By downloading this file, you can listen to this newsletter on the go, or as an alternative to your screen reader. And it’s in my voice! 😊
Good day my good friend.
It has been an extremely busy, but productive, start to the New Year. Lots of plans in place, and lots of little actions being taken across a number of different projects. Essentially, everything is at the fun stage of delivery, so it won’t last.
By the way, in my introduction last week I forgot to mention one other change to the newsletter. Every couple of months I will take a week off from the newsletter, just to recharge the batteries. I hope that you understand.
With that done, lets get on with it.
📕 I have co-authored a book on Mobility-as-a-Service, which is a comprehensive guide on this important new transport service. It is available from the Institution of Engineering and Technology and now Amazon.
💼 I am also available for freelance transport planning consultancy, through my own company Mobility Lab. You can check out what I do here.
Why the Devolution White Paper promises little and will likely deliver less
Many of you know that there is a rather important consultation going on right now in England. Nope, not the call for ideas for the Integrated National Transport Strategy. But government is asking local councils in the UK to provide their proposals for local government devolution as part of the Devolution White Paper. For those of you who don’t know what this is, the Local Government Association has a very good factual briefing of the proposals. But just to summarise that:
- Government wishes to set up a series of ‘Strategic Authorities’ similar to current Combined Authorities, ideally with mayors at the helm of each of them.
- Existing local government should be streamlined into a series of unitary authorities responsible for all local council functions, ideally at a population size of 500,000
- Strategic Authorities will take on a variety of transport responsibilities, such as bus franchising, potential governance of local rail services, and deliver Local Transport Plans.
The White Paper has started off the usual round of political point scoring and finger wagging. The Warwickshire authorities, for instance, are arguing amongst themselves. Something that won’t die out over the coming years.
Inevitably this prompts the question of ‘what will actually work?’ The answer to that is not an easy one. It brings to the fore matters such as the feeling of place, performance metrics, democracy and a lot more beside.
This is fundamentally challenging because the impact of good (and bad) governance is indirect. Assuming we can actually define what good governance is. There are plenty of thoughts on this. Good Governance International, for instance, defines good governance as having:
- Clarity of purpose, roles and behaviours
- Application of principles
- Leadership and strategic direction
- Effective external relationships
- Effective internal relationships
- Transparency and public reporting
- Systems and structures
- Challenge on delivery of agreed outcomes
- Risk and compliance
- Organisational effectiveness
All reasonable. However, you can have excellent governance and make decisions that are still bad. New road schemes can be governed excellently, and other major projects can be governed in full view of the people whose homes are about to be destroyed. A good governance structure, therefore, is not just about what you want to achieve but how you wish to achieve it.
This is what makes the current plans for devolution so hard to judge objectively. Government clearly has a view as to how it wants devolution to happen: for mayors in cities and regions to have more power, combined with getting rid of two tier authorities that duplicate levels of governance. All to unleash economic growth, which is the overwhelming priority of government at the current time.
Supporting such a restructure is based a lot on feeling, and little on evidence. I am not sure that there is compelling evidence that having mayors with greater power will lead to better transport outcomes compared to a counter-factual (namely high degrees of centralisation that we have now). However effectively the likes of Andy Burnham and Andy Street may articulate otherwise. Poor projects could still be delivered, and delivered badly even under a Mayor.
What will matter most in making devolution a success is ensuring that those authorities who will have the devolved powers will have the ability to enact their agendas. Westminster government’s have a proud record of devolving powers without devolving the funding to do anything.
In this respect, the White Paper repeats the mistake. It makes good noises about doing things like combining funding sources like the City Region Sustainable Transport Fund, with some nudges towards place-based budgets (New Local have produced an excellent report on just this). However, the same core financial toolset of local government remains: Council Tax, Business Rates, and handouts from government. A situation that has brought local government to the verge of financial ruin.
Giving authorities the ability to deliver and the flexibility to adapt is a necessary precondition of success regardless of the governance arrangements. A good example of enabling this is from France, namely the versement mobilité. This is effectively a payroll tax on organisations with more than 11 employees, ring-fenced for local transport improvements, which has enabled radical change in local transport systems across smaller cities in France. The UK has no such example aside from London’s Congestion Charge, so any plans for ongoing, significant improvements are effectively stopped in their tracks.
