The challenge of ever increasing mobility

1. The Government and the Nation, and arguably the World, have, over the next few years, fully to face up to the problems resulting from the massive increase of mobility and, in particular, the achievement of that mobility through the use of private cars using internal combustion engines.

2. If pollution levels are to be reduced, people's health protected, carbon dioxide emissions reduced and the economic and social costs of heavy traffic levels and traffic congestion are to be cut the trend to ever increasing mobility through the use of private cars cannot be allowed to continue. However, if a significant switch is to be achieved to the use of public transport, both the quantity and the quality of that public transport has to be enormously improved over what is currently available.

Cars do have advantages for their users

3. The Light Rail Transit Association believes it is of fundamental importance to understand that cars are so numerous and their use so great because they have many advantages to their users and, to their users, few disadvantages.

Concentrate on urban areas

4. The Association is primarily concerned with urban transit and does not wish to comment on the problems of provision of quantity and quality of public transport in truly rural areas, important though that is for those who live and work in such areas.

5. The Association does have views, however, about how public transport could better serve commuter settlements near to heavy rail lines into substantial towns and conurbations - in many such situations there is substantial free capacity available on heavy rail lines and there is potential for light rail/tram services to be provided (as they are in Karlsruhe, Germany) using the heavy rail lines but deviating from them to serve commuter settlements and, in the towns, penetrating to the heart of the town. In this way a public transport service of sufficient attractiveness can be provided to people who would otherwise be car commuters, and such services are likely to prove popular for shopping and leisure trips as well. The utilisation of existing heavy rail lines means that infrastructure costs can be a small fraction of the costs of an entirely new light rail line.

Car users will only use public transport if it is acceptable

6. Car users can be tipped out of their cars by a combination of increased cost of motoring and restrictions or prohibitions on car use - however the attractions and advantages of the private car are so great they will only switch to public transport if it is an acceptable alternative - at the moment, throughout the country and even in London, which has the best system in the country, public transport is frankly not good enough either to attract or to keep car users.

7. In urban areas it is feasible to provide high quality and high density public transport. The displacement of car users from their cars by fiscal measures, by charges for road use, by restrictions and prohibitions to access and by lack of parking can progressively provide an increasing number of users for public transport systems. However, the numbers of people who transfer from car to public transport and the attitude of continuing and ex-car users to government, will depend very materially on whether or not the public transport system proves to be an acceptable alternative to the car.

Public transport cannot do everything the car can

8. Public transport cannot be an acceptable alternative for all urban trips, let alone for all longer distance or urban + rural trips. However it is possible for public transport to be an acceptable alternative to the car for many intra urban journeys and for many commuting journeys into and within urban areas.

9. Public transport cannot replicate all the advantages of private transport. This realisation only reinforces the need for the "carrots" to be sufficient to tempt people from their cars or reasonably to compensate them for being forced from them. Public transport will have to be an acceptable alternative in order for people to use it. Generally, at present, it is not an acceptable alternative.

Are the Government's aims too limited?

10. It is not clear from the consultation document whether the Government aims to -
(a) reduce the rate of increase of car ownership and car use
or
(b) completely eliminate any further increase in car ownership or car use,
or
(c) reverse the present trends and aim to reduce car ownership, or car use, or both.

11. If the environmental (carbon dioxide) target that the Prime Minister has announced is to be achieved, even though some contribution can be made by more technologically advanced fuel-efficient vehicles, significant reduction in car use will also be needed. This would suggest that the Government should be aiming to achieve at least (b) above (completely eliminating any further increase in car use).

12. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a follow-up report to its major report on Transport and has expressed its deep concern that measures to bring about the degree of change required have not been taken. On October 1 the pollution emergency in Paris foreshadowed what could become a regular crisis for our cities as well if action is not taken - indeed, reportedly, pollution levels in London have already, on several occasions, exceeded those which triggered the emergency measures in Paris.

13. There are, of course, many reasons other than reducing carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants for wanting to reduce car use, if not ownership. In particular the waste of precious energy, time delays and economic costs of congestion, the human and material costs from accidents and the social costs in fragmentation of communities, destruction of environment by long distance car commuting and suburbanisation of the countryside, and the general degradation of the quality of life caused by the noise, pollution, stress and hassle of high levels of road traffic. The dehumanising effects of land and streets used for car parking is also part of this cost.

14. The Association feels that there would be considerable merit in aiming to achieve the more demanding target of reversing current trends (goal (c) above) so as to make a real impact on these wider factors which are so significant to people's everyday experience of life in British urban areas. We believe that tackling this more radical target would enable more radical measures to be introduced which, perhaps ironically, could prove to be easier and more acceptable than simply trying to curb the rate of increase or to eliminate the increase in car use.

