Institute for Transport Studies FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENT
Shaping Future Transport
Keeping travellers on track T
ransport. It’s an issue that affects everyone, from the moment we step out of our doors. Whether faced with a busy street or a quiet country lane most of us have a view on the subject, along with a multitude of vocal, often opposing, stakeholders. As a result, transport is constantly in the news, from airport expansions and overcrowded trains to fuel prices and road tax. It’s always contentious, which makes the work of policy makers and transport agencies none the easier.
For almost forty years, the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) has been treading a path through this tricky territory, providing policy makers with the science and evidence to underpin sound decision making, keeping a watchful eye on the environmental and safety impacts of new developments and looking to the future, to see how technology can help us create cleaner, greener, more efficient and safer transport. Set up in 1971, ITS was unique in bringing economists into the mix with the civil engineers who – at that time - carried out the majority of transport research. From the outset a free-standing unit to enable the mix of disciplines, the mix is now broader still, with seventy research-active staff including mathematicians, social scientists, atmospheric chemists, geographers, computer scientists, psychologists and statisticians.
For further information Professor Mark Wardman Institute Director m.r.wardman@its.leeds.ac.uk www.its.leeds.ac.uk
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“The range of disciplines is a reflection of how transport issues have widened to affect all areas of society,” says ITS Director and Professor of Transport Demand Analysis, Mark Wardman. “Transport research is no longer just about the mechanics and economics of road and rail. Environmental impact and sustainability are now at the forefront, as is new technology and human behaviour, particularly in terms of safety.”
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SAFE JOURNEY
ITS is naturally looked to for advice and technical expertise by DfT, despite occasions when our view hasn’t been popular with Government, and that’s testament to the quality of work we provide.
ITS has the only dedicated research group on transport safety in the UK. The group carries out research for government agencies and car manufacturers, assessing issues such as the level of driver distraction by mobile phones. The group has also assessed the effect on driver behaviour of various safety and anti-congestion initiatives, such as bilingual variable message signs in Wales and the use of the hard shoulder during busy periods on the M42. Indispensable to the work of the group – and to other groups within ITS – is the Institute’s driving simulator which has been upgraded to make it the best of its kind outside the USA, according to Professor of Transport Safety, Oliver Carsten. “The new simulator gives a very realistic experience of being in a car, with eight directions of movement and stimuli through the steering wheel,” he explains. “It allows us to create futuristic systems so that we can investigate how they affect driver behaviour.” As well as analysing how transport schemes affect individual driver behaviour and safety, ITS helps Government assess the costeffectiveness of such schemes by providing evidence on the values of impacts such as travel time, traffic noise and journey reliability, often working in tandem with transport consultants.
For further information ITS Research Group: Safety Professor Oliver Carsten o.m.j.carsten@its.leeds.ac.uk www.its.leeds.ac.uk
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“A big transport project may cost £1billion, so the Government needs to know if it will provide benefits with a greater economic value, to ensure it is value for money,” explains Professor of Transport Studies, Peter Mackie. ‘’The new kid on the block following the Stern Review is the valuation of carbon and consistency between the values used in economic appraisal and the Government’s carbon reduction targets. If we get this right, it will be a key driver of policy change.’’
It’s also clear that advice and information provided by ITS are taken seriously and have an impact on Government decision-making, as Dr David Carslaw can testify. He sat on a number of expert technical panels advising the Government over the proposed third runway at Heathrow.
ITS is involved in substantial projects funded through the European Union (EU) and the UK research councils but the UK Government – particularly the Department for Transport (DfT) and the transport agencies – remains a major client. In addition to carrying out research contracts, members of the Institute sit on a number of advisory bodies and informal panels providing scientific and technical background for new policy initiatives.
“The planning of the runway was delayed because the Government was concerned that concentrations of nitrogen dioxide would exceed international air quality limits,” says Dr Carslaw. “It’s rare that air quality stops new transport projects being built, but even with something as key to the British economy as the new runway, it was really important to understand the full environmental impact of the aircraft, ground support and extra traffic to the airport.”
GOOD ADVICE Given the charged nature of transport issues, providing advice to Government can entail treading a difficult line, according to Professor Mackie. He thinks that expert committees such as SACTRA, the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment, are useful because they involve the collective responsibility of the members in sending messages to Government about the need for change. Professor Mackie was a member of the academic group working with Sir Rod Eddington on his Governmentcommissioned study examining the longterm links between transport and the UK’s economic productivity and he continues to advise on the implementation of the study’s findings. “There are tensions working with government or industry as your advice may not always be what the client wants to hear,” says Professor Mackie. “Ultimately however, what wins respect is good quality work. ITS is naturally looked to for advice and technical expertise by DfT, despite occasions when our view hasn’t been popular with Government, and that’s testament to the quality of work we provide.”
For further information ITS Research Group: Transport, Environment & Informatics Dr David Carslaw d.c.carslaw@its.leeds.ac.uk www.its.leeds.ac.uk
Dr Carslaw’s role advising Government on the expansion plans at Heathrow was due to his particular expertise in the area of nitrogen dioxide emissions. The gas was once thought to be negligible in road traffic emissions but Dr Carslaw was the first to spot it was on the increase and to such an extent that it is now seriously threatening the UK’s and EU’s ability to meet air quality targets. The gas has since been shown to be a bi-product of oxidation catalysts and particle filters, introduced to reduce other emissions such as carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, in diesel engines in particular.
“These unforeseen consequences show just how important it is to fully assess the impact of new technology on the environment,” says Dr Carslaw. “Technology takes a long time to develop and introduce, so the turnaround time for manufacturers to bring in changes when problems arise is never quick and that means we have to deal with the environmental impact for much longer.”
(Bottom) Professor Mark Wardman inside the University’s driving simulator and (Below inset) the simulator in its environment.
