When we last wrote about it in 2019, Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) appeared to be on the threshold of transforming the way we get around. An innovative MaaS project had already taken off in Finland, and pilot projects in Sweden and the UK were trialling the advantages of bundling together different transport modes into a single service.
But more recently, some of the high hopes behind MaaS appear to have faded, with some questioning whether the concept needs a reboot.
The benefits of MaaS
The big idea behind MaaS is that anyone can use their mobile device to plan, manage and pay for a journey, selecting from a menu of transport options – such as buses, trains, ride-hailing and bike sharing services.
For passengers, MaaS promises greater freedom of choice. In addition, MaaS has the potential to help support government policy objectives, such as promoting active lifestyles, reducing traffic congestion and improving the air quality of our cities. For transport providers, MaaS could generate new business and cost savings. Research published in 2020 found that transport-related energy consumption can be reduced by up to 25% by allowing travellers unbiased choice of mode of transport for each trip.
Putting the brakes on MaaS
In spite of its appealing possibilities, the momentum driving MaaS seems to have stalled. Reluctance by drivers to give up their cars, the contractual and technical complexity of combining multiple transport modes into one service, and the challenge of getting private companies and public services to work together have all hindered the development of MaaS.
In Finland, once the shining example of MaaS in practice, the operation of the platform has been overshadowed by a conflict over ticketing apps between the country’s leading MaaS provider and Helsinki’s local transport authority. Elsewhere, private sector-led MaaS initiatives have run into financial difficulties.
Debunking the myths about MaaS
Despite these setbacks, MaaS still has its champions. Last month, in a webinar hosted by Intelligent Transport, Sohejl Wanjani and Ulrich Lange from German technology firm Siemens responded to some of the arguments that are often put forward against public transport authorities developing MaaS solutions.
A new platform requires a new app While it’s possible to build a new app solely for MaaS functions, existing apps can be expanded, meaning users don’t have to have multiple accounts and payment methods.
Building a new MaaS project is too big for us Two options are open to providers: start with one service provider, offering a fully integrated service (planning, booking and paying for trips within the MaaS app) and later add additional service providers; alternatively, start with several service providers, and offer only planning and booking, but not payment.
Most users rely on Google Maps. We can’t do better than that The key to a successful MaaS system is data, and transport authorities are rich in data about usage of their services. MaaS systems can use real time data that Google does not have, and can integrate ticketing and booking for all modes of transport. In addition, transport authorities can generate income from their own datasets, adapted to local circumstances. Once passengers are assured of the integrity and quality of the data, they are more likely to use the service.
A good example of this is Denmark’s Rejseplanen. This nationwide mobility platform was launched in 2007, and has since achieved more than 5 million downloads. In Denmark, this app is used more frequently than Google Maps, and its extensive data set continues to drive its popularity. Today, Rejseplanen includes information not only for rail, bus and metro services, but also cycle hire and even domestic air services.
Upgrading to a MaaS platform is not financially viable As cities introduce measures to reduce traffic congestion, it should now be clear that the need to tackle climate change is driving a shift away from private vehicle use to shared modes of transport that are healthier for people and for the planet. MaaS can contribute to climate-friendly travel, while helping transport providers achieve their strategic goals – generating additional revenue streams, increasing passenger usage and creating new mobility services.
Last year, Renfe, the national railway company of Spain, signed a contract with Siemens to develop a nationwide MaaS platform that will allow users to plan, book and pay for trips in a single application. The system will integrate different modes of shared and public transport, such as train, bicycle, metro, bus, car sharing, and scooter services. Renfe clearly sees MaaS as a viable concern; it expects the new service to generate a 4% increase in train travel, 650,000 new customers, and €156m in additional revenue.
MaaS on the move
MaaS is by no means a lost cause. Last month, a research study estimated that the worldwide market for MaaS would grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.8% over the next five years.
Meanwhile, Berlin’s Jelbi service is currently the world’s largest MaaS solution, bringing together public transport, bike sharing, e-scooter, taxis and ridesharing services, as well as offering 12 “Jelbi Stations” where users can rent, return and recharge a range of different vehicles.
Last year, Pittsburgh’s mayor unveiled its own MaaS programme. Move PGH is a partnership between the city’s public transport authority and an assortment of carpooling, car rental, e-scooter and bike sharing enterprises.
Final thoughts
MaaS is still in its infancy, and it’s too early to be sure of its future direction. While its proponents present a seductive vision of car-free cities, cleaner air, clearer streets and almost unlimited choices for passengers, the reality may be very different.
A 2020 study questioned the assumptions surrounding MaaS, and argued that, while MaaS has strong potential for increased mobility, there are also “…unanticipated societal implications that could arise from a wholesale adoption of MaaS in relation to key issues such as wellbeing, emissions and social inclusion.”
With MaaS at a crossroads, it will be worth revisiting this issue to assess its progress.
Further reading: more on travel and transport from The Knowledge Exchange blog
Idox’s transport solutions support traffic management and the delivery of real-time passenger information across all modes of transport. Through the use of new digital technology, we help traffic managers and local transport authorities to harness data and inform the design of smart transport systems that ease congestion on existing networks. Further information here
A stretch of the Champs-Élysées around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is due to be pedestrianised by 2030. Shutterstock
Answer: the vehicles on our streets, primarily the not-so-humble passenger car.
Despite the (slow) migration to electric-powered cars, consumer trends are making driving even more wasteful and unequal. A recent analysis found the emissions saved from electric cars have been more than cancelled out by the increase in gas-guzzling Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs). Around the world, SUVs alone emit more carbon pollution than Canada or Germany, and are causing a bigger increase in climate pollution than heavy industry.
While cars are sometimes necessary for people’s mobility and social inclusion needs – not least those with disabilities – car-centric cities particularly disadvantage the already-marginalised. In the UK, women, young and older people, those from minority communities and disabled people are concentrated in the lowest-income households, of which 40% do not have a car. In contrast, nearly 90% of the highest-income households own at least one car.
