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Pedestrian Crossings

Ann Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate he has made of the cost of the Highways Agency's new specifications for upgrading puffin pedestrian crossings; and what the reasons are for the upgrading. [194380]

 
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Mr. Jamieson: My Department estimates the additional cost of installing a new Puffin crossing compared with a new Pelican crossing to be approximately £2,500. This is due to additional items of equipment required for the crossing operation. The cost of converting an existing Pelican crossing to a Puffin crossing may be higher depending on local factors, and often equipment upgrades and other improvements are made at the same time. Local authorities are not obliged to change to Puffin crossings.

The Puffin crossing was developed in response to complaints arising from poor understanding and use of Pelican crossings by pedestrians and drivers, especially confusion caused by the flashing green man and flashing amber vehicle signals. With Puffin crossings, drivers are held at a red signal when pedestrians are crossing and the crossing time is automatically extended for slower pedestrians. The advantages for drivers are that the lights will change back to green sooner than at a Pelican crossing and they will not be stopped if pedestrians cross in a gap in the traffic before the signals change.

The Puffin crossing pedestrian signal is at the near-side of the road. This allows pedestrians to watch the traffic and the pedestrian signal simultaneously. The position of the near side signal is also helpful to visually impaired pedestrians who may not see clearly signals mounted at the far side of the road.

Port of Newhaven

Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the levels of (a) vehicular and (b) pedestrian traffic using the Port of Newhaven have been in each of the last five years. [193906]

Mr. Jamieson: The available information is as follows:
Thousand

	Road goods vehicles and trailers	Passenger cars and buses	Ferry passengers
1998	24	136	621
1999	1	78	337
2000	—	73	313
2001	9	76	337
2002	24	78	379

Notes:
1. '—' less than half the final digit shown.
2. Ferry passenger figures include drivers of road goods vehicles buses and cars, accompanying passengers, and foot passengers. The figures include traffic both in and out of the port.

Port Police

Patrick Mercer: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many officers there have been in each port police force in each year since 2001. [194702]

Mr. Jamieson: We do not have a breakdown available for each of the last four years as the Port Authorities are not required to supply employment figures to the Department. However information collected by the Department showed that in 2003 the seven port police forces in England and Wales employed a total of 198 sworn-in officers (exclusive of civilian support staff). Figures for the individual ports were as follows.
 
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Port	Number
Bristol	25
Dover	52
Falmouth	4
Felixstowe	27
Liverpool	65
Tees and Hartlepool	12
Tilbury	13

Patrick Mercer: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to change the (a) powers, (b) remit and (c) number of port police forces. [194703]

Mr. Jamieson: We have no current plans to change the powers, remit or number of port police forces.

Public-Private Partnership Arbiter

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport who funds the Office of the Public-Private Partnership Arbiter; and if he will make a statement on the future funding of the Office. [194644]

Mr. Darling: The PPP Arbiter is funded by grant in aid from the Department for Transport. The level of grant is agreed each year.

Rail Crossing Orders

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many applications for rail crossing (a) extinguishment and (b) diversion orders have been (i) submitted and (ii) approved in each of the last five years. [194931]

Mr. McNulty: Applications for rail crossing extinguishment and diversion orders are made by rail infrastructure controllers to local highway authorities, who retain records locally.

Rail Security

Patrick Mercer: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many suspicious bags and packages have been inspected on (a) London Underground, (b) national rail services and (c) at railway stations in each year since 2001. [194710]

Mr. McNulty: The number of suspect packages that have been inspected for London Underground, national rail services and railway stations is as follows:

	Number
2000–01	312
2001–02	410
2002–03	302
2003–04	676

Regulation UN/ECE104

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will report on (a) discussions in and (b) outcomes of the recent meeting of the Working Party on Lighting and Light-signalling of the United Nations Economic Committee for Europe in respect to
 
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the German proposal to make Regulation UN/ECE 104 mandatory in UN/ECE 48; and if he will make a statement; [194675]

(2) pursuant to the answer of 16 July 2004, Official Report, column 1391W, on heavy goods vehicles, who has been awarded the contract to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of making ECE 104 mandatory; when he expects the report to be completed; when he expects to publish the final report; what the earliest date is that action could be taken to implement measures recommended by the report; and if he will make a statement. [194676]

Mr. Jamieson: My Department has awarded the contract to Ergonomics and Safety Research Ltd., part of Loughborough University. We expect the report to be completed and published by the end of February 2005. Any recommendations from the report would then be subject to consultation with interested parties in the UK.

Any requirement for UNECE Regulation 104 reflective contour marking tape to be fitted to new vehicles would have to be agreed and implemented at a European level.

At the recent meeting of the UNECE Working Group of technical experts on vehicle lighting ("ORE"), the delegates agreed to await the results of a cost-benefit analysis that is being carried out by the European Commission before deciding whether or not to adopt the proposal by Germany to mandate the installation of Regulation 104 tape on newly designed heavy vehicles.

A report of the discussions will be published on the UNECE website when it is available.

The proposal will be discussed again at the next GRE meeting scheduled for April 2005. If it were agreed at that meeting, then it could be applicable to new approvals under UNECE Regulation 48 no earlier than 1 July 2006.

As UNECE Regulation 48 is not mandatory in the UK for heavy vehicles, this would then require national legislation to require new vehicles to be fitted with the tape.

Road Noise

Mr. Fallon: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much has been spent by the Highways Agency on main road noise protection measures in each of the last five years; and how much is planned to be spent in each of the next three years. [193620]

Mr. Jamieson [holding answer 25 October 2004]: The Highways Agency invests in three separate noise protection measures. These are concrete road
 
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resurfacing, noise fencing and bunds, and secondary glazing. The total approximate cost of noise mitigation measures for the last five years is £163 million. The detailed breakdown of this figure is set out in the following tables.

In addition, new road schemes will have included noise mitigation measures within the scheme design. It is not possible to separate this element from the overall scheme costs.

Planned major maintenance schemes involving carriageway resurfacing now use lower noise materials.
Concrete resurfacing £ million

	Cost
1999–2000	7.5
2000–01	6.0
2001–02	0
2002–03	50.1
2003–04	78.0
Total	141.6

Noise fencing and bunds £ million

	Cost
1999–2000	(1)—
2000–01	3.6
2001–02	6.5
2002–03	5.9
2003–04	4.7
Total	20.7

⁽¹⁾ Separate data not available.



Secondary glazing

	Cost (£)
1999–2000	0
2000–01	3,400
2001–02	205,987
2002–03	121,363
2003–04	98,230
Total	428,980

Forward programmes of work are agreed on an annual basis and it is not possible to give an explicit indication of the amount to be spent on noise protection measures over the next three years.

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