Welcome to this week's edition of our newsletter, your 5-minute guide to key strategic transport topics around the world.

This week, we saw the tragic incident at New Delhi Station, a Canadian government announcement on High-Speed Rail, and the beginnings of a legal fight over New York's congestion relief zone.

A proper review is rightly taking place following the incident in Delhi, but the overcrowding of stations is something where I believe we are missing a trick, so that is where we will start this week.

Russell

PS Do you want to become part of a global community of practice in transport and infrastructure? See the Communities of Practice section below for more info.

• The Cost of Overcrowding: Why We Must Rethink Peak-Hour Demand Management.
• 15-minute cities: How to make them a reality.
• Are fare caps a costly mistake?
• Transport Interchange Hubs, lessons from Hong Kong.
• Blog - Should commuter parking at train stations be free?
• Leadership topic - how to battle red tape.
• Communities of Practice
• Plus, innovation and tools.

The Cost of Overcrowding: Why We Must Rethink Peak-Hour Demand Management

This week saw the tragic loss of at least 18 people crushed at the New Delhi Railway Station.

As this accident demonstrates, overcrowding at stations is a serious safety risk that needs to be properly managed. Of course, if we see an increased use of public transport, our stations will become busier, and the risks of overcrowding will increase.

One strategy we deploy is upgrading stations to handle higher capacity. Unfortunately, this can become costly, especially when increased capacity is required at multiple stations. Of course, we cannot compromise safety, but are there sometimes better options to resolve the risks of overcrowding?

Overcrowding risk varies from station to station. A station near a stadium will face the risk of overcrowding whenever the venue is being used, whereas commuter stations face overcrowding at peak times.

The business case for upgrades for commuter stations has become more complicated since COVID. The risk of overcrowding is only for a short period at the peak of the morning peak. Historically, this would have occurred 5 times a week. However, now it is often only 3 times per week as hybrid working arrangements have become more popular. Often, these business cases will look at tactics for managing overcrowding, such as stopping people from entering the station, opening ticket barriers to speed up exit, and even delaying trains from opening their doors. However, these tactics will often only work for a limited time. Are there other alternatives that we should be considering?

The short answer is yes. We should use two strategies to manage demand more effectively on our rail networks. First, we should work with local businesses to encourage staff to avoid the morning peak. Second, we should use a fare pricing policy to encourage people to avoid travelling at peak times. For example, we could charge more for peak (or peak of the peak) times, potentially reducing off-peak fares to create a larger differential.

This demand management would help spread the passenger load, use capacity more efficiently, and reduce the need for expensive infrastructure upgrades. This would free up capital for more valuable projects to upgrade the transport system.

What next?

Do you have a demand management policy for the peak of the peak?

15-minute cities: How to make them a reality

Outside of conspiracy theorists, many people are looking at the quality of life provided by 15-minute cities and asking what we can do to get closer to that ideal.

Unfortunately, too many articles discuss what needs to be done but fail to mention how. There are two things that many places could do to make a significant difference:

1. Build transport-oriented developments. Building density and amenities around transport hubs at scale would significantly increase the number of people able to access the 15-minute city in many places.
2. Allow mixed-use precincts. Zoning has traditionally separated office districts from residential districts. However, the demand for commercial space has changed significantly since COVID-19, creating an opportunity to repurpose or build new residential buildings in traditional commercial centres.

These approaches would be a great outcome from a transport perspective as they encourage more people to use active and public transport and reduce congestion. However, many transport agencies make this more difficult because of outdated trip-generation tools that require expensive roads and other upgrades in these centres to support increased density.

What next?

Do your transport policies encourage transport-oriented developments and mixed-use precincts?

Are fare caps a costly mistake?

Fare caps are all the rage, but are they a good policy?

On 1 January 2023, the UK launched a￡2 fare cap for buses that lasted for 2 years. The intention was to help with the cost of living and increase bus patronage. The first three phases of the scheme cost￡210m.

A detailed evaluation of the fare cap for its first 10 months has now been completed:

• It increased bus patronage by 5% with a mode shift primarily away from cars.
• The scheme reduced travel costs and the cost of living.
• People who did not change to using the bus felt that the reliability and frequency of routes had not significantly improved and still served as a significant barrier to bus usage.
• The scheme’s main beneficiaries will likely be people who used single tickets before the scheme and would have made their bus journeys even without the cap.
• The value for money is considered to be low.

Given the low value for money, are there better ways of spending the money?

The answer is yes. Would providing direct income support for low-income households while investing in bus reliability and frequency produce a bigger mode shift and better cost-of-living relief? Almost certainly. Making public transport fares cheap for all to help people with lower incomes is a costly way to give them more money because of the deadweight costs of increasing subsidies for everyone.

