Course work 1

JOURNEY TO
WORK MADE
LESS
SUSTAINABLE
Land Use and Transport

SATHISHKUMAR NATARAJAN
12993671
Abstract

This essay is an outline about the various trends in the land use and the
transport patterns in the UK and explains how the journey to work has been
made less sustainable in the recent years. There are different modes of transport
available across the country and there is no common mode of transport that is
preferred by all. It is found that people from different cities prefer different
modes so that the cost and the time of travel remain to a minimum. There is also
a change in the urban land use pattern as there is expansion of the cities and
also the development of the new projects to make this accessible for everyone.

1. Introduction

A country is said to be prosperous based on the economic growth and this has
made expansion of the city areas making them to explode beyond their existing
diameter. This has made the people to travel to a long distance from the
residential areas to their work places. In this account the travel time comes into
play and this must be kept as a minimum in order to make them accessible to
their place of work. The quantitative analysis of the commuting behaviour and
the choice of transport have led to the development of certain themes that
proves that there is some link between the commuting patterns and urban form,
mainly on the impacts of job decentralization and cross-city trips (Banister,
1994). From the data published by the National Travel Survey and Census data it
can be noted that walking to work was the most common practice in the early
1930’s in Britain than it decreased rapidly and led to the increase in the use of
the public transport like buses and trains. The use of the motor car has also been
increased. Almost in all the cities there had been a decline in the walking to work
as there is a consideration of the public transport such as the use of buses has
been made possible and accessible. Mostly people chose the public transport as
this was a combination of the low cost and the lack of an alternative and this led
to the consistency in the use of this mode of transport. This type of mode change
among the people is based on the other costs such as the environmental
emission and the increase in the fuel prices and fares. There is a change in the
trip patterns in the last few decades and this remained almost the same for the
people going to work and there is a change in the other trips like the leisure and
shopping trips.

2. Transport Modes

There is various mode of transport such as the automobiles, rail, buses, coach
and underground available in UK. There was different use of these according to
the various locations. The railways have made the progressive decentralization
of the housing possible by providing the accessibility to the cities and the
immigrants were made easy to get to the rail stations by walking. In the cities
like London the growth of public transportation and the advent of the automobile
use have led to the expansion of the cities (Hall, 1992). The number of trips by
walk has declined by 24% from the year 1980 to 2007 and the use of London

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underground or Rail has increased by 42% in the same year. The punctuality of
the rail and underground was so good that there was a maximum of 5 minutes
delay in the trains that are operating within the city. The passengers were almost
satisfied to a maximum on about all the aspects such as the frequency of trains,
punctuality, reliability, information and there was some dissatisfaction about the
fares. This has also made clear that the people going to work in London preferred
the public mode of the transport to the maximum and the use of cars was less
whereas in the other cities it was not accessible to people.

The use of public transport was higher in London where the use of automobiles is
preponderant in the little cities (Williams, Banister, 1998). The British Household
Panel Survey (BHPS) and National Transport Survey (NTS) prove that there has
been a decrease in the percentage of the households with zero cars and
households with 1 or more cars are increasing rapidly. Now in UK about one in
every three households have more than one car. The road traffic is contributed
by not alone with the cars but also the use of light vans, heavy goods vehicles
and motor bikes. The use of motor bikes has also increased in the past 40 year
period but this is not a big number because this is not suitable in all climatic
conditions. The usage of the car or motorcycle was higher in greater London than
in the city of London. The congestion in the road is higher in Manchester among
all the cities in the UK followed by the city of West Yorkshire and West Midlands.
London is said to have the least congestion among all the cities in the UK. The
traffic speeds were minimised in the UK every successive year so to improve the
personal and the road safety. This has led to the increase in the household
expenditure costs on the fuel and vehicle maintenance by 15% from 1980 to
2008. There was an increase in the taxes and fuel costs over the last few years.

There was an 88% increase in the bus patronage in London. This was a common
mode of travel for people to get access to the nearby rail or tube station and also
to the workplace as this was considerably of low cost. In cities other than London
people did not prefer this because the availability of the buses was very less.
People felt bad about the waiting time being increased and began to use the car
or bicycle as their alternatives. Also walking to work and the use of bicycle was
found to be declined across the country.

3. Travel patterns

In majority of the British cities there was a relationship between the urban size
and travel patterns (DETR 1997). The distance travelled by a passenger has been
increasing as the decades pass by and this is measured in terms of the billion
kilometres in the Great Britain and this has increased from 218 in 1952 to 728 in
1999 and this is maintained by providing the fastest mode of transport and
providing the change in the mode of the transport wherever it is required (DETR,
2000).

