in the current year and in the settlements for further years.”

Oxfordshire County Council is estimating a shortfall of £37.3m in 2020/21, based on costs/income loss of £64.6m and Government grant of £27.2m.

“There is also an anticipated impact into 2021/22 due to reduced income from council tax and business rates as well as a potential on-going increase in demand relating to homelessness and the ongoing impact of any savings planned for 2020/21 which are not delivered,” said chief executive Yvonne Rees.

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News 9

Cambs busway decision axed, as company for CAM mooted

BUSES

by Andrew Forster

THE GREATER Cambridge Partnership (GCP) has shelved making a decision about the route of a controversial busway to the delight of James Palmer, the elected mayor of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.

The GCP and the mayor have been at loggerheads for months over the proposed busway route between Cambridge and the market town of Cambourne, to the west. The route would form the first part of combined authority’s Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro (CAM) project.

In May, Palmer threatened to take legal action against the GCP if it pushed ahead with its proposed route, which he said did not support his vision for CAM (LTT 29 May & 12 Jun). The route was also opposed by many local people.

Earlier this month the GCP’s assembly considered an officer report recommending a preferred route. The item was supposed to be presented to the GCP’s executive board, the partnership’s decision-making body, this week but was withdrawn.

In a statement, the GCP said: “The board is committed to developing a public transport route connecting residents in the west to their daily destinations in and around Cambridge.

However, the detailed route pro-

posals have faced opposition.

“The combined authority previously agreed the route in 2018 and signed it off again as part of its local transport plan in January. However, the board now understands that the strategic transport authority has indicated it has an alternative route alignment, and the board feels it must allow a short amount of time for that to be assessed before considering its current plans.

“Taking a decision to move to the next stage without considering the transport authority’s alternative proposal risks future challenge and wasting public money.

“The GCP remains committed to work in partnership with the combined authority on infrastructure solutions for the area.”

It said the decision meant the 2024 date for the busway to open was now “unlikely to be achieved”.

James Palmer welcomed the GCP’s decision. “Every time I have intervened on this issue, I have been publicly criticised by the GCP, but my interventions have both highlighted major problems and brought about significant changes.”

The GCP’s route was “not compatible” with his vision for the CAM, he said.

“I am glad the GCP has now acknowledged the continued significant community opposition to its proposals and has agreed to work with the combined author-

ity to ensure the route will provide a transport network for the future that benefits our whole area.”

Palmer said the dispute between the bodies showed that arrangements for transport decision-making in Cambridgeshire were unsatisfactory.

“I have regularly made the point that the joint working mechanisms we currently have are inadequate; I and the combined authority board have never officially been asked our view on projects key to the local transport plan, and officers have only been consulted on minor technical issues [of the Cambourne to Cambridge busway], not the route itself.

“The combined authority has never approved the detailed Cambourne to Cambridge route and I have always been clear that their preferred route does not accord with our plan for a rapid 24-hour metro system.

“I hope we can now end this series of public statements, and that the GCP will work with the combined authority as the transport authority and determiner of the local transport plan to make our shared aspirations for CAM a reality.”

Further details of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s plan for CAM will emerge this summer.

The CA’s board will receive a report on 5 August about the formation of an “innovation/ promoter company” for the

CAM project.

The proposed CAM network will radiate out from Cambridge, with the system operating in tunnels through the city centre.

The combined authority is leading on the city centre tunnel plan and the outer parts of the network, while the GCP has been responsible for developing the inner parts of the network.

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority has asked LTT to make two changes to last issue’s story about the CAM plans headlined ‘Will Cambridgeshire’s transport power struggle end up in court?’

In the article, we cited a report from the GCP stating that the combined authority’s interim monitoring officer had “confirmed that decisions on the [Cambridge to Cambourne] route rightly sit with the GCP board as the delivery body”.

The combined authority says this statement is incorrect and it has asked the GCP to correct its report.

We also stated that the CA’s interim monitoring officer had said that, if the GCP proceeded with its proposed Cambourne to Cambridge route, this “would” be in conflict with the combined authority’s new CAM sub-strategy to the local transport plan.

The combined authority says the monitoring officer did not say this, and has accepted our change in the wording of the online version of our story from “would” to “could”.

Study into more third rail electrification

RAIL

WAYS OF delivering infill rail electrification in areas with 750V DC third rail are to be explored in a study for the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB).

Most of the rail network in southeast England is third rail, including the lines in Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and parts of Dorset.

Weymouth is the western extremity of the DC network. The Merseyrail Electrics network also uses third rail.

A small number of non-electrified passenger lines exist in the South East: Ashford to Hastings; Oxted to Uckfield; and Wokingham-Ash and Guildford to Redhill on the North Downs Line. The RSSB’s brief for the new study also cites the West of

Third rail: safety concerns

England line, which runs from Basingstoke to Salisbury and Exeter.

Says the RSSB: “There are also several [passenger] reopening candidates where

electrification would be valuable and potentially an essential enabling factor, including the Isle of Grain branch in Medway, the Fawley branch in Hampshire and Headbolt Lane/Skelmersdale in Merseyside.”

Network Rail is reviewing the findings of a report into four traction power options for the Skelmersdale project.

The Office of Rail and Road’s 2015 policy statement on third rail states there is “a presumption against the reasonable practicability of new-build or extended DC third rail in view of the safety requirements duty holders must satisfy”.

The RSSB’s study brief says: “Third rail remains a cost-effective solution for electrification and decarbonising the railways when these railways are close or

adjacent to existing 750V DC top contact third rail electrified lines.

“However, its further use is currently constrained by an unclear position on how to manage the system’s risks through scheme design. Therefore, developing a DC electrification solution introduces significant risk to project development, as it is uncertain whether the final design will be authorised.”

The £200,000 study will identify ways to remove diesel services either by “enabling extensions to the existing electric network or appropriate alternatives”. The chosen contractor will explore options for reducing the safety risk of third rail systems.

Work is expected to commence in August and take less than 18 months to complete.

Council submits busway claim

BUSES

CAMBRIDGESHIRE COUNTY Council has submitted a court claim against BAM Nuttall, the contractor who built the Cambridgeshire guided busway, for the cost of repairing defects to the infrastructure.

The busway between St Ives and Cambridge opened in 2011 but the concrete track has been blighted with problems. The council says vertical and horizontal steps developed at the joints between the precast track sections; the foundations of the guideway moved differentially; and slivers of the concrete broke off at numerous locations.

In August 2017 Cambridgeshire estimated that the repairs were likely to cost at least £36.5m and take three years to complete (LTT 18 Aug 17). The council said at the time that BAM was refusing to accept liability for the defects.

Cambridgeshire’s general purposes committee discussed a confidential report about defects to the busway this month.

This week the council issued a statement: “We have lodged a formal claim with the court and are proceeding with legal action against BAM Nuttall. The claim is for the cost to repair defects on the guided busway.

This follows a thorough review and advice from external legal and technical experts, who have assessed the work and the contract.

“BAM Nuttall are defending the claim and if this continues the claim will have to be heard by the courts. A potential trial is unlikely to be until the end of 2021 or possibly 2022.

“It would be inappropriate to comment further while legal proceedings are active.”

Cambridgeshire settled a lengthy dispute with BAM Nuttall over the cost of building the busway in 2013.

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10 News

Greens criticise Norwich traffic plan

FUNDING

GREEN PARTY councillors in Norwich say Norfolk County Council is not doing enough to deliver temporary traffic management schemes to help pedestrians social distance.

Norfolk and Norwich have deployed stencilled and temporary signs to encourage people to walk on the left hand side of the street in places.

Pedestrian crossing times have been lengthened at traffic signal-controlled crossings around the inner ring road.

The councils are now proposing temporary changes to Exchange Street and St Benedicts Street, which include restricted access for general traffic and loading activity outside core business hours and the removal of redundant signs, railings and other street furniture.

Consideration is being given to further measures on streets such as Magdalen Street, St Giles Street, Upper St Giles, Surrey Street and All Saints Green. The public will be consulted on proposals.

Green Party councillors Jamie Osborn, Martin Schmierer, and Sandra Bogelein have written to Martin Wilby, Norfolk’s cabinet member for highways, transport and infrastructure. “It is deeply worrying that it has taken more than five weeks for Norfolk to come up with plans for just two streets in Norwich,” they said. “People are, right now, running a daily risk between catching coronavirus on crowded pavements or being run over by stepping out to avoid other passers-by.”

The councillors criticise Norfolk for focusing only on the city centre. “The guidance from the DfT urged councils to adopt ‘whole-route’ approaches to create corridors for buses, cycles and access only on key routes into town and city centres’. In Norwich, for example, that could mean installing ‘pop-up’ cycle lanes on those sections of the Dereham Road that are currently missing them.

“Other councils have pushed ahead with ‘School Streets’ to prevent traffic from choking up streets around schools at key times. Why has this not been considered for Norwich?”

10mph advisory limits mooted for Stockport district centres STREETS

by Andrew Forster

TEMPORARY ROAD closures, timed closures of streets outside schools, new cycle lanes, and advisory 10mph speed limits are among the Covid-19 social distancing traffic management measures being implemented by councils across the country.

Gloucestershire County Council has installed waterfilled barriers on Bath Road in Cheltenham to allow for social distancing near shopping areas.

Some on-street parking spaces on Tewkesbury High Street have been removed to give pedestrians and queuing shoppers more space.

Doncaster Council has implemented the full pedestrianisation of Doncaster town centre between 10am and 4pm. “As further retailers are able to open this will be vital to preventing an influx of personal motorised traffic into the centre and to facilitate the establishment of walking as a priority mode for town centre users.”

A network of pop-up cycling lanes, incorporating segregated lanes, contraflow lanes and crossing improvements is being designed and developed around Barnsley town centre.

Stockport Council is planning temporary shared space schemes in local and district centres with gateway features and signage at the entry points.

Advisory 10mph speed limits could be posted, supported by temporary bolted down traffic calming features at close inter-

vals.

“This limit would not be enforceable so the traffic calming features will need to be fairly severe (although will still need to comply with highway standards) and frequently spaced,” reported officers.

“Speed cushions are recommended in place of humps so as not to discomfort bus passengers or patients in ambulances.”

London boroughs had until 19 June to submit proposals to Transport for London’s £45m Streetspace for London fund.

The London Borough of Merton is bidding for funds to install cycle lanes, ten low traffic neighbourhoods, and 20 school streets schemes.

The London Borough of Richmond’s preference is to accelerate the introduction of permanent cycle schemes, rather than temporary schemes, though it will look at the latter too,

“ideally as a precursor for permanent change to follow”.

“The council’s preference is to accelerate permanent cycle corridor enhancements such as Kew Road.”

Kew Road connects cycle facilities on the A316 and the (soon to be completed) Cycle Superhighway 9 on the north side of Kew Bridge. Richmond says the road “is also one of the most dangerous in the borough”.

It has been planning to install fully segregated cycle lanes in both directions on the road but has now revised the plans, with just light segregation between the cycle lanes and traffic lane, with some minimal changes to road layout.

The London Borough of Islington is to install bollards, planters and enforcement cameras to create ‘low traffic neighbourhoods’ .

By the end of 2020 the council

plans to have ‘school street’ traffic restrictions operating at the start and end of the school day outside every primary school in the borough not located on a main road. Thirteen school street schemes have been implemented so far and a further 26 such restrictions will be installed by the end of the calendar year.

The borough’s lorry control will be extended to every residential neighbourhood. The scheme restricts the movement of lorries above 7.5 tonnes (unladen) to main roads. Existing restrictions cover about 60 per cent of residential roads in the borough.

Islington has just ordered an additional 92 enforcement cameras at a cost of £2m.

Most of the above measures will be implemented with Experimental Traffic Orders, though some with Temporary Traffic Orders.

£15m streets funding for Wales The Welsh Government has awarded councils £15.4m to create more space for active travel under social distancing restrictions. The Government has also published guidance to assist in the redesign of public spaces with high footfall.

Deputy transport minister Lee Waters said more than 200 proposals had been received from councils. “We asked local authorities to prioritise those schemes, which can be delivered within the next three to four months.

Today is hopefully the start of our long-term project to enhance our town centres and public areas.” £2m of the funding is specifically for schemes around schools.

Up to 15 locations in Cardiff will benefit from district and local centre footway, social distancing and public realm improvements.

In Swansea, there will be secure city centre bicycle parking and a park-and-cycle initiative at Landore, plus park-and-ride sites in Fabian Way. The Isle of Anglesey will introduce social distancing measures at main bus stops.

In Carmarthenshire, footways will be upgraded, routes better signposted and road space reallocated so cyclists and pedestrians’ safer social distancing.

Rhyl town centre will see the suspension of sections of on-street parking for safer walking and cycling.

Newham diverts road cash to green transport

FUNDING

THE LONDON Borough of Newham is to redirect some of its special road maintenance budget to wider transport investments that would normally be funded by Transport for London.

The borough is in the fifth year of its ten-year ‘Keeping Newham Moving’ programme of carriageway and footway resurfacing and renewals. The programme is financed by borrowing, and about £45m is still available to spend.

Councillors have approved the use of at least £2m of the £13.4m planned expenditure this financial year to deliver shortterm measures to help pedestrians and cyclists social

distance as well as projects that would normally be delivered by TfL’s Local Implementation Plan (LIP) grant.

Newham had expected to receive £5.16m from TfL in 2020/21, of which LIP was £2.1m, principal road maintenance £300,000, Major projects/liveable neighbourhoods £775,000, cycling schemes £750,000, cycle parking £200,000, and bus priority £1m.

The borough says TfL has “paused” all these funding streams as it grapples with the financial consequences of Covid19.

Newham is also to rescope the Keeping Newham Moving programme for future years to ensure it delivers “complemen-

tary environmental streetscape and sustainable travel interventions alongside resurfacing”.

In a report to councillors, principal transport planner Murray Woodburn said making the changes would “reduce the council’s dependency on TfL funding for air quality and sustainable transport programmes over time, which may be prudent given TfL’s dire financial situation and bleak prospects”.

“Initiatives such as cycle hire, cycle training, residential cycle parking hangars, pedestrian wayfinding and behavioural change events, despite being key complementary measures to improvements to cycling and walking infrastructure, now have no source of funding,” he said.

“Similarly, other LIP initiatives aimed at improving our air quality, and the quality of residents’ lives, such as electric charging points, air quality monitoring, car clubs, streetscape improvements (such as public realm enhancement and planting and greening) and Play Streets are also now unfunded.”

Woodburn said that, in a best case scenario, the borough could receive about £2m this year from successful bids to the £45m borough pot in TfL’s London Streetspace Plan, and the £25m earmarked for London in the DfT’s £250m for active travel announced in May (LTT 15 May).

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News 11

Aberdeen bus operators vexed by closure of city’s main street TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

by Andrew Forster

BUS OPERATORS have protested to Scottish transport minister Michael Matheson over Aberdeen City Council’s decision to temporarily close part of Union Street, the city’s main shopping street, to all vehicles so that pedestrians can social distance.

The council has introduced the traffic changes using funding from the Scottish Government’s Spaces for People grant fund. The fund is managed by active travel charity Sustrans Scotland.

Since 30 May, Union Street has been closed between Market Street and Bridge Street from 06.00 to 18.00.

One operator told LTT the diversionary arrangements were “useless”. “It beggars belief that someone who calls themselves a transport professional could think this is a good idea.

“Virtually every bus goes down Union Street. The street is enormous – it’s four lanes wide.

There’s no reason why buses couldn’t go down the middle lanes with widened pavements.”

