Written evidence from the Parliamentary
Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) (TE 08)
The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport
Safety (PACTS) is a registered charity and an associate Parliamentary
Group. Its charitable objective is "To protect human life
through the promotion of transport safety for the public benefit".
Its aim is to advise and inform members of the House of Commons
and of the House of Lords on air, rail and road safety issues.
Summary: Economic conditions in the UK have altered
significantly since Sir Rod Eddington published the Eddington
Transport Study in December 2006. However, Sir Rod's focus
was based on the changing dynamic of the British economy as a
result of increasing specialisation in services and high-value
manufacturing, and his advice to government therefore continues
to hold relevance. Central to recommendations made in the study
is that in order to achieve the greatest value in transport spending,
focus should not be placed on adding to the system but rather
on maximising the efficacy of the assets already available. It
is therefore vital that government makes decisions to enhance
the productivity of the most inefficient elements of the network.
An important obstacle to economic growth, when considering the
British transport system, is congestion which costs the economy
in the region of £22 billion per year, at least a quarter
of which is associated with road accidents. Ensuring that congestion
is relieved should be a central priority to government; the argument
to improve road safety is therefore not simply ethically, socially
and emotionally driven but also an economically sound policy area
that will deliver real cost savings.
ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY
Sir Rod Eddington's advice to Government, The
Eddington Transport Study[7],
was published in December 2006. The UK's economic conditions have
therefore seen considerable change and fluctuation since Sir Rod's
advice was published as outlined in the chart below showing quarterly
changes in real GDP.
Source: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=192
As a result of considerable changes to the material
status of the UK's economic conditions, the relationship between
transport spending and economic growth has become more relevant
and Sir Rod's advice more significant.
The Eddington Transport Study does
not present a specific economic snapshot of the British economy
but rather outlines the expected changes to British economic focus
based on the shifting role of Britain within the global economy.
The recommendations made by Sir Rod are therefore important to
bear in mind when considering major public expenditure cutbacks,
and continue to be appropriate guidelines to adhere to when attempting
to achieve the most effective cost-benefit outcome on every pound
spent.
EDDINGTON'S
RECOMMENDATIONS
In his study, Sir Rod differentiates between the
impact which transport has on the economic growth of an emerging
and of a mature economy. For a mature economy such as in Britain,
he points out that transport is a facilitator and that inefficiencies
within the transport system act as obstacles to sustainable economic
growth.
As such, the suggestion is that government should
"sweat the assets" already available rather than prioritising
cost-inefficient grands-projets.
Eddington focuses on the restrictive impact which
congestion has on the network and therefore on economic growth
and identifies two areas of particular concern: (1) growing and
congested urban areas and their catchments and (2) the key inter-urban
corridors. [8]
THE COST
OF CONGESTION
Congestion poses a significant cost to the nation
each year though no official estimate is evident:
- NERA estimated congestion costs in 1996 at 1996
values as £7 billion per year (£10.2 billion at today's
prices);
- The UNITE project (2001) put the costs of congestion
at £15 billion at 1998 prices (£20.5 billion at today's
prices);
- The Department for Transport (DfT) study of road
pricing gave the value of congestion and unreliability as £12
billion in 2010 at 2004 prices;
- Eddington (2006) concluded that the increase
of congestion between 2003 and 2025 would cost £24 billion
a year; and
- The British Chambers of Commerce estimated congestion
to be costing businesses £23.8 billion in 2008.
A conservative estimate of around £20 billion
per annum is used by the RAC Foundation in the introduction to
their report "Delays Due to Serious Road Accidents".[9],
[10]
According to the report, a quarter of congestion in Britain is
associated with road accidents, though the overall cost of road
accidents is larger than the cost implied when related to congestion.
PACTS recommends that the Select Committee encourages
government to generate a sound and agreed-upon model for valuing
the cost of congestion (similar to models used in road safety
which value the prevention of collisions) to ensure that all stakeholders
are able to work from the same numbers.
THE COST
OF ROAD
DEATH AND
INJURY
Even after more than two decades of steady progress
in road casualty reduction, with the numbers reported Killed or
Seriously Injured (KSI) reduced by two-thirds since the early
1980s, a total of 26,906 people were reported KSI in 2009, a year
which saw 222,100 road casualties in collisions reported to the
police in Great Britain including 2,222 deaths.
It has long been accepted that a considerable proportion
of non-fatal casualties are not known to the police, as hospital,
survey and compensation claims data all indicate a higher number
of casualties than are reported to and by the police. The best
estimate produced in 2008[11],
is that the total number of road casualties in Great Britain each
year, including those not reported to police, is within the range
680 thousand to 920 thousand with a central estimate of 800 thousand.
The total value of prevention of collisions and road
casualties is therefore likely to be well over the 2008 DfT estimate
of £17.9 billion (around 1.25% of GDP).
