| May 16, 2012
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Heathrow need both 3rd runway & HSR

24 May 2010

It’s not “3rd runway or HS2″ – look at Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris CDG and Frankfurt, with good high speed rail at the airport and new runways there, being built or being planned.

With the relatively poor access to Heathrow envisaged by the HS2 team, it’s not going to be a good substitute for flights. IARO’s report on “Case studies in cooperation between air and high speed rail” shows that there must be a high-speed rail station at an airport for there to be effective cooperation – and if there is, some flights will end (Paris – Brussels, Frankfurt – Koln).

by Andrew Sharp, International Rail Air Organisation IARO


Category: Heathrow |
| May 16, 2012
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Cycling growth is not driven by ‘facilities’

3 March 2010

“My observations of bikes parked at specific sites, including St Pancras Station, over the past 5 years, have shown measurable cycling growth of over 1000%. Yes 1000%.

How can we revolutionise cycling throughout the UK? I would stress that joining up all journeys is key. I would urge all UK Public Transport Operators – bus, train and tram – to learn from their European rivals like German Deutsche Bahn and Dutch NS Railways plus major French groups like Veolia, Transdev and Keolis, as they consistently sell the whole door-to-door journey by supplying bikes to their passengers.

In the UK, credit should go to Stagecoach, which has begun leasing folding bikes to season ticket holders, and HITRANS which is running a basic version of the bike hire scheme run by the Dutch NS Railways – the OV-Fiets concept, offering Inverness commuters a bike to get from bus and rail stations to their workplace. In Holland the OV-Fiets scheme has grown from 1 to 160 locations in just 5 years.

Let’s not rule out the option of taking bikes on trains, trams or buses. In times of reduced revenues, the informal reporting I see suggests 20% patronage increases are likely – that is, if Public Transport Operators are prepared to have flexibility in the use of on-board space and engage with its customers.”

by Dave Holladay, Transport Management Solutions


Category: Cycling |
| May 16, 2012
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A road safety manifesto

15 Feb 2010

“Every day, 7 people are killed on British roads and ten times as many seriously injured. If this many people were killed and seriously injured in aviation disasters, all planes would be grounded. Yet consecutive governments seem to tolerate this death toll on our roads and implement important measures to tackle it too slowly or not at all.

Through our national helpline, Brake supports people bereaved and seriously injured through road crashes so we are reminded daily of the devastation caused by dangerous drivers, poor enforcement and shoddy legislation, as well as the lack of resources devoted by the government to helping families so terribly affected. The time for action is now.

Death on the roads is the biggest killer of 15 – 24 year olds. One in five new drivers crashes within six months of passing their test. Let’s protect young and novice drivers by introducing graduated licensing to support them to develop experience in safety, as successfully done in so many other countries, with full licensing only coming later at the age of 18 or even higher.

To protect our children, the elderly and cyclists, the government must reduce the default speed limit for build up areas from 30mph to 20mph. So many young lives would be saved by this simple government intervention. Many councils are already implementing 20mph zones successfully on an ad hoc or voluntary basis, but progress is too slow and requires government instruction.

Drink and drug drivers are still a major cause of death on our roads – with drug driving on the rise – yet we don’t have adequate legislation or enforcement to tackle this problem. At the currently high legal drink drive limit drivers are 10 times more likely to crash that if they had no alcohol in their blood. The government needs to drop the limit from 80mg (a level that is higher than most European countries’ levels) to 20mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood or less.

In England and Wales there were only 138 convictions for drug driving in 2008 compared to 67,665 for drink driving, yet research shows that the scale of drug driving may be similar to drink driving. Shockingly, there is no criminal charge for driving on drugs. Home Office approval for roadside drug testing kits has been delayed.

We urgently need more criminal charges in other areas too. Currently there is no charge for seriously injuring someone through bad driving. This means that a driver can permanently brain or spinally injure someone and be given a very minor charge that relates only to the driving and not the horrendous outcome.

Enforcement levels and use of enforcement technology need to be addressed, particularly to tackle drink and drug drivers, speeding drivers and the outrageous numbers of unlicensed and uninsured drivers on our roads.

Speed cameras are still conspicuous by their absence on many roads, traffic police remain under-funded and limited in numbers. Intelligent Speed Adaptation technology is available, but isn’t used. It would stop drivers speeding by limiting their speed through satellite technology.

Perhaps most importantly, the government needs to take urgent action to get families and company drivers out of cars and on to public transport, cycling and walking.

By reducing carbon emissions, we can make our communities safer places due to lower volumes of traffic. But it’s a case of ‘cart before the horse’ in many locations to simply encourage people to cycle more, when quite clearly roads are not safe places, with high speed limits, no facilities for cyclists, and lack of traffic enforcement. Modal shift can happen quicker if we prioritise road safety measures now.

Road safety is a shared responsibility – a responsibility of the public, local authorities and central government. But it is central government that sets the agenda for change and creates the framework and rules within which we can act. It is central government that must bear overall responsibility for the continued carnage on our roads and who must urgently take action to stop the appalling epidemic of carnage on our roads. ”

by Mary Williams
Brake


Category: Road Safety |
| May 16, 2012
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The coalition government: Does blue and yellow always make green?

21 May 2010

“£6 billion in cuts already announced for this year, so what happens to transport? There already seems to be an uneasy mix of popularist rhetoric regarding personal freedoms and environmental pressures. The coalition has told us that it believes good transport is essential for the economy, and it needs to be greener. There have been announcements on the ‘Green Investment Bank’, a commitment to High Speed Rail (HSR) and scrapping the new runways planned for London. A mandate for a national recharging network for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles also has been announced. Yet, Mr. Hammond has also “ended the war on motorists”. He says road pricing will not be implemented in any form, although new toll roads are a possibility, and a “vignette” system for trucks as used in continental Europe (a unlikely source of inspiration) proposed.

Crossrail stays, but at £16 billion (more than any Government has spent on transport in total in a single year), this could prove a real constraint on doing anything else. Mr. Hammond has said “the era of easy public money is over”, and this could be because what is available has already been earmarked. Longer rail franchises, to incentivise investment have also been signalled and a commitment to “fair pricing” for rail travel. However, the Transport Secretary might think higher fares would be fairer as this reduces the burden on the public purse, rather than the interpretation most of the travelling public would put on this.

There must also be a big question mark over behavioural change as a basis of transport planning. While it provides a very cost-effective way of managing congestion and reducing environmental effects of travel. The Coalition has specifically expressed support for cycling and walking, but the libertarian outlook of both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats could put them at odds with this approach philosophically. Many Tories and Liberals will no doubt view Personal Travel Planning as part of the ‘nanny state’ interfering with our everyday lives unnecessarily. Overall, it’s a bit like what we are all doing in some respects. Putting off buying that new car because the need doesn’t seem that great any more is similar to pushing transport investments back into the future on the basis that traffic isn’t growing as fast as it was due to recessionary effects. It seems there are no real dramatic changes signalled at this stage, apart from cancelling the new runways. However, this could be the emerging dominant theme. The next victims will most probably be the 20-odd schemes signed off by the Treasury and Department for Transport in the run-up to the election.”

by Chris Ferrary
Steer Davies Gleave


Category: Policy |
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