Land use planning has helped get us in this mess - now it can help get us out

15. Over the last 40 years the massive road building and improvement programme has greatly facilitated the increasing mobility of people using private cars. Just as significantly, decisions made through the land-use planning system has also done so, and continues to do so even today. We believe that radical changes in land-use planning policies and decisions are needed to reverse current trends and to facilitate the development of urban areas which can be well served by environmentally friendly and people friendly and energy efficient public transport systems, as well as facilitating walking and cycling. It is all too obvious in any urban area in Britain today that we are well on the way to the American style of urban life and indeed many retail and business developments of the last few years are carbon copies of American style developments. They are invariably heavily oriented to car-use and are poorly served by public transport, if served at all. Over time use of land-use planning could also reduce the need for people to move around so much, though reducing their propensity to do so may be much more difficult to achieve.
Car users should pay real costs of their car use

16. At present car users pay only a small part of the real total costs arising from their car use. By increasing the cost of car ownership and use through fiscal and user charges to at least the real financial + social and environmental costs total two things could be achieved -

1. very substantial sums of money would be generated which should be invested in providing high quality and quantity public transport systems for all urban areas, and

2. people's understanding and expectations about the costs of their mobility would change.

17. In part this would reduce people's propensity to travel, but it would also change their view of how much it is reasonable to pay for mobility, whether by car or public transport. One of the beliefs that car-users currently have is that public transport is more expensive to use than their cars, believing that it is only the marginal cost of petrol which they incur. Even car users who do not directly pay fixed costs (e.g. company car drivers) often have no knowledge or understanding of the heavy costs their car use imposes on the community at large. The changed cost expectations of habitual car users will see the personal benefit to themselves of investment in quality public transport and will, hopefully, perceive the need for a realistic level of fares to reflect that quality service. Government intentions should be signalled by removing tax breaks on company cars and parking and on free fuel provided to some company car drivers for private motoring (which distorts their transport choices). Where company cars are provided as an employee "perk" but are not needed for daily use companies should be encouraged to require those cars to be left at home and for the employees to use public transport to get to work. Tax breaks - rather than the current penalties - should be introduced to encourage people to use public transport.

18. The use of travelcards (or the like) - daily, weekly, monthly or annual - valid for all modes and all operators in a given town, city or area, is we believe of great importance especially where changes of service or mode of transport are involved - such cards replicate the car owner's situation where the marginal cost of a trip is perceived as little or nothing. There may also be some merit in smart-card or credit card use for local public transport for occasional users who are often perplexed about how to pay and what sort of ticket to buy.

High quality, multi-modal public transport is needed

19. The LRTA believes that the most appropriate modes of public transport should be used for the particular circumstances of each urban area, but it will be no surprise that the Association believes that in most, if not all, substantial urban areas the core of the high quality/high density public transport system should be a light rail or modern tramway system. Where passenger volumes in a given transport corridor exceed, or will when car users are decanted from their cars, 1500 passengers per hour per direction, light rail is not only the most appropriate mode to handle the volume of passengers, but also is the quality of system necessary to ensure that their experience of using public transport is not "once, but never again".

20. As a rule of thumb, even in radial towns or cities where there are 5 or 6 main traffic corridors, light rail is likely to be justified and viable if the total population served is above 250,000. Where an urban area is more linear and is clustered along just one or two main transport corridors, light rail is appropriate and can be well justified as the core of the urban transit system in even relatively small urban areas, say exceeding 50 or 100 thousand population.

21. The light rail system should serve all the main traffic corridors; it should have high capacity and very frequent services (frequent enough during most of the day not to need a timetable - every 4 to 6 minutes) and it should be either totally segregated from street traffic or have priority over other street traffic.

22. The light rail system should be closely integrated with high quality and frequent bus services providing virtually seamless "across platform" interchange between bus and tram. Ticketing should be simple and one ticket or pass should suffice for the whole of a journey (and simple multi-journey or time/season tickets or passes should be readily available to use on all operators' services in each urban area or conurbation.

23. There is ample evidence from cities around the world, and especially from cities in mainland Europe that where such high quality, closely integrated systems exist, significant proportions of car users are prepared to leave their cars at home and to use public transport for many or even most of their urban journeys, even where car ownership and general affluence is higher - e.g. Zurich.

Need for planned, integrated AND regulated systems

24. The present system of deregulation of buses in Great Britain (outside London) has seen patronage fall very significantly whilst more buses have chased fewer passengers, an obscene waste of scarce energy and resulting in the production of quite unnecessary pollution. In the case of Tyne & Wear, the abandonment of the integrated system which was in place before 1986 (and which had seen public transport patronage stabilise when it was falling in other areas) heralded a steady and large fall in patronage - buses have lost 30% of their passengers since deregulation and the Metro's patronage has fallen from 52 to 35 million per annum.

25. More by luck than judgement London has retained a planned, integrated and regulated framework and, in stark contrast to the deregulated remainder of Britain, has seen patronage increase. By the privatisation of bus operation and open competition for bus operation contracts, costs have fallen in London as well. Whilst the London model may not be the most theoretically perfect which could be conceived it does seem to have considerable merits and something broadly similar is needed throughout the country.

26. Where, as we advocate, light rail forms a central "mass transit" or "rapid transit" core to an urban public transit system, it is vital to ensure that there is not unproductive and wasteful competition between buses and light rail. A re-regulated public transport regime in the provinces should build bus services around the light rail, and indeed local heavy rail, systems by feeding and interchanging at key points but eliminating purely competitive parallel running.

