Interesting short case study by Sustrans that highlights how a lack of detailed local travel information can lead to retailers being misinformed about how their customers reach their shops.
Sustrans found that most traders greatly overestimated how many of their customers use cars and underestimated how many walked, cycled or used public transport.
Worth reading!
Over ten years ago, retailers in the Austrian city of Graz were asked how they thought their customers travelled to the shop, and shoppers were then interviewed to determine the reality. The results were fascinating: retailers hugely overestimated the importance of the car, and underestimated how many of their customers walked, cycled and used public transport (1).
Sustrans’ researchers have now replicated the Graz study on two neighbourhood shopping streets in Bristol. Once again, we found that retailers overestimate the importance of the car. We also found that they overestimate how far their customers travel and underestimate how many shops each customer visits.
These findings have real significance for business planning – as well as land use and transport. It is traditional for retailers to pursue more car access and parking, and to resist measures to promote walking, cycling and public transport use – although pedestrian shopping areas tend to be commercially most successful. Our findings suggest that retail vitality would be best served by traffic restraint, public transport improvements, and a range of measures to improve the walking environment.
The European Platform on Mobility Management (EPOMM) have created TEMS, a database that lets you calculate and compare the modal split between cars, public transit, cycling and walking in different European cities including the UK!
EPOMM hopes TEMS will enable comparison and a positive competition between cities for more sustainability. EPOMM is well aware that comparability is difficult with so many different survey methods - but it is far better then non-availability of data. With TEMS EPOMM aims to promote efforts and discussions to make modal split data and surveys more standardised in the future.
Short paper on cycling and public transport and how they complement each other!
Public transport (PT) and cycling are transport modes that are friendly for the urban environment. Separately or in combination, they contribute significantly to the liveability of cities, an asset of increasing importance at a time when concerns on congestion, the use of urban space, air quality and personal health and safety are growing. This article looks at good practices of the intermodality of cycling and PT in European urban areas, and synergies between the two.
The Guardian reports on the findings of a recent Sustrans report, Moving Towards Smarter Travel, which identified that the current government are not investing enough in promoting alternative travel change (surprise surprise). It also captures the views of some leading transport interest groups and ministers.
Investments in greener,more environmentally friendly modes of transport are a must! The pay back is immense…they improve our living environment, enhance our overall quality of life, reduce stressm, improve air quality and enhance accessibilty for people of alll demographics.
These smarter travel choices only receive a tiny fraction of funding from council local transport plans (LTPs), despite the government’s climate adviser – the committee on climate change – urging their widespread rollout.
A report by built environment consultancy Halcrow, commissioned by Friends of the Earth and Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity, revealed that just 70p-per-person would be spent annually on such schemes, compared with the £5.65 spent in the Department for Transport’s Sustainable Travel Towns, despite these projects boosting public transport patronage and reducing the number of journeys made by car.
New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Department of Transportation are on a mission to make the Big Apple the “greatest, greenest big city in the world” by ramping up bicycle infrastructure across the city, introducing bus rapid transit to the Bronx, and pedestrianizing Times Square, among other bold transportation initiatives.
Saw Jaime at the riba this time last year! Really liked him. Really practical and hands on!
Jaime Lerner reinvented urban space in his native Curitiba, Brazil. Along the way, he changed the way city planners worldwide see what’s possible in the metropolitan landscape.
The latest information on bus statistics in Great Britain - Q1 2010
Decreases are worrying…not enough is being done to promote public transport. Walking back home from the tube station the last day easily every 8 in 10 cars was being used for single passenger journeys which is really inefficent. In light of environmental pressures this has to be addressed. It will be impossible to create a pleasant, dynamic and healthy urban area despite all our best intentions without seriously tackling the noise and air pollution caused by cars and motorbikes.
Summary of latest key results
Provisional figures suggest bus passenger journeys in England decreased by 1.8 per cent between 2008-09 and 2009-10.
In non-metropolitan areas, there was an annual decrease of 2.4 per cent in bus passenger journeys, and in metropolitan areas there was an annual decrease of 3.3 per cent. In London there was a slight annual increase of 0.5 per cent.
Bus passenger journeys in Scotland and Wales decreased by 5.8 per cent between 2008-09 and 2009-10.
The overall satisfaction score for bus passengers in England was unchanged compared to the previous quarter at 82 points out of 100. This rating fell in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, but rose in London.
Charles Siegel, author of Unplanning: Livable Cities and Political Choices, points out the flaws of modern city planning and proposes new models on how we can return (if there ever was) to the golden age of American urban living. One of my favorite plans attempts to regulate automobile traffic…
Iarnród Éireann has commenced work on a new underground second DART line through the heart of the city centre.
The DART Underground rail line, now proposed to run from Docklands to Inchicore, will complete the trebling of the Greater Dublin area’s rail service capacity from 33 million passenger journeys annually now to 100 million passenger journeys upon completion.
DART Underground will be the single most important piece of infrastructure in the state to ensure a modal shift from private to public transport, and free future generations from the gridlock which cripples the Greater Dublin area today. It is a central part of the Government’s Transport 21 ten-year transport investment plan. It also links all rail modes - DART, Commuter, Intercity, Luas and Metro - to form an integrated cohesive network.
This project is funded by the Irish Government under the Transport 21 investment programme; it is also being part-funded by the Ten-T Executive Agency of the European Commission. Elements of this project will be undertaken as a Public Private Partnership (PPP), Iarnród Éireann and the Department of Transport are currently examining a number of options for PPP.