Operators FirstGroup and Stagecoach wrote a joint letter to the transport minister Michael Matheson earlier this month, saying their protestations to the city council had fallen on “fear ears” .

Sam Greer, Stagecoach’s regional director for Scotland, and Andrew Jarvis, managing director of First Bus Scotland, said the council “changed the plans submitted to Government at the last possible minute” by including the Union Street closure.

“We believe the Scottish Government has been misled over the council’s hastily revised plans,” they wrote.

Describing the action as “halfbaked”, the operators added:

An empty Union Street

“Aberdeen City Council has shown a complete lack of transparency and no regard for proper consultation. The city’s hardpressed and fragile retail sector will be further damaged due to worsened access by public transport to the city centre.”

The operators have yet to hear back from Matheson.

Aberdeen City Council has defended the traffic arrangements.

Councillor Sandra MacDonald, the council’s roads and transport spokeswoman, said the measures had been designed and implemented “with the health and wellbeing of all our citizens in mind”.

“Balancing the needs of pedestrians, bus users, cyclists, wheelers and those who still wish to drive into the city centre has

been challenging.

“Traffic engineers looked carefully at the options to accommodate buses on Union Street. The central section is where pedestrian footfall is highest and space is most at a premium, [and] they did not believe that they could enable safe physical distancing and retain buses in that section.

“The city centre interventions are short-term measures and there is no ambition to make the Bridge Street to Market Street section of Union Street permanently busfree.”

MacDonald said that time pressures to implement social distancing measures had meant that the “usual wide-ranging, lengthy consultation process that would normally happen was

limited”.

“Given the timeline, we were not been able to consult with groups in advance of the works,” she added.

A Transport Scotland spokesman told LTT: “It is for individual local authorities to engage with all relevant parties, including bus operators where appropriate, who are impacted by their plans and to make an assessment of the impact of their Spaces for People projects on bus routes and access to essential shops and services for those with limited mobility, and plan accordingly.

“Help is available for local authorities and Sustrans Scotland offers support to them on a range of areas such as design, engagement, equality impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation.”

Transport Scotland pointed out that public bodies had to comply with all relevant statutory duties including, where applicable, the public sector equality duty and requirements to carry out equality impact assessments. It also pointed to the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland’s guidance note on temporary street measures to help ensure the mobility needs of disabled people are fully considered (LTT Letters 29 May).

More traffic schemes disrupt buses A number of social distancing measures implemented to help walking and cycling are having a negative impact on bus services, say operators.

“There are so many of them [temporary traffic management measures] and so much of this is impacting negatively on the bus,” a UK operator told LTT. The chief problems stem from road closures and the removal of bus lanes, the latter sometimes to create wider pavements.

FirstGroup has compiled a list of places

where measures that disadvantage buses have been implemented. They include Truro and Helston in Cornwall; Taunton, Bridgewater and Yeovil in Somerset; Leicester; Sheffield; East Dunbartonshire; and Aberdeen.

The operator is, however, full of praise for the work by Bristol City Council and the City of York Council to ensure their actions take the needs of buses into account.

One operator said the DfT was sympathetic to the problems being created for buses. “The DfT get it, it’s not a dialogue of the deaf.”

Shapps reveals hydrogen bus competition BUSES

TRANSPORT SECRETARY Grant Shapps has announced plans for a hydrogen bus town following lobbying from the UK’s nascent green hydrogen transport sector.

Shapps revealed the plan in evidence to the House of Commons transport committee this week.

British industrialist Jo Bamford has been pressing the Govern-

ment to run a hydrogen bus town competition ever since ministers announced a plan for an all-electric bus town in February (LTT 07 Feb).

Bamford bought bus manufacturer Wrightbus last year, which has produced a hydrogen double decker, and also owns Ryse Hydrogen, a ‘green’ hydrogen production company. Ryse has just secured planning permission for a hydrogen production plant in Kent that will supply fuel for a

fleet of 20 hydrogen buses in London (see page 20).

Bamford told LTT the all-electric bus town competition would benefit Chinese battery manufacturers, whereas hydrogen could kickstart the UK hydrogen economy (LTT 01 May).

Bamford has urged the Government to fund a 3,000 hydrogen bus programme. “We’re delighted that the secretary of state shares our vision and belief that the UK can lead the world in hydrogen

technology,” said Bamford. “As the producer of the world’s-first double decker hydrogen bus, we have been encouraging the Government to consider a hydrogen bus town. Hydrogen buses are essential for longer routes and heavy usage, as they can do many more miles than an electric bus and take only five minutes to be refuelled.”

Forty-one British businesses are now backing the Hydrogen Strategy Now campaign.

Manchester studies Deansgate closure

BUSES

BUS PASSENGER body Bus Users has criticised Manchester City Council’s plan to permanently close the busy street of Deansgate in the city centre to vehicular traffic.

Deansgate has been temporarily closed to vehicles between Kings Street West and Blackfriars Street since May to help pedestrians and cyclists social distance.

The council is now also considering the permanent closure of the street, saying this could turn it into a “highquality destination”.

Dawn Badminton-Capps, director for Bus Users in England said: "As buses are diverted to the surrounding area, people with mobility issues and the elderly in particular, will struggle to access employment, shops and social activities in the city centre. Given the significant contribution bus passengers make to local economies, it's difficult to understand how a bus ban will actually stimulate economic recovery.”

In Brief

DRT trial for Cardiff Cardiff-based bus operator New Adventure Travel is to replace a scheduled service in the city with a demand responsive service in a three-month trial run in partnership with Cardiff Council and Transport for Wales. The ‘fflecsi G1’ DRT service will replace the existing G1 route in north Cardiff connecting Gabalfa to Gwaelod y Garth via Whitchurch. Passengers will be able to request collection from stops along the route at their preferred time by pre-booking on the app or calling the customer centre. Despite Covid-19, the service is being launched on 29 June. fflecsi schemes have already been launched in Newport and other parts of Wales.

Oxon submits four proposals for DRT Oxfordshire County Council has submitted four proposals for demand responsive transport to the DfT’s Rural Mobility Fund.

One, submitted with Go-Ahead subsidiary the Oxford Bus Company, would see services connect rural communities and suburbs to park-and-ride sites, where passengers could board services to Oxford city centre.

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LTT Online Reader Discussion report

Future of car travel discussion focuses on a new balance in personal mobility The latest LTT online Friday discussion looked at changing attitudes to car use and ownership, and how private transport may fit into the future travel matrix

here was surprising unanimity amongst the five panellists at last week’s LTT online discussion about how the car fits into the UK’s changing travel patterns. Even the representative of car maker Nissan, Peter Stephens, its head of UK external and government, recognised that traditional approaches to car ownership and use were disappearing, and a more flexible and sustainable model of travel choices emerging. Nick Reed, the former head of mobility R&D at automotive equipment firm Bosch, acknowledged his own personal journey away from the motor industry as he notes in a contribution on this page.

Statistics from panellist Olga Anapryenka, senior consultant in new mobility at Steer, showed how car travel had been hugely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, and that future patterns were currently hard to predict. Although in China there had been a big bounce back of private car travel since the resumption of activities, the situation there was very different to that in Western Europe. One of the complicating factors was the continuing government message to avoid public transport, and contributors to the

discussion wondered how easy it would be to persuade people that buses and trains were an acceptable option, rather than the personal cocoon provided by the private car. Rebecca Posner, social behavioural research and evaluation lead at the government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), explained that the special unit sponsored both by the DfT and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy had moved away from focusing specifically on driverless and semi-autonomous vehicles, and now included responsibility for overall new mobility strategy and planning.

Professor David Metz, author of the books The Limits to Travel, Peak Car and most recently Driving Change, presented his thoughts on evolving new patterns of car ownership and use, and in particular, the likelihood of the start of a decline in per capita car use, reflecting less need to travel and some switching to other modes. As a means to decarbonise the transport system, he advocated a commitment to electrification, rather than an expectation of significantly changing travel behaviour away from cars. l Olga and David’s presentations can be read at Transportxtra.com l For the next event, see page 25

Driver behaviour expert takes a new journey – Nick Reed of Reed Mobility I arrived in my relatively new job after taking something of a philosophical journey away from my early focus on how car drivers behave.

Coming from a background of driver psychology, my research at TRL focused on how to improve driving behaviour, studying the effects of impairments such as fatigue, alcohol and distractions.

Around ten years ago, this progressed to studies of the potential impact of vehicle automation as a way to mitigate the effects of poor human driving on crash causation. Working on automated vehicle business models led me to consider the broader societal impacts of such technologies – thinking about why so many people depend on a personally-owned car. My role before setting up my own consultancy was as head of mobility R&D at Bosch, the world’s largest automotive supplier, leading R&D for city mobility, looking at the transportation challenges of megacities worldwide and, in particular, connected and automated vehicle projects.

Since the Covid-19 lockdown, my thoughts have broadened to consider how many fewer journeys

might be needed to achieve the levels of prosperity and happiness that were available pre-Covid. As we emerge from lockdown, it is vital not only to consider how we get back to ‘normal’ but also how we retain some of the positives that have emerged from this tragedy. In particular, the cleaner air, quieter roads and willingness to use sustainable modes. The last few months have also given us fresh perspectives on how we use our streets and public spaces.

Last week’s conversation highlighted how the future of car travel is one element in a dynamic transport ecosystem where the genuine need to travel has been fully considered and the true environmental and societal impact of our choices respected. Cars certainly have a role in that future. But with emergent connectivity and automation technologies, growth in cycling and micromobility, an increasing recognition of the importance of shared transport services and greater emphasis on decarbonisation, I would be surprised if the role of the car in the 21st century did not diverge significantly from that it enjoyed in the 20th.

Clearer Roads, Cleaner Air Tuesday 7 July 2020 | 10.30 - 11.45 The lockdown imposed on the UK during the pandemic saw a dramatic fall in vehicle traffic in towns and cities, which led to a major reduction in vehicle emissions and a significant improvement in air quality. With social distancing requirements reducing the carrying capacity of public transport, central and local government have worked hard to encourage cycling and walking.

However, road vehicle traffic levels are rising as people return to the use of cars for commuting, shopping and school runs. There is a very real chance that improvements in air quality could be lost unless traffic and parking management measures are put in place to lock those changes in.

This webinar looks at how we can keep improvements in air quality after the pandemic.

The session will address issues such as:

G How tangible have air quality improvements been?

G How quickly is traffic related air pollution returning to pre-lockdown levels?

G What can be done to encourage people to walk and cycle in urban centres?

G How can commuters be enticed to walk, cycle or use greener vehicles?

G Can emissions-based parking tariff and permit schemes change driver behaviour?

G What is happening to the planned Clean Air Zones (CAZs)?

Panelists include:

G Dave Pye, Managing parking & air quality projects for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames and Southend Borough Council G Peter O’Driscoll, Managing Director, RingGo G John Siraut, Director Economics, Jacobs

G Lewis Wray, Director Intelligent Transport, WSP (chair)

Register your place: https://bit.ly/3dxRMc6

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News 13

Review all infrastructure and policy against Net Zero – CCC ENVIRONMENT

by Andrew Forster

NEW INFRASTRUCTURE projects and policy initiatives should be assessed for compliance with the Government’s statutory target for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the Committee on Climate Change said this week.

“Increasingly, all policy and infrastructure decisions will need to be checked against their consistency with the UK's Net Zero target and the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change,” says the CCC’s annual report to Parliament. “Government planning documents should also be reviewed (e.g.

Green Book, National Planning Policy Framework) to ensure consistency against the objective.”

The CCC notes that “some commentators” have suggested the creation of new institutions, such as a Net Zero delivery body, and/or a National Invest-

ment Bank to ensure progress against the 2050 target. It will consider this further in its December advice on the sixth carbon budget, covering 20332037.

Surface transport accounted for 24 per cent of UK carbon emissions in 2019 and the CCC says the sector’s decarbonisation “ambitions must be delivered and extended”.

The Government should impose a “rising mandate for car companies to sell a minimum share of zero-emissions vehicles, reaching 100 per cent by 2032 at the latest”. The target should apply to motorcycles too.

The Treasury should reform Vehicle Excise Duty “to provide stronger incentives to purchase zero emission vehicles and halt the shift towards larger, higher emitting cars”.

More investment should be made in walking and cycling, despite the “mixed levels of success” so far, the CCC noting that walking trips fell throughout

the majority of the 2010s and the average number of cycle trips has remained flat over the last decade (distance walked and cycled shows an increase from 2015 to 2018).

The Government should invest in digital technology to facilitate more home working.

The CCC backs e-scooters.

Trials of zero emission HGVs should be conducted “to establish which is the most suitable and cost-effective technology”.

Public transport “still has clear benefits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality, due to lower emissions per passenger and for its role in reducing road congestion”, says the CCC. But it says Covid-19 “will make a switch from private to public transport more difficult to achieve”.

For rail, the Government should work with Network Rail in “developing plans to deliver the target to remove all diesel trains by 2040”. How this will

be achieved for freight is not explained.

Net zero requires a huge increase in electricity generating capacity, including to power electric vehicles. The CCC says plans are “advancing in line with the large scale required”, pointing to contracts to build 6GW of offshore wind in the last year.

Alongside renewables investment, it says “a similarly ambitious policy package should be developed to build supply of and demand for low-carbon hydrogen”.

International aviation and shipping should be formally included in UK climate targets when the sixth carbon budget is set next summer, says the CCC, and net-zero plans developed for them.

Reducing UK emissions: progress report to Parliament is available at https://tinyurl.com/y7jv3ndx

Green numberplates ‘Limit scrappage ‘may aid traffic curbs’ scheme to EVs only’

EMISSIONS

TH E G O V ERN M EN T has authorised the use of green numberplates to signify zero emission vehicles.

The plates w ill remain largely white on the front of vehicles and yellow at the back but have a green ‘flash’ (block’) at the left hand end.

The D fT s aid the plates would make it easier for cars to be identified as zero emission, helping councils design and put in place new policies to incentivise people to own and drive them.

“For example, drivers could benefit from local initiatives such as cheaper parking and cost-free entry into zero-emission zones where those with a green number plate will be recognised as eligible.”

Transport secretary Grant Shapps said: “A green recovery is key to help in g us achieve our net zero carbon commitments while also promoting eco no mic g row th .

Green number plates could unlock a number of incentives for drivers and increase awareness of cleaner vehicles on our roads, showing people that a

greener transport future is within our grasp.”

The Government has also announced £12m for research and development into zero emission vehicles.

Innovate UK’s £10m Zero Emission Vehicle Innovation Competition w ill s upport advances in both battery electric and hydrogen vehicles, and in charging infrastructure.

The Office for Low Emission Vehicles is providing £2m to UK small and medium busines s es to s upport their research into zero-emission v ehicles in areas s u ch as battery technology, which co u ld b e u s ed b y majo r vehicle manufacturers.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has just awarded £73m for ten low emission v eh icle p ro jects , v ia th e Advanced Propulsion Centre.

J ag u ar Lan d R o v er w ill receive funding for its ‘Zeus’ project to develop a hydrogen fuel call sports utility vehicle (SUV).

Many of the other projects are focused on battery electric vehicles.

CARS

TRANSPORT ACADEMICS and consultants have told ministers to only make zero emission vehicles eligible for purchase under a possible car scrappage scheme.

Their letter to chancellor Rishi Sunak and transport secretary Grant Shapps cites media reports of the car industry lobbying for a scheme encompassing hybrids or other fossil fuel vehicles.

