Cairns, S

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UCL Discovery

Department for Transport (DFT) evaluationmethods, this would represent a saving of£10 in congestion benefits alone (withadditional savings from environmental gains,etc.).However, perhaps the most interestingpart of the report is its evaluation of existingexperience of implementing these types ofpolicies. As well as drawing on internationalliterature, the report looks in particular detailat 24 UK initiatives, focused around fourmain types of ‘soft factor’ or ‘smarter choice’policies – site-specific ‘travel planning’;marketing and awareness work; schemes toencourage more efficient car use; andinitiatives that reduce the need to travel viainformation and communicationtechnologies (ICT).The philosophy behind site-specific ‘travelplanning’ is that detail matters. As such, itinvolves close examination of the specificopportunities and constraints facing users ofa particular site, and consulting them aboutwhat they think would make a difference totheir travel habits.In the UK, this approach has been mostdeveloped for workplaces and schools.Typical travel plan measures include, forexample, providing a shuttle bus to connecta local railway station to the office; putting ina safer crossing at a well-known danger spoton the way to school; introducing new cycleparking which protects against both bikethieves and the vagaries of the weather; andallocating prime parking spots to people whoshare cars, etc. Such measures are usuallyintroduced in parallel with awareness-raisingwork, whether this means displaying thelocal bus timetables in the company lift, orclassroom work on the health benefits ofwalking and cycling.In places such as Birmingham, York,Nottingham, and parts of Cambridgeshire,the local authorities have already persuadedcompanies representing about 30 per cent ofthe workforce to get involved in workplacetravel planning (specifically representing136,000, 26,000, 52,000, and 34,000people, respectively). An earlier study5 of 20good-practice workplace travel plans foundSMARTER CHOICES – WHY SOFT OPTIONS MAY BETHE BEST ALTERNATIVEON 20 JULY 2004, theGovernment published anew White Paper on TheFuture of Transport.1 Onthe same day, threesupporting documentswere issued. The first wasthe road pricing feasibility study.2 The secondwas the review of Crossrail. 3 The third,entitled Smarter Choices – Changing the WayWe Travel,4 was about the potential of the so-called ‘softer’ transport policies. Given thefurore generated by the first two reports, thethird was somewhat overlooked. And yet,‘soft’ transport policies could potentiallymake an equal, or greater, contribution tochanging travel patterns in the future.As yet, there is no simple definition ofthese ‘soft’ policies. Generally, they are aboutimproving the quality of alternatives to thecar (not simply the quantity of, say, busprovision or cycle routes). They are aboutinfluencing people’s knowledge andperceptions of these alternatives. And, insome cases, they are about providing entirelynew opportunities or alternative ways ofdoing things. The White Paper places themcentrally in the chapter on roads, within adiscussion which highlights that it is notpossible to build our way out of congestion.The implication is that investing in ‘soft’policies and other demand managementmeasures represents a considerably ‘smarterchoice’ than a national strategy which fails totry to curb car use.Moreover, according to the SmarterChoices report, the potential of soft policies issubstantial. Specifically, it examines a scenariowhere implementation of such policies issignificantly expanded (albeit to a level whichseems feasible given current political andresource constraints), in a context where thebenefits are ‘locked-in’ with complementarymeasures that discourage induced traffic. Inthese circumstances, it is estimated that ‘softfactor’ policies could cut peak-hour urbantraffic by 21 per cent, make a smaller but stillsignificant impact in non-urban areas (14 percent in the peak), and reduce overall nationaltraffic levels by 11 per cent from currentlevels, within the next ten years.In cost/benefit terms, ‘smarter choice’policies also appear to represent particularlygood value for money. For every poundspent, it is estimated that about 70kilometres of car traffic would be removedfrom the road. Moreover, using currentGetting Somewhere Sally Cairns308 Town & Country Planning  November 2004Marcus Enochthat, on average, travel plans were reducingthe number of cars arriving per 100 staff by18 per cent. The latest report provides manynew examples of companies which haveachieved more than this (including, forexample, car driver reductions of 27 per centat Priory Hospital in Birmingham; 43 per centat Norwich Union in Bristol; 33 per cent atthe Government Office for the East ofEngland; and 23 per cent at CambridgeUniversity), indicating that such experience isreplicable in many places.School travel planning is also taking off.Local authorities in York andBuckinghamshire reported that they hadalready worked with over half of theirschools, and were on track to have fullyfledged