Contents List of Tables viii List of Figures ix List of Abbreviations x Introduction xiii 1 The Historical Context 1 From canals and turnpikes to state-regulated private railways 1 From local to national roads: the creation of the Road Board 5 Road versus rail, 1919–39 7 Post-war nationalization and the switch to roads 12 Coordination and control 14 Rediscovering competition 17 Privatization and deregulation 20 Transport and the environment 27 The rise and fall of an integrated transport policy 32 Conclusion 40 2 The Role of Central Government 42 Central government departments 43 Central government and the transport industries 57 Coordination and control 66 Parliament, the law and the media 74 Conclusion 75 3 Local Government and Urban Transport 77 Local government structures and responsibilities 77 Regional government 79 Local government’s spatial and transport planning 80 Local government finance: a key limitation 87 Transport in major urban areas 92 The London congestion charge experiment 99 Conclusion 104 v vi Contents 4 The European Union and United Kingdom Transport Policy 106 The common transport policy of the European Union 107 Transport and the institutions of the Community 115 The legal competence of the Community in external affairs 124 Making policy in the European Union 125 The role of the British Houses of Parliament 127 The Europeanization of British transport policy 131 5 Planning 133 Forward planning 135 Spatial planning 146 Conclusion 158 6 Influencing Transport Policy 161 The principles of interest-group action 162 Explaining group influence 168 Characteristics of transport interest groups 171 The context of action 185 Access: insiders and outsiders 188 Political channels of influence: parliamentary committees 189 Conclusion 191 7 Engaging the Private Sector 194 Competition and deregulation of bus services 194 Competition and privatization of rail services 200 The London Underground Public–Private Partnership (PPP) 212 8 Paying for Transport: Appraisal and Economic Issues 218 Government spending on transport 219 Personal spending on transport 220 The distinction between specification and provision 221 National taxation 223 Local forms of taxation 223 Borrowing 228 Transport project appraisal, financing and pricing 232 Road pricing 239 Contents vii 9 Conclusions 245 Two major changes 245 Some theoretical reflections 249 Theory and practice 253 The key issues 258 The policy options 262 Conclusion 269 Guide to Further Reading 271 Bibliography 276 Index 287 Chapter 1 The Historical Context From canals and turnpikes to state-regulated private railways The crowds which gathered in October 1829 to watch the Rainhill trials, which resulted in the choice of Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’ for the Liverpool and Manchester railway when it opened a year later, would have been proud of the tremendous advances in transport that had been made within their lifetime. As children some might have watched the construction of the Bridgewater Canal in the 1760s, in the same transport corridor between Manchester and Liverpool, signalling the start of the great era of canal building that by the end of the century had linked the Mersey first with the Trent and then with the Thames and Severn in a network which laid down the essential transport infrastructure for Britain’s Industrial Revolution. Over the past decade or so the appalling state of the roads had been much improved by John Loudon Macadam’s better surfaces and Thomas Telford’s engineering on the London– Holyhead road, which together had reduced coach journey times between London and Manchester from four-and-a-half days with the first ‘Flying Coaches’ in 1754 to a mere 18 hours and 18 minutes by the ‘Manchester Telegraph’ in 1830 (Savage, 1966: 30). The canals and turnpikes were transporting goods and passengers more speedily and efficiently than before, but their monopoly posi- tion enabled them to charge excessive prices. The new railway between Manchester and Liverpool promised vigorous competition, reducing the transit time from 36 hours to only five or six and cutting charges by a third. It was a huge success for both goods and passenger traffic; it was soon carrying nearly half-a-million passengers in a year. However, far from stimulating competition, it would not be long before the traders who applauded Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’ would find they had exchanged one monop- oly for another. The economic advantages of railways over canals and turnpikes were so great that within 25 years the railway network had grown to nearly 10,000 miles and had very largely 1 2 Transport Policy in Britain overwhelmed any competition there might have been at first from the canal companies and the turnpike trusts. Given the success of private enterprise in so radically improving transport provision by water, by road and now by rail, it is not at all surprising that the liberal politicians of the nineteenth century were content to ‘leave it to the market’ to choose how and where to invest in service provision whilst using state intervention