Can’t you just fly?

“Can’t you just fly?” is the exasperated refrain as I reel off my itinerary to my friends, family and husband. I’ve been plotting multimodal transcontinental journeys for about as long as I have had my own passport (which probably coincided with reading the words ‘greenhouse effect’ in my dad’s New Scientist in the 1980s). Whilst I never say never, I do spend a lot of time considering, planning and working out whether flying can be replaced with a combination of trains, buses, ferries and bicycles (with the occasional electric car trip and car sharing figuring too).

On the plus side this also means that, as a transport person, I can put my hand on my heart and say I’ve tested out the limits of multi-modal low carbon travel. Sometimes I’ve found it challenging (it shouldn’t just be my personal wilfulness that makes it possible) but sometimes I’ve even persuaded people to come along.

One positive is that I’ve noticed is that long distance rail travel is getting easier. I reckon that I was on one of the last couchette trains to Perpignan in the 1990s, just before they were taken out of service and long before I was involved in transport. There was a brief piece on the radio and I had a quiet sad moment of frustration and despair.

A couple of years ago I was one of the first takers for the revived programme of refurbished sleeper trains between the south of France and Paris. And I am enjoying the renaissance in sleeper travel as the list of routes keeps growing. There are plans in place to connect Europeans rapidly and comprehensively by rail.

I love sleeper trains. Nothing beats the trundling motion for sleeping - or the anticipation of waking up somewhere new. It’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve slept my way across continents. From Milan to Germany and from Inverness to London (and again in the 90s) London to Penzance as well as my regular trips between Paris and Perpignan. As an adventurous teenager I navigated the length of India by train, from the foothills of the Himalayas to the Kerala in the south.

Lately my sleeper train experience is by SNCF, where train de nuit first class couchettes are spacious. But unless I bag a bargain I usually book the top bunk in the women’s compartment, which is easy to fill with all my bags, packs, notebooks, books and night train kit.

Ferries too enable this magic. Realising that I could pack all my stuff onto my bike in various frame bags and seat rolls and then ride onto a ferry was a revelation.

Pre-covid (and before P&O fired all their staff and rehired them at reduced wages) the Hull ferry was my favourite way to leave the UK. Just cut across eastwards from Todmorden on the train. Make use of the Hull cycle lanes, board ferry and wake up in Rotterdam (or Zeebrugge if you don’t mind cycling down a major traffic heavy dual carriageway as you emerge from the boat).

This arrangement is much easier now bike racks have started appearing on trains that refused to carry cycles previously. Cyclists can now get that self same night train from Paris to the south of France. New TGVs and German ICE trains have cycle spaces where previously bikes were banned on board without exception.

This temporary bike aversion was something I found out the hard way on a trip a few years ago when ICE train rolling stock was substituted for the regional train I’d booked for me and my laden bicycle. The guard said ‘Nein’ very emphatically which led to a great deal of rerouting and rebooking. It worked out. But not that day.

Maps too can be misleading. I’ve written a lot about transport data, including pavements and issues for pedestrians and cyclists, but even knowing the issues I have been caught out.

With ageing parents in eastern Germany I set out from the north of England on a well packed bike. The bike got me from Hull train station to the ferry. And from the ferry terminal to Rotterdam station on the other side. Whilst the theory was that this was only 10 miles on google maps, the bike lane route was double that. I had to put my head down and pedal ‘spiritedly’ to make my train.

Even this is improving. Better mapping and journey planners are taking root. You can book combinations of trains across national borders more reliably. And find your way round cities with MaaS and protocols-MaaS apps.

It’s not just the carbon footprint of surface travel that appeals to me. I like the feeling that I could change tack. Standing in a station surrounded by the bustle of travellers, the engines’ throaty growls, the beeps and the whistles, I’m often tempted by the promise of far away places that are just a train ride away. I could ditch my plans and hop on the express train to Vienna. Or Istanbul. There’s a romance and allure I find difficult to explain. Can’t I just fly? No.

Do I fly? Yes. Sometimes. I recently gave up on trying to get from the south of France to Dublin overland and booked a flight. That was a rail-tunnel-rail-ferry-rail combination that went beyond my tolerance for time spent sitting (or lying) down.

Rural transport - and islands in particular - present challenges which will hopefully be alleviated by short hop electric planes and even (with all sorts of provisos) drones that can reduce the carbon footprint of sea-crossings and other hard to traverse features.

As humans we get very tied into the idea that there’s one way to do things. It’s easier and quicker and reduces our cognitive load to commit to a single solution. Whether it’s flying everywhere or not flying anywhere.

But the thing is, the plurality and multiplicity of options is powerful and resilient.

So here’s to mixing it up.

Rural Transport is Vital For City Centres

In this piece for Passenger Transport, Beate examines the relationship between cities, which tend to be seen as able to support good public transport networks, and less densely populated adjacent areas, which are often regarded as not worth investing in.

Using the example of Manchester, UK, the travel patterns of the city centre and the outlying settlements are analysed to make a case for investment across the board, rather than focusing efforts solely on urban areas

Read the article here (PDF).

National. Bus. Strategy.

There are a number of interesting and exciting things about Bus Back Better, the National Bus Strategy for England.

The first thing that is important about the National Bus Strategy is that it is a strategy – it emphasises the strategic importance of buses for achieving national goals from net zero to economic recovery and doesn’t hold back on their potential. It’s a manifesto for change which starts by setting out exactly how the bus system (if you can call it a system) fails passengers, and how, in failing passengers it fails communities, both urban and rural.

