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Motoring Towards 2050 Established to Promote the Environmental, Economic, Mobility and Safety Issues Relating to Use of Motor Vehicles

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Motoring Towards 2050 Established to Promote the Environmental, Economic, Mobility and Safety Issues Relating to Use of Motor Vehicles The Royal Automobile Club Foundation for Motoring Limited is a charity 2050 Motoring towards established to promote the environmental, economic, mobility and safety issues relating to use of motor vehicles. Motoring towards 2050 RAC Foundation 89-91 Pall Mall London SW1Y 5HS Tel: 020 7747 3445 www.racfoundation.org Registered Charity No. 1002705 RAC Foundation The Royal Automobile Club Foundation for Motoring Limited is a charity established to promote the environmental, economic, mobility and safety issues relating to use of motor vehicles. RAC Foundation 89-91 Pall Mall London SW1Y 5HS Telephone 020 7747 3445 www.racfoundation.org Registered Charity No. 1002705 May 2002 © Copyright RAC Foundation for Motoring Designed by Price £295 Printed by Moore Motoring towards 2050 an independent inquiry RAC Foundation for Motoring Motoring towards 2050 1 Report steering committee Sir Christopher Foster, Chairman. John Bates, consultant economist. Bill Billington, highways consultant. David Holmes, formerly in senior positions in the Department of Transport and with British Airways. Richard Ide, formerly Chief Executive of Volkswagen Group UK. David Leibling, formerly with Lex and author of the Lex (now RAC) Report on Motoring. Professor Peter Mackie, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds. Richard Mills, Secretary General, National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection. Sir Nick Monck, formerly Permanent Secretary, Department of Employment, and second Permanent Secretary, HM Treasury. Professor Chris Nwagboso, Professor of Integrated Transport and Head of the Transport and Automotive Systems Research Centre, Wolverhampton University. Professor Tony Ridley, Professor of Transport Engineering, Imperial College. Robert Upton, Secretary General, Royal Town Planning Institute. Joan Williamson, researcher. The Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions provided an observer who attended most of our meetings and provided factual advice. David Holmes and David Leibling from the Foundation’s public policy committee were joint secretaries. Edmund King is the Director of the RAC Foundation. Jo Abbott is the Administrator of the RAC Foundation. The RAC Foundation wishes to thank the independent steering committee and all those who have sent in submissions or advised the steering committee on this report. At a late stage, we gained greatly from a day’s discussion of our draft report with a group of transport experts: David Bayliss OBE, formerly Director of Planning, London Transport. John Dodgson, Director, National Economic Research Associates (NERA). Professor Stephen Glaister, Professor of Transport and Infrastructure, Department of Civil Engineering, Imperial College. David Quarmby, Chairman of the British Tourist Authority and formerly Chairman of Docklands Light Railway and Joint Managing Director, J Sainsbury PLC. W J Tyson, Chairman and Managing Director, TMG of GMPTE. John Welsby CBE, immediate past President, Institute of Logistics and Transport, formerly Chairman and Chief Executive Railways Board. John Wootton CBE, formerly Chief Executive of the Transport Research Laboratory and President of the Institution of Highways and Transportation. Illustrations in this report provided by students from the Automotive Design course at the Royal College of Art. Many thanks to course director, Dale Harrow and the students: Boris Grell, Kristian Hardy, Jean-Arthur Madelaine-Advenier, Danny Ram, Dominic Nowakowski, Graham Hodgson, Benjamin Payne, Sacha Barber, Viktor Holmqvist. 2 Motoring towards 2050 RAC Foundation for Motoring Foreword 1O DOWNING STREET LONDON SW1A 2AA The Prime Minister This report cannot and does not represent Government policy. But it is a well-argued and interesting contribution to the debate, and particularly so as it is from an independent inquiry by a respected motoring organisation. Meeting the needs of modern motorists whilst fulfilling our responsibility to protect the environment is one of the biggest challenges faced by any Government. The RAC Foundation first suggested an independent inquiry into motoring issues in October 2000. In replying, I said that we would welcome a report bringing greater clarity and understanding of the issues and choices. Eighteen months on, this Report more than meets that challenge. It argues that there are no easy answers to fulfilling our desire to travel and that we cannot solve the problem just by building new roads, or by hoping everyone will choose to use public transport for all journeys. It is essential that we make the very best use of the infrastructure we have. Technology can help with that and – through low carbon, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles – reduce environmental impacts. I want UK companies to lead the global shift to low carbon transport. We have fiscal policies and other programmes designed to bring this about, and will shortly publish a comprehensive strategy. But the report also argues that technology on