27. The Association believes it will be necessary to spend as much money on the achievement of these high quality and high quantity systems as has been spent on highways and cars over the last 40 years or so. This investment can and should be financed from the proceeds of the taxes formerly spent on highways and by more realistic car user charges. Higher patronage levels for public transport would also produce more revenue and operation and maintenance and further development investment will be able to be financed by fares accepted as realistic when compared to the cost of car use given the improved quality and quantity of public transport. There does, of course, need to be protection of the poor and of other deprived groups for whom the cost of fares is a real barrier to mobility.
Receipts from charges must be spent on building better public transport

28. Up until now the opposition of "hypothecation" by the Treasury has prevented the ring-fencing of receipts from specific fiscal mechanisms and their application to achieve pre-determined objectives - such as increased petrol taxes to be devoted to public transport improvements. We believe it is vital to improve public transport both before motorists are expected to transfer to it, and steadily over future years as the ratchet of discouraging taxes and charges is increased. This can best be achieved through hypothecation. One method which we commend is the development of PFI (Private Finance Initiative) schemes which would receive the receipts from, say, road-user pricing in particular cities and use those receipts to provide a range of public transport developments. An example is the scheme proposed for the Edinburgh area by the South-East Scotland Transport Consortium.

"Quick fix" or "on the cheap" solutions will not get people out of their cars

29. Most crucially, acceptable public transport cannot be achieved on the cheap or as a "quick fix". It is understandable that Government, faced with many competing demands for public expenditure, would like to find a solution which would cost the public purse little or nothing. Superficially, simply modernising and improving bus services alone would seem such a near-zero cost option. However there is no possibility that buses on their own can provide an acceptable alternative to car use, though, as already described, they have an important part to play as components in integrated public transport systems.

Need to learn lessons from around the world

30. The LRTA feel it is vital that the UK learns from the evidence readily available from around the world and that message is, overwhelmingly, that rail guided systems (heavy, metro, light or tram) are the means by which high quality local public transport can best be provided and which can carry the mass of passengers which is needed in busy cities and urban areas.

31. Light rail/tramway systems have tended to be looked upon by Government as expensive whereas buses are seen as "cheap". However, buses are only cheap if the costs of providing the infrastructure on which they run are disregarded. As is widely acknowledged, public transport stuck in traffic, is in no way an attractive or effective alternative to the private car. To free up road-using public transport from traffic congestion requires either extensive, well-policed priority measures or segregation, or a combination. As soon as a "track" has to be provided, whether for a bus or a tram, the real costs involved have to be recognised and there is evidence that the provision of a segregated "road-like" track is actually substantially more expensive than laying tram/rail lines. Each of the recent light rail projects undertaken in the U.K. have had to demonstrate that there was no cheaper, more cost-effective alternative. They have done so. Pound for pound the quality people-moving ability and capacity of light rail systems in suitable density movement corridors represents the very best value for money.

32. The LRTA believe it is important that the comparison in costs between different modes should be a genuine and fair one - and in particular that costs borne out of the public purse for, for instance, policing, highway maintenance or priority signalling, are properly attributed as part of the cost of either building or maintaining the system concerned - this will help to avoid choosing an inferior mode of transport due to a lack of appreciation of the true costs. In addition it is vital to consider "whole-life" costs, comprising both initial construction/capital costs and the on-going operation/maintenance costs. It is easy to be deluded about relative costs - for instance trams and trains have 30+ year lives whereas buses normally have lives more like half of this. Discounted cash flow analysis, which is routinely used for appraisal of costs, inevitably favours the lower cost but shorter life vehicle over the higher initial cost but longer life one.

Achieve more for less

33. Although in the largest cities there can be advantage in building underground light rail or metro systems, in most other cases the building of surface level light rail or tramways is not only immensely more cost effective but it also provides a level of convenient accessibility that underground systems cannot match.

Roads had the resources - now public transport needs them

34. It has already been argued that the level of resources which has in the past gone into road building should, in future, go into the building of high quality public transport. London, as the nation's capital undoubtedly needs a modern public transport based upon an extensive metro system (the Underground) and large sums of money are no doubt needed to modernise and develop that system. However, to put the needs of provincial cities into context, the amount of money (£2 .5 billion) that is being spent on the extension of just one underground line ( the Jubilee Line) could provide 5 other cities with extensive, high capacity light rail systems.

Comment on U.K. experience of Light Rail:

1. The Association was pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister wrote an article on the Integrated Transport policy review for the October 1997 edition of its magazine, Light Rail & Modern Tramway. In it he enlarged on the comments about Light Rail which are made at Paragraph 24 in the Consultation Document. In particular he compared and contrasted the Manchester Metrolink and Sheffield Supertram, and suggested that Light Rail is somehow "experimental".

2. The Association would like to explain the reasons why Metrolink and Supertram have, so far, apparently different results:

The Manchester Metrolink

3. The first phase of the Greater Manchester Metrolink converted two existing heavy rail routes to light rail and joined them together through the streets of Manchester. Although the heavy rail routes had been suspended for a period whilst Metrolink was built, the fact is there was an established public transport passenger base from day 1 and Metrolink was able to build on this very successfully. However, it should be noted that bus operators, including the bus operator who was actually a member of the Metrolink operating consortium actually put on bus services to compete with Metrolink and to undercut it on price - they couldn't undercut it on speed or quality and Metrolink won this encounter. Nevertheless some patronage had been syphoned on to a parallel running bus service.