“As transport academics and professionals we urge you to resist that lobbying and to restrict the scheme to zero emission vehicles only. We would also recommend incentives to encourage purchase of electric bikes and mopeds/scooters, which would be affordable to more people.”

They note the consultation on phasing out new petrol and diesel cars by “2035, or earlier if a faster transition appears feasible”.

“The secretary of state has indicated the Government is considering a phase-out date of 2032. We believe – and have evidence – that even that date would be too late. Recent analyses have shown the UK’s legal requirement to achieve net zero by 2050 would be insufficient to comply

with the Paris Agreement... Kevin Anderson et al. (2020) estimate developed countries including the UK would have to achieve net zero by 2035 to 2040.

“The Climate Change Act allows for targets to be revised in line with scientific advice, which has produced worsening forecasts since the Paris Agreement was signed. In these circumstances, the Government should impose an earlier date to phase out petrol and diesel vehicles and avoid the waste of public money which would occur if one government department were to subsidise the purchase of vehicles which another government department was seeking to phase out.”

The letter has been co-ordinated by Steve Melia, a senior lecturer in transport and planning at the University of the West of England. Other signatories include Graham Parkhurst and John Parkin (UWE); Phil Goodwin (UCL); Tom Cohen (Westminster); Geoff Vigar (Newcastle). Non-academic signatories include: Ian Taylor of Transport for Quality of Life; Lucy Marstrand-Taussig, a Transport Planning Society board member; Laurence Oakes-Ash and Alex Dawn of City Science;

HE funds Nottingham BEV loan scheme

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

HIGHWAYS ENGLAND is funding an electric vehicle loan project for businesses in Nottingham, with the vehicles eventually destined to become part of the city council’s vehicle fleet.

HE has awarded £2.69m to the project from its air quality fund. Most (£2.1m) will be used to purchase about 50 battery electric vehicles – a mix of small cars and light and medium-sized vans.

Of the remaining funding, £300,000 will be spent on 722kW chargepoints at business premises or possibly employees’ homes, and £140,000 will contribute towards two electric vehicle chargepoint hubs at Nottingham City Council’s Eastcroft and Woolsthorpe depots.

Nottingham City Council is contributing £1m to the overall project.

The council will incorporate the vehicles into its fleet at the end of the twoyear loan period.

The loan project will initially target organisations in the city but could be extended to cover businesses in Nottinghamshire and Derby, as part of the Transforming Cities Fund/Future Transport Zone programme opportunities.

Highways England has also funded a loan scheme in Leeds (LTT 01 Mar 19).

In Brief

Decarbonisation software for councils A free transport decarbonisation tool is being made available to local authorities by data and software company City Science. Using open datasets, the tool enables users to model the carbon emissions impact of different sets of interventions covering electrification, public transport, active travel, new developments and freight.

Users set their own targets. The tool was developed with the help of funding from the DfT’s Transport-Technology Research Innovation Grant. For details email: info@cityscience.com

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Drivers should pay more – Heartland

ROADS

DRIVERS MIGHT have to pay more through mechanisms such as road user charging and workplace parking levies under plans to reduce single occupancy car use presented by non-statutory sub-national transport body England’s Economic Heartland.

The EEH’s draft transport strategy includes an objective to reduce the number of car trips that are single occupancy by 20 per cent compared with 2020 by 2040.

The strategy says this will require consideration of demand management and good alternatives to car use.

A background report shows the results of modelling road pricing policies. The University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute and the University of Southampton explored different pathways to decarbonisation using a strategic transport model that forms part of the NISMOD (National Infrastructure Systems Models) modelling suite developed by the Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium.

The academics assumed that all motor traffic is zero emission by 2050. The modelling considered different policy approaches and their impacts on congestion and electricity use.

Presenting the results to the EEH’s strategic transport forum, officers recommended adopting two pathways: ‘highly connected’ and ‘policy-led behaviour shift’.

“A combination of these two pathways presents a feasible route to decarbonisation for the Heartland,” said officers.

“The proposed approach is deliverable and viable.”

Officers said the mechanism to deliver an uplift in driving costs within a locality, as envisaged in the policy-led behaviour shift scenario, “is not specified but could be assumed to be models such as a pay-as-yougo, workplace parking levy, a congestion charge in urban areas or more simply a national road pricing initiative”.

Three new east-west rail arcs explored for EEH geography

RAIL

NETWORK RAIL is exploring the case for creating three new east-west rail arcs across central southern England, the geography of the England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) grouping of local authorities.

The investigations are part of the ‘England’s Economic Heartland passenger rail study’ overseen by a steering group comprising representatives of the EEH, local authorities, the Government’s East West Railway Company, the Rail Delivery Group, and Network Rail.

The arcs are: • Northern arc: linking north Oxfordshire (Banbury) with Northampton and Peterborough • Central arc: linking Swindon and Reading through Oxford to Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich via Milton Keynes and Bedford.

The core part of this arc is the East West Rail corridor, which the Government is supporting between Oxford and Cambridge • Southern arc: north of the M25, connecting the Chiltern lines with the West Anglia Main Line (London to Cambridge/Stansted) through Buckinghamshire and southern

Hertfordshire.

In all, the first phase of the study has identified ten corridors for in-depth analysis in phase two. They are a mixture of existing rail corridors where direct services are non-existent or infrequent, and corridors where there is currently no rail infrastructure to support a journey.

The other seven corridors are: • Oxfordshire to Swindon: cross-Oxfordshire links and a link between Oxford and Swindon (the infrastructure exists for a direct service but there has not been one for years) • Chiltern Main Line: the area covered by the two routes from London Marylebone (High Wycombe/Aylesbury), improving connectivity between intermediate stations and to Oxford, Banbury and the West Midlands • East Midlands-Thames Valley: linking Old Oak Common in west London through the Chilterns to Aylesbury, Milton Keynes, and Northampton towards the East Midlands • Milton Keynes and Peterborough: currently not linked by direct rail services • East Hertfordshire-Cambridgeshire: improving

connectivity between the towns on the West Anglia and East Coast Main Lines, such as Hertford, Welwyn Garden City, Hatfield and Cambridge • Peterborough-CambridgeStansted Airport: improving upon the existing hourly service • Peterborough-East MidlandsWest Midlands: improving upon the existing hourly service In the second phase of the work, Network Rail will look at the monetary benefits of improving connectivity in each corridor.

The phase one report was presented to the EEH’s strategic transport forum last week.

Discussing the northern arc, the report says: “A rail corridor in the north of the region would make significant connectivity improvements to communities.” It would reduce reliance on travel via the West and East Midlands; provide a rail alternative to the A43; improve access to places of high population growth not on the rail network, such as Daventry; provide Corby with more journey options; and provide a route into the West Midlands via Leamington Spa, avoiding Leicester.

“The concept of the southern arc is similar, but with the benefits of potentially relieving pressure

on the orbital road network in this area, most notably the M25 and A414, promoting modal shift and decarbonisation,” says the report.

“Linking the radial main lines at this point creates the potential for a London orbital route.”

On connecting Milton Keynes and Peterborough, the report says this could be a direct service “facilitated by running a service via East West Rail rather than needing a completely new railway”.

Discussing the relationship between the rail study and the EEH’s own connectivity studies (see below), EEH officer Anthony Swift told the strategic transport forum: “The majority of corridors identified in the passenger rail study are within the same corridors as those identified and prioritised for a connectivity study. In these situations we will align activity on rail with the work to be taken forward as a connectivity study, thereby ensuring a truly multi-modal approach.

Where passenger rail corridors are not obviously linked to a connectivity study, further economic analysis will be undertaken separately to understand the value of improving connections along those corridors.”

EEH to consult on draft transport strategy

PLANNING

ENGLAND ECONOMIC Heartland’s will commence a 12-week consultation on its draft transport strategy on 14 July.

To emphasise the strategic significance of East West Rail, the strategy refers to the proposed new railway between Oxford and Cambridge as the “East West Main Line”.

“Delivery of the current East West Rail proposal will be transformational in its own right.

However, the longer term potential of the East West Main Line to support planned growth and encourage further shift in passenger and freight movements on to the railway will require additional investment in its capacity and capability.

“We will work with the EWRCo and Network Rail to develop the longer-term potential of the East West Main Line over and above that of the current proposal.”

EEH wants the railway built as an electrified line.

Phase 2 of East West Rail, connecting from Oxford and

Bedford, is due to open by 2024.

Aylesbury to Milton Keynes should open by 2025 and the line from Bedford to Cambridge by 2030.

The strategy endorses improved east-west connectivity in a northern arc connecting north Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Peterborough, and a southern arc connecting Buckinghamshire, southern Hertfordshire and Cam-

bridgeshire. Network Rail is exploring possible rail lines in these corridors (see above).

The Government’s seemingly doomed plan for an Oxford to Cambridge Expressway road doesn’t receive a mention. The strategy does say, however: “Improving connectivity between Oxford and Milton Keynes is a strategic issue for the region. We will continue to work with our

partners within the region and nationally to identify the most appropriate infrastructure solutions required to support the delivery of planned growth in this area.”

EEH also plans to work with the Government, Network Rail, Highways England and Oxfordshire County Council on challenges on the Didcot-OxfordBicester/Banbury corridor.

Nine connectivity studies for Heartland England’s Economic Heartland plans to commission nine corridor studies over the next four years to help inform its investment priorities. The studies, developed from an earlier shortlist (LTT 29 May) are: • London-Buckinghamshire-Milton KeynesNorthampton: including road and rail connections between Aylesbury and High Wycombe, and a rail link from High Wycombe to Old Oak Common connecting Chiltern Railway services to HS2, Crossrail and Heathrow services. Includes links to Milton Keynes/Northants (commence 2020/21) • Peterborough-Northampton-Oxford: incorporating east-west connections between the M40 and A1 (the A43/A45) (2020/21) • Luton-Milton Keynes-Daventry: including

Houghton Regis-Daventry (A5) and Luton to east Milton Keynes (2021/22) • Swindon-Oxford-Didcot: the A34 and A420 and enhanced rail connectivity, including the A34 between the M4 and M40 (2021/22) • Watford-Aylesbury-Bicester-M40: including the A41 and Aylesbury and Bicester growth areas (2021/22) • North Northamptonshire (2022/23) • Oxford-M40 junctions (follow on from strategic work conducted with Highways England on the A34) (2022/23) • Luton-Bedford-Northamptonshire: including the A6 corridor (2023/24) • Northampton-Milton Keynes: encompasses the A508 between Milton Keynes and Northampton (2023/24).

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News 15

Garden communities ‘will be car-based commuter suburbs’

HOUSING

by Andrew Forster

THE GOVERNMENT’S programme of garden towns and garden villages is little more than ‘greenwash’ when it comes to transport, with most developments likely to end up being car-dependent commuter estates, according to a report by the Transport for New Homes project.

The report says the language and images used in the development masterplans suggest they mark a break from past practice but the reality will be quite different. Most communities are located away from fixed public transport routes and many are dependent on major new roads.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government published its garden communities prospectus in August 2018 and subsequently awarded local authorities grants of between £100,000 and £700,000 to prepare masterplans.

Developments are supposed to feature good public transport, walking, and cycling facilities to ensure they are “easy to navigate, and facilitate simple and sustainable access to jobs, education, and services”.

Transport for New Homes studied 20 plans in detail. Only one – Aylesham garden village in Kent – offered a railway station within one mile of every household. Many were reliant on major new roads.

The masterplan documents

leave readers thinking they will have low car reliance, says the report. “The images show people walking and cycling in places designed for walkability rather than cars. There are public transport hubs and a mix of development. The boring housing estate dominated by parking is out.

“Having found that the visions for garden communities were all about sustainable living with walking, cycling and public transport, it was with some amazement that we found that nearly every new garden community hinged on major road improvements to cater for a massive expected rise in car use.

“Sometimes it seemed that the location of a new garden community was actually chosen because it would help finance a new road or better junction. So some garden villages advertised that they specifically would unlock funds to improve infrastructure and boost the case for improvements for a new motorway junction, large link road, bypass, junction upgrade etc.”

The report cites the 3,500home Long Marston Garden Village on a former airfield in Warwickshire as “typical of garden villages in that it is far from major population and employment centres”.

Located seven miles from a railway station, “residents will have no option other than the car to see friends, get to work or to the nearest town centre”.

“Visions of ‘express bus con-

nections’ are without funding.

There are also unfunded aspirations for new safe walking and cycling routes from the development, but even if they were provided there is little other than open space nearby.”

Aylesbury garden town is typical of the larger, garden town, proposals. It envisages 16,000 new homes “located on the outskirts and without attractive, safe walking and cycling routes to amenities”, says Transport for New Homes.

“This garden town is like many of the others in that plans are heavily reliant on road building, in this case the completion of a coveted ring road.”

Project co-ordinator Jenny Raggett said: “It looks like garden communities are to become carbased commuter estates just like any other – exactly what the Government wanted to avoid. Nearly every garden community comes with a long list of road improvements such as bypasses, link roads and new motorway junctions.”

Transport for New Homes pins the blame on England’s planning system, which is driven by targets for new housing numbers at local authority level.

“The targets are produced without consideration of many geographical implications, including proximity and direct access to large urban areas, employment hot-spots, services, as well as transport.

“Once targets are decided, the pressure is then on for planners

working for the councils to find places to build the homes. At this point the developers and promoters of sites come forward with sites that they have in waiting.

Large greenfield sites are seen as a better bet by local councils who must get targets [of new homes] built.”

Transport for New Homes calls for new housing to be built close to existing town centres or along public transport routes.

In the short-term it recommends the Government commissions an assessment of the transport plans of garden communities and outline planning permission is withheld “until it is clear that sustainable transport elements in each vision are fully funded and specified”.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, who chaired the project steering group, said: “The vision for garden developments is laudable but is at grave risk of being missed – far from being delivered in a way that would encourage us to leave our cars at home the reality looks set to ingrain car dependence.

“Living completely ‘car-free’ is probably a pipe-dream outside the centres of our towns and cities – the reality is that many of us will still wish to own and use our cars but not want to be forced to get behind the wheel for every trip we make.”

Garden villages and garden towns: visions and reality is available at https://tinyurl.com/yaml7wnd

Didcot garden town Orbital road key to wins £218m for roads Aylesbury masterplan ROADS

HOMES ENGLAND this week confirmed the award of a £218m Housing Infrastructure Fund grant to Oxfordshire County Council to improve roads around Didcot, which has been designated a garden town.

The funding will meet the lion’s share of a £234m programme: • widening the A4130 from A34 Milton Interchange towards Didcot from single to dual carriageway; • a new ‘Science Bridge’ over the A4130, Great Western Main Line railway and Milton Road into the former Didcot A Power Station site;

• a new link road between Didcot’s A4130 perimeter road and the A415 at Culham to the north, including a bridge over the River Thames; and • a bypass for Clifton Hampden village The funding was put at risk after South Oxfordshire District Council changed political control last year. The incoming Liberal Democrat and Green administration opposes some of the new housing sites that provide the justification for the road investments. The Government intervened to stop the new administration withdrawing the local plan from the public examination (LTT 23 Mar).

ROADS

AN OUTER ring road forms a key part of a new garden town masterplan for Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

The plan envisages the construction of 16,000 new homes by 2033, mostly on greenfield sites on the edge of the town, all the way from the northeast of the town to the southwest in a clockwise direction, and also northwest of the town.

The London to West Midlands high-speed railway will form the western boundary for the expanded town.

New orbital roads will remove through traffic from the town, enabling more space and

priority for active travel and public transport.

