Environment Audit CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK

The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK

1. The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK (“the Institute”) is a professional institution embracing all transport modes whose members are engaged in the provision of transport services for both passengers and freight, the management of logistics and the supply chain, transport planning, government and administration. We have no political affiliations and do not support any particular vested interests. Our principal concerns are that transport policies and procedures should be effective and efficient and based, as far as possible, on objective analysis of the issues and practical experience and that good practice should be widely disseminated and adopted.

2. The Institute has a specialist Accessibility and Inclusion Forum, a nationwide structure of locally based groups and a Public Policies Committee which considers the broad canvass of transport policy.

Executive Summary

3. The past decade or so has seen a good level of attention being given to transport accessibility at the local and national levels. More recently though, we observe signs that accessibility is being relegated in its level of importance to local and national policy objectives, and the social, economic and environmental consequences of this give us cause for great concern. The past decade has also seen substantial steps forward in the functionality and availability of technological solutions to accessibility, not least through information and communications technologies. Whilst this is exciting and a cause for optimism, the current levels of unavailability and inaccessibility of these technologies to particular groups in society, along with people’s inherent desire to be mobile and access services in traditional ways, should caution us against an over-reliance on “the technology”.

4. Taking the questions raised in order, we make the following comments; but before doing so, we put forward two broader principles for the Committee to keep in mind when considering the topic of this enquiry:

(i)The concept of universal design—planning for the accessibility of the “average person” serves to exclude consideration of the real diversity across the population, whilst planning for that diversity—drawing on the concept of universal design—will tend to benefit everyone;

(ii)Change over time—this is not a static environment, and developments in information and communication technology, independent travel training, the use of mobility scooters etc, are changing how we travel and will continue to do so over the coming years, requiring us to think about how best to promote accessibility amidst this changing environment.

How are the Government’s current transport policies affecting the accessibility of public services (ie whether people get to key services at reasonable cost, in reasonable time and with reasonable ease)?

5. Some progress has been made, but still significant difficulties are being experienced:

(i)Accessibility Planning, introduced following the Social Exclusion Unit’s report on transport in 2003, seems recently to have been downgraded—ie inclusion/accessibility is no longer identified as a key objective in DfT guidance for Local Transport Plans;

(ii)Equality Impact Assessments in relation to transport, which one would expect to pick up on disproportionate accessibility impacts for the identified “Equality Strands”, appear not to be being undertaken consistently; and are always purely responsive;

(iii)The general shift away from funding of local schemes and toward the major investment projects is likely to be detrimental to local accessibility, where most people’s trips are made;

(iv)The switch of responsibility for Concessionary Fares from District Councils to Transport Authorities has coincided with:

a reduction in the rate of reimbursement to public bus operators, leading to withdrawal of many, marginal, services;

withdrawal of many travel token schemes often used by those unable to access public buses to subsidise their use of taxis or community transport services, this in turn affecting the viability of the latter; and

withdrawal of discretionary agreements that reimbursed dial a ride, other demand responsive transport and community transport services for travel by concessionary pass holders, consequently leading to these schemes having to introduce charges to pass holders and other disabled people.

(v)Advances are being made in relation to technologies for delivering services which support accessibility, general and individualised journey planning, service information ticketing, connections, response to disruption etc, though access to these technologies can be problematic;

(vi).Greater integration and coordination of services, often growing out of pressures brought about by the current financial climate, are leading to some innovative solutions in terms of accessibility.

Are other policies (such as planning, education, health, welfare and work etc) adversely affecting the accessibility of public services and the environment?

6. Withdrawal of Disability Living Allowance and, specifically, Mobility Allowance, is likely to have a significant detrimental impact on disabled people’s individual budgets for travel and mobility.

7. Centralisation of health services is likely to require longer-distance travel for vulnerable travellers.

8. Delivery of some health services in community settings (eg Lift Centres) rather than in hospitals is making access by public transport more difficult (eg podiatry services away from a hospital setting but serving a whole district may mean that more users have more complicated journeys involving local interchanges or walking further (with “bad feet”)).

9. “Free Schools” could lead to constraints on inclusive education at the local level, leading to longer distance travel to school for disabled children.

10. Local authority budget cuts in Education appear to have led to the withdrawal of independent travel schemes for children with special needs, reducing their acquisition of independent mobility skills.

11. The relaxation of planning regulations is likely to lead to increased new build in less accessible locations and reduces the scope for the implementation of innovative planning principles, such as “Universal Design” (referred to above) or “Permeability” (taking account of individuals’ “sight-lines”, “travel lines” and how people naturally seek to permeate through an area).

Do decisions on the location of public services adequately reflect available public transport infrastructure and the environmental footprint of the transport needed to access them?

12. No, economic drivers trump available public transport infrastructure, sustainability and accessibility in most cases.

How significant are any adverse impacts for accessibility and the environment?

13. Inaccessibility is a significant barrier to disabled people’s employment and social inclusion in general—leading to impacts at a personal and macroeconomic level. This is particularly important in the current context of increased attention being placed on moving greater numbers of disabled people into work.

14. Inaccessibility is a barrier to getting outdoors and to supporting physical activity and wellbeing for older and disabled people. Again, this is particularly important in the current context of an ageing population.

15. Access to local services is the first step to bringing about inclusion as those who are excluded are often those with the narrowest travel horizons.

Is the Government’s current approach of requiring the accessibility of public services to be reflected in local transport plans working?

16. Patchy; and with the downgrading of accessibility planning and each authority no longer required to produce an LTP, likely to decline.

17. By far the majority of accessibility planning is based on an acceptable walk distance of 400m either directly or to public transport. In rural areas this can increase to as much as 800m or more. As 70% of mobility impaired disabled people cannot walk a distance of 100m without stopping or severe discomfort and 100% cannot walk 400m, this misrepresents accessibility for this entire group of the population (ie around 10%).