The South Yorkshire Supertram

4. In the case of the South Yorkshire Supertram, the routes were not existing rail routes. To a much larger extent the Supertram runs on highway and is in direct competition with the deregulated buses in the same corridors. These deregulated buses deliberately competed with Supertram and considerably undercut the fares. Here we had the classic situation of a deregulated situation - a low capital cost mode offers cut price fares to keep people off a higher capital cost mode - result senseless competition in which patronage is split between modes and there is waste of energy and unnecessary pollution and congestion as a consequence of bus and light rail being in head to head competition. Such a situation is regarded as madness by most transport authorities and operators outside the U.K.

5. Despite the competition from buses the higher quality ride and service offered by Supertram has attracted an increasing number of passengers. Arguably Supertram did not market their service as aggressively as they might have at the beginning and even their vehicle livery and logo was reserved and low key rather than "in-your-face" which might have had a bigger initial impact. Undoubtedly, the consistent and virulent campaign by the main local newspaper has been detrimental to Supertram and there is a lesson here for the promoters and operators of future systems about the importance of good media relations, though whether South Yorkshire PTE or the Supertram Company could have fostered a better press from the Sheffield Star is a very moot point. Finally, initial patronage was not helped by land use planning decisions - a very important housing estate was flattened just as Supertram became available to serve it!

6. Patronage is now building well however with 10 million passengers per annum and as longer term planning decisions come to fruition there is little doubt that Supertram will prove a winner.

Croydon Tramlink

7. The Croydon Tramlink will, with very little doubt, prove the importance of light rail being part of a consciously planned and integrated public transport system for an area. Because de-regulation was not (thankfully) introduced in the Greater London area, London Transport is able to ensure that wasteful and unnecessary competition between buses and light rail will not happen, to ensure that bus and tram timetables are logically integrated and to provide passengers with the common, integrated ticketing system which already exists

Not experimental - except to the British!

8. It is wrong to see Light Rail as in any way experimental just because the United Kingdom has only recently discovered it - indeed a fairer criticism would be that it is so well tried and tested that it could be said to be almost too conventional both in terms of technology and operational experience were it not for the fact that in the last ten years light rail has benefited from a burst of technological innovation, such as the move from high floor to low floor, and a transformation in the visual impact of light rail vehicles - vehicles such as those in Grenoble, and even more recently, in Strasbourg have carved out new frontiers for stunning aesthetics which have been widely seen to enhance the cities in which they operate. Well proven - worldwide

9. Worldwide there are 308 tramways, many of them "modern" tramways, 75 light rail systems and 93 metro systems. Since 1975 more than 51 new systems have been built. Hardly "experimental" but rather a fine example of steady and progressive development using well proven technologies and operating practices and resulting, in the best of the modern systems, with the highest quality of public transport achieved anywhere.

Response to the Questions listed in the Document:

1. Are the aims we have set ourselves the right ones? Do they miss anything important?

It is not clear from the Consultation Document what the aims are. If they are the 8 items listed under Section 10, on pages 7 & 8, then they appear to be pretty unambitious or undemanding to achieve.

2. What balance should there be between "sticks" and "carrots" to achieve our aims? Can we conclude that neither works without the other?

The Association feels that it is inevitable that a combination of "sticks" and "carrots" is needed. Its concern is that Government may find it relatively easy to impose the "sticks" but in practice will not match them with the necessary "carrots". We believe it is not sufficient to tax, price or force people out of their cars and on to public transport. We feel it is absolutely essential that when they are so tipped out of their cars they find the experience of using public transport at least acceptable. We believe there are few instances today where that would be so and that it is only by massive investment, whether from public or private funds, in good quality, high quantity public transport able to pass this test of "acceptability" - a fairly un-demanding test - will come about.

3. Recognising that funding available from the public purse is strictly limited, how best do you think our transport systems could be improved?

The Association does not recognise that funding available from the public purse is strictly limited. Indeed we feel that, at the very minimum, the average annual level of resources that has been going into new and improved roads over the last couple of decades should, in future, go into developing high quality, high quantity urban public transport systems. In addition we believe that the extra funding that should be made available from taxes and road users charges (the "sticks") should be invested in the development of such high quality public transport systems in every urban area so that there is an acceptable alternative to the use of the private car for most urban journeys.

The LRTA strongly advocate that these new high quality, high quantity public transport systems should be based around light rail or modern tramway systems in all urban areas over 50-100,000 population, depending on demographic conditions. The light rail systems would be high capacity routes in the main transport corridors and would be fed by high quality low floor, green diesel or gas-powered buses (or, ideally, with zero emission battery or fuel-cell powered electric buses) with easy, near-seamless, cross-platform interchange. Good park and ride facilities would also be provided at key locations just within the urban areas to syphon off commuters and others from outside the urban areas before they cause congestion and pollution within the urban areas.

Bus and light rail services should be planned and regulated as a single network with buses feeding the higher speed, higher capacity light rail lines at interchange points and wherever possible the physical interchange should be literally "across platform" and timetables synchronised and practices arranged so, for instance, that buses never leave an interchange stop just as a light rail vehicle ready to disgorge passengers is arriving at the interchange. Such synchronisation can be achieved, and is achieved every day in cities such as Hannover, and make the use of public transport very much more satisfactory than is the typical experience in the U.K.

