Effective road and traffic management

Written evidence from the Local Government Technical Advisers Group (TAG) (ETM 21)

Introduction

TAG wishes to thank the Transport Committee for this invitation to submit evidence to this new Inquiry. TAG has given evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee on some closely related items:-

Taxes and Charges in October 2008

The Major Road Network in January 2009

Transport and the Economy in September 2010

It has also given evidence to the Department of Transport’s Sustainable Transport Initiative (DaSTS); the NATA Refresh and the Eddington reviews. We have not repeated evidence from these submissions in this particular case as we believe the Transport Committee is well aware of most of the issues we raise. However there are some general points that do deserve mentioning to set the context of the rest of our evidence:-

· Transport is not a "good" in the traditional sense, but is derived from the need to achieve other "goods" - its purpose is to provide access so that goods can be delivered to premises by all modes and that individuals can achieve access to shops, social gatherings, employed work etc.

· While TAG has traditionally supported the principle of road pricing or trip-end pricing (through effective management of all parking spaces - covered in our evidence to the HOCTC Inquiry into taxes and charges), we now recognise that the Government has abandoned road pricing for the time being; this does not however prevent further trip-end pricing or indeed congestion charge-type schemes for defined urban areas. We fully recognise the difficulty for any politician to introduce methods restricting movement, especially by car, nevertheless effective demand management is critical in dealing with congestion and CO2 issues, technological solutions only will not solve the problems.

· The Government and the citizens of Manchester, in reaching the decision not to proceed with congestion charging/ road pricing (which showed extremely good benefit to cost ratios at traditional values of time), have implicitely ‘declared’ their view that congestion (or the value of time savings for cars), is of much less importance than is presently valued in terms of the Department of Transport’s cost benefit analysis system. They have also questioned the fairness of such a system of taxation of individuals to improve a local economy.

· From industry the quoted problem of congestion is not the congestion per se but the unreliability of journeys – finer rather than high capacity coarse networks are likely to be more reliable.

· Traditionally congestion has been referred to mainly for vehicle and indeed car movement, congestion for pedestrians or public transport is also of similar importance, but is not addressed to the same extent in the transport planning industry.

· Moving specifically to road congestion Eddington identified that urban congestion was the worst example, with major inter city road congestion following behind that.

· For the largest urban areas, where major road congestion is likely to be the worst, accessibility to goods and services is usually very much higher than in smaller cities or rural areas - for a given amount of travel time more shops, different people, factories, recreational centres etc. can be reached in less time than elsewhere.

· We would reiterate that there is no evidence that road building solves congestion problems except in the short term. Indeed there is considerable evidence some dating back to the 1920s to show that road building causes extra traffic and hence congestion where it is worst e.g. on approaches to city centres.

· If congestion and accessibility is a problem - the form and size of cities are just as important considerations as the transport system. Ensuring proper planning of new developments is absolutely critical. Such factors are also important in the attractiveness of the city for people to live and work.

· The types of vehicle being used in urban areas also needs consideration, larger freight vehicles are inappropriate in many of our cities and we need to consider better break bulk consolidation centres etc.

TAG’s thrust on the general subject of effective road and traffic management is that capacity increases, especially if also speeding up traffic flow, are unlikely to effectively meet overall transport or traffic objectives for people or industry. While this is not always the accepted wisdom, our approach has been supported by the most revered transport analysts; unfortunately such approaches are often ignored by people looking for a quick fix to a problem. The original Buchanan 1963 report addresses the importance of managing the total traffic, particularly for larger cities by using road pricing, parking policy, restrictions, effective subsidies and provision of public transport etc. Similarly J M Thompson in his book "Great Cities, and their Traffic" in 1977 shows that the bigger the city the less favourable policies should be on car use and greater importance given to public transport etc.

TAG Responses to specific issues raised by the Transport committee

1: The prevalence and impact of traffic congestion and likely future trends.