The travel time and budget associated with a social routine is almost the same
this may employ the utility maximisation (Hojer and Mattson, 2000). The travel
time of the people in London were about 30% higher than that of those in
Scotland (Schafer and Victor, 2000). This may be because of the congestion and

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the over crowdedness of the city despite of the various alternative transport and
improved infrastructure available. The new approach to appraisal developed by
the DETR has brought changes in the travel time, fares and vehicle operating
costs. There was a consideration in the waiting time of the passengers by the UK
Department for Travel it was given about two and half time more importance to
the in-vehicle time so there was a reduction in the waiting time of the passenger
to a minimum.

The car trips for business and other work related activities accounted to have
about 1.2 persons per car and to that of the holiday or leisure trips had about 2.0
persons per car. The delay in the road journey is measured in terms of the delay
in minutes for every 10 miles in every road network in the UK like the M6
motorway and it rose to 4 minutes by 2007 and then it was brought to control to
3.4 minutes in the year 2009. Most of the people in cities like the London not
preferred in the usage of the car especially for single occupancy journeys which
has led to increase in the cyclists and public transport, reduced traffic speeds
and hence an increase in road safety, more environmental friendly operations.

There has been an increase in the fares associated with the rail, underground
and buses but the vehicle running costs and the monitoring costs have been
brought to a minimum. This has caused a decline in the number of trips in the
recent years but distance travelled and the time spent in travelling is increasing
constantly.

4. Land use patterns

The land use in the urban areas can be generalised in terms of the different
dimensions, different traffic flows and the localisation of the workplaces
(Nijkamp, Rienstra 1995). The establishment of the corridors across the country
has led to the de-concentration of the population and jobs and this has led to the
development of some peri- urban area and that this has relationship with the
expansion on the edges of the urban centres. By now, the road traffic of cars was
doubled in the number than that of 1980. This has been about 16% increase in
the road length by the year 2008 than that of the 1980. There was not much
development in the motorways and this was an increase in the minor roads that
are connecting various locations within the urban area as this were the roads
handling most of the road traffic. There were some of the existing roads that
were taken for the maintenance but there some deterioration in the road
condition of all types of roads and this condition still prevails.

The land use planning for the rail was such that the proximity of the railway
station in the various parts of London has been a fact that it was accessible in all
locations which may involve a small journey considering a mode change such as
bus, car or bicycle. There was a development eight light rail transport across the
country such as the Docklands Light Rail, Croydon Tramlink, Sheffield supertram,
Manchester metrolink, nexus tyne and wear, centro west midlands, Nottingham
Net and blackpool tram had a good reach for the local travel. Other than the
development of these new lines some of the existing lines such as the jubilee
underground line were extended. There was an increase in the investment in this

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sector during the year 2004-2005 and this was mainly in the construction of the
channel tunnel rail and the DLR.

The bus sector was not of that much development in the cities other than
London but in London this was planned excellently such that people may get
access to the nearby better bus stop with a maximum of 13 minutes’ walk. There
was a development of the retail shops and local firms in the residential areas
increasing the walking and cycling among the community.

5. Conclusion

Thus in this essay a clear outline of the recent trends in the transport modes,
travel and land use patterns in the UK was provided. Also this makes it evident
that the accessibility of the people from the various locations that is far from the
city to their work place with minimising the time for travel. Though there are
various modes of transport available in the country it is the passengers who
decide about the mode of travel depending on their cost, comfort and other
factors. Walking to work had been reduced to a minimum all over the country as
all the routes were provided with the bus links and the development of the light
rail transport. There has been an extension of the major rail routes and the new
roads were constructed. Congestion is said to be increased in the recent years
and this has its roots in the increase in the fuel prices, tax and the fares. The
increase in population has also led to the mobility related problems and there is
some case that the people who cannot afford suffer from social exclusion
(Kenyon et al, 2002). Though this is a case it can always be noted that the
various improvements in the infrastructure has made the accessibility to the
people to their workplaces and to keep the time taken to travel the increased
distance of the trips.

6. References

1. Banister, D., 1994. Reducing the need to travel through planning.

2. DETR (Department of Environment, Transport and the regions), 1997.

3. National Travel Survey 1994/1996. The stationary office , London.

4. Hall, P., 1992. Urban and regional planning, Routledge, London.

5. Nijkamp P., Rienstra S.A, 1996. Sustainable transport in compact cities.

6. Williams J., Banister D., 1999. Local provision and population threshold
analysis.

7. Dargay, J., Hanly, M., 2003. Travel to work: an investigation based on British
Household Panel Survey, NECTAR Conference, Sweden.

8. DETR 2000, Transport 2010: The Ten Year Plan- summary. Department for
the environment, Transport and the Regions, London.

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9. Kenyon, S., Lyons, G., Rafferty, J., 2002. Transport and social exclusion:
Investigating the possibility of promoting inclusion through virtual mobility,
Journal of Transport Geography.

10. Hojer, M., Mattsson, L., 2000. Determinism and backcasting in future
studies.

11. Schafer, A., Victor, D.G., 2000. The future mobility of world population.

12. DFT: Transport Trends

<http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/trends/curent/>
[Accessed on: January 28, 2011].