So the driving habits of a minority impose high costs on society, and this is especially true in cities. Copenhagen, for example, has calculated that whereas each kilometre cycled benefits society to the tune of €0.64 (53 pence), each kilometre driven incurs a net loss of -€0.71 (-59p), when impacts on individual wellbeing (physical and mental health, accidents, traffic) and the environment (climate, air and noise pollution) are accounted for. So each kilometre travelled where a car is replaced by a bicycle generates €1.35 (£1.12) of social benefits – of which only a few cents would be saved by switching from a fossil-fuelled to an electric-powered car, according to this analysis.
Reducing car use in cities
Half a century ago, the Danish capital was dominated by cars. But following grassroots campaigns to change policies and streets, including replacing car parking with safe, separated bike lanes, Copenhagen has increased its biking share of all trips from 10% in 1970 to 35% today. In 2016, for the first time, more bicycles than cars made journeys around the city over the course of that year.
Bicycles rule the centre of Copenhagen following campaigns to replace parking with safe bike lanes. Shutterstock
But while many other car-limiting initiatives have been attempted around the world, city officials, planners and citizens still do not have a clear, evidence-based way to reduce car use in cities. Our latest research, carried out with Paula Kuss at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies and published in Case Studies on Transport Policy, seeks to address this by quantifying the effectiveness of different initiatives to reduce urban car use.
Our study ranks the 12 most effective measures that European cities have introduced in recent decades, based on real-world data on innovations ranging from the “carrot” of bike and walk-to-work schemes to the “stick” of removing free parking. The ranking reflects cities’ successes not only in terms of measurable reductions in car use, but in achieving improved quality of life and sustainable mobility for their residents.
In all, we have screened nearly 800 peer-reviewed reports and case studies from throughout Europe, published since 2010, seeking those that quantified where and how cities had successfully reduced car use. The most effective measures, according to our review, are introducing a congestion charge, which reduces urban car levels by anywhere from 12% to 33%, and creating car-free streets and separated bike lanes, which has been found to lower car use in city centres by up to 20%. Our full ranking of the top 12 car-reducing measures is summarised in this table: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/NDMp4/12/
The inequality of car use
Cars are inherently inefficient and inequitable in their use of land and resources. On average, they spend 96% of their time parked, taking up valuable urban space that could be put to more beneficial uses such as housing and public parks. In Berlin, car users on average take up 3.5 times more public space than non-car users, primarily through on-street parking.
And it is overwhelmingly richer people who drive the most: in Europe, the top 1% by income drive nearly four times more than the median driver, accounting for some 21% of their personal climate footprint. For these highest emitters, climate pollution from driving is second only to flying (which, on average, generates twice as many emissions).
Prioritising cars as a means of transport also favours suburban sprawl. City suburbs typically possess larger homes that generate higher levels of consumption and energy use. North American suburban households consistently have higher carbon footprints than urban ones: one study in Toronto found suburban footprints were twice as high.
It’s also clear that road traffic levels swell to fill the size of the roads built – yet traffic planning routinely ignores the fact that this “induced demand” exaggerates the benefits and underestimates the costs of building more roads.
Electric vehicles are necessary, but they’re not a panacea. Since cars tend to be on the road for a long time, the migration to electric vehicles is very slow. Some studies anticipate relatively small emissions reductions over the coming decade as a result of electric vehicle uptake. And even if there’s nothing damaging released from an electric car’s exhaust pipe, the wear of car brakes and tyres still creates toxic dust and microplastic pollution. However a car is powered, can it ever be an efficient use of resources and space to spend up to 95% of that energy moving the weight of the vehicle itself, rather than its passengers and goods?
COVID-19: a missed opportunity?
Our study assesses urban mobility innovations and experiments introduced before the pandemic was declared. In response to COVID-19, travel habits (to begin with, at least) changed dramatically. But following large reductions in driving during the spring of 2020, road use and the associated levels of climate pollution have since rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels. Indeed, in Sweden, while public transport use declined by around 42% during the first year of the pandemic, car travel declined by only 7% in the same period, leading to an overall increase in the proportion of car use.
Commuter traffic in Stockholm in November 2021. Sweden has seen an overall increase in its proportion of car use during the pandemic. Shutterstock
While entrenched habits such as car commuting are hard to shift, times of disruption can offer an effective moment to change mobility behaviour – in part because people forced to try a new habit may discover it has unexpected advantages. For such behaviour to stick, however, also requires changes in the physical infrastructure of cities. Unfortunately, while European cities that added pop-up bike lanes during the pandemic increased cycling rates by a stunning 11-48%, we are now seeing a return to car-centric cities, with extra car lanes and parking spaces once again displacing cycle lanes and space for pedestrians.
Overall, the opportunities to align pandemic recovery measures with climate targets have largely been squandered. Less than 20% of government spending on pandemic measures globally were likely to also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The extent to which workers resume driving to their offices is another key issue determining future car use in cities. Thoughtful travel policies to reduce unnecessary travel, and opportunities for faraway participants to fully participate in meetings and conferences digitally, could slash emissions by up to 94% – and save time to boot. Those who work remotely three or more days per week travel less overall than their peers. But long car commutes can quickly wipe out such emissions savings, so living close to work is still the best option.
No silver bullet solution
The research is clear: to improve health outcomes, meet climate targets and create more liveable cities, reducing car use should be an urgent priority. Yet many governments in the US and Europe continue to heavily subsidise driving through a combination of incentives such as subsidies for fossil fuel production, tax allowances for commuting by car, and incentives for company cars that promote driving over other means of transport. Essentially, such measures pay polluters while imposing the social costs on wider society.
City leaders have a wider range of policy instruments at their disposal than some might realise – from economic instruments such as charges and subsidies, to behavioural ones like providing feedback comparing individuals’ travel decisions with their peers’. Our study found that more than 75% of the urban innovations that have successfully reduced car use were led by a local city government – and in particular, those that have proved most effective, such as congestion charges, parking and traffic controls, and limited traffic zones.