to limit monopoly profits and protect rights to life, liberty and property. They thought these rights should be defended, where necessary, by state regulation against large or monopoly enterprises. Thus one of the earliest pieces of rail legislation was the Railway Regulation Act 1840 empowering the Board of Trade to appoint railway inspectors to check new passenger lines and receive information about rail accidents. The Whigs (or Liberals) were more willing to intervene in a ‘utilitarian’ search for efficiency, and to defend rail users, espe- cially small businesses. The Tories (or Conservatives) were more protective of property-owners’ rights. But all were ‘free market’ when contrasted with the Labour Party of the following century, which expected to plan and coordinate transport through central- ization and nationalization (Morrison, 1933). With these principles in mind it is easier to understand the route transport policy took. Once the steam locomotive was developed, high canal charges stimulated the rapid construction of commercial rail lines, though opposition from canal-owners and landowners demanding high compensation made the passage of private bills difficult (or at least expensive). Rail companies needed parliamentary approval to come into being, but Parliament took only limited interest in the ‘network’ which was being created, ad hoc, from local lines. In 1844, the growing pressure of private rail bills encouraged MPs to set up a select committee on railways, chaired by William Gladstone, then a ‘Peelite’ (liberal Tory) and President of the Board of Trade. The committee wanted the construction of lines to be more rational. It thought the duplication of lines would take trade from existing companies without necessarily keeping prices down. Gladstone set up a railways board within the Trade department to oversee railway promotion, but the railway interest groups opposed it. Peel abolished it in 1845 after Gladstone left the department, and between 1845 and 1847 Parliament approved 425 Acts covering more than 8,500 miles of railway. The oligopolistic competition of the early 1840s soon gave way to a process of consolidation which progressively limited competi- tion as moves towards the creation of a more coherent rail network The Historical Context 3 were taken by the rail companies themselves. The Railway Clearing House had already been established voluntarily by companies to facilitate through-traffic across company boundaries when it was made statutory in 1846. The same year also saw the passage of 18 Acts sanctioning railway company amalgamations, including the London and North Western Railway, the major trunk route between London and Manchester/Liverpool via Birmingham. The taking over of weaker companies by successful ones from the 1840s improved coordination and efficiency without government having to act. From the mid-1850s until after the First World War the rail- ways enjoyed an almost complete monopoly of inland passenger and freight transport. Few British canals remained prosperous after the 1840s and by 1850 stage coaches had been all but driven off the road. Parliament worried about the establishment of monopolies in certain regions, but in 1872 a select committee concluded that rail- way amalgamations were inevitable and perhaps desirable. Product emulation, such as the copying by all railways of Midland Railways’ third-class carriages, had improved and standardized service quality. In 1909, following another wave of amalgamations, a Departmental Committee on Railway Agreements and Amalgamations concluded that some regulation of cooperation would be to the advantage of the public as well as the railway companies. In these circumstances the main role of government, exercised through the Board of Trade, was to defend the trading community against the monopoly power of the railway companies. Gladstone’s 1844 Railway Regulation Act gave the government the option of revising prices downwards if a company paid dividends of 10 per cent or more, and the right of compulsory purchase after 21 years, though these options were never exercised. The so-called ‘Parliamentary’ train, under the same Act, was an early instance of consumer protection. All companies were required to provide one return passenger train a day at a reasonable speed (at least 12 mph) and maximum fare (ld or 0.4p a mile). In 1854, under a coalition government, Parliament passed the Railway and Canal Traffic Act which required each railway company to take all trade offered (to be ‘a common carrier’). They had to set and publish the same levels of fares and charges to all for any particular service (that is, not give ‘undue preference’). Though the state did not intervene directly in rail provision, neither did it allow rail companies to set tariffs flex- ibly on strictly commercial criteria, or pick and choose between the types of traffic they would carry. 4 Transport Policy in Britain 1555 Highways Act: parishes to maintain roads using their own labour and equipment. 1663 First Turnpike Trust established under private Act of Parliament.