Many of the failings are down to the deregulated marketplace for bus services, which actively prevents bus operators from cooperating by law. This is exacerbated by the industry’s siege mentality, focusing on attempts to maintain market share and shore up passenger numbers in a (seemingly) dwindling market. There also a disconnect between ‘for profit’ mass transport corridors and routes in low density areas which require subsidies from an ever-shrinking pot in order to run at all.

The net impact is that services (in general) have reduced in frequency, run over smaller areas and increased in cost. They are both less useful to the travelling public and less compelling as a transport option. Without reliability in frequency, coverage and price, the bus has become less relevant.

The second significant aspect of the Strategy is that it compels local authorities and bus operators to work together. Where the Bus Services Act of 2017 had begun to roll back some of the deregulation of the 1980s through measures including mandating data sharing, encouraging partnership and no longer completely banning franchising, the National Bus Strategy expects to see operators and Local Authorities working together in Enhanced Partnerships and to actively look at the potential for franchising. It makes Enhanced Partnerships a minimum condition for the receipt of future Bus Service Operators Grants. Until now, Transport Authorities considering franchising have done so whilst under threat of legal action by operators. The sea change is likely to reduce these kind of cross-winds for authorities seeking better control of network planning.

And the third is the way in which it highlights financial support for buses, through investment and ongoing support. This includes infrastructure (like priority bus lanes) and zero emission vehicles, plus technology (which would enable fare capping and integration in Mobility as a Service). It also explicitly looks at the ongoing support for the industry being related to ensuring a strategic bus network – high frequency services in urban areas and reliable coverage – including, potentially, on-demand – services in less dense rural areas.

These three elements could represent a major shift in bus provision with the potential to really change the trajectory of bus travel.

Rural mobility call for evidence

Beate recently submitted a response to the Department for Transport’s call for evidence on its future rural transport strategy. The response considers the potential role of DRT in rural transport, looking at the example of DRT programmes in rural France. At a cost of over £20 per person per trip, are such schemes unaffordable luxuries, or are they actually cost-effective, taking into account all their potential benefits?

Read the response here (PDF)

Some good news

Last week I heard formally that I’ve been awarded a fellowship by the Foundation for Integrated Transport. I’m really grateful to have some time to pursue some of the research that falls outside my consultancy in a bit more depth.

A few months ago I started writing a paper for rural mobility workshop for the University of Hertfordshire’s Smart Mobility Unit. I got knee-deep in data looking at travel patterns between central Manchester and the Greater Manchester urban areas, and it just got more interesting. I wrote a proposal for the Foundation to give me some time to do more analysis (not just data, but lived experience as well) and I’m fortunate to have been awarded a fellowship to study it more deeply. It’s a real honour.

Some of the things I will be looking at include:

• Data analysis of 6 suburban/peri urban areas in Greater Manchester to show car vs other commuter patterns.

• How often is transport given a high accessibility score at both origin and destination? To what extent does this correlate with public transport use / car driving?

I hope to create some detailed profiles of the areas and examine:

• More granular mapping of transport accessibility index

• Select some key journeys and analyse possible transport routes, costs and timings. Do they support the accessibility indices?

• Compare with experience based profiling (eg connectivity / interchange times are not included in the indices) plus walking time and infrastructure for walking.

• Analyse these routes against current deregulated and also commissioned services.

• Analyse whether new demand responsive transport and micromobilty modes would improve connections between people’s origins and destinations. Could they reduce the need for car journeys and make MaaS possible? What are the cost implications and benefits for local authorities?

I’m hoping that this time will allow me to do some thinking about better data on pavements too as safe active travel routes will be one of the important components for any MaaS platforms to be useful.

I presented a summary of my thinking (pre the fellowship to FISITA recently - you can read it here.

And below is what I like to think of as the start of my mapping adventures. I hope it will become more complex and sophisticated in time.

Congratulations too to fellow FIT fellows Alistair Kirkbride and Jonathan Tyler. You can read more about our fellowships here.

Please do get in touch if you’d like to follow this project. I am hoping it will be something that will contribute to the wider discussion of Mobility as a Service.

New mobility in a crisis?

I was asked for my thoughts about the impact of the COVID19 crisis on mobility as a service and future transport by Sandra Witzel of Skedgo. Here’s what I said:

I think that the widespread social distancing and lockdown measures have two main impacts. 

The first is pretty obvious; reduced demand. We can see the impact of working from home and people on furlough on transport data trackers such as Citymapper’s index. Demand for online ordering and delivery has rocketed and we’re seeing the replacement of shopping trips by delivery on a grand scale. 

The second is that as the roads empty, there is more room for cycling and walking (and indeed to maintain social distancing we need wider pavements). Bike share and e-bikes have stepped up to help NHS and other key workers make their essential journeys. Other shared transport providers - Liftshare, HiyaCar, Zipcar are all stepping in. Even tech enabled taxi services are creating fare plans for essential workers. 

Whilst the immediate impacts are very much to reduce public transport (which is at the core of MaaS) this may not be a long term impact. 

There will be direct and indirect consequences of the crisis - at the same time as we are released to travel, the economic impact may well be being felt. People - many of whom have barely used their cars for months - may well look to shed the costs of car ownership as they feel the pinch. It’s hard to predict at present but this may well play out as increasing demand for forms of MaaS, smart transport and new mobility.

Disruption is the mother of transport behaviour change. Not only must we not assume that we will pick up where we left off, but we must also actively work to shape the new behaviours which will form in future.

Having read the full article, there are many people trying to ensure the future is shaped so that it doesn’t repeat the mistakes of the past.

Here in Calderdale I’ve set up a volunteer e-cargobike delivery service. More about this later.