But an important insight from our study is that narrow policies don’t seem to be as effective – there is no “silver bullet” solution. The most successful cities typically combine a few different policy instruments, including both carrots that encourage more sustainable travel choices, and sticks that charge for, or restrict, driving and parking.
So here are the 12 best ways to reduce city car use:
1. Congestion charges
The most effective measure identified by our research entails drivers paying to enter the city centre, with the revenues generated going towards alternative means of sustainable transport. London, an early pioneer of this strategy, has reduced city centre traffic by a whopping 33% since the charge’s introduction by the city’s first elected mayor, Ken Livingstone, in February 2003. The fixed-charge fee (with exemptions for certain groups and vehicles) has been raised over time, from an initial £5 per day up to £15 since June 2020. Importantly, 80% of the revenues raised are used for public transport investments.
Other European cities have followed suit, adopting similar schemes after referenda in Milan, Stockholm and Gothenburg – with the Swedish cities varying their pricing by day and time. But despite congestion charges clearly leading to a significant and sustained reduction of car use and traffic volume, they cannot by themselves entirely eliminate the problem of congestion, which persists while the incentives and infrastructure favouring car use remain.
2. Parking and traffic controls
In a number of European cities, regulations to remove parking spaces and alter traffic routes – in many cases, replacing the space formerly dedicated to cars with car-free streets, bike lanes and walkways – has proved highly successful. For example, Oslo’s replacement of parking spaces with walkable car-free streets and bike lanes was found to have reduced car usage in the centre of the Norwegian capital by up to 19%.
3. Limited traffic zones
Rome, traditionally one of Europe’s most congested cities, has shifted the balance towards greater use of public transport by restricting car entry to its centre at certain times of day to residents only, plus those who pay an annual fee. This policy has reduced car traffic in the Italian capital by 20% during the restricted hours, and 10% even during unrestricted hours when all cars can visit the centre. The violation fines are used to finance Rome’s public transport system.
4. Mobility services for commuters
The most effective carrot-only measure identified by our review is a campaign to provide mobility services for commuters in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Local government and private companies collaborated to provide free public transport passes to employees, combined with a private shuttle bus to connect transit stops with workplaces. This programme, promoted through a marketing and communication plan, was found to have achieved a 37% reduction in the share of commuters travelling into the city centre by car.
5. Workplace parking charges
Another effective means of reducing the number of car commuters is to introduce workplace parking charges. For example, a large medical centre in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam achieved a 20-25% reduction in employee car commutes through a scheme that charged employees to park outside their offices, while also offering them the chance to “cash out” their parking spaces and use public transport instead. This scheme was found to be around three times more effective than a more extensive programme in the UK city of Nottingham, which applied a workplace parking charge to all major city employers possessing more than ten parking spaces. The revenue raised went towards supporting the Midlands city’s public transport network, including expansion of a tram line.
Norwich reduced car commuters by nearly 20% with its workplace travel plan, including swapping car for bike parking. Shutterstock
6. Workplace travel planning
Programmes providing company-wide travel strategies and advice to encourage employees to end their car commutes have been widely used in cities across Europe. A major study, published in 2010, assessing 20 cities across the UK found an average of 18% of commuters switched from car to another mode after a full range of measures were combined – including company shuttle buses, discounts for public transport and improved bike infrastructure – as well as reduced parking provision. In a different programme, Norwich achieved near-identical rates by adopting a comprehensive plan but without the discounts for public transport. These carrot-and-stick efforts appear to have been more effective than Brighton & Hove’s carrot-only approach of providing plans and infrastructure such as workplace bicycle storage, which saw a 3% shift away from car use.
7. University travel planning
Similarly, university travel programmes often combine the carrot of promotion of public transport and active travel with the stick of parking management on campus. The most successful example highlighted in our review was achieved by the University of Bristol, which reduced car use among its staff by 27% while providing them with improved bike infrastructure and public transport discounts. A more ambitious programme in the Spanish city of San Sebastián targeted both staff and students at Universidad del País Vasco. Although it achieved a more modest reduction rate of 7.2%, the absolute reduction in car use was still substantial from the entire population of university commuters.
8. Mobility services for universities
The Sicilian city of Catania used a carrot-only approach for its students. By offering them a free public transport pass and providing shuttle connections to campus, the city was found to have achieved a 24% decrease in the share of students commuting by car.
Catania achieved a 24% decrease in the share of students commuting by car. Shutterstock
9. Car sharing
Perhaps surprisingly, car sharing turns out to be a somewhat divisive measure for reducing car use in cities, according to our analysis. Such schemes, where members can easily rent a nearby vehicle for a few hours, have showed promising results in Bremen, Germany and Genoa, Italy, with each shared car replacing between 12 and 15 private vehicles, on average. Their approach included increasing the number of shared cars and stations, and integrating them with residential areas, public transport and bike infrastructure.
Both schemes also provided car sharing for employees and ran awareness-raising campaigns. But other studies point to a risk that car sharing may, in fact, induce previously car-free residents to increase their car use. We therefore recommend more research into how to design car sharing programmes that truly reduce overall car use.
10. School travel planning
Two English cities, Brighton & Hove and Norwich, have used (and assessed) the carrot-only measure of school travel planning: providing trip advice, planning and even events for students and parents to encourage them to walk, bike or carpool to school, along with providing improved bike infrastructure in their cities. Norwich found it was able to reduce the share of car use for school trips by 10.9%, using this approach, while Brighton’s analysis found the impact was about half that much.
11. Personalised travel plans
Many cities have experimented with personal travel analysis and plans for individual residents, including Marseille in France, Munich in Germany, Maastricht in the Netherlands and San Sebastián in Spain. These programmes – providing journey advice and planning for city residents to walk, bike or use (sometimes discounted) public transport – are found to have achieved modest-sounding reductions of 6-12%. However, since they encompass all residents of a city, as opposed to smaller populations of, say, commuters to school or the workplace, these approaches can still play a valuable role in reducing car use overall. (San Sebastián introduced both university and personalised travel planning in parallel, which is likely to have reduced car use further than either in isolation.)