The masterplan is supported by the new unitary Buckinghamshire Council, the Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership, and Homes England.

Consultants Alan Baxter and Prior + Partners have helped with the plan preparation.

Metro cash ‘still leaves a funding shortfall’ RAIL

THE GOVERNMENT’S second tranche of emergency funding to cover losses on the Tyne and Wear Metro during Covid19 is more generous than the first but has not eliminated the funding loss, says Nexus, the Tyne and Wear PTE. Nexus has received support in two tranches; an initial £8.6m for the period 17 March to 9 June, and £7.6m for the period 12 May to 4 August.

After the first payment was made, the PTE said it amounted to about 80 per cent of the income shortfall (LTT 15 May).

In a paper to the House of Commons transport committee’s inquiry into the

Metro: second tranche of support ‘better than the first’

impacts of Covid-19, Nexus says: “Whilst on the face of it, this second tranche of funding appears to be less than the first, the second tranche is back dated to 12 May, so there is a four-week period where the first and second tranches overlap. This means that the second tranche is better for Nexus and is designed to effectively cover its net losses in their entirety.”

LTT asked Nexus if this meant the entire losses back to March were now covered.

Nexus director of finance and resources John Fenwick, said: “The emergency funding is less than the losses we have incurred to date. The funding expires on 4 August, with no indication thus far as to the extent of the emergency funding that will be provided thereafter.

“The full extent of Nexus’ net losses are still being assessed.

Dialogue with officials at the DfT has been and remains positive regarding further financial support.”

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LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

Added services, better access and deeper knowledge for our community: The ‘LTT Project’ starts a new journey

After reflecting on the story so far with LTT last issue, editorial director Peter Stonham explains the innovative new broader package of information and networking activities which provide an exceptional service for the LTT community

I

n the previous issue – our 800th – we looked back at the amazing journey LTT has been on since we began in 1989. Now we want to look ahead In this article I hope to explain where we are on our new phase of development, and to set out some exciting new further new steps which the LTT project will be introducing in the coming weeks. As I made clear in the review of the story so far last time, here at LTT we’ve certainly been up for change over the years, and we’re changing further now.

A raft of new elements have already been added to the LTT mix beyond the original fortnightly print product; most radically and recently with the introduction of our fortnightly online discussions to complement the magazine itself, along with e-newsletters to bring you up to date with developments in specialist areas like transport’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also introduced our annual Local Transport Summit five years ago to provide an opportunity for decision-makers in the sector to take stock each year of changes that are happening, and new challenges on the horizon.

As I said in issue 800, the LTT project – it’s no longer just a magazine – obviously wouldn’t exist without the warmth towards it out there in the local transport community, and the identification of several thousand people with us on our original and continuing mission to provide a specialist focus on such a vital area.

So what’s changing? And what will it mean in terms of the LTT products and services?

You’ll have seen from the dramatic cover on this magazine and the list of connected services that are now available on the inside of the cover that we are re-pitching our identity to reflect our much broader offer. It all supports the professional needs of the local transport community, but in a variety of innovative and mutually supportive ways.

So what do we consider ‘local transport’ to be today as

a subject anyway? By which I mean the field of activity that we have been covering for these 31 years, and that has evolved enormously from once quite simple and straightforward tasks such as maintaining and developing the highway network, managing car traffic and parking, and planning, supporting and delivering bus and rail services.

It’s progressively developed into a complex web of activities including street management; tackling congestion and the environmental effects of traffic; seeking to change people’s travel behaviour; deploying smart technologies to co-ordinate the various elements of the transport network; and harnessing the digital revolution to inform travellers of their best choices, and let them know how the network is operating minute-by-minute. Plus new regimes to regulate both familiar, and new kinds of mobility like shared taxis, e-bikes and scooters, and much more.

A similar evolution can easily be identified in answer to the parallel question about ourselves – what is ‘Local Transport Today’? By which I mean the business activity we undertake of information provision and knowledge sharing for our professional audience, and the obvious need to acknowledge that it’s no longer embodied in just a fortnightly printed magazine. Or even an online digital version of that. But actually now a cluster of activities relating to the dissemination and discussion of information of all kinds relating to local transport, and to addressing the professional needs of those who work in the sector in a range of ways.

You’ll see on this page an illustrative Venn diagram, indicating the complex matrix of inter-related transport activity which the LTT mission now embraces.

We could have done another one to illustrate the various elements in the information and networking hub that now make up the LTT overall offer. More than ten at the last count!

We do, of course, recognise that ‘the magazine’ is still the flagship in the LTT cluster, but is simply not physically capable of accommodating all the quality material we can now produce, collect and compile. That is why we are continually building a bigger digital resource with new elements including e-newsletters, our unrivalled Transport Xtra portal and its vast amount of micro-themed content

On the way to your smartphone: the new LTT app Being launched within the next few weeks, a state of the art digital delivery system bringing LTT magazine to smartphones will provide subscribers with the latest capabilities and functionality for those wanting to read on their mobiles.

The new LTT Edition app is using the advanced technologies of PageSuite, a digital publishing services company helping the producers of magazines and newspapers to create market-leading desktop, tablet and mobile solutions. LTT will join other users of the system including international magazine and newspaper publishers like the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and a range of consumer and business magazines.

Along with the new platform we’ve been developing for in-depth discussion of transport issues (see other panel), we believe the addition of the app to the LTT portfolio strengthens the ways in which we can help members of the LTT community receive and consume information and join discussion, and themselves contribute to building professional knowledge and capability.

We have designed these new elements to form an integral part of the overall LTT offer, so it’s not a question of whether you read LTT magazine in print, have the app, join the discussion on the new platform or enjoy the rich archival resources of TransportXtra, the overall package will allow you to get the best out of our incredible resource of information and highly regarded editorial and publishing skills.

All LTT subscribers will automatically get the app facility, as well as access to the content that already goes each issue from LTT to Transport Xtra.

available to all LTT subscribers, along with the presentations at, and outcomes of, our conferences and online discussions; the Local Transport Summit deliberations; and other specialist reports and studies to which we have access.

In the new world of digital information and connectivity, we’re particularly alert to the need to provide convenient and flexible access to all the knowledge that LTT garners in new ways. During the lockdown, we have been pleased to offer free access digitally to the LTT magazine product as we recognised that many of our readers

Also coming soon… a bespoke platform for serious discussion of transport issues

The exciting new LTT discussion platform to be unveiled shortly has been designed to our own specification to present ‘longform’ serious articles on local transport topics in the most effective way, and to encourage continuing interactive dialogue about the subject matter. It will carry articles authored by our range of expert contributors in an easy-to-read style with the facility for people to respond to them with comments and further contributions, all with a convenient-to-use personal reading library function. The platform also features a number of high quality reading functionalities, including energy-saving dark mode, in line with all the latest accessibility standards. A privacysensitive approach includes anonymised viewing behaviour. There’s also a biography section where contributors can give more details of their experience in the subject matter they’ve covered.

The platform will allow wider access to the Editorial Opinion, Columnist and Viewpoint elements familiar within LTT, and provide for subsequent discussion within our expert community beyond that which can be accommodated in the magazine itself once such articles have been published there.

Our developer Jon Ingram has had his head down in serious work getting all the quality of service things right, and we think you’ll agree when you see it that what he’s done is a step up from anything offered to date in this field.

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would not be visiting their normal workplaces and seeing the print copies mailed there. Though this free access will shortly be ending, I’m pleased to announce the arrival of a new app to bring the magazine content to readers digitally and conveniently, and plans to build upon it with new eleMobility as a service ments delivered to your device in a new way.

Innovative modes This will be offered as a complementary service to all e-scooters Ticketing and payment subscribers to LTT, and form another plank in our WebTAG e-mobility extended ‘LTT’ offer (see panel far left).

Modelling Big data One of our acknowledged strengths is working Forecasting Drone deliveries Traffic Driverless cars with the leading experts across the local transImpact Demand-responsive transport Assessment port sector. So, as well as our coverage of Smart motorways Accessibility Bus rapid actuality and decision-making and Travel transit Interchange operational matters in the local awareness Bus priority Transport Automotive Technology transport field, one of the roles Planning Industry Innovation that LTT has increasingly Concessionary Bus Health Connected Rail Fares Extinction embraced over the years reopenings Alternative Rebellion Operators Places Catapult has been to identify and fuels Professional World of Local London present some exceptional Transport Practice, Underground Qualifications and Study ‘expert resource’ eleTrain TPS/CIHT/CILT/RTPI/ICE/CBT/ Decarbonisation ments embodied in our Rail Network ITC/LTT operating Climate stations Consultants and Advisors specialist columnists and Rail Economic High companies Universities and Academic Change contributors. Our current development Speed Rail Education and Research/UTSG Motoring group of regulars includes Apprenticeships Town centres Car clubs Leisure Phil Goodwin, John Dales High streets Shared taxis and Airports Franchising and Richard Dilks, and a Light rail Peak car tourism Local transport Low emission wide range of ‘viewpoint’ New housing authorities Shared Department for zones TfL developments authors. Several more bikes Transport Air quality HM Riverbuses have been and are being Transport Clean Air Zones Treasury TfN signed up to cover a number Placemaking Scotland Street Metropolitan of new topic territories includmanagement Transport DCLG transport Traffic Calming Road space Focus ing on economics and data authorities Pavements Reallocation Mayors Transport Dept for analysis; environmental impacts and Transport Traffic orders Select Infrastructure for Wales project development and appraisal.

(Northern Committee/ We’re also delighted to announce that the Ireland) Parliament Rural Traffic New road ‘longform’ reading material they – and other accessibility Highways EU School schemes Policing contributors – produce will shortly be presented transport Cycling beyond the magazine itself in a specially commissioned Community Walking Highways Transport attractive online feature article platform, providing the Parking England Speed cameras ability for those in our professional network to comment Road safety upon, add to and join further debate on what a contributor 20mph zones School/play streets has written (see second panel).

Alongside all the information flows I’ve described here, we’ve built a significant network of specialist events and seminars to provide an extension to the fortnightly LTT material that you can read in the magazine and online.

These have recently been joined by our highly popular ‘LTT online discussion’ every fortnight on the Friday afternoon between issues of the magazine, and a range of he local transport sector is vital, but niche. Pre-coronavirus the webinars we now offer to focus on specific themes and business environment for titles such as LTT was already harsh. areas of professional transport practice.

Unsurprisingly a number have ceased publishing during lockdown.

From this quick run-through, I hope you’ll recognise We’ve been here before, we thought. With the recession of 2010-12 came a just how wide-ranging the LTT proposition now is, and realisation that we were in the business of knowledge-sharing and networking, the great value that it can provide to those working in or rather than simply ‘publishing’. There followed a significant growth in following the local transport sector and its challenges and conferences and events. The relative future development. success of that activity has supported In the past few weeks, we’ve been delighted to see a LTT magazine. significant rise in new subscriptions, which has given us Our painful realisation in March confidence that we must be doing the right thing! Indeed, 2020, was that we were not going to emerge from lockdown the way it’s interesting to reflect on how the recent pandemic expewe went in. More change was coming. But we recognised the rience seems to have focused heavily on the ‘return of the absolute importance of providing for the community we serve – expert/follow the science’ messages, and we hope that this through thick and thin. With this came the decision to do ‘the right will be an enduring maxim in the world of local transport thing’ and keep publishing at a time of unprecedented disruption. too! We believe in the power of quality information and And go further: giving away what we do for a period so that it has discussion, and want to express here our commitment to been accessible to all these who needed it – be that via digital embracing and exploring both existing and emerging speedition, the Transport Responds newsletter or the removal of the cialist areas of discussion in the world of local transport. paywall on TransportXtra; and the creation of new series of webinars That means going beyond the simple and obvious news and online discussions. and comment often covered in the general media, and The response in terms of record online traffic, personal notes of digging down into new niche themes and professional terthanks and attendance of online events has been overwhelming. ritories, with the help of insight and analysis led by the An entirely unexpected vote of confidence has come from the best industry experts. We see ourselves as curators of number of subscribers who have renewed for three years (rather knowledge and facilitators of discussion, and acting as the than one), plus a good number of brand new subscribers. All this catalyst in building new areas of understanding and experhas helped us to rethink LTT around how we support and work with tise. Our output is still defined by a magazine and its the transport planning community going forward. The ‘new’ LTT unique pedigree, but our activity now embraces so much Between Betwee en editions, edition on ns, TransportXtra Tra ran anspo portX t tra tX a package is the result, developed to serve the LTT community for the more. We’re excited by the opportunities to go further e-bulletins e-bul b lettin ins s keep kee eep ee ep years ahead. with what we do, and remain dedicated to being at the side experts e pe ex ert rt rts up-to-date up-t up -to -t to-d dat ate te with with the the latest llate atest ate Rod Fletcher, Managing Director, Landor LINKS of the local transport community as it addresses both its lln nte elliigence lntelligence (Co-founder of LTT with Peter Stonham) daily responsibilities, and the new challenges always arriving.

The UK Local Transport Eco-system at a Glance(!)

Survival depends on sharing what we have and working together

T

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18 News

In Brief

Work to start on Hull’s A63 upgrade Construction of Highways England’s long-delayed £355m A63 Castle Street improvement scheme has got underway after the Government approved the Development Consent Order for the project. The project will lower the A63 at the Mytongate junction, enabling better connections between the city centre to the north and the retail area and docks to the south, as well as removing a bottleneck on the A63.

A new bridge for pedestrians and cyclists will be built across the A63 to the south of Princes Quay shopping centre and the eastbound carriageway of the A63 will be widened to three lanes between Princes Dock Street and Market Place. Balfour Beatty was awarded a contract to build the scheme in 2014. The project is due to be completed in spring 2025.

Thurrock increases spend on A13 Thurrock Council has allocated an additional £26.2m to the A13 widening project because of cost increases incurred before Covid19. Main construction works began last March to widen the A13 Stanford le Hope bypass from two to three lanes in each direction between the A128 junction in the west and the A1014 in the east. The project has encountered a range of problems including delays to design work, utility diversions, errors in topographical work, change requests, and changes to the specification following ground investigations (LTT 22 Nov 19). The South East England Local Enterprise Partnership has also earmarked £8.9m of Local Growth Fund grant to help cover the costs.

HE consults on A428 dualling Highways England is consulting on revised plans for the A428 Black Cat (Bedfordshire) to Caxton Gibbet (Cambridgeshire) road improvement scheme. The scheme will deliver a ten-mile dual carriageway.

HE’s route map for CAV roadworks A 15-year roadmap for introducing connected and autonomous plant on road construction sites has been prepared by Highways England, TRL and the Infrastructure Industry Innovation Partnership.

HE says the plant could save money, increase productivity, and reduce injuries. Highways England has already trialled the technologies – automated dump trucks were used on the recentlyopened A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement in the East of England.

Transport schemes put at risk as MHCLG underpays grant FUNDING

A NUMBER of local transport projects across England face an uncertain future after the Government withheld one-third of the final year Local Growth Fund allocations to local enterprise partnerships (LEPs).

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government informed LEPs in May that only two-thirds of the grant will be paid initially, with the remainder dependent on the spending performance of individual LEPs. Stephen Jones, co-director of the cities and local growth unit, said the Government was aware that some Local Growth Fund (LGF) capital programmes had slipped, and that some LEPs would be unable to spend their allocations by the end of next March, the official end date for the grant.

“The risks that we are looking to manage extend across all capital programmes and not just LGF, which is why the Government is having to review programme payments in light of Covid-19 and the effect it will have on some delivery plans,” said Jones.

