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| It’s been 15 years since the Department for Transport organised the last major bus summit to encourage operators, local authorities and the bus supply industry to work together to stimulate patronage growth.Transport Times are organising this event in London on the 12th February 2015, supported by the DfT, with the aim of raising awareness on the role the bus can play in stimulating the economy, getting people to work, reducing emissions, providing access for the elderly and tackling inequality. www.transporttimesevents.co.uk
We are delighted that the Secretary of State for Transport, Patrick McLoughin MP, will give the opening keynote and Minister of State, Baroness Kramer will give the closing keynote address. TfGM chief executive Jon Lamonte will be speaking on bus franchising in Greater Manchester following the recent government announcement that this power will be devolved to an elected mayor. What is the timetable, how will it work, what will it mean for smart ticketing – and perhaps most importantly, who will take the revenue risk: TfGM or the bus operators? More fundamentally, he will consider questions such as: Is franchising a panacea? Will it require more taxpayers’ money to be spent on buses? Can cities in the UK replicate London’s success on the bus front through franchising powers, or should they pay as much attention to what has happened with a state-owned and regulated bus market in Belfast? The case for Quality Contracts in the North East will be also debated. Opening Keynote: Patrick McLoughlin MP, Secretary of State for Transport Closing Keynote: Baroness Kramer, Transport Minister Confirmed Speakers: Keith Brown MSP, Scottish Transport Minister Danny Kennedy MLA, Northern Ireland Transport Minister Jon Lamonte, Chief Executive, TfGM Additional Speakers: David Martin, Chief Executive, Arriva Giles Fearnley, Managing Director – UK Bus, First Group Robert Montgomery, Managing Director – UK Bus, Stagecoach David Brown, Chief Executive, Go-Ahead Prof David Begg, Chief Executive, Transport Times Claire Haigh, Chief Executive, Greener Journeys Mike Blackburn, Chair, Manchester LEP David Brown, Chief Executive, Merseytravel & Chair of PTEG Robert Hough, Chair, Liverpool City Region LEP Alex Pratt, Chair, The LEP Network and Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP Mark Nodder, Chairman & Chief Executive, Wrights Group Andy Eastlake, Anthony Smith, Chief Executive, Passenger Focus Jonathan Bray, Director, PTEG Anthony Vigor, Director of Policy and External Affairs, National Express |
| For sponsorship and exhibition enquires please contact Isabel Poulton on 01236 739577 or isabel.poulton@transporttimes.co.uk
For more information please visit |
The Times, 3 December 2014, Gabriella Swerling.
Potholes plugged with a self-healing concrete and roads that warn cyclists of icy conditions may become the norm by 2050, scientists have suggested.
The Future of Highways, a report by Arup, the international design consultancy, considers how trends in urbanisation, climate change, resource depletion and changes in human behaviour will affect our roads.
Arup raises the prospect of pavements that use kinetic energy from pedestrians to power street lamps, tyres that deploy retractable studs for increased grip when ordered to by the car, and drones that monitor and carry deliveries. The report comes after George Osborne this week announced the the biggest road-building programme for a generation, pledging £15 billion for improvements.
Tony Marshall, of Arup, said: “It’s interesting that the government strategy included significant investment in funding innovation. The aim of [our] report is to look at trends and predict how they will develop.
“By thinking across modes we can move towards a connected, low-carbon future.”
The world’s vehicle count is expected to grow by 3 per cent each year until 2030 and the proportion of people living in cities is predicted to reach 75 per cent by 2050. The report created a series of fictional case studies to deal with greater urbanisation and analysed global innovation in vehicles, materials and technology.
Researchers from the universities of Bath, Cardiff and Cambridge are developing a self-healing concrete that uses bacteria to seal cracks. Giken, a Japanese construction company, developed an automated underground bicycle park that can retrieve b
However, Ian Pearson, a futurologist, dismissed the significance of the report’s low-carbon focus. “It will be a historical issue. By then we will have more nuclear and solar energy, so we really don’t need to worry about using oil. It’s basically a hit list of what you can do in 2050,” Dr Pearson said.
It is with great regret that we report the death of Professor John Hibbs, Founder and President of the Roads & Road Transport History Association. An appreciation will appear in the Journal and on the web site.
The Times letters, 5 November 2014
Sir, The UK’s road transport and logistics industry is in desperate need of 45,000 new truck drivers. This shortage already affects 70 per cent of logistics providers and most others expect to be affected soon.
The issue is fast becoming significant: unless urgent action is taken by the government and the industry as a whole, shoppers could be facing empty shelves, if not this Christmas, then next.
We are asking George Osborne to use his autumn statement on December 3 to announce national funding to help UK residents to gain their LGV driving licence and certificate of professional competence. The UK’s economy is improving but it’s up to the road transport industry to ensure that the supply chain keeps moving.
Richard Burnett, chief executive, Road Haulage Association;
Steve Agg, chief executive, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport; Steve Hobson, editor, Motor Transport
The Times, 5 November 2014, Matthew Parris
Two smartphones. Two cabs. One destination. Last Wednesday my partner and I were dining with his brother and wife in London. After dinner we wanted to go east and they west. Each brother grabbed his phone and ordered an Uber car. On each screen, the nearest car was 1.2 miles away. Sibling rivalry kicked in. Fight! Fight!