plans in place at nearly all of them bythe end of the decade. Drawing on parallel,forthcoming research on school travelplanning6 (which has examined experiencefrom 23 English local authorities), analysissuggests that school travel planning can alsobe very effective at cutting traffic. Onaverage, school travel plans reduce car useby 8-15 per cent, while a significantproportion of schools reduce car use by over20 per cent, and some schools cut car use bymore than half.Next, the report examined marketing andawareness initiatives – focused on influencingpeople’s knowledge and perceptions oftransport alternatives, and, often, producinginformation in more understandable formats.At one extreme, such initiatives are aboutchanging outrageous beliefs, like MargaretThatcher’s, that ‘any man who rides a bus towork after the age of 26 can count himself afailure in life’. At the other, most simplisticlevel, they are about producing bus mapsthat don’t look like a tangle of spaghetti, andtimetables where the writing is big enoughto read.Three policy variations of marketing andawareness initiatives were examined –personalised travel planning, public transportinformation and marketing schemes, andtravel awareness campaigns.With personalised travel planning,residents are offered travel information whichis very specifically tailored to their individualT OPTIONS MAY BENovember 2004  Town & Country Planning 309Left: Walking bus operating in SouthwarkAbove: Marketing materials produced byBuckinghamshire County Council to promotealternative travel optionsAbove right: Park 2 park – NottinghamshireCounty Council’s car park converted for a day aspart of its travel planBelow right: Spaces reserved for car sharers atBoots’ headquartersSally CairnsSally CairnsNottinghamshire County Counciltcircumstances. For example, they mightchoose to receive a bus timetable for thestop closest to their home, some free ticketsenabling them to try the local service, or aneighbourhood map showing local shopsand walking routes.A notable scheme, in Bristol, was targetedat a neighbourhood alongside a newlyimproved ‘showcase’ bus corridor. Sixmonths after the scheme, bus use byresidents all along the corridor had increased,but the increase was over twice as great inthe area which had received personalisedtravel planning. Moreover, far more of thenew bus users from that area were previouslydriving for their journeys (whereas thosefrom the other areas were more likely to havebeen travelling as a car passenger orpedestrian).Another policy variant of marketing andawareness work is where the public transportoperator attempts to improve theinformation and marketing about publictransport more generally.For example, in Nottingham, the busoperator has completely reorganised thenetwork. All routes now start or finish in thecity centre, key routes operate on a 10-minute frequency, and the buses have beenpainted in different colours, depending onthe route they serve. Bus stop informationhas also been simplified and colour coded.These measures have been sufficient toreverse a long-term decline in bus use in thecity.A similar focus on simplicity, information,and marketing has also been part of a long-term strategy in Brighton and Hove, whichhas resulted in a 5 per cent per annumincrease in bus use for the last ten years.Meanwhile, some places are alsoundertaking ‘travel awareness campaigns’.For example, in York the council hasemployed dedicated marketing staff topromote the benefits of new walking andcycling infrastructure. Adverts have featuredin cinemas, on the backs of buses, and, now,even on beer mats in pubs. In feedback fromthe first campaign, about a third of motoristsreported seeing the adverts, and about 40per cent of them said that they were usingtheir cars less as a result.The third type of ‘smarter’ transport policyis about schemes which encourage moreefficient car use, whether this meanscommunal ownership (so that vehicles areshared by residents, and there are fewerstationary cars cluttering the neighbourhood)or communal use (where journeys areshared, reducing the number of empty seatson the road).Communal ownership schemes areusually called ‘car clubs’. Car club memberstypically pay a membership fee, and canthen book any one of a number of vehiclesparked in their locale. Car clubs range fromrelatively informal arrangements in ruralareas, through to high-tech schemes in citycentres. Some people join car clubs as a wayof having a second car, some use it as analternative to owning their own vehicle, andsome use it to gain access to a car for the firsttime. However, averaged out, a typical carclub vehicle takes five private cars off theroad, with substantial reductions in totalmileage.The largest car club in the UK is inEdinburgh, where there were over 300members at the time of the study and about150 people joining each year. This iscomparable to the growth rate experiencedduring the early days of ‘Mobility’, the Swisscar club scheme which now has over 58,000members.Communal use, or ‘car sharing’ schemes,are also increasingly popular. One of themost successful is in Milton Keynes. Here,registered members are