12. Apps for sustainable mobility
Mobile phone technology has a growing role in strategies to reduce car use. The Italian city of Bologna, for example, developed an app for people and teams of employees from participating companies to track their mobility. Participants competed to gain points for walking, biking and using public transport, with local businesses offering these app users rewards for achieving points goals.
There is great interest in such gamification of sustainable mobility – and at first glance, the data from the Bologna app looks striking. An impressive 73% of users reported using their car “less”. But unlike other studies which measure the number or distance of car trips, it is not possible to calculate the reduction of distance travelled or emissions from this data, so the overall effectiveness is unclear. For example, skipping one short car trip and skipping a year of long driving commutes both count as driving “less”.
While mobility data from apps can offer valuable tools for improved transport planning and services, good design is needed to ensure that “smart” solutions actually decrease emissions and promote sustainable transport, because the current evidence is mixed. For instance, a 2021 study found that after a ride-hailing service such as Uber or Lyft enters an urban market, vehicle ownership increases – particularly in already car-dependent cities – and public transport use declines in high-income areas.
Cities need to re-imagine themselves
Reducing car dependency is not just a nice idea. It is essential for the survival of people and places around the world, which the recent IPCC report on climate impacts makes clear hinges on how close to 1.5°C the world can limit global warming. Avoiding irreversible harm and meeting their Paris Agreement obligations requires industrialised nations such as the UK and Sweden to reduce their emissions by 10-12% per year – about 1% every month.
Yet until the pandemic struck, transport emissions in Europe were steadily increasing. Indeed, current policies are predicted to deliver transport emissions in 2040 that are almost unchanged from 50 years earlier.
Local buses in the Swedish city of Lund, home of the Centre for Sustainability Studies. Shutterstock
To meet the planet’s health and climate goals, city governments need to make the necessary transitions for sustainable mobility by, first, avoiding the need for mobility (see Paris’s 15-minute city); second, shifting remaining mobility needs from cars to active and public transport wherever possible; and finally, improving the cars that remain to be zero-emission.
This transition must be fast and fair: city leaders and civil society need to engage citizens to build political legitimacy and momentum for these changes. Without widespread public buy-in to reduce cars, the EU’s commitment to deliver 100 climate-neutral cities in Europe by 2030 looks a remote prospect.
Radically reducing cars will make cities better places to live – and it can be done. A 2020 study demonstrated that we can provide decent living standards for the planet’s projected 10 billion people using 60% less energy than today. But to do so, wealthy countries need to build three times as much public transport infrastructure as they currently possess, and each person should limit their annual travel to between 5,000 kilometres (in dense cities) and 15,000 kilometres (in more remote areas).
The positive impact from reducing cars in cities will be felt by all who live and work in them, in the form of more convivial spaces. As a journalist visiting the newly car-free Belgian city of Ghent put it in 2020:
The air tastes better … People turn their streets into sitting rooms and extra gardens.
Cities need to re-imagine themselves by remaking what is possible to match what is necessary. At the heart of this, guided by better evidence of what works, they must do more to break free from cars.
People in cities often choose how to travel based on how long it will take. In recent years, navigation apps such as Google Maps and CityMapper have enabled people to decide between various modes of transport by seeing which one most quickly gets them where they want to go.
Cities of course have long dedicated a disproportionate amount of space to cars. Although in some parts of the global north – and in certain demographics – car use is declining, elsewhere it has, unsurprisingly, increased.
In a recent study, we modelled what would happen to average travelling times in a city if people were given only one other option – using the car or using another mode of transport – and if they acted only in their own interest (getting to their destination as fast as possible).
We wanted to see what would happen if everyone acted selfishly. How would that compare, we wondered, with a theoretical case in which people chose their mode to minimise travel times for society as a whole and not only for themselves.
City spaces
Using mathematical modelling, we found that if all travellers behave selfishly, and if we have a system that not only makes it relatively inexpensive to use a car, but also allows congestion to affect non-car users (cyclists, public transport users, pedestrians etc), collectively we all end up taking longer to get where we need to go – whether we’re driving a car or not.
City streets are often designed to make travelling by car faster and more efficient. And despite there being, for instance, an increasing amount of cycling infrastructure worldwide and higher satisfaction among people who commute by bike, it is still very common to see narrow, disconnected cycling lanes which result in congestion induced by private cars affecting cycling travel times too.
Mixed-use lanes – those that are used by both private cars and public buses, as opposed to dedicated bus lanes – have the same effect: car congestion affects bus users too. Without proper infrastructure, there are therefore no incentives to use public transport or active transport options, such as cycling and walking.
And even when there is a cycling path network or dedicated bus lanes, if these cross over or otherwise intermittently share space with the general road system, this also slows everybody down. It makes the system as a whole less efficient.
Similarly, free parking for private vehicles also results in longer travelling times for everyone – including non-car users – because they negate the benefits, for individuals, of not using a car if others still do.
We found that selfish behaviour with such inadequate infrastructure results naturally in more cars, more congestion, and longer travel times. If using a car remains the easier and quicker option (on an individual level), people will keep using cars and cities will remain congested. By trying individually to win, we all lose.
Competing priorities
One alternative is to design more collaborative transport networks in which we all accept some personal delay to achieve a distribution that is better for society. We could, for example, include not only personal cost in some of the apps we use, but societal costs also. What if Google Maps told you not only where congestion is in real-time and what would be the quickest transport mode to choose for you as an individual, but which transport mode would offer the best results for your neighbourhood, your family, your colleagues, or your city?
Research has shown how difficult it is, however, to shift commuter behaviour. It also highlights the public opposition there has been to alternative measures such as limiting maximum speeds in order to lower traffic injuries, despite such measures saving lives.
Given this, it could prove difficult to convince some car users to sacrifice personal efficiency for the greater good. But we could start by at least making these trade-offs explicit.