Everyone crowded round the smartphone screens to watch the two car icons moving across the Google map, in an unwitting race for our address. There were air-punches and cries of “Yes!” from our challengers when our car took a wrong turning and had to reverse. But still we won. Yes!
Uber is the biggest thing in public transport for years, as important as HS2. Quite soon taxis cruising the streets opportunistically will be history; you won’t ring a minicab company for a car; and the car taking you to the airport will not return empty. Huge networks of drivers and virtual networks of passengers will use IT to get the nearest car to the customer, paid on account. The gains in efficiency and convenience are irresistible.
Black cabs must adapt or die, but will not adapt and will die. “Most”, said the historian Leopold von Ranke of human institutions, “see their ruin before their eyes; but they go on into it.” London cabbies are campaigning against Uber and Berlin has banned it, but resistance is doomed. If you know any young person studying to take the Knowledge and become a black-cab driver, please, please warn them.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29878233, 4 November 2014
Cycling is often perceived as dangerous, but how much have the risks of riding a bike changed, and how do they compare with driving a car, asks statistician Jamie Jenkins.
There has been a huge fall in the number of deaths among cyclists in the past 80 years.
The figure reached its peak in 1934, when 1,536 pedal cyclists died in Great Britain. Last year there were 109 fatalities, according to the Department for Transport (DFT), and it’s important to remember that there were considerably fewer people living in the country 80 years ago.
But before we think that 1934 was a bad year for cycling, remember that despite the lower population there are likely to have been far more cyclists. Owning a motor vehicle was much rarer and thus cycling as a primary means of transport would have been more common.
We do not know exactly how many cyclists there were in 1934, and indeed the figures today are pretty sketchy, but the number of cars on the road is considered to be a pretty good indicator. In 1934 there were fewer than two million cars on Britain’s roads, while today there are about 28 million licensed cars.
So how safe is it to cycle on Britain’s roads in 2014?
There are several ways to look at the risk of a death, based on, for example, the distance travelled, the number of journeys made or the amount of time spent travelling. These can be found in a DFT report from last year.
Starting with distance travelled, a cyclist travelling a mile in Great Britain is 15 times more likely to have a fatal accident than a car driver going the same distance. While this sounds alarming, the risk from death for both forms of travel is quite low.
In 2013 there was one death for every 29 million miles cycled, so you would expect one death for every 29,000 people who cycled the whole length of Britain.
But cycling a certain distance generally takes longer than it would take in a car, so over the same trip there is greater exposure to an accident for a cyclist. Based on the time spent travelling, a cyclist is five times more likely to have a fatal accident than a car driver.
Pedal cycle fatalities are falling at a time when cycle traffic is rising – road traffic estimates put cycle traffic in 2013 around 13% higher than the average over 2005-09, with deaths 16% lower.
But while a fall in fatalities is good news, there have been increases in recent years in the number of cyclists who have been seriously injured. In 2013 serious injuries were 31% higher than the average over 2005-09.
It is possible that falling deaths and rising serious injuries could be a result of lives being saved by the healthcare system, for example, with the use of specialist trauma centres.
An important factor in the likelihood of being seriously injured or a fatality is the type of road where an accident occurs. Rural roads carry 30% of cycle traffic but they accounted for 58% of pedal cyclist fatalities in 2013.
The Department for Transport puts this discrepancy down to traffic speed. Rural roads have much higher average speeds than urban roads and the extra speed leads to worse accidents for cyclists. But another factor could be that it takes ambulances longer to reach accidents in more remote areas.
So cyclists do have a greater risk of death than car drivers, and they are more likely to die on a rural road than in a city, but their overall risk of death is low.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the statistics show they need to be extra careful around heavy goods vehicles. Between 2009 and 2013, HGVs were involved in around a quarter of cyclist deaths despite comprising only 5% of traffic in Great Britain.
SWANSEA to MAMETZ (The Somme, France) 5th – 8th JULY, 2016.
An opportunity to join 100 British classic cars in a journey from Swansea to Mametz, France, to commemorate the Battle of Mametz Woods, a First Word War Battle in the Somme, France.
Between 7th – 12th July 1916, 3500+ Welsh casualties were recorded following the “Battle of Mametz Woods” with over 1000 Welsh soldiers having sacrificed their lives in a prolonged battle to capture the Mametz Woods from the German army.
Full details in the Mametz leaflet.
As part of Transport for London’s Year of the Bus celebrations in 2014 London Transport Museum is holding a symposium called The Social History and Cultural Significance of the London Bus on Saturday 18th October. Our speakers will look at the iconic nature of London’s red double-decker buses, their social history, economic impact and cultural significance.
Further, to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, and in support of our current exhibition Goodbye Piccadilly, we are holding another symposium, 1914-1918 From Home Front to Western Front on Saturday 15th November. This will investigate the central themes of the exhibition; wartime and peacetime conditions in London, women in London transport and the role of the B-type bus on the Western Front, in more detail.
See the Journal page to access the contents list of all Journals back to issue 1.