Examination of witnesses
(Questions 400 - 419)
WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER
MR DEREK
TURNER and MR
NICK LESTER
400. What are your targets—that is,
the number of trips which could be made by cyclists but which
are made by other means? Do you have a strategic plan?
(Mr Turner) I have not been set quantifiable objectives
in terms of trying to increase the amount of cycling, though I
have been asked to support the Government's policy to double the
number of cyclists by 2002 and then double them again by 2012.
401. Are you confident that you have the
means to do that?
(Mr Turner) I think it is quite a cultural change
that we are trying to make in terms of cycling. We are well down
compared to other European cities. What we need to do is to provide
what the cyclists want, so we work very closely with the local
cycling community. We have just won this year the prize of the
London Cycling Campaign for one of our crossings, where the cycle
network was actually severed by a main road and the cyclists were
not using the cycle network because they could not get across
the main road[1].
402. Are you working with, and looking closely
at, what other European cities have done? I have in mind Amsterdam
who have managed to achieve large numbers—some 28 per cent,
I think—of trips by bicycles and at the same time reduce
accidents to cyclists, so you have the two things there which
seem to be supporting one another. Are you working alongside those
kinds of city authorities to have a look at how we might perhaps
implement schemes here in our capital city?
(Mr Turner) We work very closely with European
cities, but we actually are so far down that there is really a
cultural change that we are needing to make, and that is outside
my direct remit to try to encourage people, in a really fundamental
way, to adopt environmentally friendly modes of transport. Technically,
what the Dutch do is not significantly different from what we
are doing ourselves. For instance, we are now adopting a policy
of providing cycle stands at stations, to encourage cyclists to
make a multi-modal journey, which is quite important in London
because it must be recognised that London is half the size of
the whole of the Netherlands in population terms. So we are talking
about scales of magnitude as well. We will never be able to make
all the trips that we would like to do ideally in terms of cycling,
just because the distances involved in London are so much greater.
Mr Bennett
403. You talk about doubling the number
of trips by cycles. How many trips are there now?
(Mr Turner) Offhand, I do not know.
404. Do you know how they break down between
leisure and work?
(Mr Turner) The majority of trips are still leisure
trips in cycling terms. Overall in London 3 per cent of the approximately
3.8 million journeys to work trips are made by bicycle, and that
decreases in Central London to 2 per cent.
405. What do you think is the main reason
why people do not cycle to work?
(Mr Turner) I think it is fundamentally fear—fear
of the traffic conditions. That is why I think it is important
that we actually produce complementary measures to get the cycle
network to link up and go where cyclists want to go. This is the
real problem—that people will not adopt these routes, because
they are not going where they want to go.
406. What about the fact that if you cycle
to work you arrive at work hot, sweaty, often wet, and you really
need to have a shower and to be able to change? If you are coming
into the House of Commons, all that is possible. How many of the
London boroughs actually make those sorts of provisions available
to their staff?
(Mr Turner) I would not know offhand. I know we
make those facilities available for my own staff.
(Mr Lester) Increasingly the London boroughs in
their offices make that provision. In my office we have provision
for people to shower and change and to park their bicycles. I
think the issue will be to try to expand that provision not only
within the public sector but also within the private sector as
well.
407. Is anything being done to encourage
them to do that?
(Mr Lester) There is a lot of encouragement. Certainly
the cycling organisations and people like Central London Partnership
have tried to encourage it through their members. I am not aware
that there is anything other than encouragement at the present
time.
(Mr Turner) That is right.
408. What is the result of that encouragement?
(Mr Turner) We are actually seeing an increase
in the number of people cycling. We are finding that the number
of people cycling to work is increasing. In my own organisation
I have doubled the capacity for cycle parking, lockers etc because
of the number of people who now are adopting cycling as a mode
of travel.
409. But you are talking about 3 per cent
of the use of bicycles to go to work?
(Mr Turner) Yes.
410. So it is pretty easy to double it,
is it not?
(Mr Turner) Yes, that is right, even if we double
it and double it again, we still will not be reaching the Dutch
numbers. That is why I said it is a cultural issue which needs
to be adopted here, and I think the fear factor, particularly
in cycling in London, is a real issue.
Mr Brake
411. Specifically on that point, the fear
factor, Mr Turner, do you believe that the introduction of red
routes which are about increasing traffic flow and traffic speeds
has increased or decreased cyclists' fear of cycling?
(Mr Turner) I think actually, whatever the fear
factor is, that the actual number of cyclists we see on the red
routes is increasing, so one assumes that they are not so frightened.
The evidence, the accident evidence, although it is early days
because it is three years before and three years after that we
need to look at and we have only got two years' worth of data
for even the earliest routes and we are actually on red routes
in London producing safer conditions for cyclists and there are
10 per cent fewer cycle accidents occurring on red routes than
on other roads in London. That tends to suggest that we are actually
reducing the fear factor on red routes.
