The hierarchy of sustainable travel

Part of transport policy in the UK is the sustainable transport hierarchy. There are lots of versions of this, as it turns out - see for example here and here.

But generally put, the hierarchy has a number of tiers:

• Walking and wheeling
• Cycling
• Public transport
• Taxis and shared vehicles
• Private cars
• Air travel

Generally, modes are more sustainable as you go up the list - lower pollution, lower carbon emissions. The more active travel modes at the top of the list are also much healthier. They're also more efficient as you go up the list - cars in particular are incredibly inefficient users of the precious space in urban environments. And the costs of providing the infrastructure vary quite widely - there are massive external costs associated with motor transport, which are much higher than the direct income from taxation.

With that, policy should prioritise modes further up the hierarchy. You do see a fair amount of talk about this, although action is far less obvious.

One recent change to the Highway Code, for example, prioritises pedestrians and cylists over vehicles turning into side roads.

But generally, the reality is that the default is to prioritise the car, sometimes subtly. Consider Cambridge Railway station. Come by car or taxi, and you arrive close to the front door. Cyclists are a bit further away, and have to navigate steps. Bus users are down the end of the street. Pedestrians have all sorts of obstacles to navigate.

There are lots of other examples. Pedestrian crossings - if they exist at all - are routinely placed and timed for the convenience of motorists. Bus and cycle lanes are configured and only exist where it's convenient for motorists.

To improve matters, one might consider a range of interventions. These have to be done with care - simply concentrating on one level in the hierarchy runs the risk of causing harm at other levels. Although, generally, an intervention at a specific level is more likely to benefit the tiers below it, while running the risk of harming levels above it.

One example here is that ways to encourage cycling can harm pedestrian activity - shared paths are obviously bad, but taking pavement space for cycle parking also make the lives of pedestrians much worse.

One extreme consequence of the above is that if you want to improve the lot of motorists, you should work to improve the tiers above - as people shift to walking, cycling, or using public transport then you reduce congestion, and that's really the best way to benefit motorists.

Conversely, designing for cars makes the levels above less attractive, which pushes more people towards car use, increasing congestion and making life for motorists worse.

Properly connected bus services?

Dirk Gently was a great fan of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Those who are responsible for our public transport? Not so much.

At least where I am and for the journeys I tend to make, joined-up thinking really hasn't permeated into public transport.

It wasn't that much better in the past - consider how many railway stations are set distant from their notional destination. Blame the Victorian NIMBYs for that one.

Bus stops and bus stations tend to be at fairly random locations. At Cambridge Railway station, they're relegated to way down the road. In Cambridge, some go from a random point on the street on Parkside.

Here in Cambridge we have a number of bus services that are operated in some sort of isolation. There's the regular (Citi) buses; the park and ride services; the U; the guided busway; and recently the intriguing Tiger bus routes. There are several different companies involved.

Cross-ticketing really isn't a thing. If your route involves multiple suppliers, pay them separately. If the convoluted route map involves multiple routes, pay extra.

The new T4 and T5 are allegedly timed to interchange, so that you can swap from one to the other depending on your destination. That's good, but that it gets specially called out indicates that it's a rarity. There's even a Hopper ticket, but again that's part of the problem - you should be able to swap buses to complete your route without penalty.

I was at a event last night and asked about a transport survey that had been done. Had they asked where people needed to get to? Nope. Not at all. This sort of basic information is critical to working out what sort of transport provision is required - where to put the cycle ways, where the bus routes run - but we don't have it, it seems the powers that be aren't trying to get it, and we end up with public transport being provided completely at random. And they they wonder why people are unhappy and patronage is low.

Maybe a move to bus franchising will improve matters, as that does give uniformity of control and decisions about route planning. It's difficult to see how it can get any worse.

Cheap single bus tickets considered harmful

Here in the UK, the government placed a £2 cap on single bus fares. Cheaper bus fares is a good thing, surely?

The snag with this limit is that, at least in Cambridge, it makes 2 single tickets cheaper than a return (OK, there isn't a return, there's a day ticket). It's even cheaper that the advance flexi ticket (which is the day ticket on the smartphone app).

(One possibility is that the single prices have distorted the ticket pricing structure, and that Stagecoach have had to increase the prices of the other tickets - the ones that you would expect to be discounted - in order to avoid making a loss.)

What this means is that instead of buying a day ticket, or using the app, people - including myself - buy a separate single for every journey.

The time it takes for everyone to buy a ticket on the bus is significant - yesterday I timed it and it was typically 10s per passenger. You have to let the driver know your destination and what ticket you want, the ticket machine needs to be set for that, you have to tap your smartcard, the machine has to register it, and the ticket has to be printed and collected. That's when it works, as occasionally the ticket machine doesn't read the card first time (it seems even less reliable with payments by phone, perhaps the technology hasn't quite matured enough).

Some time ago I wrote about The effect of passenger boarding on bus services. For the last couple of years, largely due to the extensive use of the app which meant that people just marched onto the bus at full speed waving their phone at the driver, the fraction of time a bus sits waiting for passengers to board had actually declined sharply. The effect of the lower single fares is that now the time spent waiting for passengers to board is even worse than it was when I looked at it 5 to 6 years ago.

Yesterday, with a full bus at peak afternoon times, the impact on my supposedly 30 minute journey into time was an extra 10 minutes at least. There basically isn't any slop in the timetable, so add this to the roads being congested with too many cars and it's hardly surprising that buses become ridiculously late during rush hour.

Another example of unintended consequences.