The ease of use and "friendliness" of urban public transport systems falls, generally, well below that of Continental systems. This is undoubtedly due, in part, to the fragmented, un-planned and un-regulated nature of local public transport in Britain (outside London). In most Continental cities all mode tickets that are usable for a single journey, for a certain time period or all day are readily available and take a lot of the mystery out of using public transport. So too do good system maps, easy transfer between services or modes, good sign-posting to and

between stops or stations and frequent services not requiring knowledge of timetables. Fixed track systems, such as trams or light rail, have a strong psychological advantage to users in that the very existence of the tracks instils confidence that a service operates and will arrive soon - obviously this can be bolstered by using real-time technology to indicate time remaining until next bus or tram arrives.

4. To what extent should we be looking at the potential for restraining use of the car, van or lorry? How would any such restraints operate, and what would the effect be on personal mobility or national and regional competitiveness?

Within urban areas there is need to restrain use of large goods vehicles, particularly within central areas. Basically LGVs should only be allowed to move on urban roads for the purpose of accessing their destination or home base from the nearest strategic road. On motorways and trunk roads there is no need to do so and, if the right steps are taken to reduce car-use, then freight vehicles should be less affected by congestion.

There is a need to restrain car use, particularly in urban areas. Car users do not pay anything like the full price for their use of road space, or to compensate society for the disbenefits their car use imposes on society and the environment.

Cordons should be drawn around all significant urban areas and conurbations and charges should be imposed to cross the cordon into the urban area. Vehicles originating within the cordoned area should pay user charges on a basis related to extent of use and time/congestion levels.

Private cars should pay an annual supplement to use trunk roads and motorways and a windscreen "vignette" would be visible evidence of their authority to use such roads and would raise significant revenue.

There is also a case for "cordon charging" where vehicles moving into a congested urban areas pay a charge for admission to the area. Vehicles normally located within such areas may pay for movement within the urban area either by a windscreen vignette or on a time/congestion basis by windscreen mounted smart-cards.

There would be some downwards effects on personal mobility from the combination of sticks and carrots which should be introduced. There is evidence that car ownership greatly increases numbers of trips taken over the pre-car ownership situation. If traffic levels, pollution and energy waste are to be reduced personal mobility needs to be reduced - there is much evidence of people driving 40 or 50 miles to regional shopping centres in order to shop in exactly the same stores that are readily available in their nearest town centres only 3 or 4 miles away.

We don't believe there would be any long term negative economic effects of such changes - the fact is the retail and employment infrastructure would adjust to the realities of the new transport environment as it has adjusted to the excessive mobility which has emerged in the last quarter century.

5. What roles should be played by pricing, fiscal policies, and regulation to achieve our aims?

Two - One is to act as the "sticks" to get people out of their cars and the second is to be the source of funding so that there is an acceptable public transport alternative for people to use.

Public transport services outside London should be planned and regulated, possibly on the present London model, and certainly integrating bus, light rail and local heavy rail services into a single system and eliminating wasteful, polluting competition between modes.

6. What can we do to reduce people's need to travel?

Much of people's propensity to travel is not due to need but to "wish". Some is due to what seems to be an ever increasing freneticism of modern life, of which traffic and transport is a part. Other wishes are due to chasing after desired life-styles. Much of the longer distant commuting from the countryside is of this variety - and this is a form of traffic growth which has increased very greatly and expected to continue. The irony of rural lifestyle seeking by those whose economic activity is urban based is that by their very act of long distance commuting they spread the urban lifestyle through the countryside they traverse. Such lifestyle related commuting is also related to fears about perceived risks of urban living. So a combination of measures is required: most crucially a radical change in land-use planning policies to encourage civilised urban life and also measures to reduce crime and personal security threats in urban areas.

There are downsides to lifestyle improvements based on long car journeys - and it is the time, stress and cost of that car commuting itself, let alone the downsides for those who live on or near the roads used in this way.

7. Would transport policy be enhanced by adopting a range of transport "targets", against which to assess progress? If so, what form should they take? Should they be national, regional or local?

Targets are certainly needed so as to measure whether there is any progress or not. Probably the crucial one is "modal share" for each urban area. The target for every urban area should be progressively to increase the modal share of public transport and reduce that of private cars. There should be national, regional and local targets.

8. Should Government develop new funding mechanisms or income streams for transport? If so, what form should they take?

New funding mechanisms and income streams are essential if public transport of a quality and quantity sufficient to retain people tipped out of their cars by the "sticks" is to be in place. The finance raised by the fiscal and user-charges "sticks" should be ploughed back in full to the development of such high quality, high quantity public transport.

Government should also facilitate the use of private finance through the Private Finance Initiative so that private consortia working in close co-operation with local authorities in a given area and after selection by open competition, could be granted concessions to provide balanced packages of public transport developments and finance them from user charges imposed on car users in the same urban areas. (e.g. as proposed in the Edinburgh/South-East Central Scotland area).

