Planning to cope with the transport 'wriggle'

23rd September 1966, Page 73

23rd September 1966

Page 73

Page 73, 23rd September 1966 — Planning to cope with the transport 'wriggle'

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By JOHN DARKER, AMBIM NEARLY 3,000 delegates from almost 100 countries attended the fifth world meeting of the International Road Federation in London on Monday under the presidency of Lord Chesharn. Welcoming delegates, who included many ministers of transport among senior government delegations, the Minister of Transport, Mrs. Barbara Castle, said that while half the world cried out for modern communications the other half breathlessly tried to cope with the traffic explosion. Motor vehicles had tremendous potentialities for good but they could also exact a toll of accidents; unchecked and unplanned they could destroy good environment nearly as effectively as they could benefit communications.

During the opening proceedings Mrs. Castle presented the IRF "Man of the Year" award and diploma to Mr. Rex M. Whitton, the Federal Highway Administrator of the United States. Mr. Whitton, said the Minister, was the first man from the US to win the award, though he was the 16th "King of the Road" in succession. The award recognized the work of Mr. Whitton and his colleagues in providing the United States with a 41,000mile network of express highways, and for his work in the field of scientific traffic studies, which were of international significance.

Conference delegates, in specialist panels, could attend discussions on a variety of themes such as highway planning; traffic operations and road safety; vehicle parking; progress of transcontinental and intercontinental routes; highway and bridge construction and maintenance; and the work of Road Federations; and, concurrently with the world meeting, an exhibition of engineering equipment for road and traffic networks was held.

On Tuesday, Prof. C. D. Buchanan, Pro fessor of Transport, Imperial College of Science and Technology, presented a stimulating paper on Transport in Towns. Prof. Buchanan suggested that though the broad pattern of traffic movements had been studied the detailed pattern had not received adequate attention. Almost any journey, he thought, consisted of an initial "wriggling out" of the actual point of origin, then the main journey, and finally the "wriggle in" to the destination, usually a building of some kind. Planners had tended to ignore the "wriggles", yet these were the most difficult part of the problem.

A convoy of lorries entering London on a main radial road, he said, gave a superficial appearance of unity of purpose and destination but the reality was very different when at appropriate points various vehicles left the convoy and "wriggled" their way to their separate destinations, weaving an overall pattern of the greatest complexity.

The varying ownership of goods and passenger vehicles and the complexity of their journeying made any question of coordination of transport extremely difficult. It had occupied politicians for many years and the legislative history of Britain was littered with Acts designed to co-ordinate transport, "but not one has really succeeded in bringing order to the field. The bedevilling factor, of course, has been the motor vehicle, whose very attraction is that it permits random unco-ordinated movements."

Prof. Buchanan said the motor vehicle was remarkably flexible and could almost be said to provide "mechanical walking". It had the inestimable merit of door-to-door transport in a manner no other form of mechanical transport could begin to rival. "Even when the railway system was at its prime in Britain, and it was then a very highly developed network, the final distribution from stations and goods yards (i.e. the wriggle journeys) was as completely dependent upon road transport as it is today." The commercial vehicle, he continued, was indispensable to the functioning of urban areas. While there might be room for some rationalization of goods deliveries, it was futile to think that the commercial vehicle could be dispensed with altogether.

It was tempting to adopt the notion that one should seek to devise the most efficient and economical system of movement possible, invoking all suitable methods of transport, "but the variety of methods ...available, and the intricate interplay of costs and benefits rendered it virtually impossible ever to conclude what was efficient and what was economical".

Prof. Buchanan's paper contained numerous talking points, some of them, perhaps, controversial. He believed there were advantages in "giving up the idea that public transport should be a profitable undertaking, and accepting frankly that in practically all circumstances it should be run as a public service". He was not very keen on road pricing for "experience suggests that when it really is a matter of sharing out fairly some commodity which is in short supply, one never resorts to pricing—I am thinking of the rationing of food, clothing and petrol during the war . . ." He stressed that the public should understand that unlimited investment in motor vehicles must sooner or later be matched by an equivalent investment in accommodating the resulting traffic.

The aim of all urban traffic planning, he felt, was to make the perambulator "the most important form of transport of all", safely usable in towns. "What is the be-all and end-all of all the sweating and striving we men undertake. . if it is not that women can push prams around? A simplification, no doubt, but it contains the purpose of life. It would be an ironical result if transport policies were pursued to the bitter end only for it to be found that this elemental transport need could not be discharged in comfort and safety."