Civil Engineers
Transport 157
February 2004 Issue TR1
Pages 27–41
Paper 13317
Received 21/03/2003
Accepted 13/11/2003
Keywords: Malcolm Buchanan
traffic engineering/transport Managing Director, Colin
planning/urban regeneration Buchanan and Partners;
Chairman, Transport Research
Institute, Napier University
This paper reviews some of the key assumptions and It saw these as being between the extent to which it would be
analyses of Traffic in Towns (1963), and finds significant possible to adapt and reconstruct towns to cater for more
new dimensions to the problems. In particular, towns traffic, the corresponding need to restrict car use, and the
have changed substantially as a result of the motor urban environment that would result. It recognised that
vehicle, opposition has undermined road programmes, restrictions on car use would need to be accompanied by ‘good,
and threatening new dimensions have been added to the cheap public transport’, and it emphasised the need for
1963 diagnosis of environmental issues. Though there integrated land use and transport planning. It saw the choices
have been numerous localised environmental as political and as likely to vary between different types of
improvements, there has also been a steady erosion of urban area, but it was nevertheless clear that the authors
environmental standards on many roads and streets. expected a better urban environment to be high on the political
Restraints on the use of cars have been increasingly agenda.
applied, and road pricing is now available to local
authorities. Road user pricing will not, however, solve all In this paper I first look back at the towns and the traffic
the problems. Moreover, willingness to apply restraints problems diagnosed in 1963 and consider how both have
on private vehicle use is likely to be limited to travel changed. I then review the choices put so persuasively in
markets for which public transport can provide a Traffic in Towns, consider what choices we have actually made
reasonable alternative to the car. Trains, buses and in 40 years, and finally discuss the choices we face today.
trams can deliver such alternatives only for long-distance
travel and for trips to town centres and other major trip 2. WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE TOWNS?
attractors. They could do this much better than is the
case today, and therefore further traffic reductions are 2.1. The debate with the economists
possible. However, for the bulk of the traffic on the UK’s It will be recalled that, in the aftermath of the publication of
roads, origins and destinations are dispersed, and Traffic in Towns, it was the economists who were the only real
therefore public transport and rail freight are not good critics, arguing that the capital costs of reconstructing towns to
alternatives to the motor vehicle. New forms of accommodate even the more modest of the traffic growth
transport, capable of outperforming the fast vehicle on scenarios would be far beyond the resources of the Treasury.
the fast road, are therefore needed, and two of Some went further and argued that towns would of their own
particular interest are at advanced stages of accord adapt to the car by spreading out to form a new
development. The major choice to be faced today is suburbia, which would be intrinsically easier to serve with the
concerned with the dispersed (intra-suburban) travel car, without the need for all the reconstruction and painful
markets. It lies between, on the one hand, improving the choices foreseen for existing urban areas by the Traffic in
road network to cater for the demands for which public Towns team. Yet others argued that road user charging would
transport as we know it is not a realistic alternative and, relate the demand for vehicular travel to the supply of road
on the other hand, developing new forms of public and space and generate the funds necessary to provide more roads
freight transport. and parking.
HOUGHTON
REGIS
Figure 6 suggests that a part of the reason why such a switch to
the use of roads has been possible is the steady and continuing
success of traffic engineers in squeezing more traffic along
DUNSTABLE
LUTON
motorways and roads. Notions of the amount of traffic that a
road can carry have been progressively revised upwards, in the
case of motorways from 1500 passenger car units/hour (pcu/h)
1920 per lane in the 1960s to 2000 today. Already, in the United
States, continuous flows of 2800 pcu/h per lane are being
observed, and with closer headways becoming more widespread
HOUGHTON
REGIS and intelligent cruise control becoming available, it is not
impossible that lane capacities will eventually be revised
DUNSTABLE upwards towards 3000 pcu/h per lane.
LUTON
But squeezing more traffic along existing roads is unlikely to
provide much more capacity compared with what can be
1946 achieved by using alternative modes of transport. Fig. 7
illustrates the increases in passengers per hour that can be
HOUGHTON
REGIS
achieved by devoting road lanes to the exclusive use of
minibuses, cycles, rigid buses or articulated buses. Under these
circumstances the passenger throughput of a lane or road can
DUNSTABLE
be increased to more than 25 000 passengers per lane per hour.
LUTON Beyond this, heavy rail metro systems can and do achieve
volumes of 80 000 passenger per track per hour.