Devolution also faces challenges in terms of not just covering matters like the economy and transport. Whitehall clearly sees this devolution through an economic lens – to achieve the government’s missions on economic growth. But places incorporate non-economic aspects like communities, personal connections, third places, and critical social services. Indeed, devolution seeking an economic outcome is almost certain to fail in making places better.
My own view on the current devolution proposals is that localising decision making and the ability to deliver change is essential not because it will push GDP figures up or achieve modal shift. But because it helps to foster an intangible – a sense of place and belonging. Something more important than we think it is.
The current plan is a Whitehall solution to a local problem. It ignores examples of place-based governance in local government like the Preston Model, Total Place, and similar things in favour of tweaking the current system to deliver government targets. With the only input locally being local councils telling government what version of the government’s preferred solution they want. That, and seemingly some government advisors only talking to the Combined Authority Mayors.
This will be a significant change to those of us working in the public sector in the UK. I went through the unitarisation of the Bedfordshire authorities during 2007 to 2010, and it was a painful process as there was no clear vision. Apart from everyone thinking the County Council should not exist. As presented, I think the current plans will be a damp squib rather than the revolutionary change envisioned. If we are to deliver a more sustainable and just transport system, we need to be much more ambitious than this.
👩🎓 From academia
The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author – they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.
Evaluation of a volunteer transportation program that supports age-friendly rural communities
TL:DR – People tend to prefer volunteer-delivered transport services over no services at all. It also enhances their social connections and sense of wellbeing.
Policy measures to reduce road congestion: What worked?
TL:DR – Reduce vehicle ownership. Anything that doesn’t help to achieve that is effectively pointless in achieving this goal.
TL:DR – The built environment affects travel satisfaction through compensation, suppression, and reinforcement of behaviours and satisfaction factors.
Bikeshare impacts on bus ridership: Unraveling the rail proximity effect
TL:DR – Bike share boosts rail patronage and reduces the number of people using buses. Especially in high-income neighbourhoods.
😃 Positive News
New York has finally introduced its congestion charge for much of Manhattan. And the results are stark. There is less traffic in the city, and the buses are running faster. This is good, without a doubt. But we need to wait some time for the true impacts of the scheme to come to light.
Many campaigners malign cycle training. I think they are wrong to look down their noses at giving people such basic skills. So when Coventry say they are offering free cycle training to adults across Coventry, this is only a good thing.
On the electric vehicle side of things, despite the incoming US President seemingly wanting to stop them, they are going good guns everywhere else. In Norway, 9 out of 10 new cars are electric vehicles. A record number was also sold in the UK, again.
🖼 Graphic Design
The growth in electric vehicle charging points in the UK in 2024 (Source: ZapMap)
While the growth in electric vehicle charging points in the UK is impressive, breaking this down by charging point types really is instructive. Data from ZapMap shows that over 2024 there has been a notable acceleration in the installation of Ultra-rapid charging points. With 83% more charging points installed during the year and reaching a total number of points similar to that of rapid charges (7,021 for Ultra-Rapids, 7,450 Rapids). There was also a 36% growth in Slow and Fast Charging Points, to 59,228 in total.
📺 On the (You) Tube
Carbon offsets are controversial, to say the least. Bloomberg produced a video that looks more in depth on this, and the work of the Indonesian government on carbon offsetting. To me, this shows the challenges associated with a fast developing, critically important, but new market. Namely, for every good organisation doing good things, there will be people trying to make a quick buck.
📚 Random things
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.
- Analysis: UK newspaper editorials attacked Ed Miliband relentlessly throughout 2024 (Carbon Brief)
- Why Skyscrapers Became Glass Boxes (Construction Physics)
- Total Information Collapse (The Power)
- Where Urban Fault Lines Run Deep, Solidarity Cities Take Root (Truthout)
- How humans became microplastic (Unherd)
📰 The Bottom of the News
All sorts of strange things get forgotten on buses. But some of these examples from Brighton and Hove Buses are just astounding. A wardrobe? An electric oven? Two safes? An urn with ashes in it? Is there something in the water in Sussex that makes people forget things?
Mobility Matters 