Motorised private transport has a wide variety of impacts that threaten a city’s sustainability, not least the wellbeing and health of its citizens. It contributes to air pollution and climate change through vehicle emissions and results in traffic injuries and nurtures sedentary lifestyles.
To encourage people to use more sustainable alternatives to car transport, cities need strong policies that steer people away from using their cars. So far, these have included low-traffic neighbourhoods and congestion charges that try to make car drivers pay for the congestion they are causing.
Elsewhere, systems have been implemented that attract people to transport modes, such as safe lanes for cycling, that typically have better environmental and social outcomes. These systems emphasise individualistic attitudes but target societal costs to those most responsible for them.
Ideally, we should create policies that help us act in the interest of our community. In the meantime, policies that push people away from their private cars could bring us closer to what would be optimal for the collective – even if we are all acting in our own interests.
The lockdowns and restrictions introduced to control the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in huge changes to urban life. Previously bustling city centres remain empty, shunned in favour of suburban or rural areas where social distancing is easier and connections to the outdoors are abundant.
The roll out of vaccines provides hope for a partial restoration of normality in cities. However, the impact of COVID-19 could last much longer.
In particular, the pandemic has shown how damaging congestion, pollution and lack of green space can be – including how these factors have contributed to the severity of suffering for city dwellers. We have an opportunity to change city living for the better.
Barcelona offers an example of how city areas can be transformed to reduce pollution and increase access to green space.
The city pioneered the concept of superblocks, first introduced in 2016, as part of green urban planning. Superblocks are neighbourhoods of nine blocks. Traffic is restricted to major roads around the superblocks, leaving the streets inside for pedestrians and cyclists.
Recently, further plans have been announced to expand green zones in the city’s central district, Eixample. This is a major expansion of low-traffic zones, giving priority to pedestrians and cyclists to reduce pollution and provide green spaces.
The new plan will cover 21 streets and have space for 21 new pedestrian plazas at intersections. At least 80% of each street is to be shaded by trees in summer and 20% unpaved. A public competition in May 2021 will decide the final design.
The purpose of the plan is to ensure that no resident will be more than 200 metres from a green space.
There are many benefits to creating urban green spaces like these. They include an improvement in air quality and noise levels on the car-free streets, and a reduction in levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) from road traffic. Exposure to high level of NO₂ can lead to a range of respiratory problems.
COVID-19 has made the case for green urban planning even more compelling. However, these plans can come at a cost.
Barriers to green cities
A particular negative impact of green zones could be a high demand for housing, leading to subsequent rises in property prices. This can lead to gentrification and displacement of local residents and businesses. Care must be taken to make sure that homes remain affordable and urban green zones do not become rich enclaves.
The COVID-19 lockdowns highlighted the difference in living conditions faced by city dwellers. Green initiatives must work for all socio-economic groups, and must not exacerbate existing inequalities.
In addition, while city centres are the usual focus areas for greening initiatives, suburbs and other peripheral areas also need attention. The goal is to reduce carbon dependence in total – not shift it from one area to another, or one sector to another.
The plan should also include steps to make private and public transport completely green. This could include replacing carbon-producing transport system with zero-emission vehicles and providing ample infrastructure such as dedicated lanes and charging stations for electric vehicles.
Cities differ hugely in how they look, shape and operate. One size will not fit all. If other cities choose to follow Barcelona’s model, local issues must be carefully considered. Superblocks work really well in a neat grid system such as in central Barcelona. But many cities do not have a well-designed grid system.
However, the principles of green, environmentally friendly, car-free or restricted-traffic neighbourhoods can be adopted in any city. Examples of schemes include low-traffic neighbourhoods in London, the 15-minute city initiative in Paris, or Manchester’s plans for a zero-carbon city centre.
While adopting such interventions, it is important to keep citizens’ daily needs in mind to avoid adding extra burdens on them. If motor traffic is to be limited, the availability of public transport must be considered, safe infrastructure for walking and cycling as well as adequate road structure for essential services or deliveries.
Significant capital investment is needed to support these plans. The Barcelona plan is projected to cost €38 million (£34 million). Much more will be required if it is to roll out to more areas. Cities in the developing world and poorer countries cannot afford such huge sums. Moreover, COVID-19 has left several cities laden with a huge amount of debt.
Green city initiatives need to be long-term – and created with the support of local people. Recognition of the benefits of green living and informed support of developments will result in positive behaviour changes by the citizens.
Earlier in the summer, we shared some of the information our Research Officers had picked up while joining webinars on public and social policy.
Since then, we’ve taken part in more of these virtual seminars, and in today’s blog we’re providing an overview of the wide range of topics covered.
Low traffic neighbourhoods
Earlier this month, Project Centre, which specialises in public realm regeneration and sustainability, organised a webinar on the challenges of implementing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) are a group of residential streets where through traffic is removed or discouraged, and any remaining traffic must operate at a pedestrian pace. The focus is not only to reduce congestion and improve safety by getting traffic back onto main arterial road networks, but also to provide environmental benefits, improve public health, community cohesion and encourage people to spend more, quality time in the areas where they live by making places “liveable”.
This webinar looked at the design and implementation of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, with guest speakers from two local authority areas (Waltham Forest and the Liverpool City Region), as well as designers from Project Centre who support the implementation of Low Traffic Neighbourhood Schemes. The speakers discussed their own experiences designing and implementing low traffic neighbourhoods and shared potential lessons for those looking to implement their own scheme.
The speakers all emphasised some key elements to effective design and implementation of LTNs they included:
LTNs are not just about transport, they can have health and wellbeing, community cohesion and crime reduction and economic impacts for local businesses as people are encouraged and enabled to shop more safely in their local areas.
schemes should be done with communities, not to them
LTNs should be designed with everyone in mind to bring pedestrians and cyclists “on par” with cars in terms of the use of street space
effective data and evaluation can help build a case for wider roll outs.
