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Current ChallengesTPS AGM London, February 24th

Jim SteerDirector Steer Davies Gleave

Director Greengauge 21Vice President CILT

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Current Challenges

Ι TIFΙ RecessionΙ The need for a deep re-think of transport policyΙ (for DfT) reconciling DaSTS with decisions already takenΙ 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 radialsΙ Greater Manchester had already won funding support for the next

key stage of Metrolink expansionΙ People were not persuaded that the economy would falter without

what amounted to marginal investmentΙ There’s only one central LondonAnd 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

-6%

-4%

-2%

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

North East North West Yorkshire and theHumber

Great Britain South East

Growth in Motorway Average Daily Flow

2001 to 2006

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

■ 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

■ 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 retreatΙ 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?

Ι Of course, look for better value for money solutionsΙ Innovate in fundingΙ Apply appraisal tools wisely to re-considered policy

prioritiesΙ As is intended in USA, get schemes to market fasterΙ 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

Ι Centralised control of funding (the Azerbaijan comparison)Ι Road User Charging (after Smeed et al)Ι TargetryΙ Obsession with appraisalΙ PFI/PPPΙ 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?

Ι 2012 and major projectsΙ Budget trimmed to “end the cruel deception”Ι LRT already gone: can the £600m and rising bus budget

continue?Ι 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…?)

The new ideas?■ Green bridges■ Electric car fleets■ For the unloved district centres■ Etc…

Where’s the imagination from we transport planners?

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ConclusionsΙ 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

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