As part of a wider approach to ensure that transport
spending is as effective as possible in terms of its impact on
the transport system and, as a result, on the economy, government
must focus on getting the most out of the system we already have.
Reducing congestion is vital on certain strategic parts of the
network. Investing in safety will contribute not only to reductions
in congestion but also to wider cost and life savings. Safety
schemes can be very good value in cost/benefit ratio-terms and
have an important role to play.
PACTS has looked more closely at the business case
for road safety delivery at the local level and at the high cost-benefit
potential in a recent policy briefing.[12]
The briefing shows how and why Road death and injury is wasteful,
destroys lives beyond those of the actual victims, limits future
productivity and drains money from our economies, arguing that
it is eminently preventable and the industry has an enviable record
in reducing road casualties over the last decade and more at a
fraction of the costs to society of the problem itself.
VALUE FOR
MONEY ON
TRANSPORT SPENDING—A
CONCLUSION USING
GOOD PRACTICE
EXAMPLES
In light of current economic conditions, it is particularly
important that transport spending is as cost effective as possible.
PACTS analysis agrees with conclusions made by Sir Rod Eddington
in the Eddington Transport Study which outline the importance
of maximising the effectiveness of the network which already exists
rather than seeking to enlarge it.
Maximising efficiency will require the management
of the system from three strategic directions: Knowledge Management
(what is the network and what requires treatment) Value Management
(what will have the greatest impact in cost-benefit terms) and
Asset Management (the tracking of post-intervention performance
which is fed-back into the knowledge system).
Below are examples of the three management areas:
- Knowledge Management, example: M42 Hard Shoulder
Running.
In response to increasing congestion on the M42,
the DfT commissioned work to look at innovative and active traffic
management approaches. The Active Traffic Management (ATM) project
between junctions 3A and 7 on the M42 near Birmingham is one of
the main pilot schemes for the Highways Agency. ATM utilises
a set of advanced intelligent transport systems (ITS) applications
to improve motorway operation and reduce congestion. A key feature
of ATM is the use of the hard shoulder together with variable
mandatory speed limits during periods of peak demand.
- ATM increased the observed capacity of the motorway
by between 7-10%.
- ATM reduces the average journey time during recurrent
congestion by 26%.
- ATM has reduced the variability of journey time
by 30%.
- ATM made unexpected improvements to safety.
- Value Management, example: UK MoRSE
Molasses (Monitoring Local Authority Safety Schemes) was set-up
to provide information on the effectiveness of road safety interventions.
Molasses database was later replaced by an alternative which has
been developed by GreenSafe. UK-MoRSE provides performance data
for road safety interventions so users can accurately forecast
how much benefit projects will bring, using up-to-date performance
data from around the UK.[13]
UK MoRSE uses statistical data from project evaluations
to project on the average and typical casualty reductions of using
certain interventions on certain route types in certain ways.
Users can apply the data provided to make evidence led-decisions
around which treatments would work best. UK MoRSE is a tool which
aids rather than replaces knowledge and experience.
- Asset Management
In response to high levels of death and injury on European roads,
EURORAP was set-up to produce risk maps and track safety performance
on the strategic road network. Risk mapping is a way of measuring
and mapping the number of accidents on individual road sections.
Risk is divided into five coloured bands from high-risk (black)
to low risk (green). EuroRAP maps give various insights into risk
and can be used to support messages aimed at the differing needs
and levels of expertise of the target audiences, ranging from
the public through to highway engineers and policy-makers. Performance
Tracking is a way of tracking the number of accidents occurring
on individual road sections over time — which are getting
safer, which are getting worse, and which are staying the same.
EURORAP is an important evaluation tool which can be used to monitor
the impact of a range of interventions.[14]
Results from performance tracking have shown that
the application of simple engineering measures continues to pay
the highest dividends in reducing death and serious injury. However,
EuroRAP research also suggests that while some authorities are
active in evaluating the benefits of their safety schemes, others
do not seem to be aware that the often minor measures they have
implemented have saved a large number of lives.[15]
September 2010
7 http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20100408160254/http:/www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/transportstrategy/eddingtonstudy/
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8 http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20100408160254/http:/www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/transportstrategy/eddingtonstudy/ Back
9 Irving
Yass (2010) "Delays Due to Serious Road Accidents" RAC
Foundation, London. http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/road%20accident%20delays%20-%20yass%20-%20april%20-%20report.pdf
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10 AdvicefromprivatecontactwiththeRACFoundation. Back
11 DfT
(2009) Reported Road Casualties Great Britain 2008, The Stationery
Office, London http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesgbar/rrcgb2008
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12 http://pacts.org.uk/docs/pdf-bank/MAKING%20IT%20COUNT%20-%20Final1.pdf
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13 http://www.uk-morse.com/index.html
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14 http://www.eurorap.org/faqs
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15 http://www.eurorap.org/perf
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