Strategic Planning

The Never-Ending Story: Why Induced Demand Still Isn't Shaping Transport Policy

Induced demand is a core concept that explains why we have congestion. This article did a great job of explaining why we have struggled to build it into how we plan transport systems.

Key Takeaways

• The public and policymakers have trouble understanding why building more roads and highways does not reduce congestion.
• Expanding public transport is not an answer to induced demand, because those who switched make roads momentarily less crowded, tempting more drivers to use them.
• The failure of congestion mitigation in cities like Los Angeles, where highway-centric policy has failed most visibly, has not lessened demand for expansion.
• Reading an explainer of induced demand only changes people’s minds in the short term; within six months, people return to their original incorrect understanding.
• An entire industry has been built around lobbying for endless road expansion.
• Transport departments are split. Planning sections of transport agencies are convinced, but design and engineering departments are not.
• Road expansion is attractive regardless of your political orientation or the state of the economy.
• Toll and high-occupancy lanes do not work. An initial reduction in congestion makes them easier to use, resulting in an eventual return to earlier levels of traffic flow.
• Cordons are not perfect. London’s cordon resulted in short-term reductions in congestion, but long-term journey times then returned to previous levels.
• The way to defeat induced demand would be to price roads and constantly adjust them to take into account changes in behaviour.

What next?

Does everyone in your organisation understand induced demand? Is it built into every part of your work, from initial business cases to delivery?

Strategic Planning

Speed Is Overrated: The Accessibility Revolution Changing How We Plan Cities

​This piece by Professor David Levinson tracks the development of and the move towards the transport and land use concept of accessibility, David’s extensive work in this space and what more needs to be done. For those interested in transport planning, it is an essential read.

Key Takeaways

• Planning practice was until recently dominated by mobility metrics – how fast traffic moved and how many vehicles passed through an intersection.
• The Accessibility Turn marks a shift in transport and land-use planning, from focusing on how fast people can move to how well they can reach the things they need.
• A city can have slow traffic yet still offer high accessibility if jobs, services, and homes are close together.
• Cities can boost accessibility quickly with the right interventions, whether through service changes or minor infrastructure tweaks (like where we put a station gate).
• The x-minute city concept is essentially an accessibility metric in plain language.
• By focusing on access, we ensure that transport investments are assessed in terms of what truly matters: the opportunities they create for people and communities.
• Accessibility should be built into cost–benefit tests and planning rules to focus investments on helping people reach the places they need.
• Improving access often increases well-being, but it is not without costs. Access can also raise rents, cause displacement, or lead to more local traffic.
• Standard access metrics assume everyone wants the same things: jobs, schools, and clinics. However, needs vary by age, income, and culture. A good access plan must reflect that.
• Many activities can now happen online. However, most metrics still focus on physical trips. We need new measures that reflect digital access and how it shapes travel.

What next?

Have you fully incorporated accessibility into your transport planning?

Strategic Planning

Beyond Car Dependency: How One Canadian Suburb Reinvented Its Transport

Getting public transport right in car-dependent suburbia is notoriously tricky. Therefore, I was interested in this article about Brampton, Ontario, Canada.

Key Takeaways

• Brampton, Ontario, is a large suburb of Toronto with six-lane-wide arterial roads lined with malls and residential developments full of single-family homes with garages.
• The suburb is home to many factories and distribution centres, massive warehouses surrounded by parking lots.
• Brampton wasn’t always a public transport success story. Twenty years ago, it had infrequent buses, low ridership and a growing traffic congestion problem.
• Then, they upgraded the bus service to a high-frequency network and an all-day service, including separately branded core routes with upgraded buses and shelters.
• Core bus routes run as frequently as every five minutes, with express and local services, while secondary routes run at least every half hour into the late evening.
• The result: 288% ridership growth from 2004 to 2018. With a population of about 700,000, Brampton has 226,500 bus riders on average weekdays.
• High frequency makes transfers feasible, meaning that people can make anywhere-to-anywhere journeys.
• Steady increases in ridership (and therefore revenue) meant that Brampton’s level of public subsidy did not rise significantly despite the massive increase in service.
• The city’s about to break ground on a big light rail extension. The bus route it will replace already carries more people than many long-running light rail lines.
• It’s as much a victory to get a household to decide they don’t need a second or third car as it is to get a household to go completely car-free.