1963
4. NEW ENVIRONMENTAL IMPERATIVES
HOUGHTON
REGIS 4.1. The Traffic in Towns view of the environmental
issues
Colin Buchanan was not a boastful man, rather the contrary,
DUNSTABLE but he used occasionally to say that the word ‘environment’
was not in common planning parlance until the publication of
LUTON
Traffic in Towns with its concepts of environmental areas and
environmental capacities. The effects of traffic on the
1994
environment were systematically spelt out in Traffic in Towns
under the headings of noise, pollution, visual intrusion and
Fig. 1. Growth of development in Luton/Dunstable severance. The arguments were compelling. Not only were the
environmental impacts of the use and parking of cars in cities
18·0
Miles per person per day (excl. cars, vans and taxis)
3·0
2·5 14·0
1·0 6·0
4·0
0·5
2·0
0 0
1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996
Fig. 2. Transport trends in the UK, mobility by means of mode of transport: distance travelled per day per capita (distance for cars,
vans and taxis plotted against right-hand scale) (1 mile = 1.609 km)
100
10
Miles per day per capita (logarithmic scale)
0·01
1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996
Fig. 3. Transport trends in the UK, mobility by mode of transport: distance travelled per day per capita (1 mile = 1.609 km)
already totally unacceptable, but attempting to accommodate of the Shanghai Memorandum of the International Committee
3
the expected growth by more roads and parking would in on Climate Change (2001), can be in any doubt as to the scale
many towns also prove to have prohibitive environmental of the climate change that is now upon us, nor of its potential
costs, even if the financial costs of so doing could be afforded. consequences.
4.2. Global warming The Shanghai Memorandum assembles far more scientific data
What Buchanan did not foresee was that, within 40 years, a than has hitherto been available and confirms the clear
new, quite different and far more sinister set of environmental advance of global warming.
impacts would arise, a significant part of the blame for which
would be attributed to the motor vehicle. No one who has read (a) The 1990s were the warmest decade since 1861.
the scientific facts, unemotively and dryly set out in the pages (b) 1998 was the warmest year since 1861.
100 80 20000
90
60 50
5000
50 40
0
40 30 Car Minibus Cycle Rigid bus Artic bus
30
20
20
Fig. 7. Passenger capacity of a 3 m road lane
10 10
0 0
52
57
62
67
72
77
82
87
92
97
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19 (e) The average sea level rise in the twentieth century was
0.1–0.2 m.
Fig. 4. Transport trends: share of distance travelled by bus, ( f ) Rainfall is increasing by 0.5–1% per decade in the
rail and cars compared with the trend in car ownership levels northern hemisphere.
(1 mile = 1.609 km)
(g) There has been less change in the Antarctic.
65
69
73
77
81
85
89
93
97
53
57
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
Beginning of decline in bulk carrying of other greenhouse gases such as CH4 and NO2 .
of coal and iron
Competition from road transport beginning
to bite into rail profits The next conclusion of the Shanghai draft is that the
forecasting models used by climatologists are getting better.
Fig. 5. Transport trends: share of freight hauled (km-tonnes) Their new understanding of the mechanisms at work in climate
between rail and road change suggest that.
(a) CO2 from fossil fuels will dominate trends for the rest of
the century.
Design flow per lane: pcu/h
3500 (b) The share of CO2 concentration that can be cancelled out
3000 by forests and oceans will decline.
2500 (c) By the end of this century CO2 concentrations will be
2000 4-lane
between 540 and 970 parts per million (ppm), figures that
1500 6-lane
would be reduced by only 40–70 ppm even if the whole
1000
500 world were reforested.
0 (d ) Reductions in emissions are necessary to stabilise the rate
1966 1985–99 1999 2010 at which global warming is occurring (radiative forcing).
Year
(e) The temperature rise between 1990 and 2100 will be 1.4–
1.88C.
Fig. 6. Changing estimates of road capacity: UK motorway
( f ) Sea level rise over the same period will be 0.09–0.88 m.
(speed ¼ 50 mph)
(g) These changes will occur and persist even if greenhouse
gas concentrations are stabilised.
(c) Temperatures are rising in the lowest 8 km of the
atmosphere. As if these dire warnings were not enough, the Shanghai draft
(d ) The snow and ice cover has decreased in the northern contains interesting calculations as to the impacts of melting
hemisphere. ice sheets.
0
25
50
00
0–
1–
2–
10
–1
⬎
10
25
50
Trip length category: miles the current legal and financial framework that is somehow
preventing such services from being provided.
