The Cabinet Office Strategy Unit has issued a report on Urban Transport – 131 pages of bullet points and figures:

o    a helpful summary of trends

o    concise analysis of urban travel and transport

  o    conclusions on final page are sensible but uninspiring.

Earlier this year I was invited to talk to the team of officials preparing the report, but evidently I did not get my message across. Page 11 of the report includes the National Travel Survey data which shows average travel time and number of journeys as holding steady since 1975, while average distance travel has increased by over 30%.  “The conventional view is that people have used transport improvements to access better services and jobs”, the report rightly says.  It goes on: “Some transport professionals [citing my book] argue that these results show that people have a constant ‘travel time budget’ and that faster speeds may lead to longer journeys without necessarily improving access.”  My point is that faster speeds do improve access, which is beneficial because it enlarges choice.

What the report misses is that urban traffic is largely self-regulating.  As congestion builds up, people are deterred from making trips because the time they have for travel is limited.  Traffic management techniques can help avoid grid-lock, which is therefore a rare phenomenon.  Improving public transport then permits improved access.