Chairman: Well, we
have made that point, so I think we will move on.
Mr Whitehead
412. I believe you carried out a pilot project
in north London looking at the use of enforcement camera systems
on bus lanes to deter motorists from using those lanes and parking
in them or whatever. Could you tell me what indicators you used
to measure the success of that experiment?
(Mr Turner) Well, the indicators are limited to
the extent that what I would like to be able to say to you is
that we got nobody actually travelling down the bus lane because
that is where I make the big distinction between enforcement and
compliance. What I am about and what the Government asked me to
do was to develop a system which would improve compliance. Now,
I am afraid to say that we find it difficult to recognise this
improvement in compliance. We are getting some improvements in
compliance, but it is early days yet. What we are being able to
do is actually carry out high levels of enforcement using technology
which does not involve large numbers of police resources.
413. What is it from your experience, do
you think, which actually deters the motorist from using the bus
lane illegally? Is it the fine? Previously has it been the feeling
that they will not get caught, so it does not matter?
(Mr Turner) Well, what we have done, in trying
to scope the roll-out of this technology London-wide, is done
some attitudinal research and it tends to suggest, as I pointed
out in my written submission, that if we double the fine, we will
get a 10 per cent improvement in compliance.
414. Is that a guess or is that evidence?
(Mr Turner) No, that is evidence from attitudinal
survey work that we carried out and I think it is quite important
to recognise that a £20 fine is quite derisory really, particularly
as currently there is very little chance of being caught driving
in a bus lane and this is where the technology should actually
help us and, by mounting the cameras on the buses, we do increase
significantly the chance of being caught. We are dealing with
hundreds of offences a month now because we now have more than
the pilot scheme.
(Mr Lester) If I could add one bit of information
to that, the evidence from parking enforcement is that both the
level of the penalty and the chance of getting caught are critical
to the level of compliance. The Home Office has produced research
over the years which suggests that, if anything, there is a balance
more to increasing the chances of getting caught as opposed to
the precise level of penalty, but both are important in this area,
and that is why the camera work which both the Traffic Director
and the London boroughs are proceeding with is critical to increasing
the chances of people getting apprehended.
Chairman
415. Is it being used as evidence and is
it acceptable as evidence?
(Mr Turner) The camera evidence that my cameras
are producing, the buses and the roadside cameras, is now accepted
as primary evidence for prosecutions in magistrates' courts.
(Mr Lester) And certainly for the borough scheme,
when the Home Office produces the regulations, which is expected
shortly, that will also, because it is a decriminalised enforcement
regime, be directly acceptable evidence.
Mr Whitehead
416. Do you have evidence again which relates
to the relative effectiveness in terms of the impact on the motorist
of fixed cameras as opposed to bus cameras?
(Mr Turner) That is what I am working at at the
moment. We put the fixed cameras where there are hot-spots, if
you like, right at the end of particularly difficult bus lanes
and we do record large numbers of infringements. What I am trying
to do actually, as we prepare for this roll-out, is to try and
get this balance between the fixed cameras and mobile cameras.
The advantage of mobile cameras is that they cover the whole of
the network and obviously we do not have the problems that we
currently hear about of speed and red-light cameras where people
know where they are because you do not appreciate whether or not
the bus which is behind you has got a camera on it or not, so
the mobility of the system has distinct advantages in terms of
deterrence.
Mr Donohoe
417. The Traffic Director has responsibility,
I am told, to try to achieve consistent levels of enforcement
on parking. Is that in being because it seems to me that there
are quite severe inconsistencies in terms of people parking and
being caught? For instance, in Westminster where they have got
these people with their blue uniform, I had an incident just yesterday
where somebody had parked for 40 minutes, walked to their car
two minutes after that time to have a ticket. Now, it does seem
that that is inconsistent with what would be the case if you were
parking in Camden, for instance, and this was just across the
road here.
(Mr Turner) I think both of us need to respond
to this. I have responsibilities for the introduction and the
operation of the red route system and the enforcement of those
regulations is the responsibility of the police because they are
still criminal offences. What I have and what I mentioned in my
submission is that I have established a service-level agreement
with the Metropolitan Police to try and understand their problems
and to set performance targets which we are monitoring them against,
and we believe that the police are performing reasonably well,
certainly in terms of the enforcement of the red lines. The conditions
that you describe are better addressed by Mr Lester because he
is more aware of the decriminalised system which is the non-police
system.
Chairman
418. Before you go away from that, I think we need
to know how effective this service-level agreement is.
(Mr Turner) Well, at the moment in terms of the
enforcement of the red lines, the current targets are being met.
Mr Bennett
419. What are the targets?
(Mr Turner) I think I give them in my submission.
What we did is we split the network up into a series of priorities——
1 Note by Witness: A205 Brownhill Road/Minard Road
junction. Back
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