NEW TRICKS But new technology does also offer hope for the future and for cleaner, safer modes of transport. For over ten years, Professor Carsten has been working for DfT on a technological development which, when he began, seemed very futuristic but now is likely to be hitting the streets in the near future. The innovation is called Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) and it involves getting a vehicle, through GPS positioning, to know the speed limit, so it can be automatically kept within limits or drivers can be warned when they exceed them. The underlying principle behind the ISA system is safety. Analysis by ITS has shown that, if all drivers kept to the speed limits, there would be a 20% drop in road traffic injuries and a 30% drop in fatalities. But the technology will work only if people accept and use it – and Professor Carsten’s trials have proved that they will.
For further information ITS Research Group: Transport Policy Professor Peter Mackie p.j.mackie@its.leeds.ac.uk www.its.leeds.ac.uk
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ITS provides the evidence-base for transport policy.
“The first trials were carried out on the simulator and the results from those and the ‘real-world’ trials are very positive, with changes in people’s behaviour and high levels of acceptance of the system,” he says. “The advances in GPS and sat-nav over the last ten years have really helped make this technology cheaper and more accessible and car manufacturers are already showing an interest. London – the first city in the world to impose congestion charging – looks set to also introduce ISA.” Transport for London (TfL), the body responsible for the city’s transport system, plan to introduce ISA to all their fleet. They are considering its use on buses and taxis and are also looking at the potential of creating a ‘cheap and cheerful’ London version for motorists by means of software than can be downloaded into sat navs. ITS works with TfL on many other issues affecting the capital and has provided the evidence-base for policy initiatives. Research by Dr Carslaw constructed detailed models to predict the emissions from different vehicles in London-specific driving conditions, using comprehensive vehicle activity data.
FAST ANALYSIS For other cities, the science is there to help them understand the potential benefits of different charging models. For example, in research funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and DfT, Dr Simon Shepherd looked at charging with different cordons, and ways of assessing where best to place the cordon boundaries to achieve the greatest impact on accepted social and economic welfare measures. Using Edinburgh as the model, he and colleagues developed an optimisation approach based on algorithms to enable analysis of the millions of combinations of charge level and cordon positioning. Although effective, this method was cumbersome for city and local authorities to use - requiring a lot of computing time. "I saw that certain high cost links emerged within the models, where there were high levels of congestion - and realised it would be possible to track where traffic travelled to and from along those links and then fix the cordons at some point along that line," says Dr Shepherd. "This method was much quicker, but performed almost as well as the optimisation approach - and outperformed fixing cordons based simply on human judgement." Dr Shepherd's approach is now included in DfT guidance to local authorities on congestion charging. COST AND COMPETITION Just as the eyes of the world have been on London for its ground-breaking congestion charging scheme, they have also been turned on the UK’s railways. Although many European rail systems have been privatised or have separated the management of the network from the operation of the trains, none has undergone as radical a reform and privatisation programme as the British system.
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Dr Andrew Smith is working with the Office for Rail Regulation (ORR) and Britain’s rail infrastructure provider, Network Rail, to benchmark the efficiency performance of Network Rail against the organisation’s counterparts in twelve European countries. “We’re using data on cost, networks and outputs supplied by the International Union of Railways and developing economic and statistical approaches to assess economic efficiency,” explains Dr Smith. Dr Smith’s findings will be used by ORR as one piece of evidence in their review of Network Rail’s finances and to set efficiency targets. The International Union of Railways is also interested in seeing how the approaches developed by Dr Smith might be of use to other rail network management organisations. Cost is clearly an issue for UK rail and, as well as analysing cost and efficiency on the network, Dr Smith carried out the first comparison of costs and efficiency of the train operating companies since the Hatfield rail disaster.
For further information ITS Research Group: Network Modelling Dr Simon Shepherd s.p.shepherd@its.leeds.ac.uk www.its.leeds.ac.uk
“Even though Hatfield was caused by an infrastructure issue, the costs of the train operating companies rose sharply after the incident,” says Dr Smith. “Competition for franchises is usually expected to result in improved efficiency and, in some industries, such as ancillary services in the NHS or refuse collection, that does seem to hold true.
However, our findings showed that this does not appear to be the case for rail.” Dr Smith worked with ITS colleagues Professor Chris Nash and Phill Wheat to analyse twenty five franchises over a ten year period. They found that, although some of the rise in costs was down to salary increases and purchase of new rolling stock, a large part remained unexplained. Their analysis also showed that the highest cost rises were seen in those companies which had struggled during the first franchise and which the Government had stepped in to support through increased subsidies and new contracts. The ITS findings were quoted by the House of Commons Transport Committee in its report on passenger rail franchising, but the repercussions are yet to be fully felt.
For further information ITS Research Group: Economics & Behavioural Modelling Dr Andrew Smith a.s.j.smith@its.leeds.ac.uk www.its.leeds.ac.uk
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t’s clear that transport looks set to remain a major issue for the UK and the world and that means institutions like ITS are likely to see a greater demand for their expertise and skills. “ITS has changed hugely since its early days and we’ll continue to adapt to the changing needs of the transport sector,” says Professor Wardman. “Our mix of disciplines gives us the flexibility to do that, and our strong base in modelling techniques and software can be applied to a range of transport types and issues.” There are no easy solutions to the problems of transport, but ITS will continue to both pose the difficult questions and try to provide the answers.
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Written by: campuspr
Institute for Transport Studies University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Tel: 0113 343 5325 Fax: 0113 343 5334 Email: courses@its.leeds.ac.uk Web: www.its.leeds.ac.uk
Leeds, United Kingdom LS2 9JT Tel: 0113 243 1751 www.leeds.ac.uk Doc No: 10012907