Although two purposes of the Private Finance Initiative are to transfer risk and financing from the public sector to the private sector, another is to make the achievement of publicly important developments and infrastructure which would otherwise fall entirely on the public purse. However there are other ways to involve private finance in major schemes which can be repaid out of revenue earned once the projects are in operation. An example is through bond issues which are a commonly used mechanism available to public authorities in the United States.

Given tough measures to reduce car usage, use of public transport would increase and fares chargeable could increase, so providing a better income stream for public transport operators. Given some level of re-regulation of buses in areas outside London, and that regulation to include requirement about levels of investment in vehicles etc and improvements in frequency and density of services, this increased income stream would be one major component in the provision of high quality, high quantity public transport.

9. Against the background set out earlier which aspects of public transport do you think it is most important to improve in order to persuade more people to leave their cars at home and use public transport instead?

There is no single "magic" factor - a combination of factors has to be achieved simultaneously if "acceptable" public transport is to be available. If it is not people will return to their cars even if the costs of doing so are very much greater than now.

The key factors are:

Frequency
Reliability
Comfort - seating, ride, extent of acceleration, braking & lateral movement
Directness - no changes or quick and convenient changes
Safety & security - little or no perceived personal risk
Understandability - ease of understanding route, timetable, fares
Access - close to home, easy to get on and off
Affordability - must not seem more expensive than using the car

Surveys have suggested that reliability is more important than frequency, but the Association suggests that if public transport is seriously to entice car users, reliability has to be an absolute "given" and one or two experiences in serious lapse in reliability (reliability = service arrives when it is scheduled to and deposits passenger at their destination when it is scheduled to) will with great certainty drive the car user back to his or her car. One of the most attractive features of cars is the convenience of being able to start the journey at absolutely any time one chooses. Public transport services running at 30 minute or 60 minutes intervals are profoundly unattractive in comparison, however good in other respects. Frequency of service of less than 10 minutes from morning peak through to at least early evening is essential to bear comparison with the instant availability of the car.

Reliability of service on busy road corridors and at peak times can only be secured by extensive and vigorously enforced priority measures and, in reality, only where there is extensive or total segregation of the public transport vehicles, whether it be bus, tram or train, from the vagaries of highway traffic congestion.

10. What practical measures would bring about more use of less environmentally damaging forms of freight transport such as railways, inland waterways and coastal shipping? Could the Government's freight grants scheme be improved further, and if so how?

Track grants, and land use planning priority for opening up sidings to connect industrial premises to heavy rail routes. Combined use of rail lines in industrial areas such as Trafford Park by both passenger (tram or light rail) and freight could get greater use out of infrastructure and result in less cost for each class of user. This is practical and has been well proven, for instance in Karlsruhe. Investment by Railtrack in such infrastructure sharing arrangements is needed and either incentives or regulatory control to ensure freight movers benefit by transferring from road to rail. There would be benefit from local administration of the freight grants scheme and the widening of the scope of Section 8 grant.

11. How can the contribution of ports and airports to regional and national competitiveness be enhanced without detriment to environmental objectives?

By provision of high quality light rail services, particularly to regional airports, to limit the present dependence on private transport with its associated spread of extensive airport car parking. Good public transport links to adjacent towns and cities are needed to reduce the dependence of air travellers on cars. Edinburgh and Glasgow airports can be cited as bad examples currently, whilst Gatwick and Heathrow are much better served.

12. How can we actively encourage more environmentally-friendly vehicles and fuels, the development of less environmentally damaging technologies and innovations which reduce the need to travel?

By the development of high quality modern public transport systems. Light rail systems are invariably environmentally friendly at their point of operation with zero emissions (electric vehicles). Buses are becoming much more environmentally friendly and as an adjunct of re-regulation of bus services outside London regulation could be introduced to ensure phased replacement of present buses, many of which are well past their sell-by dates.

Finally, the development of information technology has the potential to reduce people's need for travel. Whether people's propensity to travel can be reduced by such technology is a very moot point.

13. How can we integrate land use planning and transport more effectively, with a more strategic approach, so as to cut unnecessary journeys?

In essence, easily - it is just a question of deciding to make the land-use planning system the tool to achieve this social policy. This has not been the case until recently and it is difficult to reverse the results of the many years when social policy has encouraged dispersal and car dependence. But if the change is not made and made in a determined way with a clear view to the long term,. then the momentum will be to drift towards the Americanisation of our spacial use, which in a small island is bizarre.

Not only should land-use planning embrace transport planning, but the Transport & Works Act procedures for fixed track transport system developments should also be localised and become an integral part of the local physical planning system so that local planners and local authorities elected by local people take responsibility for all aspects of local land use.

The Association believes that for all significant land-use planning exercises the provision of a fixed track rapid transit system, whether it be tram, light rail or heavy rail as the passenger transport "spine" and/or "umbilical cord" should be a fundamental part of the plan and a key test of its sustainability.

The certainty and permanence of a fixed track mode of public transport has immense advantages both for developers of land and of future residents and workers in that civilised, environmentally sound mobility is built in. By contrast the very flexibility of the bus gives it an invisibility that does not promote reliance or confidence.

14. How can we ensure, for example through the taxation system, that the prices faced by transport users more accurately reflect the wider environmental and social costs?