From our introduction section above traffic congestion is worst in our cities, and specifically in our big or historic cities. It is normally worst in peak hours; the last few percent of traffic volumes cause the most congestion - peak traffic during school holidays is typically 5% lower and traffic congestion is largely solved in most places.

For future trends if we continue to build more roads to encourage more and longer-distance commuting traffic levels, congestion will get worse. Future predictions and models generally show increasing traffic volumes and hence increasing traffic congestion. This is not necessarily an inevitable outcome; many cities including London, Oxford and other historic cities have actually succeeded in achieving traffic reductions over the last few decades. Recent work by Professor Phil Goodwin seems to show that we might have even reached a ‘peak car’ position and that car demand and traffic could go down rather than up and hence congestion could be reduced.

Furthermore the evaluation of the Urban Congestion Programme, recently completed, suggests that recent reductions in congestion are not likely to be due to the impacts of the recession alone. Furthermore, although there is some evidence of "peak spreading", there is also evidence of modal shift and that the reduction in the road space available for private cars, together with other broader policies, including land use, have contributed to reduced congestion.

The importance of other means of communication and particularly using electronics, including telephone calls, video conferencing and indeed e-mailing, can potentially reduce the need to physically travel and so in practice could deliver traffic reductions in the future.

For goods traffic TAG has previously included in its evidence the importance of reducing some of the extremely long-distance goods vehicle traffic in Europe and reducing the volume of low-value goods being carried around the country rather than providing local distribution systems. Whereas, the modest reductions in heavy vehicle traffic in urban areas are welcome the significant increase in the use of vans remains to be explained and raises concern.

Despite the possibility of reducing volumes, providing more liveable cities actually requires a reduction in traffic volumes potentially maintaining the same level of congestion (as parts of the network are taken out of use for cars and given over to open space for pedestrians etc).

2. The extent to which the Government and Local Authorities should intervene to alleviate congestion and the best means of doing so.

Until individuals and businesses (including our Local Government business) start taking responsibility for traffic volumes and congestion any pro-active attempts by Government or Local Government to reduce congestion are likely to be severely reduced in their effectiveness.

Individuals and businesses need to realise that their own parking creates traffic on the road network and they should also be made aware of the effect of a small reduction in traffic volumes on relieving congestion. (We accept that in order to deliver the required C02 reductions, larger reductions in traffic volumes and measures to reduce the C02 output of transport are also essential).

While Government and Local Government continue to provide palliatives to temporally reduce traffic congestion, businesses and individuals will not realise or take the responsibility for their actions. Developers, particularly of out-of-town centres, initially capitalise on the extent of the road network that has been provided, and then, rather than forcing such developers to deal with their longer-term problems, Government and Local Government continue to make efforts to reduce the consequential congestion.

A classic example is perhaps Blue Water shopping centre where enlargements of the A2 and the junctions have been made so that more and more people can travel primarily by car to Blue Water, a better solution might very well have been to ensure that the extra traffic does not leave the site in sufficient numbers to cause congestion on the main road network and then the onus would have been on Blue Water to provide realistic solutions, or that retail expansion could occur back in town centres where other modes are easier to provide. (TAG apologises for using this specific real example in the South East but it is a good example where very substantial sums of public money have been spent, in part, to relieve congestion of a type of development which other policies are now discouraging).

Travel Plans, however, are arguably the most successful ways of reducing congestion. Companies and organisations usually only engage effectively in travel plans if they are forced to from a planning application or if they have a specific access or parking problem. If there are no traffic or parking problems many organisations would not freely engage in travel planning and indeed a number of high profile companies have abandoned their effective travel plans when there is no longer perceived to be a need from the individual company point of view.

We consider that road capacity intervention by Government and Local Government for congestion problems is the wrong solution; however local and central Government can support those businesses introducing effective travel plans by providing advantages to sustainable travel such as:

· better, more direct pedestrian routes and crossings,

· bus and high occupancy vehicle lanes,

· work place parking charges,

· effective management of public parking stock.

