AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

Reverse social dispersal

26th March 1976, Page 35
26th March 1976
Page 35
Page 36
Page 35, 26th March 1976 — Reverse social dispersal
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Less but better transport

NEW URBAN developments should not be too far from industrial centres, suggested Mr Guy Newberry, the National Bus Company's director of operational development.

"The aims of planning and transport policy should be to reduce the requirements for transport provision and improve its quality," said Mr Newberry, presenting his paper, "Bus operation in alternative urban structures." This could best be done by a reversal of the dispersal policies of the past half century.

Some new town projects had sought from the beginning to minimise local travel requirements and to provide for economical public transport. These were more likely to be successful in the long term than those where attempts had been made to superimpose public transport on layouts that were not originally designed to allow for that requirement.

Mr Newberry selected Runcorn and Milton Keynes as examples of the two contrasting types of new town development.

The lack of suitable housing provision for transport employees was criticised by Mr Newberry. "They have to work when most others are at leisure so housing near their employment bases should be available if they want it.

"Lack of suitable housing is reported as one of the major causes of chronic shortcomings of some London Transport bus services as well as in some new towns and elsewhere in the provinces."

Priorities

In the absence of radical plans for new towns the best use of existing transport resources should be made by giving buses special traffic priority where they might be subject to delay. He also advocated containing the urban use of cars by "every possible means."

The continuing dependence of most households on buses "to some degree " and the total dependence of households without cars on public transport led Mr Newberry to formulate stages for the introduction of alternative policies for local transport. First, the urban environment should be amended by constraint measures to make the best use of transport infrastructure.

Secondly, he said, the urban environment should be modified in the longer term to take a more flexible view of land uses to exploit the benefits of proximity at home, work and services to reduce the need for local transport, and to improve its quality.

A supply and demand equation was drawn up by Mr Newberry illustrating the essential factors for urban passenger transport. On the demand side he listed reliability, accessibility, speed and price. On the supply side he listed manpower, mobility, maintenance, money and management.

In 1973/4 because of external pressures on the supply side the demand factors of the equation were moving strongly against the interests of public transport. But even in this troubled period 70,000 buses and coaches accounted for onethird of local passenger trips. Specific fuel consumption for 1,000 passenger trips was less than one-fifth compared wit!i car trips to comparable average distance.

Although in recent months the shortage of bus staff had been eliminated the pressure of rising prices had reduced general travel demand. Mr Newberry said that the present congested cities made buses unreliable and made passengers prefer to travel by car.

Where positive bus priority measures had been introduced —as in Oxford—bus passenger traffic was reported to have risen by up to five per cent.

Examples given of short-term measures to improve bus flow included one-way systems ; coordinated traffic signals ; improved rear access to shops ; widening of road pinch points ; easing of congested access points to car parks, etc; prohibition of parking on bus routes; bus lanes; bus-actuated traffic signals; and bus penetration into pedestrian shopping areas.

Road pricing

Mr Newberry also called for the introduction of some form of differential road pricing. Longer-term measures suggested in his paper were concerned mainly with spreading peak demand times and by exploiting the benefits of greater proximity of homes, work and shops.

"Bus operation used to be very economical and efficient in those urban areas with a high proportion of workers in mining, heavy industry and continuous production working a three-shift system because of the high asset and labour utilisation." But with the trend towards light industry working single shifts the heaviest demand was concentrated into short peak periods, and the total number of buses needed was directly proportional to the peak vehicle requirement3.

In an assessment of the effect of his proposals Mr Newberry said that the suggestions to introduce bus priofities, staggered hours and "flexitime" would result in important transport repercussions sooner than his land use proposals. But units of existing buildings could be developed progressively to include, in close proximity, houses, schools, shops, light industry and amenities.

If the increase in the numbers of cars on the road was not halted, Mr Newberry predicted some dire consequences. If in 1985/90 20m cars were used for local mileage in the same proportions as 13.6m cars were in 1973, but with the average passenger load reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 persons then: El 50 per cent more land would be needed for parking.

E Local car mileage would rise by half and highway capacity could not possibly meet it.

E] Bus service standards and ridership would fall drastically and thus fares and revenue support for the remaining services would rise.

El Traffic congestion would add to the cost of urban freight distribution.

To set his predictions in a suitable perspective, Mr Newberry set out the most recent available statistics. In 1973 the total number of local passenger journeys up to 10 miles was estimated at over 34,000m.

Of these some 6.2 thousand million were short trips by foot or bicycle and 2.6 thousand million by rail. Of the remainder some 25 thousand million about a third were on some 70,000 buses and coaches, the rest on 13.6m cars and lm motorcycles.

For buses some 20.3 gallons of fuel were consumed for 1,000 passenger trips per year against the cars consumption of 110.2 gallons for 1,000 passenger trips per year.

"The bus is clearly an oil conserver in urban conditions," said Mr Newberry.

The conference is organised by the Construction Industry Conference Centre Ltd, PO Box 85, High Wycombe.

Tags

People: Guy Newberry
Locations: Oxford

comments powered by Disqus