“Where there are contractual commitments in place, with plans

to manage spend of that allocation across the programme in year, we will ensure that the balance of LGF is paid in full.”

The decision does not affect those higher cost LGF transport schemes whose approval process is overseen by the DfT. The withheld grant amounts to £11.4m for the West of England LEP and £26m for the South East LEP. Rhiannon Mort, SELEP’s capital programme manager, told members of its strategic board: “It seems that if SELEP is unable to demonstrate its intention to spend its LGF allocation in full within 2020/21 there is a risk to the remaining third of LGF being secured.”

She said £21m of projects would only be able to proceed if the final third of LGF was confirmed. A number of scenarios for coping with the shortfall were presented to the board. One would see the withdrawal of a £12m contribution to a £154m£157m rail station at Beaulieu Park on the Great Eastern Main Line northeast Chelmsford in Essex. That would put a £125m Housing Infrastructure Fund grant at risk, not just jeopardising the railway station but also the Chelmsford North East bypass

connecting the A12 and A131.

Three other transport projects in the South East would also see their Local Growth Fund contributions withdrawn under this scenario: the A28 Sturry Link Road in Kent (£4.8m); the Exceat Bridge capacity scheme in Eastbourne (£2.1m); and the Hastings and Bexhill movement and access package (£1.8m).

The Sturry Link Road would still be likely to proceed, with the gap funded by developers. But affordable housing would be reduced/lost entirely.

SELEP is also considering a ‘capital swap’ approach to ensure the 2020/21 allocation is fully spent. In previous years, Local Growth Fund held by local authorities at the end of a financial year has been invested within the council’s own capital programmes. During subsequent financial years, the funding is then ‘swapped out’ – local authorities use their own capital programme to fund the LGF project.

“This approach can be used to demonstrate that the LGF has been spent in full by the end of 2020/21 whilst still complying with the grant determination letters and enabling the project to proceed beyond 31 March 2021,”

said Mort. “It is proposed that SELEP use this mechanism to demonstrate to central government that the LGF has been spent in full by the end of 2020/21.”

Although the LGF was due to end in March 2021 there has been uncertainty about whether LEPs can carry over unspent grant into future years.

Officers told the West of England LEP this month: “It was hoped that this hard end date for the LGF would be relaxed as the funding period came to a close but, despite lobbying through a number of channels, that has not proved the case.”

Mort said the MHCLG’s cities and local growth unit had advised last year that it was “not overly concerned about the slippage beyond the growth deal period for projects that are already underway. They would be more concerned about planned LGF spend beyond the Growth Deal, where the project is not already underway.

However, if SELEP has strong justification for why it’s supporting the project then there is nothing in the conditions of the grant to prohibit this.”

SELEP was expecting to spend more than £51m of LGF after March 2021.

HE Stonehenge spend TfN sends Shapps a up, as decision looms Covid shopping list ROADS

HIGHWAY ENGLAND has increased the expenditure limit on consultant AECOM’s technical partner contract for the 7.5-mile A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down road improvement, which includes a tunnel at Stonehenge.

AECOM’s contract had a limit of £50m but Highways England says expenditure through the contract is expected to exceed this “by July”. The contract value has been increased to £75m.

The change comes just weeks before the Government is due to announce whether the project should go ahead.

In January the Planning Inspectorate submitted its report to the secretary of state for transport on Highways England’s Development Consent Order (DCO) application for the project.

A decision is due to be made

FUNDING

Stonehenge: decision near

by 17 July.

The Freight Transport Association this week urged the Government to proceed with the project, which is part of a wider plan to improve the A303/A358 corridor.

Highways England says additional work associated with the DCO and the Government’s decision to scrap the originally proposed Design, Build, Finance and Maintain funding model for the project, are among the factors that have pushed up the level of payments to AECOM.

TRANSPORT FOR the North has asked the Government to accelerate investments in the region as part of a post-Covid-19 economic recovery plan.

The sub-national transport body has written to transport secretary Grant Shapps identifying projects that could be accelerated.

It has promised to submit a “comprehensive” list of schemes after the TfN board meets on 29 July.

Potential ‘quick win’ schemes include: • a new River Tees road crossing • the A34 Cheadle major road network scheme • dualling the A500 from Meremoor Moss to M6 junction 16 • A1237 York outer ring road phase 1 improvements • the A59 Kex Gill landslip • the Tyne Bridge and Newcastle Central Motorway scheme • accelerating delivery of the A66 TransPennine road upgrade

• the A1 upgrade from Doncaster to Darrington and A64 Hopgrove improvement (schemes currently envisaged to begin in Highways England’s road investment strategy 3) • Darlington and Middlesbrough station improvement schemes, the Skelmersdale rail line on Merseyside, Cumbrian Coast Line improvements • Accelerating major rail schemes such as TransPennine Upgrade, Hope Valley line improvements, Leeds station capacity upgrade, and unspecified interventions in central Manchester • the Tees Valley Hydrogen Train project.

• hybrid battery drive technology for the Windermere line and on Merseyrail Trains • ‘flexible’ season tickets for rail travellers.

• equipping all stations with EMV-enabled platform validators and/or EMV gate upgrades • capped contactless travel on all light rail/metro systems.

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News 19

In Brief

Replace unique swing bridge in Norwich, councils urge NR © Evelyn Simak (cc-by-sa/2.0)

RAIL

by Andrew Forster

NETWORK RAIL is being urged to support a scheme to replace a unique swing bridge in Norwich to open up development land and increase rail capacity.

Trowse rail bridge, southeast of the city centre, is the only single track section of the Great Eastern Main Line between Norwich and London. The structure over the River Wensum is also the only swing bridge in the country that carries a railway with an overhead electric power supply. The electricity is provided to trains via a rigid bar rather than wire.

The British Railways (Trowse Bridge) Act 1985 requires Network Rail to open the bridge to river traffic to access the historic port of Norwich. Opening is restricted to a Sunday at 4am, and only with seven days’ prior notice.

The East Norwich Partnership is promoting plans to redevelop brownfield land in this part of the city for residential and employment uses. It comprises Norwich City Council, Norfolk County Council, Homes England, the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and developers. A masterplan for the area is about to be procured.

Trowse rail bridge: the current structure was installed in 1986

The partners say the swing bridge restricts vehicular, pedestrian and cycle access from the city centre to development land east of the bridge.

Graham Nelson, Norwich’s director of place, told the council’s cabinet: “A new Trowse Bridge provides potential for enhanced links to the development sites including under the approaches to the bridge on both sides of the River Wensum, significantly improving access to, and unlocking, important areas of brownfield land.”

He said replacing the bridge with a structure carrying a double track railway would improve existing rail service reliability and facilitate ambitions for more services between Norwich and

London, the Midlands and Cambridge (and beyond through the East West Rail project). “[Replacing] Trowse rail bridge is not seen as being required for any of these individual [rail service] improvements,” says a position statement prepared by the East Norwich Partnership.

“However, the bridge is likely to prove a constraint if the combination of improvements to routes into Norwich is considered.”

The position statement says options include building a twin track fixed (i.e. non-opening) bridge; a twin track opening bridge; and two single track fixed bridges.

The East Norwich Partnership’s preference is for a new fixed bridge. Says the position

statement: “A fixed rail bridge provides the significant advantages of: being less costly to develop and deliver; removes ongoing maintenance issues associated with an opening bridge; and allows fixed bridges to the development sites to be planned for and provided, making it more likely that regeneration can come forward.”

It adds: “The creation of a marina downstream of the Trowse rail bridge offers flood mitigation measures as well as port uses and the potential to transform the space into an area comparable to the Quayside buildings at Royal Williams Yard in Plymouth.

“A marina, and other measures to improve navigation upstream, has the potential to benefit navigation to a far greater extent than keeping the bridge open.”

Network Rail told LTT it was “working closely with the Trowse area development stakeholders”.

“We are currently undertaking a preliminary rail service capacity study on Trowse Bridge, which shall inform the stakeholder group, but also form the basis for a further regional strategic study informing rail network development options for funders.”

Treasury pressed to fund Ely rail upgrade

NR suggests cost for TransPennine wiring

THE DFT is asking the Treasury to fund more development work on a rail investment programme for Ely in Cambridgeshire and a junction in Suffolk to provide more capacity for passenger and freight.

Naomi Green, the England’s Economic Heartland’s head of technical programme, told members of its strategic transport forum: “A number of rail schemes are being developed concurrently by Network Rail, the DfT and the Ely Taskforce to increase capacity through the Ely area.

“At the time of writing, funding is being sought by the DfT to bring together options for capacity enhancements at Ely and Haughley into an outline business case as part of the next rail network enhancement pipeline decision gateway.

“The focus of this stage is to

NETWORK RAIL has submitted two options to the Government for the TransPennine Upgrade (TRU) programme of the line between Manchester and York via Huddersfield and Leeds.

One option involves the partial electrification of the route and the other full electrification.

The Government’s preferred option has been partial electrification on cost grounds.

NR chief executive Andrew Haines told journalists this month that the company’s review of electrification standards had found ways to reduce electrification costs (LTT 12 Jun).

Newly-released minutes of NR’s board meeting of 30 March, record that members approved the submission of an anticipated final cost estimate for the preferred TRU option and the funding needed to develop it to

RAIL

further advance development work towards a single viable option.”

Ely lies at the junction of five railway lines, three from the north (Peterborough, Kings Lynn and Norwich) and two from the south (Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds/Ipswich).

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority reported in March that a project to increase rail capacity through Ely was likely to cost more than £500m (LTT 06 Mar).

Haughley Junction in Suffolk is where the Bury St Edmunds/ Ely line splits from the IpswichNorwich Great Eastern Main Line. The junction is single track and the rail industry and councils want it doubled.

The EEH and Transport East, the alliance of local authorities in East Anglia, are proposing sending a joint letter to the Treasury, urging it to fund the work.

RAIL

final business case stage.

In addition, the board noted that a submission was being made to Government about the indicative cost range and schedule for full route electrification, “which did not constitute a formal offer or commitment by Network Rail”.

The minutes continue: “With regard to the work being undertaken on the [separate] Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) scheme, it was understood that both the DfT and HM Treasury would take a view on the benefits of progressing all or elements of TRU whilst NPR was under review and development.”

As well as electrification, the TRU programme will feature rebuilding parts of the route.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps told MPs last October the upgrade would involve “quite a bit of line closure to get there, which is one of my concerns about it” (LTT 25 Oct 19).

Cambridge South station site selected Network Rail has identified a preferred location for the proposed Cambridge South rail station following a public consultation and engineering review. The station would be located adjacent to the Cambridgeshire guided busway and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Network Rail will now proceed with further design work, working with stakeholders and funders including the DfT, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, the Greater Cambridge Partnership and AstraZeneca. A Transport and Works Act Order application is anticipated to be submitted to the DfT in 2021. Subject to gaining consent, work could start on the station in 2023. The target opening date is 2025.

Destination change for MetroWest rail Westbury in Wiltshire and Gloucester will be terminating points for trains under the West of England Combined Authority’s plans to improve local rail services radiating from Bristol. MetroWest Phase 1a will deliver hourly services between Severn Beach Line and Bristol Temple Meads; halfhourly services between Avonmouth and Temple Meads; and half-hourly services from Temple Meads to Bath and Westbury.

Under the original plan, the latter trains would terminate at Bath, with a turnback siding built at Bathampton. The combined authority says extending services to Westbury will reduce capital costs and increase passenger revenues. The MetroWest Phase 2 project will see half-hourly services from Bristol run as far as Gloucester, rather than terminating at Yate. MetroWest Phase 1b involves laying new track to provide an hourly rail service from Bristol to Portishead in North Somerset.

Three shortlisted for HS2 Curzon Street HS2 Ltd has shortlisted three construction firms for the twostage design and build contract for Birmingham Curzon Street high-speed rail station. The bidders for the £570m contract are: • BAM Ferrovial (a joint venture of BAM Nuttall Ltd and Ferrovial Construction (UK) Limited) • Laing O’Rourke Construction Limited • Mace Dragados (a joint venture of Mace Ltd and Dragados S.A. UK branch) Curzon Street recently became the first HS2 station to gain planning approval. HS2 worked with WSP and Grimshaw Architects LLP on the station. The design and build contract should be awarded next year.

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LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

20 News

BUSINESS

Jacobs wins West Edinburgh rail work Network Rail has appointed consultant Jacobs to provide design services for the Edinburgh Waverley Western Approaches project, which is exploring three ways of increasing rail capacity.

Each option involves building the Almond chord, a piece of track that would allow trains to/from the Falkirk lines to join the EdinburghFife lines south of Dalmeny. The variations between the three options are: flat junctions at both Winchburgh and Almond; a flat Winchburgh Junction and a grade separated Almond Junction; grade separated junctions at both Winchburgh and Almond.

Atkins named NPR delivery partner Atkins has been awarded the infrastructure delivery partner contract for the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) programme by Transport for the North and the DfT. The consultant will work with TfN, the DfT, Network Rail and HS2 Ltd to develop the strategic outline case and phasing options for the project to improve rail links between the North’s cities. Julie Hurley, strategic rail client director at Atkins, said: “Having worked closely with TfN for the last three years in developing the plans for NPR, we look forward to advancing the programme as part of an integrated delivery team.”

Engenie chargers for retail parks Rapid electric chargepoint firm Engenie is working with real estate firm Brookfield to install 17 rapid EV chargepoints at ten of the latter’s retail parks, in Bournemouth, Bradford, Stockport, Preston, Leigh, Chichester, Oldham, Lowestoft, Prescot and Hamilton. Motorists will not need a membership or subscription to use the facilities.

Siemens offers realtime air quality data Siemens Mobility Limited has signed an exclusive partnership with EarthSense to integrate the latter’s Zephyr® real-time air quality measurement system with traffic signals and traffic management applications.

Preferred bidder for Heads of Valleys The Welsh Government has named the Future Valleys consortium as preferred bidder for sections 5 and 6 of the A465 Heads of the Valleys improvement from Dowlais Top to Hirwaun. The project will see the road widened to two lanes in each direction.

Future Valleys comprises Spanish firm FCC, Roadbridge, Meridiam, Alun Griffiths, and Atkins.

Tyne Tunnels operator Stagecoach loses rail seeks Covid relief franchise legal battle

ROADS

THE CONCESSIONAIRE for the Tyne tunnels is seeking compensation for the loss of revenues during Covid-19.

Tyne Tunnels are owned by the Tyne & Wear local authorities but operated by TT2 Ltd as a concessionaire under a contract that runs to 2037. The consortium was appointed in 2007 and was responsible for designing and building the new Tyne Tunnel, and maintaining and operating both tunnels.

An average of about 55,000 vehicles a day used the tunnels last year. Covid-19 saw traffic drop about 70 per cent.

“This has had a profound effect on toll revenues that are used to service debts incurred in building the second road

tunnel,” says an evidence paper by the North East Joint Transport Committee submitted to the House of Commons transport committee inquiry into Covid-19.

“TT2 Ltd has made a formal request asking for ‘supplier relief’ requesting shadow toll payments be made at normal levels for April, May and June, which would equate to payments of approximately £4.8m.”

The North East and North of Tyne combined authorities have supported a request to the DfT for financial support.

The local authorities say the the loss of income jeopardises investment in longer-term work programmes, such as the Tyne Pass free-flow project. The project was planned for 2021.

RAIL

THE HIGH Court has rejected a legal challenge brought by Stagecoach and Virgin against their disqualification from rail franchise bidding last year.