its own cannot solve all our transport problems. It highlights particularly the challenge of reducing congestion, suggesting a number of possible long-term solutions. I look forward to hearing the debate. The Rt Hon Tony Blair MP May 2002 RAC Foundation for Motoring Motoring towards 2050 3 Executive summary Background After the fuel protests in 2000, Sir Christopher Foster, Chairman of the RAC Foundation, wrote to the Prime Minister asking that the Government should conduct a long-term study looking at the future of motoring within transport policy over the next 50 years. The Prime Minister suggested that the Foundation itself might undertake this task. The Foundation commissioned a scoping study from National Economic Research Associates (NERA). We then asked for evidence and received more than 250 submissions from organisations and individuals around the world. A full-day seminar was held to consider initial findings. Many meetings have been conducted with Government departments and other relevant organisations. The inquiry considered the long term prospects for car ownership and travel in the UK, taking account of economic and social factors, capacity problems of the roads, impact of the car on the environment, technological changes to the car and infrastructure, growth for demand in traffic in the electronic age, the interaction between transport and land use, and the future role of other modes of transport. Why 2050? The inquiry is called ‘Motoring towards 2050’. We chose 50 years because over that period, many of the things we currently take as constraints could change. We have not come up with forecasts for 2050, but indicate the direction in which society is moving and the implications for the medium term. We conclude that the car will remain the predominant mode of transport. We ask what actions taken now will ensure that it does so most effectively, balancing the benefits it provides against our concern for the environment. Steering committee To ensure the independence of the study, Motoring towards 2050 was directed by a steering group of people who together have wide experience in the relevant fields. Report summary History We have reviewed how travel demand and policy have developed over 50 years to give us the most under-invested and congested transport facilities in Europe. Transport policy is undoubtedly complicated as it involves balancing irreconcilable pressures. Our approach is to learn from the past and to present positive measures. Car ownership and traffic growth We estimated traffic growth to 2031 and extended it to 2050. The main pressure for traffic growth will continue to be increasing car ownership, especially among the less affluent and in households with more than one wage-earner. Government imposed policies to limit car ownership are not desirable. The rate of traffic growth is already lower than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. We believe it will taper off further. Yet by 2031 we forecast a 50% increase in traffic if road capacity is increased to keep congestion no worse than today. If road capacity is not increased, worsening congestion will cut traffic growth back to about 33%. There will be far more serious congestion on our roads than now, with adverse effects on personal mobility, environment and the economy. We should not continue to rely on congestion to limit traffic growth. A small amount of the shortfall will be diverted from road to rail, but most will be choked off. It is possible that traffic growth will be greater than our central estimates if only because car ownership in 2031 will still be low by international standards. Environment and technology Technology and the right policies will solve environmental problems. We consider the environmental standards (on air quality, CO2 and noise) to be reached and the probability that vehicles will meet them fully by 2050 so that environmental factors need not be restraints on road traffic growth. A few local areas of poor air quality need to be addressed by other means. We believe that British firms could get a good share of the development of new, cleaner technology. We expect the fossil fuel economy to be replaced by a low carbon economy and that cars will be clean and efficient with advanced electronics but still effectively individual personal transport on wheels. 4 Motoring towards 2050 RAC Foundation for Motoring Executive summary Land use planning The way we live now is for most people built around the car. Congestion problems have been made worse by the imbalance between north and south. Though land use planning will have little effect on congestion in the shorter term, it can help find a balanced solution. Long term initiatives are needed to develop a national strategic framework, ways of meeting this demand for housing (and other services) which make sense in transport terms and measures to reduce the intrusion of cars into local communities. Car dependence The car will remain the main means of passenger transport. We discuss ways of reducing dependence through car sharing, travel plans, technology and telecommunications. A distinction should be drawn between measures reflecting greater productivity and consistent with economic growth, which are to be welcomed, and those which are dirigiste with serious economic or personal consequences.
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