By a combination of increased cost of acquiring a car (purchase tax? - see Singapore for example), owning it (increase in vehicle tax for owners residing in urban areas?) and using it in urban areas and/or congested areas and on high speed roads (trunk roads and motorways), through car user charges. User charges could be related to an annual "vignette" for trunk road and motorway use or a per kilometre charge debited from a smart card. In urban areas a fixed toll for passing a cordon into the area could be charged or user charges related to time of day and congestion levels as well as distance traversed. The technology to do all these things is available, but the simpler ways need little or no technology to operate - see Singapore and Oslo. At present company car users tend to have their car use, even private use, aided by generous tax treatment whereas public transport users seem to be penalised - this needs reversing.

15. What is the appropriate role of national, regional and local levels for the provision and regulation of transport? What role should be played by passenger transport authorities or executives, or by voluntary co-ordinating bodies such as planning conferences?

There is a role for all 3 levels and also there is a case for all parts of the country to be covered by some form of transport regulatory and investing body. These could be modelled on the Passenger Transport Authorities/Executives, but there are also other models which might be more appropriate - in general terms bodies responsible for complete "journey to work areas" would seem to be sensible.

In every urban area there should be, in effect, a single well planned and integrated transport system made up of all the modes of public transport operating in that area. We have already made the point that in most urban areas the core of that system should be "mass transit", high capacity, relatively high speed light rail lines and that the local bus system should act as feeders to these lines and be closely and totally integrated so that changes between modes are short and easy and public transport journeys "feel" seamless and don't involve the waiting around that they so often do today in the U.K.

The PTAs/PTE's could well have a role in the regulation of public transport within their areas and, as strategic transport authorities, could well have a determining rather applicant role in respect of fixed track developments requiring Transport & Works Act approval, currently exercised by the Secretary of State - a classic case of Whitehall making decisions for localities which almost certainly know their own situations and needs better.

16. What changes might be needed to the ways local authorities receive capital funding for transport, to encourage the development of integrated transport policies at the local level?

The key matter is to allow the hypothecation of revenues derived from the "sticks" to discourage car use to be used to invest in new and improved public transport. It is vital that revenues should be able to be raised from road use charges of various sorts and imperative that these revenues can then be invested in new and improved public transport. Innovative ways of doing this - such as the PFI consortium proposed by the South East Scotland Transport Consortium should be encouraged.

17. Is there, as suggested in the previous Government's paper "Transport The Way Forward", a role for making greater use of economic instruments to influence how people choose to travel, such as increasing the price of public parking, possibly taxing companies' car parking provision, and charging for the use of roads? How should the receipts from such sources be used?

Yes - and the receipts should be used to provide more and better public transport

18. What should be the role of urban traffic management measures?

The principal role should be to give public transport demonstrable priority over private cars so that users of public transport have faster and easier journeys and car users do not!

All too often pedestrians have to mix with heavy road traffic, especially in urban centres. Where pedestrianised areas are created they can become comparatively inaccessible to large numbers of people because of their very separation from the mode of transport. Trams, or light rail vehicles have an immense advantage here in that they can mix successfully with pedestrians - people can readily see where they will be going from their track and being electrically powered they produce no noxious emissions of any sort in the street.

19. How can we achieve economic growth which is less road traffic intensive, while still taking account of the role of national, regional and local transport policies in promoting national and regional competitiveness?

Given that there needs to be as much transfer of freight to rail as is possible, the existing network of trunk roads and motorways, relieved of a substantial proportion of car traffic by other measures discussed above, has plenty of capacity to handle freight with no inhibiting implications for economic activity or for its regional distribution.

20. In circumstances where demand exceeds road capacity at certain times, what priority might be given to scarce road space and how might that be delivered? It has sometimes been suggested that priority should be given to emergency vehicles; buses, coaches and taxis; goods vehicles; and disabled motorists - are these the right priorities?

Broadly, yes - but there is an important omission in the list of which sorts of vehicles should be given priority over other road traffic - trams. Given that the carrying capacity of a tram or light rail vehicle is equivalent to around 150 cars at typical car occupancy levels there is an overwhelming case for absolute priority to be given to trams and light rail vehicles (as is frequently the case in foreign systems).

Where tramways run as segregated rights of way in or adjacent to roads, the surfacing can allow for emergency vehicles to use these ways when road conditions would otherwise prevent emergency vehicles making progress.

21. How can we best take account of the differing accessibility needs of urban and rural communities?

Those living and working in rural areas are likely to continue to be dependent on private transport. The vehicle taxation system can differentiate between vehicle owners in this respect as far as cost of ownership goes. Although a fuel tax is easy to impose it is blind to whether the fuel is used in rural or urban areas. It is better to tax use of cars either by car user charges related to actual use as discussed above or by imposing an annual charges for using, say, the motorway network.

here may be a case for some form of windscreen sticker system allowing rural dwellers who do not work in an urban area to access their most convenient urban area without undue financial penalty if there is no practical form of public transport available to them.

The easy and cheap mobility afforded by the car and by the massive road building programme since the 1950s has seen a vast increase in longer distance car commuting which has spread urban sprawl into country areas and brought all the undesirable effects of high traffic flows to rural areas. This is a trend which is set to continue unless a combination of significantly higher cost of car commuting and reduction of availability of development sites in rural areas takes place.