The Government disqualified the two companies as well as Arriva from bidding for the West Coast, East Midlands and South Eastern franchise competitions because the companies refused to accept the allocation of risk for pension liabilities.

Stagecoach had been bidding for East Midlands and South Eastern and was bidding in partnership with Virgin for West Coast.

West Coast was subsequently awarded to First/TrenItalia; East Midlands to Abellio; and the South Eastern competition was

Amey wins Manchester EV deal ELECTRIC VEHICLES

TRANSPORT FOR Greater Manchester has awarded infrastructure services firm Amey a contract to expand and maintain the conurbation’s electric vehicle (EV) charging network.

The contract will see the existing GMEV network rebranded as Be.EV. Amey has teamed up with chargepoint provider SWARCO and Octopus Energy for the contract, which was previously held by Charge your Car. Over the summer, almost 120 existing fast chargers (up to 7kW) will be replaced and 24 new rapid chargers (up to 50kW) installed. Some existing charging points will be removed due to low usage and technical issues.

An important change will see

EVs: end to free charging

charges introduced for using the network from the autumn. For the last six years EV owners have been able to charge for free, either via the Charge Your Car app or its membership card, the latter costing £20 annually.

The cost of electricity has been

paid by the local authorities.

Under the new arrangements, the proposed pay-as-you-charge fee will be up to £0.25 per kWh if using a fast charger and up to £0.35 per kWh using a rapid charger.

Be.EV members will be eligible for reduced fees. Details will be announced when the new membership scheme is launched later this year.

SWARCO will provide EV charging equipment, back office and chargepoint management services. It has already installed more than 30 per cent of the UK's publicly available rapid charging infrastructure.

Octopus Energy will provide 100 per cent green energy certified by the Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origins (REGO) scheme to all charging points on public land.

EV battery plant for South Wales?

BATTERIES

A PROSPECTIVE battery manufacturer has identified a site near Cardiff Airport as the preferred location to build a lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant to supply electric vehicles and other sectors.

Britishvolt has been set up by Swedish entrepreneur Lars Carlstrom, a former executive of now defunct car maker Saab, and Orral Nadjari, an Abu-Dhabi financier.

They have identified the site at Bro Tathan business park, five miles from Cardiff Airport, as the preferred site for a plant.

Said Carlstrom: “We aim to deliver a scalable, onshore production and diverse portfolio of world-class lithium-ion batteries, to support the unprecedented transition to electrification – primarily servicing the automotive and energy storage markets.”

Commenting on the site, he said: “The Welsh Government has welcomed us with open arms

and impeccable due diligence, and the region meets crucial criteria including import/export accessibility, availability of labour and skilled staff, along with convenient geographical proximity to customers and local industrial companies.”

The plant would be 1km long, and need 80-plus hectares of land. A solar park is also proposed to deliver renewable energy.

Britishvolt said the plant could be operational by 2023.

cancelled.

Another disqualified bidder, Arriva, was initially a party to the judicial review but withdrew just before the case began after reaching a confidential settlement with the Government.

Mr Justice Stuart-Smith’s ruling, which runs to 193 pages, concludes that it was lawful to disqualify the companies on the issue of pensions.

Responding to the ruling, Stagecoach said: “Our view remains that we were right not to accept the risks in these contracts.

Nevertheless, we accept the decision and move on. The country is facing a huge challenge in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, and all of our energies are focused on ensuring our transport networks help the national effort at this critical time.”

Hydrogen plant for Kent HYDROGEN

COUNCILLORS IN Kent have granted planning permission for a ‘green’ hydrogen production facility. It will produce fuel to power buses in London and elsewhere.

Canterbury City Council approved Ryse Hydrogen’s application for the facility at Herne Bay. The hydrogen will be produced through the electrolysis of water using electricity generated by offshore windfarms on the Kentish Flats.

Transport for London awarded Ryse a contract last year to supply hydrogen for a new 20strong hydrogen bus fleet.

The South East Local Enterprise Partnership looks likely to award Ryse a £3.47m Growing Places Fund loan to help build the facility.

Jo Bamford is the executive chairman of Ryse and also the owner of bus manufacturer Wrightbus. Bamford told LTT in April that the Kent production facility could produce enough hydrogen for 300 buses (LTT 01 May).

He has suggested building five hydrogen production plants around Britain in coastal locations to make use of electricity generated by offshore windfarms.

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Comment 21

PHIL GOODWIN

Time to get back to normal, kickstart business as usual. Not.

I

t’s understandable that phrases such as ‘back to normal’ and ‘business as usual’ have resonance to people whose lives have been disrupted. We yearn to see relatives and friends, are desperate for images of reliable jobs and incomes, meeting places open again, and seeing grandchildren (and a little less of the children, handing education back to those who know what they are doing). Even those who are confronting issues of homelessness, hunger, health and desperation, and need space to cope with grief, would love to be offered some hope of a normal life. Back to normal is a powerful phrase.

But professionally, they have quite different meaning, with formal scientific definitions, central to the techniques of transport planning. For professionals, failure to distinguish the huge emotional underpinning of the phrases in daily life from strict analytical practice will render us incapable of judging sensibly what must come next.

In transport professional use, ‘business as usual’ is a very specific term of art, a label to a line on a graph, a defined projection of possible future conditions. In describing ‘business as usual’ it is assumed that well-established trends in causal factors such as economic productivity and demographic structures continue reasonably smoothly into the future, having predictable effects on travel patterns. It is by convention assumed that the policies in operation are defined by known and clearly-defined local and national government decisions already taken. The idea is that such a framework gives forecasts of a basic, most likely, future if no important changes are made to policy or projects.

As a tool for identifying flaws or shortfalls in that future, business as usual is intentionally set up to defeat itself, enabling thoughtful assessment of problems and identification of new projects, initiatives, policies and structures suitable to solve them.

So one might conclude, for example,

that ‘on business as usual assumptions’ traffic congestion will be an intolerable burden, or climate change an even worse one (either or both being the most usual conclusions from such analysis), and judge a programme of interventions to make things better. For analysis, ‘business as usual’ is rarely set up to be a favoured future, though in appraisal it too frequently reverts to just that.

‘Back to Normal’ is a necessary condition for such projections. It assumes norms of daily life and activities, with patterns of regular, repeated, often habitual behaviour, so well established that the core trends will continue.

Even the ‘new normal’ is a proposition that Covid-19 may have disrupted the old patterns of life. But reasonably soon a new pattern will assert itself whose features we do not yet fully understand, because transformational experiences have not yet settled down.

Close monitoring and inventive research will reveal them in a usable time frame.

Then we shall be able to replace the old assumed habits by new ones, the old assumed ‘base case’ for forecasts by a new but equally dependable one. The updated concepts of ‘normal’ and ‘business and usual’ would then support formal, evidence-based appraisal of rational policies and projects.

Some readers by now will be wondering at this preposterous account. It is a convenient fiction, intended to make sense of our professional lives and tractable tasks. The proposition suffers from two fundamental flaws.

The first flaw is that in the near future we are not credibly entering into a new period of stability and controlled processes. In recent weeks, temperatures in the Arctic have exceeded 30 degrees, and some readings over 40 degrees. The virus pandemic at a world scale is still on a clear upward curve, as it is in some local areas. At the national level the population desperately wants to be assured that the Government relaxation of restrictions is well-judged, and there is an unprecedented level of doubt – shared by many scientific advisors – about the wisdom of that judgment.

At a time when the main government intention about vehicle design is the importance of replacing fossil fuel by electricity to reduce carbon outputs, the main market trend has been increases in vehicle length, width, height and weight doing exactly the opposite.

Sensible long-overdue reallocation of road capacity away from cars by policy is offset by capture of extra capacity for them by sheer presence. Necessary

reductions of carbon by electrification are offset by perverse financial incentives that increase road traffic and reduce public funds.

We are only months away from the disruption of still undefined new relationships with the European Union, in which the main choices seem to be between wrecking the economy or wrecking the Government’s voting coalition, and maybe the Union of nations in the UK. The pattern of international movement is entirely uncertain.

We have accumulated a scale of debt – Government, institutional and private – that no rules exist for easily solving. Scars haven’t even started to heal, and some are still being inflicted.

The social contract between Government and peoples is hugely stressed.

The most powerful country in the world is led by Donald Trump. The symbol of

form, it will be Brexit.

So our transport infrastructure has been planned with a generation of projects whose traffic forecasts have been wrong. Underneath the specific reasons, the presumption that we had well-established, largely habitual, reasonably well understood trends in behaviour and choices – the old normal – was itself under pressure before the pandemic started. Since the early 1990s the old normal failed to take account of fundamental changes in urban-rural balance, lasting shifts in travel behaviours of young adults, precarious employment, and on-line social networks.

In fact a whole stream of research work culminating in the two or three years before the pandemic started had already required abandoning the old conception of business as usual, and the norms of behaviour underpinning it.

Hesitant steps towards replacing fore-

The line on a graph called ‘business as usual’ has simply become meaningless. Yes, we plead, let us feel we can lead normal lives, but for planning and forecasting we cannot credibly translate that into a tenable description of normality. our times is Ozymandias.

In such times how on earth can one talk of ‘back to normal’? Almost nothing can be described as ‘normal’. I count myself as an optimist, and I do think we can get ourselves out of the abyss, but the idea of a line on a graph called ‘business as usual’ has simply become meaningless. Yes, we plead, let us feel we can lead normal lives, but for planning and forecasting we cannot credibly translate that into a tenable description of normality. We have never been here before.

The second flaw is ironic. In the halcyon days of our careers, when we did think we knew what we were doing, and did use baseline forecasts and business as usual assumptions, they were, over and over again, simply wrong. For over 30 years, every single long-term national traffic forecast has had to be abandoned, because within five years (and sometimes even sooner) it was clear that the central forecast was overestimated. The reasons attributed were different every time – a recession, an oil price crisis, mistakes in population projections or economic growth. This time, the overestimates in the 2018 base forecasts for the 2020s will be because of Covid-19. Next time, on current

casts with scenarios were approved – quite rightly – by the Department for Transport, but this has never been used seriously by scheme promoters, who could not conceive that the old normal was breaking down, along with the planning assumptions and forecasts based on it.

As planning tools, the ‘usual’ and ‘normal’ are strangely based on a temporary, long gone decade or two, around the 1970s. They were already out of key with the modern world long before the virus came to disrupt our lives. If they were ever a useful guide, that came to an end by the 1990s. in the same way that some images of the future of technology are a restatement of the fantasies of the 1950s.

‘Business as usual’ is not a thoughtful view of a future, but a nostalgic vision of the past – and a past than wasn’t even true. Now, we are explorers.

Phil Goodwin is emeritus professor of transport policy at both the Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol, and University College London. Email: philinelh@yahoo.com

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22 Comment

VIEWPOINT

LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

London should be at the cutting edge of micromobility.

So why is it lagging behind?

Rob Whitehead Centre for London

The Government and transport authorities across the UK such as Transport for London are discouraging the public from using public transport while we remain in lockdown. Unless swift measures are taken, car use is certain to rise. Well-established outside the UK, e-bikes and e-scooters – low carbon and socially distanced forms of transport – could be an important part of how we get cities back to work in the absence of a Covid-19 vaccine. The Government is starting to grasp this, and is now fast-tracking ‘trials’ of rental e-scooters. But London risks missing out through poor coordination and a lack of vision across its multiple councils and transport authorities. Could the capital raise its game, and maybe even set a gold standard for ‘micromobility’?

Life in coronavirus-afflicted London has flipped long-held policies on their heads, especially in transport. Almost overnight we have gone from aiming to maximise public transport use, with a side order of active travel, to being directed to avoid all but essential trips on buses, rail and the Tube. We have very little idea how long this reversal will last, nor the longer term impact on London’s transport network, particularly in terms of user preferences. Recent polling commissioned by the Centre for London and London Environment Directors’ Network (LEDNet) suggests that up to one-third of Londoners expect to use their cars more post-lockdown. If true, this would reverse

London risks missing out through poor co-ordination and a lack of vision across its multiple councils and transport authorities.

Could the capital raise its game, and maybe even set a gold standard?

In Passing

Reader John Helm writes to voice concern about bus industry economics after a recent trip aboard a socially-distanced vehicle. “In order to comply with distancing rules my local bus company (Arriva) has started running duplicating buses,” he begins. “The one I travelled home in on Saturday had two passengers including myself on the first one followed by another bus five minutes later on the same route running completely empty. If they are doing this on every route it will cost a bomb and I doubt if they’ve got enough buses to cover.

It’s madness. Twice the number of buses chasing less than half the number of regular passengers. You couldn’t make this up.” Where will it all end?

The Welsh Parliament’s economy, infrastructure and

decades of successful ‘modal shift’ away from cars, and lead to rising congestion, poor air and carbon emissions, as well as longer journey times. This would be catastrophic for London’s economy and Londoners’ quality of life. But it is perhaps not inevitable.

During lockdown, London’s quiet streets have played host to a huge increase of cycling, enabled by the sunniest spring on record. And, although other cities led the way, following encouragement by the Government in early May, London’s boroughs and Transport for London have implemented a plethora of rapidly conceived temporary schemes that widen pavements and add new cycle lanes. Of course these are not without controversy, but our polling data shows strong support for these measures. Looking ahead, many say that after the crisis they will cycle more than they did before. With the right conditions, this burgeoning population of new cyclists could be converted into longer term cycling commuters.

But this won’t be enough. To avoid a gridlock of cars and vans, improve air quality and decarbonise, we need to urgently look for other policy options. A strong bet is e-scooters and e-bikes. Even before the crisis the promise of small, electric driven, or assisted, vehicles was very strong, and being rapidly embraced across Europe, North America and Asia. Yet London has got almost nowhere in making the most of this opportunity.

E-bikes offer greater range and are more inclusive than regular bikes, and are starting to appear as ‘last mile’ delivery options. Londoners have not embraced them so far. They are very expensive, far more than £1,000 in most cases, and so are a target for theft.

Transport authorities could offer grants to buyers as they have done in Portugal, Germany and Italy. Innovative e-bike manufacturers such as VanMoof are experimenting with anti-theft guarantees.

Covid-19 has led to a spike in sales, though shared e-bike operators such as Jump and Lime, who are active in London, have had a bumpy crisis, as weekday demand has nose-dived. They have also suffered from almost no city-wide coordination, which has proved crucial in making sharing services successful elsewhere.

Better, perhaps, are e-scooters. Though currently illegal in the UK on roads and pavements, they have crept into the London street scene because they are

affordable to many (£300-£600), and users, across the social spectrum, like them. Typically top speed is around 15 mph and their range is up to 30 miles. They are usually small and light too, a crucial advantage over bikes for commuters, so they can be easily carried onto to a train and stored safely at home or in the workplace.

Historically, TfL and the DfT have been set against e-scooters, ostensibly on safety grounds. These are legitimate concerns, but largely centre on pavement riding, which should remain banned. But in truth, we have just failed to adapt. Transport regulators, perhaps blinded by the lure of autonomous cars, which are still yet to materialise, have missed a real transport revolution. This is now starting to change.

Shared e-scooters could be legal in trial areas this summer. Privately-owned scooters will surely follow.

Some worry that these new forms will ‘cannibalise’ other more preferred modes, including cycling and walking. To some extent this may be true. However, we know that transport should ideally be green, take up minimal road space, and be active where possible.