The challenge is political. Fare caps are generally popular, so the welfare and transport systems must collaborate to devise a better policy with better outcomes.

What next?

How can we move away from the inefficient use of transport fares to support low-income households whilst still helping these households? Watch out for my blog next week on this topic.

Transport Interchange Hubs, lessons from Hong Kong

In my regular look at strategic planning exemplars from around the world, this week, it is the turn of Hong Kong.

When reading Hong Kong’s strategic plans, the one thing that stood out was its commitment to investing heavily in Transport Interchange Hubs (TIH).

A TIH is simply where multiple modes of public transport, like buses, trains, and trams, converge, allowing passengers to transfer between them easily. However, Hong Kong differs in two ways. Firstly, it aims to ‘supercharge’ each TIH with a principle of single site and multiple uses. This means that as well as great interchange facilities, the hubs are also destinations in their own right, with great amenities for the public, including shopping and dining. This concept isn’t new; there are examples in China (Shapingba Station in Chongqing), the UK (St Pancras Station in London), and Singapore (Jurong East).

However, Hong Kong is going further. It is putting the next generation of TIHs at the heart of its strategy and creating them wherever it makes sense.

The hope is that this will attract people to use public and active transport. It will also expected to provide significant revenues from the leases in the hubs that can be reinvested in the transport system.

What next?

Where could you create a next-generation Transport Interchange Hub?

​Blog - Should commuter parking at train stations be free?​

The recent death of Donald Shoup, the top guru in parking, inspired my blog this week. I examined whether free commuter parking was a good idea.

Key takeaways:

Donald Shoup’s three principles (demand-based pricing, returning revenue to the district and removing minimum parking requirements) for replacing ‘free parking’ can be applied to commuter car parks.

Applying these principles would improve public transport mode share and reduce congestion.

Unintended consequences such as overspill on neighbouring roads and financial distributional impacts can be managed.

San Francisco’s BART system proves that it is possible.

A lack of awareness and political risk are probably why Shoup’s principles are not generally applied to commuter car parking. Both of these can be relatively easily resolved.

What Next?

How can your jurisdiction move commuter car parking towards using Shoup’s principles?

How to battle red tape

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Many transport organisations are weighed down by red tape, slowing decision-making, increasing costs and frustrating staff.

What can you do as a leader to tackle the red tape scourge? Here are 5 ideas:

1. Identify and target specific areas where excessive bureaucracy exists.
2. Encourage employees to suggest process improvements and identify areas where simplification is possible.
3. Provide training on lean methodologies and process optimisation techniques.
4. Promote a culture of simplification.
5. Delegate authority to appropriate levels within the organisation.

What next?

What is one area where you know the red tape is excessive? What can you do to tackle it?

Do you want to help create communities of practice in transport and infrastructure?​
I am bringing transport and infrastructure leaders together to co-design dynamic communities of practice across various niches where they can share knowledge, collaborate on solutions, and advance industry best practices. As a participant in the co-design, you'll have the unique opportunity to:

• Influence the community's direction and structure from day one
• Connect with fellow industry leaders from diverse geographical regions and sectors
• Share your expertise and learn from other's experiences in a collaborative environment
• Access and test new resources and tools before they're widely available
• Shape discussion topics and knowledge-sharing formats that will benefit the broader community

This is a ground-floor opportunity to contribute to building something truly valuable for our profession, expand your professional network, and stay at the forefront of industry developments.

What next?

If you're interested in joining a co-design group, please contact me at russell@transportlc.org. I'd be happy to schedule a brief chat to answer any questions you may have about the group and its objectives.

Seniors Crossing Times

Debates exist about how much time people should be given to cross at pedestrian crossings. However, the needs of the population can differ widely. Recognising this, in Singapore, senior citizens can swipe their "Senior Citizen Concession Card" at designated pedestrian crossings to activate an extended pedestrian phase, commonly known as "Green Man Plus," giving them additional time to cross the road safely.

Singapore started trialling this system in 2009, and it is now widespread across the City State. Given the ageing population, why is this innovation not more widespread?

​Healthy Street Indicators​

Healthy Streets is an approach based on 10 indicators that measure the human experience of being on the street.

These indicators are used to improve social, economic, and environmental sustainability.

The Healthy Streets approach aims to create streets where people choose to walk, cycle, and use public transport. Thus, it is an important consideration for transport and is becoming part of strategic transport planning.

There are a range of tools and resources available to help assess the health of streets and design better ones.