given individual, butlinked permits. Cars displaying two of theselinked permits are entitled to park free inprime spots in the central area. The schemewas launched on the same day that newparking charges were extended across thecity. Nine months after launch, there wereover 1,000 members, with more peoplejoining every day.The final type of ‘smarter choice’ policy isabout ICT or ‘tele-options’. Such optionsinvolve reducing the need to travel at all,given the possibilities created by telephones,e-mail, the internet, video-conferencing,webcams, etc. In particular, the SmarterChoices report looked at teleworking,teleconferencing, and home shopping.In the UK, ‘telework’, where people workaway from their workplace (for some or all ofthe time), has been championed by BT.However, BT is not the only organisation tobe claiming that promoting telework hassaved considerable office costs, and thatteleworkers are more productive and takefewer sick days. One concern has been thatreductions in commuting travel might beoffset by more travel for other purposes(either by the teleworker or by othermembers of their household).The Smarter Choicesreport examined 13primary studies on this issue. Overall, thesesuggest that the net effect of teleworking is amajor reduction in car use. In some cases,teleworkers even do less travelling for otherpurposes, as they start making more use oflocal shops and facilities.Some local authorities are adopting avariant of telework whereby county councilemployees ‘hot-desk’ for some of the time attheir local district office. Again, this usuallycuts travel.Teleconferencing, where businessmeetings are replaced by ‘virtual meetings’(held by phone, video-link, or computer), hasalso been shown to reduce car use, withbusiness travel typically falling by 10-30 percent among companies that promote it.According to Face2face (a new companyoffering video-conferencing facilities in manyUK town and city centres), a typical businesstrip costs over £2,000 per person and lastsover six hours, of which less than two arespent in the meeting itself. BT estimates that,each year, its promotion of telephoneconferencing is saving the company over£6million pounds in petrol claims alone.Finally, there are various ways in whichhome shopping schemes could cut traffic.Studies of grocery deliveries consistentlysuggest that customers who replace a car tripto the supermarket with a delivery vehiclevisiting their home are likely to be reducingthis traffic by 70-80 per cent. Meanwhile, forsome other types of goods, a recent trial inNottingham has shown that enablingcustomers to get items delivered to the localpost office or a locker bank, rather than theirhome, could allow companies to scheduledeliveries more efficiently and substantiallyreduce customer travel to collectunsuccessfully delivered goods.In brief, ‘smarter choice’ policies are aboutpublic investment in a wide range of newmeasures, focusing on the specific reasonswhy people make journeys, and finding newways for them to carry out activities,encouraging them to swap to alternativetravel or enabling them to optimise theircurrent travel behaviour. Given a supportivepolicy context, it seems that these measurescould have an enormous impact on travelhabits, helping to achieve real trafficreductions for a relatively low cost. It remainsto be seen how vigorously national and localgovernment will choose to pursue this pathin the future. nDr Sally Cairnsis a Senior Research Fellow at the ESRCTransport Studies Unit at University College London. Shewishes to express grateful thanks to all those involved inthe ‘Smarter Choices’ study, and to Phil Goodwin (UCL),Lynn Sloman (Transport for Quality of Life), and GrahamParkhurst (University of the West of England) for help withthis article.NotesAll unreferenced material is taken from theSmarter Choicesreport.4 All of the followingpublications are (or will be) downloadablefrom http://www.dft.gov.uk. The SmarterChoices report is located in the ‘Sustainabletravel’ section of the site1 The Future of Transport . Department forTransport. The Stationery Office, London, 20042 Feasibility of Road Pricing in the UK .Department for Transport, London, 20043 A. Montague et al.: The Review of theCrossrail Business Case . Department forTransport, London, 20044 S. Cairns, L. Sloman, C. Newson, J. Anable,A. Kirkbride, and P. Goodwin:  Smarter Choices –Changing the Way We Travel . Final Report (Vol.1), with accompanying volume of case studies.Department for Transport, London, 20045 S. Cairns, A. Davis, C. Newson, and C. Swiderska: ‘Making Travel Plans Work:Research Report’ . Linked publications on goodpractice guidance (Lessons from UK CaseStudies), case study summaries, and Using thePlanning System to Secure Travel Plans .Department for Transport, London, 20026 S. Cairns, C. Newson, et al.: Making SchoolTravel Plans Work: Research Report . Linkedvolumes of good practice guidance and casestudy summaries. Department for Transport,London (forthcoming)t310 Town & Country Planning  November 2004

Smarter choices - why soft options may be the best alternative

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