And, for now, it should enable social distancing. Escooters tick all four boxes, especially with a rapidly decarbonising electricity supply. They aren’t active in themselves but are often combined with other modes, and indirectly encourage active travel by building the case for slower streets, and more cycle-friendly infrastructure. They can be deployed as fleets of shared vehicles, reducing the entry cost to all. A dynamic micromobility ecosystem should be part of London’s transport future. Cycling groups and climate campaigners are starting to grasp this, and beginning to throw their weight behind it. Yet London remains way off the pace, and risks falling further behind, not aided by the complexity of its governance.

It is no coincidence that Brisbane, Australia’s largest single local authority, is seen by some industry insiders as an exemplar. Nevertheless London should raise its sights, and aim to be a new ‘gold standard’ in micromobility. To achieve that will require smart, joined-up, far-sighted thinking across traditional boundaries, between local transport authorities and businesses.

skills committee meeting last week didn’t go quite according to plan. The meeting was a virtual one, of course, and committee members were looking forward to grilling James Price, the chief executive of Transport for Wales, on the topic of public transport. “Can I just welcome James Price, the chief executive of Transport for Wales, to the meeting?,” said chair Russell George as the discussion got underway. “Can you hear me okay, James?” Silence. “He's gone. I've obviously deeply offended James. We'll try and get him back.” Yet try as they might, they couldn’t establish contact. ‘IT problems’ are evidently replacing the old ‘stuck in traffic’ explanation for missed meetings.

transport, it didn’t take long for public transport operators to begin adding a touch of humour to the nation’s transport fleets. Here’s Great Western Railway’s version. Keep two metres apart please...

After face coverings became mandatory on public

Rob Whitehead is director of strategic projects at the Centre for London think tank.

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Buses are in meltdown, but they remain vital to our future

Bus use has experienced a 90 per cent decline since ‘lockdown’ on 23 March. This is unsurprising, given the fear of infection and strong messages to stay at home and avoid using public transport unless it is “essential”.

The fall follows a long-term decline in bus use linked to a number of societal trends: reductions in bus services, budget cuts, and a planning system that promotes car dependency and neglects access to public transport, walking and cycling. DfT statistics reveal that outside of London we all took an average of 46 bus trips per annum in 2002 and 33 in 2018.

It is relatively easy to construct a scenario that assumes the extinction of bus services. Trips in urban areas can switch to cycling, Uber-style ride-hailing services, autonomous vehicles and working from home. Bus trips in rural areas may also be regarded as irrelevant and can be replaced by community transport based on social need, car-share schemes and an increase in car ownership and use.

But there is an alternative scenario that has much stronger connections with a wide range of public policy objectives. Buses have a fundamentally important role to play in urban and rural life. They are much more space efficient than cars. They can be organised in highly co-ordinated and sophisticated ways to maximise passenger use, as is the case in Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

Higher bus use and much better buses (all-electric and powered by renewables) are needed to support the policies that will improve public health, reduce air pollution, and deliver social justice, so that access to the destinations we all need to reach are not rationed by income or car ownership.

Indeed, the public health, decarbonisation and economic viability agendas all point to the importance of car-free towns and cities. In my locality, Hereford and Shrewsbury should be car-free. But that will depend on world-best bus services.

We need a significant increase in spending on buses, and an increase in integration and co-ordination of buses and bus-rail connections. This will require a shift from the current privatised, market-driven, uncoordinated pattern of bus service provision towards one that delivers integration, much improved value for money and accountability. Integration and co-ordination of services should be brought under the supervision of a public body.

The UK Government and governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should follow the example of the new Irish government strategy for 20 per cent of the nation’s transport budget to go to walking and cycling, while spending on public transport infrastructure will exceed road spending by a ratio of 2:1.

John Whitelegg Visiting professor of sustainable transport School of the Built Environment Liverpool John Moores University Liverpool

Electrification: an implausible pathway to reach Net Zero

David Metz (Letters 12 Jun) chides LTT for citing my report on electrifying the UK economy to meet the Government’s Net Zero ambitions (“Country’s battery electric car strategy is ‘doomed to failure’” LTT 29 May). He then cites his own analysis on the feasibility of electrifying transport in the UK economy.

I concluded my original report by challenging anyone to undertake a comprehensive takedown of my analysis, not to undertake quibbling at the margins. My challenge still stands. I will take down David’s arguments quite simply as follows.

First, he considered transport in isolation from all

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

the other changes – electrifying heat is an even greater challenge to the grid than electrifying transport and both have to be undertaken simultaneously for Net Zero.

Second, if all UK vehicles were electrified now, the extra electricity needed is 70 per cent of all electricity generated today (and considering heat, we need 150 per cent more electricity than we use now to cope with peak heating in winter, if every building has a heat pump, and even more otherwise assuming the use of radiant heaters).

If we exclude electric vehicle charging in the midevening as David suggests (say, four hours every day), the average amount of electricity needed at all other times to electrify transport goes up to 84 per cent of the current total electricity generated today.

The day/night variation in electricity demand is only about 20 per cent on average, and less in winter.

Assuming the continued growth of renewable sources of electricity at the prevailing rate, and without any technology to store electricity at a large scale to cover periods in winter when there is no wind and little sun, personal mobility would be severely curtailed by 2050.

Once we add in the electrification of heat, David’s thesis is totally untenable.

Michael Kelly Emeritus Prince Philip Professor of Technology University of Cambridge Cambridge

Too many different agendas are blighting rail planning

Two recent editions of LTT reveal the dire state of railway planning in Britain. You summarise the comprehensive set of suggestions from Greengauge 21 in its submission to the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) review of railway schemes (‘Rethink Mids and North rail plans – Greengauge’ 29 May). Some of the proposals are sound, some questionable. Considering Greengauge’s role as cheerleader for high-speed rail (albeit not in respect of every feature of HS2) this is a welcome “sinner that repenteth” moment. In particular, the reference to the institutional neglect of city centre enhancements and the critique of off-centre hubs such as the proposed one at Toton, between Derby and Nottingham, cover two issues that some of us have been campaigning about for many years.

However, although the NIC’s review was set up in response to the muddle about rail infrastructure planning identified by Doug Oakervee’s review into HS2, the Commission does not have the time, resources or the political freedom to do justice to complex issues that should have been studied long before the then transport secretary Andrew Adonis started the expensive obsession with HS2 and allowed it to be hijacked by utopian engineers.

The NIC is preoccupied with infrastructure and does not have the capability to explore operational solutions that may be more appropriate in the shorter term. For example, during Covid-19 timekeeping has greatly improved with fewer trains running on the network and freight trains are running more briskly.

All this raises questions regarding priorities, on-track competition and the process of planning train paths.

In the same issue, but at the other end of the spectrum, we have a report that the DfT is handing out funds for studies of reopening railway lines and stations. A few may be marginally justified, but most form a random set of thin cases based on sentimental-

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Comment 23

Reading the runes More than three months since the country entered lockdown, Covid-19 continues to dominate the transport agenda. The Government’s daily graphs of travel demand appear to have stopped; a pity, because the visual collapse in demand was staggering and it would be equally interesting to track the recovery. Hopefully the Department for Transport will see fit to publish occasional updates, ahead of the official statistics that re-tell the whole pandemic.

It is way too early to understand the long-term impacts of the virus on the transport system and travel patterns. But the story has moved on a little and there are a few jigsaw pieces that can be put on the table. Transport for London’s review of office requirements will be being repeated in boardrooms across the land. Even organisations that choose not to exit their leases may organise themselves differently: more hot desks and fewer staff commuting every day. The implications for public transport operations are potentially huge.

So too for car park operators and road network managers. And for promoters of major urban public transport capacity projects.

TfL also envisages a shift in economic activity, away from central London and into local neighbourhoods. Such trends are likely to be repeated elsewhere. Does this not suggest a boon for active travel and shared transport?

For a few issues now, these pages have told the sorry tale of local government finances. It’s not a strictly transport story yet, but it will set the scene for transport activity (or the lack of) in the years to come. Transport for London’s programme of capital works for streets seems decimated this year and the high profile Streetspace for London cannot cover that up. This might serve as a spur for TfL’s continuing work on new forms of road charging.

Austerity was the word of the last recession but, for now, central government refuses to utter the word. But what of local government? Capital grants may continue flow down as part of the economic recovery programme. But in the absence of further government support, the revenue budgets of many councils look shot. Budgets for staffing, tendered services, studies, and transport levies will all be facing scrutiny. How many would want to take on the risk of a franchised bus network, even if the logic of doing so is stronger now than before? A fresh discussion about what local government does, and how it is funded and structured, looks inevitable.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (continued)

24 Comment

ity about branch lines or highly specific local interests.

Some will (or should) fall because for little gain they would reduce mainline capacity or delay existing travellers. Many would probably be better served by seriously good bus services integrated with rail. These disjointed initiatives are a recipe for more sub-optimal decisions. Indeed, there is a case for closing a number of little-used stations for the greater good (it was a pity that politicians in Scotland lacked the courage to close Breich on the Glasgow Central to Edinburgh line via Shotts, used even after expensive rebuilding by less than one person a day).

This populist activity by the DfT is also deflecting attention from innumerable modest but cumulatively significant deficiencies in the existing railway: what, for example, has happened to the study proposed by four West Northamptonshire councils into reopening the potentially-strategic but unglamorous Market Harborough to Northampton railway that I commended in a letter in LTT of 23 November 2018? We note, too, the England’s Economic Heartland’s road-heavy shortlist of studies includes proposals to investigate options for rail in several corridors.

And in the latest issue you report: • former rail manager David Prescott making a technically interesting argument for bringing infrastructure and operations together while the Government dithers about implementing the Williams Review, probably because it implies greater intervention in the public interest rather than reliance on private market mechanisms • Transport for the North sensibly but belatedly bemoaning the disjointed planning for the TransPennine Upgrade project, Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2, with the risk of confusion at best and large-scale misplaced expenditure at worst • Network Rail is reported to be busy, at last, on an electrification programme; and • William Barter's letter provides the theoretical argument for 18 trains/hour on HS2 without explaining why it has not yet been achieved anywhere else and not appreciating the huge gamble it represents – if it works, great, if it doesn’t the already weak business case is undermined and a lot of people are disappointed (but we won't know until the 2030s and after £100bn has been spent).

May I therefore suggest, not for the first time, that what is needed to address this mess is to borrow some public transport planners from Switzerland? They should be invited to design a national multi-modal plan for desirable public transport connectivity. It would involve real timetabling to visionary standards, infrastructure enhancements to facilitate that and a staged programme for implementation. Switzerland has achieved an outstanding system with high modal shares for rail and bus through careful planning, public consultation and long-term funding – and it’s still improving.

If we’re serious about decarbonisation, other environmental goals, inclusivity, and post-Covid economic recovery agendas, we should follow that model.

Jonathan Tyler Passenger Transport Networks York YO1

Midlands Connect should challenge the plan for HS2

I welcome the long overdue call for changes to rail investment proposals made by Transport for the North (‘Recognise synergies between major rail projects, says TfN’ LTT 12 Jun). The different Government structures for rail projects in the North hinders the creation of a railway that can offer seamless journeys to passengers. This is made even worse when one of these Government structures is HS2 Ltd. My observation is that it and the DfT have been as

Why did the council repaint this narrow advisory cycle lane, asks Rik Andrew

obstructive as possible towards sensible proposals from cities to change the HS2 plans. The route to Stoke, Sheffield city centre station, and the idea of a through station at Leeds are prime examples. And Birmingham and Nottingham that have not dared to challenge less than beneficial outcomes for their cities.

Far from being the ‘backbone of the railway’ as HS2 supporters like to claim, HS2 has become a ‘straightjacket’ that prevents best value connectivity between northern cities in several areas.

Transport for the North demonstrates one of the worst ‘straightjackets’ in their proposal for a highspeed route between Liverpool and Manchester via a roundabout route entering Manchester from the south via HS2. It is not sensible in terms of: • reputation – would anyone with a modicum of railway knowledge trust an organisation proposing such a long-winded route?

• marketing/sales – will passengers be convinced that route will be quicker than the direct route at slower speed – or prepared to pay the higher fares?

• cost – is this really cost-effective construction?

Fortunately there is a much better solution proposed

by Greengauge 21 in Revisiting High Speed North as reported in LTT 15 May. I trust TfN will adopt it.

Another ‘straightjacket’ is the roundabout route proposed by Midlands Connect in its Access to Toton proposals for connecting Nottingham to Birmingham via the new HS2 station at Toton. A far better solution proposed by Greengauge 21 in Beyond HS2 is a Nottingham South HS2 connection near East Midlands Parkway. Midlands Connect does not mention this as a possible alternative, nor any reasons why its solution is better. The Nottingham South HS2 connection would offer a further 25 per cent reduction in journey time between Nottingham and Birmingham.

Nottingham is effectively the regional capital of the East Midlands and on that merit alone deserves to be directly connected to all the main HS2 destinations of London, Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle. That is where the debate should start.

The case for a direct HS2 service between Nottingham and London is very strong. The city has about as many London-bound rail passengers as Stafford, Stoke and Macclesfield combined, more than Chesterfield and Sheffield which will have two HS2 trains, and about two-thirds the number of Leeds, which will have three HS2 trains an hour.

Nottingham to Birmingham needs faster trains than can be delivered on the classic routes. Nottingham to Sheffield and Leeds (and extension to Bradford) could certainly benefit from HS2 speeds.

Rail services from Nottingham to Newcastle have never been good or direct. A direct HS2 service needs to be taken seriously. In the meantime, there is still the urgent case of grade separation of the East Coast Main Line junction at Newark, which opens the possibility of a Newark North connection between Nottingham and the ECML, as mentioned in the Oakervee HS2 report.

A further ‘straightjacket’ is the proposal for three trains an hour from Crewe to Toton. The connectivity between cities in the North West and the East Midlands is the slowest between any two regions. Fast limited stop trains from Nottingham and Derby to Liverpool and Chester via Crewe are needed. 125mph running between Derby and Stoke could reduce journey times between the East Midlands and the North West by 20 minutes.

In the past Midlands Connect has shown very creditable proposals for improving rail services in the Midlands. But its adherence to the HS2 ‘straightjacket’ does the Midlands and in particular the East Midlands a great disservice.

Put simply, Midlands Connect should heed the advice from Transport for the North, put the interests of the East Midlands cities first, and adapt the HS2 route. What it has done so far is put the interests of the HS2 project far above the transport needs of East Midlands people.

Time to get back to the drawing board.

Graham Nalty Derby DE24

CCTV enforcement of cycle lanes: little to get excited about

The Government’s decision to allow camera enforcement of cycle lanes (‘CCTV powers for mandatory cycle lanes’ LTT 12 Jun) sounds like a big step forward but sadly the UK has few mandatory cycle lanes to enforce. Almost all lanes are advisory because they are easier to install.

Even if the DfT could wave a magic wand and make them all mandatory overnight, they would still end prematurely (every time a junction or pinch point occurs) and be too narrow to be safe – drivers pass cyclists closer where there are sub-standard cycle lanes.

Many existing UK cycle lanes are worse than nothing, see the attached photo. Why on earth did they bother to repaint this absurdly narrow old advisory lane?

A lot more work is required to create good safe cycle lanes: two metres is the minimum width required to allow overtaking within the lane / track (not 1.5 metres as often recommended).

Rik Andrew London SE6

DfT’s roads value for money report fails to impress

You briefly noted publication by the DfT of a report concluding that the second Road Investment Strategy (RIS2) represents high value for money (“RIS2 ‘is good value’” LTT 12 Jun). Accordingly, I turned to this 29-page report, expecting to see substantiation of the £27bn, five-year road investment programme. I was disappointed.

