| Transport policy
The Government’s 10-year plan has, as a key feature,
the transfer of people from cars to public transport.
The targets for passengers were to increase bus use by 10%
and passenger rail use by 50%. What effect can that have?
The figures are as follows:
- Car use is forecast to rise by between 12% and 20% over
the decade ending 2010 (National Travel growth forecasts)
- Bus/coach travel accounts for 10% of motorised passenger-km.
If that rises by 10% i.e. to 11% and if half the difference
of 1% comes from car users then car use may be reduced by
half of one percent.
- Rail accounts for 6% of motorised passenger-km. Hence,
if rail use rises by 50%, i.e. to 9% of current motorised
passenger-km and if half the 3% difference comes from car
users then car use may be reduced by 1.5%.
- The combination of the above means that, if the Government’s
targets are met, car use may be reduced from a high forecast
of 120% of the value in the year 2000 to 118%; a change
so trivial that it will pass unnoticed
Meanwhile the cost of rail modernisation alone is now over
£70 billion. That is a huge sum, which needs to be given
a context both as to the amount and to the use to which the
investment would be put. E.g.
- £70 billion is sufficient to build the residential
accommodation for a city of 1.5 million people - more than
£1,000 for every man woman and child in the country,
or about 3,000 for every household.
- National statistics show that only 1.5% of all motorised
journeys go by rail. Those journeys are predominantly in
the South East and to London. Hence, for the rest of the
population, a rail journey is a rarity.
In parallel with that the following bar chart, taken from
Focus on Public Transport, shows how passenger-km have changed
over the decades.
The chart shows that there has been little change in rail
use since 1952, or in bus use since 1982. What is striking
is the twelve-fold increase in car use since 1952. That is
one reason why it is difficult to believe that buses and trains
can ever attract people out of cars - Most of the car journeys
are entirely new. They would never have happened without the
car. Instead people would have stayed at home. Hence, it is
probably unrealistic to suppose many of those trips may now
be divert to public transport.
Alternatively consider the dispersed land use we now have.
The use is dispersed because of the private car. A dispersed
land use is impossible to serve efficiently by bus let alone
by rail and tram. After all, if there are 10 housing estates
and 10 industrial estates there would need to be 100 bus routes
if the housing and industry were to be directly connected.
That is never likely to be economic.
For all those reasons the 10-year plan was bound
to fail, and at very high cost to the nation. That
is not to say public transport does not have a place, but
clearly that place is no longer centre stage.
What is the alternative for clearly traffic congestion imposes
very large costs on society, causing frustration and delay
most days to most people?
There are two options, which compliment each other, namely
congestion or distance charging for the use of the roads,
and car-share schemes. There is also the third option of expanding
the capacity of the road network.
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