Furthermore Government could consider changes to:

· the business rating system so that provision of parking space, which causes many of the congestion problems, attracts business rates in its own right;

· extending the workplace parking charge legislation to all parking spaces and particularly retail;

· levelling the playing field by removing the tax free perk of free parking places at work, or at least providing similar value benefits to those using sustainable modes.

The close integration of land use policies with wider transport policies should continue to be encouraged, with a strong emphasis on reducing the need to travel, getting the right development in the right place and the provision of limited car parking for all new developments. Access to all "local" services by the most sustainable mode of walking, cycling and local public transport should always be uppermost in any future planning.

It should be noted that the increased concentration of central areas for development has not resulted in the significant increases in car usage anticipated and should also continue to be supported through both local and national planning policy.

3. The extent to which road user culture and behaviour undermines effective traffic management, including the relevance to today’s road users of the Highway Code.

Opinion formers and decision takers are very often in the higher income groups including members of our own organisation as senior officers of Local Government, the press and other relatively privileged members of society. We often see problems from a car driver’s point of view, the situation is not generally seen from poorer members of society in poor housing, hemmed in by noisy polluting roads. Furthermore the cars that we drive very often isolate us from their pollution both air and noise and are indeed very much a status symbol for significant sections of the richer members of society.

Turning again to Travel Planning, a very important element of this activity is to change the culture of an organisation, e.g. removing a reserved parking space next to the front door, changing mileage allowances so that people with bigger cars have less privileges etc. These changes in culture have been quite successful in some of the largest firms with their travel plans.

Culture change has been achieved over the last 30 years on drink driving and smoking, there are signs that culture change on speeding is changing, people usually do not boast about driving in excess of 100 miles per hour as they might have done 20 years ago. Clearly enforcement also has a significant part to play both in signalling societies’ disapproval and as tool to secure retraining where necessary by ensuring compliance.

Similarly driving in the centre of historic urban areas or London is now sometimes recognised as a rather selfish activity. Working towards greater culture change, by the leaders of our society showing an example, will help to deliver big changes in congestion, pollution and C02 levels and any efforts to support such culture change would have marked benefits. TAG members also have a very significant responsibility in helping this from our positions as senior officers of Local Authorities.

The most important part of effective traffic management is ensuring safety of all road users. There are a minority of motorists who deem to have the right to drive in an aggressive or antisocial way and believe and that they have right of way, such behaviour needs to become socially unacceptable. For such drivers the Highway Code has little meaning, many of whom will never read it after passing their driving test and the wider use of formal retraining should be considered.

4. Intelligent traffic management schemes, such as the scheme which has operated on the M42, and their impact on congestion and journey times.

Traffic management systems which improve reliability for all traffic including pedestrians should probably be welcomed, however if such traffic management reduces measured journey times on a regular basis there is a danger that there will be substantial additional generated traffic which will cause extra congestion outside the measured area, just as happens when new or widened roads are provided. Furthermore if schemes actually encourage more traffic on an already fully used road there could be adverse road safety consequences; we have previously advised on different standards between road design and road safety. (Road design typically allows vehicle flows of up to 2000 vehicles per hour per lane, road safety advice would suggest that we should never exceed 1800 vehicles per hour per lane with infinitely short vehicles and absolutely even two second spaces.)

On the M42 itself, the extra capacity from the extra 33% of road width was "filled" within 12 months with a 33% increase in traffic volumes. The consistent and possibly lower speeds with the speed limit undoubtedly removed the instability, unreliability and hence reduced the worst congestion. Nevertheless the extra 33% of traffic must have started and completed their journeys off the motorway network where extra congestion, vehicle flows etc. have not been measured. Inevitably allowing extra longer distance car commuting has worked against other policy initiatives of reducing car traffic and reducing congestion in urban areas. The M25 widening to the west of London also had a 33% increase in traffic within 12 months from a 33% increase in capacity.

5. The effectiveness of legislative provisions for road management under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 and the Traffic Management Act 2004.