The summary states that, overall, RIS2 is high value for money, meaning £2 return for every £1 spent (a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of 2). Yet new commitments of major capital enhancement schemes yield a BCR of 1.5, which is unimpressive. The analysis is minimal, offering no breakdown for individual schemes, where some might be expected to have a BCR of 1 or less if the average is 1.5.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (continued) Comment 25

These estimates are based on the now rather dated road traffic forecasts published in 2018, which included five distinct scenarios, yet no indication is given as to how the BCR would vary with scenario.

The estimates are also derived from new but unpublished regional traffic models, asserted to be “worldleading”.

I contributed a Viewpoint article to LTT of 24 May 2019, pointing out a major discrepancy between traffic forecasts and post-opening outturn traffic levels for the smart motorway widening of the M25 between Junctions 23 and 27. The forecasts were generated by a regional model of the kind now in general use by Highways England, based on SATURN software that originated in the 1980s.

The purpose of the models is to estimate travel time savings that arise from adding carriageway capacity, which feeds into an economic model. Yet in the M25 case, no time savings were observed beyond year 1 after opening, putting the validity of such models in doubt.

The DfT’s new report frequently asserts that its analysis is robust (15 times, in fact), which is usually a sign of intellectual insecurity.

In fact, the analysis is pretty thin and seems intended to justify a road construction programme developed in an earlier era, before we have had a chance to assess the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and what this might mean for travel demand and for public expenditure priorities, such as urban vs. inter-urban transport vs. broadband.

David Metz Honorary professor of transport Centre for Transport Studies University College London www.drivingchange.org.uk

800 issues on, has roads policy changed much?

Congratulations fir your 800th edition: the article that looked back to that first 1989 edition made interesting reading. But it’s depressing how little some things have changed, as some transport planners in the provinces – and indeed at the heart of the DfT – still seem to be stuck in the Roads for Prosperity mindset of all those decades ago.

Wiltshire is a case in point, as reported in your previous issue (‘Wiltshire creates team to lead M4-South Coast road upgrade’ LTT 29 May), and referred to in Pat Kinnersly’s follow-up letter.

As a resident of the county I despair of the council’s road-centric approach that seems to pay such scant regard to its current economic situation, the latest thinking on encouraging modal shift, the climate emergency that the council acknowledged in 2019 and its alleged aspiration to make the county carbon neutral by 2030.

Support for Wiltshire’s roads programme will cost the county millions in the years ahead – the report to Wiltshire Council’s cabinet in May, which you covered, was a little vague on the precise amount, saying that “schemes ... have the potential to require as yet undetermined contributions from the council.”

The council was rightly taken to task by a member of the public enquiring whether its road plans were the right approach when we should be considering a better use of roads with more public transport, car sharing, working locally or from home and more long-haul freight going by rail. Wiltshire responded that it had to spend the money in this way because the DfT funding stream required it to do so.

Elsewhere, there are an increasing number of hopeful pointers to the way ahead. The suggested reforms of transport appraisal to support the decarbon-

isation agenda is an example (“Transport appraisal ‘at odds with decarbonising transport’” LTT 12 Jun).

However, changing the direction of a car-obsessed county, backed by an equally roads-focused DfT, seems somewhat akin to changing the course of an ocean liner. I don’t think we have another 30 years to get this right, so we must hope that the pace of change towards a truly sustainable transport system will speed up – and soon.

Margaret Willmot Salisbury SP2

On reaching 800...

Congratulations on reaching LTT number 800.

I think I have read every one of them, and have always respected and admired the very significant contribution you have made to many aspects of transport over the years – providing your readers with information, much of which we would not obtain otherwise, and opening minds through (mostly!) informed discussion – Martin Richards Congrats! Here’s to the next 800 – Roger Davies

Let me congratulate you and the team on 800 editions. I remember the arrival of the LTT as it was about the same time I started working in local government at the London Borough of Lewisham. We had an office copy in the early days that some members of staff regarded as their property so it had to be chained up! In a fast-changing world LTT was invaluable in keeping us in touch with developments, initiatives and innovation, and continues to do so today – Brian Dalton I notice LTT's 800. Congratulations! Great mag.

(Sorry, project) – Jack Semple

You’ve read LTT’s 30-year review – now join in our online conversation about the next 30 years!

In the previous LTT, we reflected upon the enormous changes that have taken place since we began publishing the magazine in 1989. For 800 issues every fortnight we’ve brought you unrivalled news, comment and analysis about developments in the local transport scene. It’s been three decades of constant change with the arrival of everything from the internet, mobile phones and big data to the cycling boom, Oyster Cards and Uber. And now every fortnight – in the week between LTT issues – we hold 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 Coronavirus pandemic.

We’ve so far had six highly successful online discussions, involving up to 100 LTT readers.

Next Friday we will be holding our seventh conversation, again chaired by editor Andrew Forster, and tackling the fascinating issue of what will be the next new developments that challenge our assumptions and change our expectations.

The theme is:

CALLING THE FUTURE: WHAT ARE THE SURPRISES IN STORE THAT WE’RE NOT EVEN PLANNING FOR YET? 2pm, Friday 3 July 2020 Panelists include:

I Peter Warman, Innovator and Futurist, Warmanconsult and MobiHub I Peter Stonham, Editorial Director, Local Transport Today I Kristine Beuret, Director, Social Research Associates

The format will be an informal and friendly gathering on Zoom. Following the introductory presentations on the above theme, participants will be invited to raise questions and give their comments.

If you didn’t make it last time, or for the earlier events, you can still view recordings of them on TransportXtra.

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

To register your place email Tom Daldry at tom.daldry@landortravelpublications.com or visit TransportXtra.com/events.

We’ll be limiting the active audience to 100 people to ensure a manageable discussion.

Priority is given to attendance by LTT subscribers.

I Other speakers on prospective technological and economic changes being confirmed

Please email: tom.daldry@landortravelpublications.com for joining instructions

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LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

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TransportXtra.com/ltt

The LTT Directory

The LTT Directory 27

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LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

28 The LTT Directory

The next issue of LTT will be published: Friday 10 July Advertising booking deadline: Tuesday 07 July

For recruitment advertising please contact Jason on: 020 7091 7895 or email: jit@landor.co.uk

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30 The LTT Directory

LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

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www.Jobs-in-Transport.com

Recruitment 31

The best jobs for transport specialists start here Below is a selection of the top vacancies currently advertised on the UK’s leading transport jobs board: www.Jobs-in-Transport.com

Principal Development Engineer

Transport Planner

£34,788 - £37,849

£33,456 - £36,674

We need a qualified and experienced civil engineer to bring their technical expertise to our team and ensure that developers deliver quality for Bristol with safe and maintainable new environments.

What you’ll be leading on

You will be required to undertake and manage the technical approval of developerdelivered works before supervising the delivery of those works. You will be involved with highway improvement schemes throughout the city from their earliest planning stages right through to completion and certification.

The works you will assess and supervise will be a variety of new infrastructure and improvements delivered under Sections 38 and 278 of the Highways Act, and your expertise will ensure that the works meet the minimum standards that we expect.

You will have a broad experience of Civil Engineering, ideally being professionally qualified to Chartered Engineer status or preparing to sit professional review. If you have relevant private sector experience, you will be of interest to us, although this is not essential.

Closes: 2nd July

APPLY NOW: https://bit.ly/30OGw8G

l Apply your specialist knowledge to provide transport planning based analysis on both major and small scale road schemes across the country both internally and through the supply chain l Ensure that the appropriate policies and procedures are followed in support of the strategic transport modelling and appraisal process

l Ensure compliance with the application of the analytical assurance framework to manage proportionate, risk-based analysis l Specify and assist in the management of research projects across aspects of transport planning, transport modelling and appraisal as and when required l Take part in the development of the next generation of the Regional Traffic Models.

To be successful

l Knowledge of the operation of highway and planning authorities and their interaction with the strategic highway authority. l A level of technical knowledge and experience that could be characterised by an MSc level degree in Transport Planning and experience of applying transport planning techniques. l Hands on experience of developing and using strategic transport models and an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.

Vehicle Technician

l Knowledge of how traffic models should be used in the development of evidence bases.

Scale 5, £23,235 - £25,380 per annum plus £3000 market supplement

l Intermediate knowledge of Excel and GIS software Closes: 17th July

We currently have a vacancy at our Basingstoke workshop, where your vehicle maintenance and repair skills will be used to ensure the Fleet is kept fully operational. You will be required to work on a variety of fleet vehicles, which currently includes high performance cars, vans, motorbikes, even boats and other equipment.

As well as undertaking servicing and repairs and vehicle road tests, you will be required to carry out basic vehicle it’s to ensure they are ready for police use.

About you You will need to be qualified to City and Guilds 383 motor vehicle mechanics or equivalent Level 3 qualification in vehicle repair and servicing or passed a full 3 year vehicle manufacturers apprenticeship, you will also have post-qualification experience of servicing and maintenance in a vehicle workshop dealing with a range of car and light commercial vehicle types. You will also hold a full current driving licence and be willing to undertake inForce training to gain authorisation to drive all types of motor vehicles used by the Constabulary. The hours of work are 8-4.30 Monday-Thursday and 8-4 Friday. Saturday morning over-time is optional.

Closes: 12th July

APPLY NOW: https://bit.ly/2UWXMop

Strategy Officer (Perth) £34,170 - £39,654 Lying at the heart of Scotland’s transport network, and covering the Angus, Dundee City, Perth & Kinross and Stirling Council areas, Tactran is the statutory Regional Transport Partnership with a duty to create a Regional Transport Strategy and oversee its delivery. The Partnership is also a statutory Community Planning and Development Planning agency, and has a key role in supporting the development and implementation of the Tay Cities and Stirling & Clackmannanshire City Deals.

You will have responsibility for supporting the development, implementation and monitoring of the Regional Transport Strategy and related delivery programmes, with particular emphasis on advancing the Active Travel, Health & Transport, Travel Planning and Travel Information elements of the Strategy. This will involve supporting and contributing to key stakeholder and partner liaison and assisting in the appraisal, procurement and delivery of proposals and projects. Key tasks will be the management of Tactran’s Active Travel Grant scheme and associated initiatives, in close liaison with Sustrans Scotland and Tactran’s Regional Active Travel Development Fund projects.

Ideally educated to degree level in a relevant discipline, you will also be familiar with transport and wider policy issues within an RTP or local authority environment and have knowledge and/or experience of relevant legislation, procedures and best practice in sustainable and active travel provision, travel planning and travel information.

Closes: 17th July

APPLY NOW: https://bit.ly/2zmGQQC

APPLY NOW: https://bit.ly/3dshPBr

LTT801 back page.qxp_LTT759_pXX 26/06/2020 11:26 Page 1

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Published 10 July 2020

TransportXtra.com/ltt

LTT801 26 June - 09 July 2020

News

People

Lancs backs principle of mayoral combined authority GOVERNANCE

TRANSPORT GOVERNANCE in Lancashire will be shaken up if a proposal to establish an elected mayor-led combined authority comes to fruition.

Lancashire County Council’s cabinet this month endorsed the principle of a mayoral combined authority (MCA) and has asked the full council to support it too.

Angie Ridgwell, Lancashire’s chief executive, said the Government might look more favourably on the area when distributing grants if an MCA were in place.

“Evidence from recent combined authority activity and funding deals illustrates starkly how Lancashire could be missing out,” she said. “The new West Yorkshire Combined Authority benefitted significantly from the recent [DfT] Transforming Cities funding whilst Lancashire’s award fell well short of the bidding scenarios.”

An MCA could also open the door to the area striking a devolution deal with the Government, she added.

In all, 15 local authorities are considering the MCA proposal: Lancashire County Council, the 12 Lancashire districts, and the unitary authorities of Blackpool, and Blackburn with Darwen. The unitaries were formed out of Lancashire County Council in the late 1990s and are the local transport authorities for their areas.

“A combined authority requires the consensus of all participating authorities,” said Ridgwell. “This has consistently proved challenging for Lancashire and while it may be possible to move forward if one or two authorities on the periphery of the pan-Lancashire boundary were not engaged, undoubtedly a stronger case could be made to government if all 15 move forward together.”

The MCA would become the

local transport authority for the area. Lancashire, Blackpool, and Blackburn with Darwen would remain the local highway authorities.

If enough authorities agree to the principle of an MCA then a governance review will be commissioned to review different governance models, with the findings put to a public consultation. An application would then be submitted to ministers.

Ridgwell said ministers might require local government reorganisation – i.e. scrapping the existing two-tier structure of local government in Lancashire – as a condition for authorising an MCA. Cambridgeshire is the only two-tier shire county covered by an MCA. The authorities in twotier North Yorkshire are also exploring the MCA model in partnership with the unitary authority of York (LTT 07 Feb).

WMCA strengthens TfW joins transport policy-making the UTG

GOVERNANCE

THE WEST Midlands Combined Authority has established a strategic transport board to improve joint working with the seven constituent metropolitan district councils.

The board’s first meeting took place on 29 May. It brought together the combined authority’s portfolio lead for transport, Ian Ward, and the constituent

local authorities’ cabinet members for transport.

The WMCA is led by Conservative mayor Andy Street but Ward is Birmingham City Council’s Labour leader.

Further work is being undertaken to develop the board over the coming months, including producing terms of reference.

This is being led by officers from Transport for the West Midlands and Ward.

POLICY

TRANSPORT FOR Wales (TfW) has joined the Urban Transport Group as an associate member.

The UTG’s other associate members are Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, the West of England and Tees Valley combined authorities, Nottingham City Council and Northern Ireland.

Hayes joins TfWM from Milton Keynes Steve Hayes (pictured) is to join Transport for the West Midlands in the new position of head of network transformation, a role focused on public transport.

Hayes moves from Milton Keynes Council where he was head of transport. Milton Keynes will not recruit a replacement, Hayes’ responsibilities instead being split between the highways, planning and property departments.

Sibthorpe leads PJA in Manchester Consultant PJA has opened a new office in Manchester led by director Chris Sibthorpe. He joins from Mott MacDonald, where he led the Manchester transport planning team. As well as leading PJA’s Manchester office, Sibsthorpe will lead the company’s active travel division.

Creagh is Living Streets’ new chief Mary Creagh has been appointed chief executive of walking charity Living Streets. Creagh served as Labour MP for Wakefield from 2005 to 2019 and shadow transport secretary from 2013 to 2014. She succeeds Joe Irvin who stepped down in March.

Bradley leaves TfN for own consultancy Richard Bradley has left his position as head of data, modelling and appraisal at sub-national transport body Transport for the North to set up his own consultancy, ANSA Digital Ltd. Bradley joined TfN in 2017 from Atkins, where he was technical director for intelligent mobility. He was managing director of ANSA Consultants Ltd from 2002 to 2012. Consultant Arup is currently reviewing TfN’s transport analysis, modelling and economics work programme and team structure.

Byers sets up Nota Bene Consulting Neal Byers has set up Nota Bene Consulting after leaving Arup where he was a senior planner and then an associate.

Byers joined Arup in 2016 from South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, where he worked for five years, including as strategy and policy manager from 2013 to 2015.

Bradbury joins Uber from TfL Simon Bradbury has joined Uber as head of safety for the UK and Ireland. He moves from Transport for London where he worked for more than 11 years in active travel, road safety, delivery planning and latterly as senior safety strategy manager (road risk).

Highways England has appointed James Wright communications business partner for the Smart Motorways programme. He was a senior press officer with the Government company.