Transcript Northern Way: Lead Transport Advisor

Current Challenges
TPS AGM London, February 24th
Jim Steer
Director Steer Davies Gleave
Director Greengauge 21
Vice President CILT
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Current Challenges
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TIF
Recession
The need for a deep re-think of transport policy
(for DfT) reconciling DaSTS with decisions already taken
London under Boris
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Manchester TIF: problems from the start?
Ι Car use into major city centres is static or falling (rail use is rising)
Ι Greatest variation in peak and off peak speeds and largest volumes
are on orbital motorways, not urban radials
Ι Greater Manchester had already won funding support for the next key
stage of Metrolink expansion
Ι People were not persuaded that the economy would falter without
what amounted to marginal investment
Ι There’s only one central London
And then…voting off the back of very high fuel prices, entering recession
Remember, it was only ever a new fund rationing device conjoined with
a means to keep the road user charging dream alive
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TIF – was there a problem to solve?
“we’ve seen the de-coupling of economic growth and transport
demand growth, particularly on the roads in the last decade”
Mark Lambirth, 1st July 2008
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Traffic Growth in the North and South
16%
14%
Growth in Motorway
Average Daily Flow
12%
10%
2001 to 2006
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
North East
-2%
North West
Yorkshire and the
Humber
Great Britain
South East
-4%
-6%
Data Source: DfT
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Our National Obsessions
Ι Centralised control of funding (the Azerbaijan comparison)
Ι Road User Charging (after Smeed et al)
More to follow…
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Weaning ourselves from the paps of Private Finance
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Recession
Ι In Autumn 2008, wary of using the r-word. But blindingly obvious for
over a year: we are headed for a mighty fall
Ι So, how do we see the economic depression affecting transport
planning?
No credit, no transport investment
■ No PFIs and concessions already let in difficulty
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Existing innovative models to finance transport investment, largely
property/development/business beneficiary based….
■ So we need some new approaches – if we believe, like Eddington, that
transport actually does matter to economic competitiveness, a motor for
the economy rather than a drain on the Exchequer
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The ‘capacity challenge’ will be questioned
■ User pays will have renewed popularity
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The Challenge of the M25 DBFO
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When we’ve had the chance to price road use….
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What Anatole Kaletsky says we should do with fuel prices
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Depression
Ι PFI is still on the retreat
Ι Are we still keen on the agglomeration benefit argument?
Ι Have policy makers been misled? Conventional project
appraisal measures economic benefits and is routed in Welfare
Economic theory from the 20s and 30s
Ι Shouldn’t our priorities shift – helping people get back into
work as one priority?
Ι Our (rail) fares are 50% above the average in Europe (Passenger
Focus), and we rarely offer multi-ride ticketing
Ι We must try new approaches; the recent past is no guide to
our future: social policy is going to start to matter
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Trustee Savings Bank (now in Lloyds-HBOS)
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Our response to economic depression?
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Of course, look for better value for money solutions
Innovate in funding
Apply appraisal tools wisely to re-considered policy priorities
As is intended in USA, get schemes to market faster
Without losing sight of the pressing need to achieve a huge
change in carbon emissions from the transport sector, and of
the need to start to deliver on sustainable planning
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Sustainability and the need to tie-in energy policy
Ι Take a simple proposition: the case for railway electrification
energy and carbon benefit entirely depends on the mix adopted in
national power generation
Ι Sustainability from the transport sector is more dependent on the
disposition and scale of activities through land use and development
than anything else. Close a rural post office, and guess what? Create a
regional hospital, and guess what? Encourage choice in schools…
Ι Let’s not re-organise; let’s change the way the government machine
works: this is a national crisis; transport is only one (important) part
of it
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Our National Obsessions
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Centralised control of funding (the Azerbaijan comparison)
Road User Charging (after Smeed et al)
Targetry
Obsession with appraisal
PFI/PPP
Re-organisation of public bodies
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Instead of deliverology applying to departments, to national
outcomes
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The DfT DaSTS Programme and the new Ministerial Team
Ι DaSTS is designed to deliver evidence for decisions, corridor by
corridor by 2012, after an extended bout of modal agnosticism &
listening to the numbers
Ι Ministers have already (January 2009) decided and announced the
outcome for the National Networks....
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Port expansion decisions not only pre-dated DaSTS, but also
the National Ports Policy
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Airports Policy was set out in 2003
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ATM (here on M42) is to be rolled out (and despite the July
2008 White Paper, charging for priority lanes doesn’t fit the
ATM rationale)
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Many of the key challenges for the National Networks are not
about investment priorities, but about regulation and
competition and they are for other authorities to determine
Ι Is open access competition on rail fair competition? (ORR)
Ι Could it be allowed (as encouraged by the EU’s third railway package)
for new high-speed lines? (ORR & EC)
Ι Have the ROSCOs been exploiting a monopoly position? (CC)
Ι Should BAA be allowed to continue its airport cross-subsidy model,
and to increase flights at Heathrow? (CC, Env Agency))
Ι Should port developers be required to fund upgrades to the rail
network? (Planning Inspectors, various)
but will there nevertheless be a useful National Policy statement
forthcoming on transport?
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Franchise economics look weak even without the poachers
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London, with a new mayor: is this the city that will be worst
hit by recession worldwide?
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2012 and major projects
Budget trimmed to “end the cruel deception”
LRT already gone: can the £600m and rising bus budget continue?
The game isn’t Maynard, it’s Pfeffel: try applying it to (say) South
London
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The unloved District Centres
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Playing (de) Pfeffel
Pfeffel Rules:
No budget (to speak of)
■ More bus lanes smacks of modal hierarchy, so no thanks
■ But it’s big, it’s important to voters and besides, and there’s not a lot in
prospect (or is there… ELLX (Phases 1 and now 2); Thameslink…?)
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The new ideas?
Green bridges
■ Electric car fleets
■ For the unloved district centres
■ Etc…
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Where’s the imagination from we transport planners?
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Conclusions
Ι It’s a time of change and there are huge challenges in transport as
well as more generally from the recession, including:
Pricing
■ Competition and regulation
■ Funding
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Ι Maybe it’s time to tackle our national obsessions; after all we are just
about the most car-dependent country in Europe, with the least well
invested transport sector over the last 100 years or so: not a good
starting point
Ι The Department asks for the evidence base. We know how to assess
priorities, create business cases: use this to help retain existing
programmes. But who will believe the new demand forecasts?
Ι Let’s look outside transport, at all of the decision areas that impact
on the demand for travel and find ways to expose the inevitable
consequences
Ι Let’s be prepared to innovate; be prepared to plan and deliver faster
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