18. There are many examples of transport authorities seeking to massage their accessibility rating by proposing the introduction of demand responsive services across a wide or the whole of their area but under resourcing the provision (ie one bus to cover an area of 40/50,000 population + or one bus covering five separate areas each one day a week) such that it is impossible for it to meet the needs for access that the rating suggests has been achieved.

19. Government has commissioned a study of the effectiveness of Accessibility Planning, but the publication of this is delayed.

How effective is the Department for Transport in furthering the accessibility agenda?

20. The DfT has been effective over the past decade or so in getting accessibility on to the agenda, at a local and national level:

(i)The DfT has made available new funding for community transport during 2011–12 and 2012–13, helping local authorities to develop this provision to improve accessibility;

(ii)The DfT has been working hard toward developing guidance on the use of mobility scooters and their carriage on public transport;

(iii)However, more recently the Team within the DfT focusing on accessibility has been cut back to the absolute minimum in terms of staff numbers;

(iv)The publication of the DfT’s review of Accessibility Planning has been delayed;

(v)The DfT’s publication of its Equality Objectives, in line with the Equality Act, has been delayed;

(vi)No guidance has been published relating to the preparation of Equality Impact Assessments in relation to transport schemes;

(vii)The DfT is consulting on the abolition of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC), a committee that has effectively promoted the cause of accessibility over the course of more than 25 years;

(viii)The recent Local Sustainable Transport Fund announcements include several references to accessibility improvements, but these require some analysis and tracking of outcomes produced.

How should the transport-related accessibility of public services be measured?

21. A number of means could be fruitful:

(i)Realistic time and distance measures for disabled people combined with the availability of appropriate and affordable modes/infrastructure for those not able to walk (far) or use conventional public transport;

(ii)Refinement of Geographical Information Systems (GIS);

(iii)Consultation and liaison with a user panel.

How can decision-making in government better reflect “social” and accessibility impacts, alongside environmental and other considerations?

22. By greater emphasis on presenting those different sets of impacts in broadly compatible terms (ie measurement units);

23. By identifying and highlighting the direct and indirect costs to individuals, public services and society as a whole of not taking account of social and accessibility impacts;

24. By seeking to value the benefits associated with greater accessibility;

25. By requiring those organisations (eg areas of government) who benefit from accessibility and inclusion to contribute to the costs of providing the transport services and infrastructure that enables this;

26. By always seeking to take into account the Personal, Environmental and Trip (PET factors associated with travel needs.

Do social and accessibility concerns conflict with environmental considerations?

27. Increasing accessibility does, in part at least, imply making travel easier; which in turn implies a reduced cost of travel, which would, all other things being equal, lead to increased levels of travel. Indeed, if disabled people’s suppressed travel is to be addressed, there is a question of whether their travel should be levelled up or general travel should be levelled down. At the same time however, the environmental consequence of more travel depends upon the pattern and mix of that travel. If accessibility is increased via improvements to non-motorised modes and to public transport there will be a beneficial environmental impact; and this would apply to disabled people too. Currently, the best evidence shows that disabled people’s primary mode of transport is the car; either as a driver or passenger. So if we can improve access and enable greater levels of walking, cycling and public transport use amongst disable people, travel can increase whilst minimising the environmental impact. Furthermore, the social consequences of poor accessibility—in particular, isolation as a result of not being able to travel, contributing to levels of loneliness, poor mental health, loss of independence, etc—will have an environmental impact down the line. For example, this will manifest itself in terms of the need for delivery of goods and services to isolated individuals, increased health related costs, etc. Hence, it is clear that economic, social and environmental factors overlap.

Would a measure of the transport accessibility of key public services, in a similar manner as “fuel poverty”, be useful for policy-making (and if so, how should it be defined?)

28. This might be useful, but could be a bit simplistic/blunt.

29. Could there be a basket of “key public services” and then a ratio constructed which expresses the cost (as a function of time or distance) of getting from home to a weighted basket of public services as a proportion of income?

30. There are statistics on actual proportions of family expenditure spent on transport, and these tend to show that more affluent people spend more on transport, but this is because they are choosing to engage in a lot more travel. Perhaps a travel poverty ratio might seek to normalise the mount of travel, but according to being able to access some normalised set of services and facilities. However, these normalisations are likely to be quite crude, and the whole thing could take a lot of time to estimate.

31. Sustrans report on transport poverty—Locked Out- referred to in the press this month, is relevant here and seeks to highlight numbers of those affected.

The impact of broadband networks and the Internet in mitigating the need for transport infrastructure to access public services

32. There is a lot of evidence in this area, much of which provides contradictory signals. Being able to access things remotely does increase accessibility, but only where the technology is available and accessible—and it is often not (indeed, there are great concerns about over-reliance on “virtual” accessibility when it is estimated that, at present, millions of people have either no internet access or insufficient computing skills). At the same time, if the remaining physical infrastructure is then rationalised, to reflect the fact that more people are accessing services remotely, then the travel involved when, inevitably, one wishes to or needs to access that physical infrastructure, becomes more difficult and time-consuming. There is also a wellbeing issue regarding the need to “get outdoors”; so being able to access things remotely doesn’t mean that this is what is preferred and what is best for the wellbeing of individuals. Furthermore, the research seems divided, and it appears that ICT is as likely, if not more so, to increase people’s travel as their horizons are broadened and aspirations are heightened, as it is to reduce their travel. Over time, one would expect “virtual” accessibility, as it is currently understood, to improve and to be embraced by a greater proportion of the population, but this could take quite some number of years, by which time concepts of virtual accessibility themselves may well have moved on.

21 September 2012