The new long life: a framework for flourishing in a changing world
This webinar was delivered by the International Longevity Centre (ILC) and included a number of speakers from a range of backgrounds who came together to discuss the impact of longevity and ageing on our engagement with work and the labour market, particularly in relation to digital technology and the changing nature of work post COVID-19. Speakers included Prof. Andrew Scott, Caroline Waters, Jodi Starkman, Stefan Stern, Lily Parsey and George MacGinnis.
Many of the speakers highlighted the difference between the ageing agenda and the longevity agenda, explaining that while many of us will live and work for longer than ever before, the nature of work and the stages of life are changing in a way that for many will be unrecognisable as the “traditional life journey”.
They stressed the need to move away from “traditional linear thinking” about how we age, with education at the start, mid-life being punctuated by work and potentially parenthood, then retirement, and that ageing in the future will be full of more “life stages” and more mini cycles where career breaks, learning and other life “punctuations” will take place at different times of life. It was suggested that the nature of work will change so much that re-learning and at times re-training will be a necessity at multiple points in life, and not just by those who change career deliberately.
Ageing well must, according to speakers, remain high on the policy agenda of future governments to ensure that the growing population of older people can live lives that are enjoyable, purposeful and productive and can contribute to wider society well into what would currently be considered “old age”.
Clearing the air
This has been a year like no other. But while attention has rightly focused on the number of Covid-19 fatalities – more than 800,000 worldwide – there is another hidden killer which has been responsible for more deaths than coronavirus, HIV and malaria combined. Research has found that air pollution caused an extra 8.8 million deaths around the world in 2015.
We’ve written before about efforts to improve air quality, and in July a webinar organised by Catapult Connected Places looked at further innovative ways to understand and tackle air pollution across the globe.
Eloise Marais, an Associate Professor in Physical Geography at UCL talked about TRACE – the Tool for Recording and Assessing the City Environment – that she is developing using satellite observations of atmospheric composition. Satellites offer more complete and consistent coverage than surface monitors, and satellites can also monitor many air pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, ozone, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter.
But while satellites have a long and well sustained record of recording data – some have been in space for more than a decade – their measurements have limitations in terms of spatial resolution. At the moment, these can only cover city-wide air quality, rather than providing postal code measurements. Eloise explained that, while satellite data has been used to show that air quality improvement policies have been effective in London as a whole, they cannot yet confirm that in some parts of the city pollution levels are not falling. Even so, Eloise noted that spatial resolution is improving.
Later in the webinar, Bob Burgoyne, Market Intelligence Team Lead at Connected Places Catapult talked about the Innovating for Clean Air India Programme. India is home to 14 of the world’s most polluted cities. One of these, the city of Bangalore is especially badly affected, and Bob described a project which aims to improve the city’s air quality and enable a transition to electric vehicles. The Catapult network has been working with academic and professional bodies, and with small and medium sized enterprises in India to measure and demonstrate the impact of pedestrianizing a major street in Bangalore on Sundays. The long term goal is to permanently pedestrianise the street, and to demonstrate active and electric mobility solutions.
Back on track: London’s transport recovery
This webinar, organised by the Centre for London, discussed the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on London’s transport systems and explored the impact of changes to Londoners’ travel habits on the actions required for recovery.
The event included contributions from Rob Whitehead, Director of Strategic Projects at Centre for London, Cllr Sophie McGeevor, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport at London Borough of Lewisham, and Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer and Director of Strategy at Transport for London.
A major concern raised by speakers was that current trends indicate that car usage is returning to normal levels faster than any other form of transport. Public transport, such as bus and tube, is slowly recovering but its usage is often linked to changes to lockdown restrictions, with surges in use as restrictions are lifted that very quickly level off. Additionally, although it appears that active transport use has increased, this increase tends to be at weekends and is more apparent in outer London.
As a result of these trends, there is a serious concern that levels of traffic in London may exceed the levels experienced prior to the lockdown. Currently, road traffic is at roughly 90% of normal levels, if this rises to 110%, the resulting congestion will result in gridlock and could have major implications for London’s economy.
How should we use grey literature?
This webinar was organised by the CILIP Health Libraries Group, for CILIP members to learn about and discuss how grey literature is used by libraries, and the benefits and challenges of making use of such content.
The main talk was delivered by two members of the library team from the King’s Fund – Deena Maggs and Kathy Johnson – who emphasised the importance of grey literature as a means of delivering timely and up to date information to users, particularly in the context of health and social care policy, where information needs tend to be very immediate.
The session involved discussions about the usefulness of grey literature in terms of Covid-19 recovery planning, as well as the challenge of determining the credibility of content which is not peer reviewed or commercially published.
The speakers gave practical advice around selecting and evaluating such sources, and highlighted the broadening range of ‘grey’ content that libraries can make use of, such as audio recordings, blog posts, and Tweets.
Follow us on Twitter to see which topics are interesting our research team.
Science tells us that improvements to our air quality bring real health benefits – fewer heart attacks, strokes and premature births, less cancer, dementia and asthma, and lower incidences of premature deaths.
Better health because of cleaner air has been a strong driving force behind efforts by local and national government to keep highly polluting vehicles away from city centres, where air quality can be especially poor.
Earlier this year, we blogged about initiatives to improve the air quality of cities by banning the most polluting vehicles that emit dangerous levels of nitrogen dioxide and poisonous particulate matter.
Driving out diesel
There have also been important policy announcements to underline how seriously national and local authorities are taking the issue of air pollution. In July 2017, the UK government announced plans to phase out the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040, with all fuel-powered vehicles to be banned from the roads entirely by 2050. Shortly afterwards, the Scottish Government unveiled plans to ban new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2032 – eight years ahead of the proposed deadline set out by the London government. These moves replicate measures introduced by France and cities such as Amsterdam, and Hamburg.
Electric currents
As diesel and petrol cars are phased out, alternatives, such as battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles are moving in. These have a lower environmental impact and could also help the UK to meet its target of net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
At present, electric-powered vehicles make up a small part of the UK car market – just 0.9% of new cars are electric. But sales of electric cars have been rising – in June 2019 there was a 61.7% increase in battery electric vehicles registered in the UK, and in July electric car sales continued to accelerate (meanwhile, diesel registrations fell for the 28th consecutive month). This trend is set to continue as car manufacturers in the UK and overseas invest more in electric vehicle production.