What next?

Do you have suburbs like Brampton where you could consider improving bus services similarly?

Strategic Planning

The Hidden Elements of Paris's Transport Success

The transformation of transport in Paris under Mayor Anne Hidalgo is widely known, with significant increases in its metro network and cycling infrastructure, but are there other takeaways from what Paris has been doing? The answer is yes,

Key Takeaways

• Paris’ transformation did not take place overnight. It started over 20 years ago with plans for dedicated bus lanes and 400 miles of cycling paths.
• Paris also renovated several public plazas, widened sidewalks, improved landscaping, and raised crosswalks to serve pedestrians and cyclists better.
• Car traffic inside Paris decreased by 50% between 2002 and 2022, whilst cycling traffic on bike lanes increased by more than 71% in 2022 compared with 2019.
• The city opened up schoolyards and nurseries to provide residents with recreational spaces.
• The city runs a pedestrianised ‘school streets’ program to support safe travel in and around school zones.
• The city introduced new measures to allocate aspects of policymaking to the city’s boroughs and local mayors.
• In 2021, Paris made available a participatory planning budget of €75 million that residents can allocate to crowdsourced community projects.
• Connecting people in the outer suburbs has also been a key focus with on-demand services and regional express coaches.
• The city is encouraging car pooling using a single booking platform and pre-defined routes.
• An on-demand service for those with disabilities that runs every day of the week, from 6 a.m. to midnight on weekdays and until 12:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

What next?

Are there other aspects of what Paris is doing that could be incorporated into your transport plans?

Blog

The Poverty Tax: How 'Free' Parking Hurts Those Who Can Least Afford It

My blog this week looked at the different aspects of free parking, how they hurt those who can least afford it the most, why free parking persists and what we should do about it.

Leadership

The Art of Stakeholder Engagement

In transport, we often engage with various internal and external stakeholders with different interests. How do we get the most out of these engagements for the benefit of our communities?

• Genuinely listen. Stakeholders often provide valuable insights and feedback that can improve your work.
• Verify. Stakeholders often have vested interests. This does not mean you should dismiss their views; it means you should carefully verify their claims.
• Separate positions from interests. Listen for the underlying interests behind a stakeholder's stated position. Often, creative solutions can address their core concerns while still achieving your transport objectives.
• Establish clear communication channels. Create dedicated, consistent ways to share information and receive feedback. Regular updates prevent information vacuums that can lead to mistrust and opposition.
• Lead with data, not just opinion. Present robust evidence when discussing proposals or responding to concerns. Quantifiable benefits and impacts help ground emotional discussions in reality.
• Be transparent about constraints and trade-offs. Communicate the limitations (budget, timeline, physical space, etc.) that affect decision-making, and be honest about the inevitable trade-offs in any transport project.

What next?

Are there stakeholder claims you need to verify?

Innovation

From Dalek Dilemmas to Elevator Evolution: How Modern Robots Are Finally Conquering Vertical Mobility

If you are not a Doctor Who fan, the obvious flaw in Daleks was their inability to navigate stairs. Similarly, modern-day robots undertaking deliveries cannot cope with stairs or elevators, right? This article suggests that when it comes to elevators, those days are numbered.

Tool

The Mobility Diet: Rethinking Transport Choices as a Health Pyramid

This ‘Mobility Diet’ tool looks at a transport pyramid with the healthiest and most environmentally friendly as the foundation at the bottom and the least healthy at the top.