Fig. 10. Why high-speed trains will do little to reduce traffic
If it is further true that such markets for conventional public
transport exist, and that operators are somehow restrained from parking spaces were occupied not by cars whose owners had
serving them, then it follows that there will be exceptions, and gone into Oxford, but by those whose owners, often dragging
that somewhere it will be possible to see such services already heavy suitcases, had risked their lives crossing a busy road,
in action and fulfilling the needs identified. And sure enough waited on a dreary lay-by with no shelter, and caught the bus
such services do exist. Take, for example, the Thornhill park in the opposite direction to Heathrow or central London (Fig.
and ride site, designed to intercept city-centre-bound traffic on 12). If such services can work despite the designs of planners,
the A40 as it approaches Oxford from the direction of London. how much better might they function with some proper
A recent survey showed that over a third of the Thornhill planning?
Fig. 12. Unplanned park and ride/kiss and ride (and fly) at Similar conflicts probably exist for public transport services
Thornhill, A40 that might be provided for schools, hospitals etc., and all are
overlaid by undue reliance on market forces and an
unwillingness or inability to impose obligations on major trip
6
The answer to this question can be found in a CBP report attractors to take such actions until they happen to need
prepared 15 years ago and designed to explore how public planning permission for a new classroom or runway. I was
transport’s share of the travel market to Manchester Airport interested to learn during a recent study of bus regulation in
could be increased significantly above the 8% then being Europe that in Austria an obligation is placed jointly on the
achieved by the conventional bus and rail services to the new schools and the bus operators to plan the school bus services at
airport station. This study showed that up to 10 miles from the the beginning of each academic year. In the UK this obligation
airport its passengers and staff accounted for about 20% of the is imposed only for children living a certain distance away, and
traffic on the motorway network. Twenty miles away sufficient only from state schools, when it is the private and
of this traffic could be intercepted by park and ride and kiss denominational schools that have both the larger catchment
and ride to justify a minibus service operating every 15 min areas and the wealthier parents, with higher car ownership
direct to the terminal entrances (rather than to long-stay car levels.
parks, where many would otherwise have had to drive to catch
a different bus) (Fig. 13). 7.4.1. Getting the land use and transport mix right. Major
suburban/semi-urban trip attractors would be very much easier
The question that then arises is why, if there is a market for to serve with conventional public transport if they could
them, such conventional services are seldom provided. The themselves be arranged in corridors along which buses, trams
BRADFORD FROM A1
BLACKPOOL
PRESTON LEEDS
70
M62
110 WAKEFIELD
BOLTON M62
HUDDERSFIELD
WIGAN
MANCHESTER
SHEFFIELD
LIVERPOOL A57
50
35
WARRINGTON
AIRPORT
A6
50 CHESTERFIELD
CHESTER M1
M6
STOKE-ON-TRENT
WREXHAM
Catchment area boundary
70 70 Satellite with average number of
airport passengers driving past
the site each half hour (CAA 1992)
Fig. 13. Potential for park and ride/kiss and ride to Manchester Airport
N18
Limerick
Fig. 14. Density or layout? The CBP plan for the Ardaun corridor
To Watford
Aylesbury Junction
Amersham Shenfield
Rickmansworth
Harrow &
Wealdstone
Romford
Harrow
on the Hill Wembly Park Ilford
Wembley Stratford
Central Willesden
Junction
Bond Farringdon Whitechapel
Street Royal
Slough Liverpool Docks
To Paddington
Reading
Hayes
Ealing Tottenham Street Woolwich
Broadway Court Road Isle of Arsenal
Dogs
Abbey
Charlton Wood
Heathrow
Dartford
Ebbsfleet
Fig. 18 Rail: a brilliant product of the first industrial revolution, so far largely untouched by the second
†Since the paper was presented ULTra’s installation in Cardiff has been delayed by tendering problems. It has meanwhile been assessed in several other towns and some
airports, and has been found to be effective and affordable.
REFERENCES
1. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT. Traffic in Towns: A Study of the
Fig. 19. Neue Bahntechnik Paderborn (automated rail shuttles
form trains only to reduce wind resistance) Long-Term Problems of Traffic in Urban Areas. HMSO,
London, 1963.
Please email, fax or post your discussion contributions to the secretary by 1 August 2004: email: emma.holder@ice.org.uk;
fax: þ44 (0)20 665 2294; or post to Emma Holder, Journals Department, Institution of Civil Engineers, 1–7 Great George Street,
London SW1P 3AA.