Diesel and petrol cars could be phased out much more quickly if more drivers could be persuaded to go electric. But many are still reluctant to make the switch due to concerns about the distances that electric cars can travel between charges (the electric Volkswagen Golf, for example, needs recharging every 120 miles) and the availability of a robust charging infrastructure. But for most drivers, the leap in costs of switching to electric has proved the major stumbling block.
In the UK, the government has cut subsidies and grants for some hybrid and electric vehicles, leading to a slump in hybrid sales. By contrast, Norway’s government is leaving no doubt that they want drivers to turn away from diesel and petrol cars. The Norwegian government has backed up its ambitious goal to stop selling new gas and diesel passenger cars and vans by 2025 (15 years ahead of the UK government’s target) with incentives to go electric. These include tax breaks for electric cars, access for electric vehicles to fast-track bus lanes, plus discounts on parking and charging. Drivers are getting the message: in April 2019, almost 59% of all cars sold in Norway were electric.
Other countries are also joining the electric vehicle bandwagon, including France, the Netherlands, Germany and the world leader in electric mobility, China.
Meanwhile, in 2018, the House of Commons Business Select Committee said the UK government’s plans to ban diesel and petrol emitting vehicles were “vague and unambitious”. The committee was also critical of the subsidy cuts and the lack of charging points.
Putting the brakes on: the downside of electric vehicles
Electric vehicles have the potential to bring significant benefits to the UK economy, and many believe that Britain could become a world leader in electric car production. But this would require large-scale lithium-ion battery cell plants facilities. There are currently no plans for these in the UK, while China and Germany are setting the pace on battery production.
Although electric vehicles have been heralded as an environmental good news story, manufacturing their batteries requires raw materials such as cobalt, the mining of which has considerable environmental and human costs. At the same time, the electricity used to charge the vehicles is largely generated from fossil fuels. And, just like petrol and diesel vehicles, electric cars produce large amounts of pollution from brake and tyre dust.
Green for go?
Despite the drawbacks, electric vehicles are on the move. Manufacturers are launching new ranges to meet increasing demand and to comply with EU rules on carbon dioxide emissions limits. The International Energy Agency predicts there will be 125 million electric vehicles in use worldwide by 2030.
In Britain, the charging infrastructure is already growing, and set to improve, further. The UK government is also proposing that all new-build homes should be fitted with charging points for electric vehicles. The Scottish Government has announced plans to make the A9 Scotland’s first fully electric-enabled road, and the city of Dundee is already making progress on zero-carbon transport. Meanwhile, in London Mayor Sadiq Khan has pledged that all London’s taxis and minicabs will be electric by 2033.
But, as a July 2019 report from the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS) warns, electric vehicles will not address the problems of congestion, urban sprawl and inactive lifestyles. The authors recommend that governments should be doing more to discourage people from driving, and shifting the focus of travel to more sustainable modes, such as walking and cycling.
Electric cars may help clear the air and bring subsequent health benefits. But they won’t drive away all of the challenges facing our motor-centric cities.
If you’d like to read more on this subject, take a look at our previous blog posts…
This guest blog was written by Nicole Badstuber, Researcher in Urban Transport Governance at the Centre for Transport Studies, UCL.
For the first time since 2008, the number of people using the world-famous London Underground – locally known as “the tube” – has fallen. After over two decades of long-term growth, passenger numbers are down 2%, from 1.38 billion in the financial year 2016-17, to 1.35 billion in 2017-18. Bus use also peaked in 2014, and has been falling steadily each year. Simply put, fewer people in London are using public transport – and this means fewer ticket sales. This has created a funding gap that puts plans for improvements and upgrades in serious jeopardy.
Since the national government cut its £700m a year grant, London’s transport agency, Transport for London (TfL), has been banking on ticket sales to fund the capital’s transport system. But this year, TfL has had to revise its income from tickets sales down by £240m.
This spells trouble for the agency, which plans for ticket sales to generate up to £6.2 billion, or 62%, of the £10.2 billion budget for 2022-23 – a step increase from today’s £4.6 billion, or 45% of this year’s budget. Since London Mayor Sadiq Khan is committed to freezing single fares, additional growth will need to come from more passengers.
This is, in some ways, a reasonable expectation: population and employment – the key drivers of transport demand – are still growing in London. TfL points towards economic factors, including the uncertainty of Brexit, to explain the downturn in demand for public transport. But this year’s lower passenger numbers point instead towards lifestyle changes, which are affecting when and how people choose to travel.
London’s missing passengers
Travel surveys show that the average Londoner made only 2.2 trips (across all transport modes) a day in 2016-17, down 20% from 2006-7. So despite population growth, transport demand has not risen as much as expected. This decline is mirrored across England: between 2002 and 2016 a 9% drop in trips across all modes was recorded.
Passenger numbers and journey stages on London Underground. Travel in London Report 10/TfL, Author provided
Flexible and remote working practices are contributing to this trend: instead of commuting to work five days, the new normal for Londoners is now four. Over the past decade, commuting trips have dropped by 14.2%.
At the same time, the cost of travel has been increasing. While single fares on the bus and the tube cost approximately the same in real terms between 2000 and 2012, they have increased 5% and 3% respectively since then. The cost of season tickets is up even more; 8% on the bus and 6% on the London Underground in real terms since 2012.
Greater transport costs mean less disposable income, which partially explains why Londoners are making fewer leisure and shopping trips, instead opting to stay home and shop online. Meanwhile, London’s changing mix of traffic suggests that personal trips are being substituted with deliveries. This shifts the burden from the public transport network to the road network. Across London, light goods vans are making up a growing proportion of traffic: accounting for 14% of traffic in 2016, up from 10% in 1993 and 11% in 2000.