Wherever possible park and ride should be introduced to filter off rural to urban commuters from the roads before they reach the urban areas. Use of existing or new railway stations outside the urban areas is the easiest and cheapest way of doing this and the construction of purpose built park and ride sites with their own stations and directly accessible from motorways or trunk roads should be done wherever possible, albeit such sites are often in green belt situations.

Where heavy rail lines exist through a rural area which has a significant highway traffic flow to an urban centre it is possible to utilise the heavy rail line for light rail services which can inter-work with longer distance heavy rail services. The light rail services can also depart the heavy rail lines better to serve settlements in the rural area. Such systems can give much better accessibility at both ends of the journey as, in the town or city centre they can use the tram or light rail tracks through the urban centre and do not need to impose a time consuming and inconvenient mode of transport on their passengers at the main heavy rail station. The classic example of such an approach in practice is at Karlsruhe in Germany.

22. How can we increase the awareness of transport users about the consequences of their choices?

Firstly by impact on their pockets and secondly by education.

23. How can we best ensure a high standard of safety across all modes?

There needs to be a level playing field between the various transport modes. Unfortunately it is not feasible for road-based transport, and especially private cars (which all too frequently have the inherent safety in operation of a guided missile with a defective guidance system) to achieve the same levels of safety as inherently safe rail based transport. However, the aim should be to raise the safety standards of all modes of transport to those of the best. Were private cars to be a new invention, one cannot help thinking that, as unguided missiles under no-one's competent control, they would not be permitted to be introduced into use. In principle the same safety requirements should apply to private cars, to buses and to trams and trains.

There is another important issue here in that almost because they are so unsafe little media coverage is given to the 10 people a day who are killed and 80 a day who are seriously injured on the roads. By contrast, a train crash with one or two killed or seriously injured will get banner headline coverage. It would not be surprising, then, if the general public have a quite misleading view as to the relative safety of the different modes of transport. Government could help to level this playing field of perception.

24. How can we ensure that policies designed to establish environmentally sustainable transport systems are compatible with the Government's wider aims for social inclusion?

Arguably, the deterioration of public transport services over the past 50 years has itself been a significant form of social exclusion - whilst car users have enjoyed ever greater mobility, public transport users have become very much second class citizens.

Present users of local public transport tend to be children, women, old people and the poor and they generally use public transport not because they like it or think it a good way to move around but because they do not have the use of a car and have no alternative means of transport. Clearly improved public transport would benefit present users as well as the new, ex-car users, that it was designed to attract and retain. However, if the cost of using public transport was to rise in real terms existing users may be excluded from using it and, with no alternative transport at their disposal, would suffer real loss of mobility and, in many cases could become much more isolated and deprived as a result. It is important that schemes such as free or reduced rate travel for Senior Citizens are preserved and, if the real costs of public transport are raised as the quality and extent of public transport develops, that such schemes are extended to those would otherwise be excluded from use of public transport and, as a result, in large measure, from Society.

25. How can we best promote the transport needs of disabled people?

By providing high quality, high quantity, easily accessible public transport that everyone can use.

Modern light rail systems provided guaranteed easy, level access at every stopping place, benefiting not only disabled people but also the 12% or so of the population who have some mobility impairment and, everyone else when burdened with shopping, children or whatever.

26. How can we best take account of the transport and accessibility needs of all sectors of society, including the young and the elderly?

See answer to 25.

27. What should the role of transport be in delivering the national air quality strategy, reductions in acidifying pollutants and our climate change commitments?

As transport accounts for over one third of polluting emissions, its contribution to achieving a reduction in those emissions should be at least equal to that proportion. In reality it should be more because the effect of emissions at street level is often the key determinant of the level of pollution, and health problems resulting from that pollution, experienced by the inhabitants of a given town or city. Pollution on the streets by road traffic is not something distant ascertainable only by scientific instruments - it is a palpable reality and its elimination, together with the elimination of the quantity and noise (another pollutant) of high levels of road traffic would transform the quality of life and "liveability" of our urban areas. The overall social dividends to be drawn from the near elimination of transport's contribution to the pollution mire are very much greater than its one-third share would suggest.

Finally ....

In the course of preparing this response the Association turned up its response to the 1976 Transport White Paper. Our response then was very similar to our response now. Far too little has happened in the intervening years by way of actions by government - indeed the main difference now is that the problems are bigger. We sincerely hope it will not be necessary for us to say the same in another 21 years time. . . .

Light Rail Transit Association

November 1997.

About the Light Rail Transit Association (LRTA)

The LRTA was formed in 1937 and is possibly the oldest public transport campaigning group. It campaigns for improvement and development of good quality public transport in urban areas and especially advocates the adoption of light rail transit or modern tramways as key components of local public transport systems.

The Association has over 4000 members around the world, half within the United Kingdom.

The LRTA publishes (jointly with Ian Allan Limited) a monthly magazine - Light Rail & Modern Tramway - which has a circulation in excess of 7000 per month and is very widely read within the light rail industry.

To reflect the increasing importance of the light rail and urban transit industries, the Association is re-naming and re-launching its magazine. From January 1998 the new magazine - Tramways & Urban Transit will reach the desks of all key decision makers concerned with light rail and urban transit in Europe.