Provision for the local management of traffic is enabled in the New Roads and Street Works Act of 1991, but this is mainly focused on the opening and closing procedures and the quality of the resultant Highways once an utility has left the scene. This legislation has served the Local Authorities well, but clearly is focused on the safety at road works and the impact openings have on the structural integrity of the infrastructure. However, it is considered that more could be done to encourage better performance reducing disruption and congestion.

The Traffic Management Act 2004 has the ability to allow Local Authorities to take their role further in the practical management of the Highways as both Traffic and Highway Authority. A number of elements have been enacted through this legislation, however the main focus of the Act, that is Managing the operation of the network and reduce congestion is not being addressed with both Ministers and officials at the Department for Transport specifically not enabling section 6 of the Act, which would give LA’s the powers to deal with moving traffic offences. Local Authorities now find themselves in a position that the Act provides for them to enforce (subject to regulations which have not as yet been produced by the Government) however the powers have not been enacted. However many Police Authorities have taken a view that the Traffic Management Act gives Local Authorities the powers, so they have now stepped back from enforcing the moving traffic offences covered in the Act.

Clearly London Authorities are taking enforcement action, but under the London Local Authorities Act, which will be replaced by the appropriate section in the Traffic Management Act. This needs both ministerial and civil service drive, which has been sadly missing for the past 6 years, to move the whole enforcement issue forward. Both TAG and Local Government Association have argued this point very strongly with both ministers and civil servants, so far without success.

Without these Powers the responsibility still rests with the Local Authorities, but they are unable to take the next major step in managing the highway network they are responsible for.

There are also matters of detail with the Traffic Management Act which are causing difficulties at an operational level.  For example if a Distribution Network Operator (DNO, or Electricity Company) makes a supply to a property, then the DNO are responsible for obtaining the permit to open the road and lay the cables.  If the supply is to a lighting column or traffic sign then the permit would relate to ‘Works for Road Purposes’ and the highway authority becomes responsible for seeking the permit, but without any ability to control or influence the work programme of the DNO. The detail of issues like this consume a significant amount of time and effort from already stretched local authority resources. When people are unnecessarily stretched, mistakes are made and this inevitably results in a worse service for the travelling public. 

6. The impact of bus lanes and other aspects of road layout.

Bus lanes first appeared in London in about the mid 1970s in significant numbers, since then they have been accepted by the majority of Londoners as a way to improve transport. Nevertheless there is significant opposition to some bus lanes, even on bus lanes that helped to reduce problems for other traffic e.g. the M4 bus lane which reduced congestion for general traffic as well as buses and taxis when it was introduced - the Secretary of State is on record as wanting to remove this particular bus lane.

As stated under point 3 above, measures to encourage sustainable travel and help pedestrians, buses, cycles etc are definitely the type of schemes that Government and Local Government should now be investing in; similarly any measures that give advantage to people transferring to sustainable travel modes, builds on a virtuous circle rather than the vicious circle of a road building led strategy. Generally by encouraging people to leave their cars and use such other modes also helps those left in the remaining cars with reduced traffic flows and hence reduced congestion.

Thompson, Mogridge and other eminent transport professionals have put forward that the only way to improve road traffic in big cities is to actually improve the alternatives.

Outside London and the inner areas of big cities there are seldom sufficient bus flows to justify priority schemes solely for buses and other initiatives like ‘bus and high occupancy vehicles’ or ‘no car’ lanes may be appropriate; methods need to be developed to ensure these can be introduced and enforced otherwise the perception is that it is an anti-car measure sterilising substantial road space to no advantage of anybody.

Very few bus lanes actually impose extra delays on vehicles and some, even very well known lanes e.g. the M4 bus lane, and Park Lane bus lanes, have helped other traffic as well.

Concluding comments

While we have given some specific examples of areas and their congestion for illustrative purposes, we are a national organisation and have not included the specific congestion problems in different locations in England.

We hope that this evidence will be useful to the committee and we will be very pleased to appear in front of the committee to give oral evidence as, when and if required.

January 2011