Trouble for TFL
To avoid a major shortfall, TfL will need to look at new ways to fund transport. One solution might be to reform London’s congestion charge. Currently, the congestion charge covers less than 1.5% of the city, applies only between 7am and 6pm, consists of a simple, daily flat rate, and exempts private hire vehicles – your Uber drivers and minicabs.
Over the past four years, there has been a 75% increase in the number of registered private hire vehicles. On Friday and Saturday nights, 18,000 cars flood the streets of Central London. With New York City set to introduce a surcharge for taxis and private hire vehicles (US$2.50 and US$2.75 respectively), London might also want to follow suit.
A more comprehensive road pricing strategy would be an effective tool to manage traffic and generate funds for the transport system. A reformed congestion charge alongside good public transport, cycling infrastructure and public space could encourage Londoners to shift away from their cars toward travelling by public transport, walking and cycling.
TfL predicts that most of its revenue growth – £3.2 billion over the next five years – will come from the new Elizabeth Line, which is set to start running in December 2018. By 2022-23, TfL expects passenger numbers on the Elizabeth Line to increase by 200m to 269m, and tickets sales to earn £913m. Over the same period, passenger numbers on the London Underground and bus network are forecast to rise by just 5% and 3% respectively.
The income from the Elizabeth Line is crucial to TfL balancing its books. As outgoing deputy mayor for transport, Val Shawcross, warned, delays to the Elizabeth Line opening on time are TfL’s greatest revenue risk. So as engineering challenges threaten to push back the opening date, TfL’s money worries look set to worsen.
The funding conundrum
TfL is also seeking to earn from developments on some of the 300 acres of land it owns in the city. By 2022-23, the property partnerships agreed between TfL and thirteen large property development companies in 2016 are set to generate £3.4 billion of income to reinvest into London’s transport system. London Mayor Sadiq Khan is pushing for further sites to be unlocked, to generate more funds and meet his manifesto commitment to build more affordable homes for Londoners.
Khan’s manifesto pledge to freeze single fare tickets throughout his term is estimated to cost £640m. Arguably, reneging on that promise could return £640m to TfL’s purse. TfL points to national rail services where fares are higher and the reduction in passenger numbers has been greater, and argue that the fare freeze blunted the drop in passenger numbers.
If TfL fails to find new ways to fund its network, more cuts to upgrade and capital programmes are only a matter of time. The agency has already cut its funding for streets, cycling and public spaces in London’s boroughs, and suspended its roads renewal programme and underground capacity upgrades. TfL’s reliance on ticket sales to fund the capital’s transport system makes it very vulnerable to unexpected changes in demand. To ensure London continues to have a world-class transport system, both Khan and TfL must urgently find new sources of funding.
Nicole Badstuber is Researcher in Urban Transport Governance at the Centre for Transport Studies, UCL
This article was originally published on The Conversation website and has been republished with permission under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
From Roman roads, to Victorian ‘cathedrals of steam’, transport has played a pivotal role in the development of societies and economies throughout history.
Today, rising energy prices, road congestion, and climate change, as well as reduced household sizes and an increased demand for urban living have put the potential benefits of urban transport hubs back in the spotlight.
Transit-orientated development
Transit-orientated development (TOD) is one response. An American-concept, it involves the creation of high-density mixed-use developments around a transit station or stop, such as a railway station, usually within a half-mile radius (a 10-minute walk approximately). It may include office space, retail, leisure facilities and housing, as well as public areas and green space, and a variety of public transport options.
In Europe, TOD has yet to ‘catch on’. However, it shares many similar principles with the increasingly popular concept of developing railway stations as destinations in their own right – for shopping, working and socialising. Railways often form an important part of a town or city centre, and the combination of transport node and central location has the potential to attract people in great numbers.
The redevelopment of London King’s Cross station and the surrounding industrial wasteland made it one of the first ‘destination stations’ in the UK. Around the station, new homes, shops, offices, galleries, bars, restaurants, a hotel, schools and a university were created, along with 20 new streets, 10 new public parks and squares, and 26 acres of open space. In fact, the redevelopment was on such a scale that the area now has its own postcode – N1C.
As well as environmental benefits such as reduced air pollution and traffic congestion, mixed-use developments in and around railway stations can help meet housing demand, and spur the economic and social regeneration of their surrounding communities. Particular benefits can include:
Increased demand for food, retail and leisure facilities from greater numbers of commuters, residents and workers
Helping high streets to compete with online retailers and out of town developments
Contributing to public health goals through increased walkability of areas
Making good use of previously inaccessible/waste land
Government support
There is strong government support for delivering improvements around railway stations.
The recent Housing white paper recognises the regenerative potential of railway stations, viewing them as key anchors for the next generation of urban housing developments.
Two new sources of funding for railway station developments have also recently been announced: the second round of the New Stations Fund – a £20 million pot to build new stations or reopen previously closed stations; and the Station Regeneration programme – which aims to develop railway stations and surrounding land, while delivering up to 10,000 new homes.
Alongside this, there are also plans to release large amounts of unused railway land for housing – enough to build 12,000 houses across 200 sites.
Large and small
In addition to developments focused around one particular station or city, there are also a number of major railway-based infrastructure projects currently taking place. Among these are the Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Programme (including recently approved plans to redevelop Glasgow Queen Street station), Great Western Electrification, Crossrail and HS2. All of these have the potential to catalyse regeneration in their surrounding areas.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are also a number of successful smaller scale regeneration projects involving railways.
Addressing the challenges
The development of railway sites can pose a number of challenges, including contaminated land, fragmented land ownership and reconciling short-term economic development goals with the longer time scales necessary in larger infrastructure projects.
However, according to James Harris, a policy officer at the Royal Town Planning Institute, planners are ‘uniquely’ placed to work with landowners, infrastructure providers, developers and the local community to help deliver a strategic vision for these locations.
Planners should also be flexible and creative in their approach towards station redevelopments, focusing on outcomes rather than processes, says David Crook, assistant director of station regeneration at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s Cities and Local Growth Unit. In doing so, he says, planners can help make a station regeneration project ‘more than the sum of its parts’.
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