Science@Huddersfield

Steve Bentley: Hi there, welcome to Science at Huddersfield, the podcast from the School of Applied Sciences at the University of Huddersfield, looking at the science behind the headlines. On today's programme, we're looking at the whole issue of how we pay to use the country's roads, in the week when the London congestion charge zone expanded and the prime minister has replied to a petition from 1.8 million people about road charging I caught up with Professor Colin Bamford, an expert in logistics and transport policy, and I began by asking what exactly logistics is.

Colin Bamford: A very simple definition of logistics is "getting it right". In other words getting the right goods to the right place, at the right time, in the right condition, and - significantly at the present time - with due care and attention to the environment. A more scientific definition would be that it's all about managing the supply chain in a business, the supply chain referring to the whole process or sequence of events within a business which involves anything from the assembly of raw materials and products all the way through the production and distribution process to the end sale of those products to final consumers.

In many respects, logistics is a science because of the way from an operational standpoint the logistics function is really quite highly computerised, involves the application of technology, involves the application of mathematical concepts to managing this whole process in the most efficient and effective way.

SB: We're talking to you today because Tony Blair has responded to a petition from 1.8 million people against road user pricing. Can you explain to use what road user pricing is and give us the background to that?

CB: Essentially Road user pricing is a little bit like pay as you go as far as mobile phones are concerned. It's a system where the price that you pay to use the road network is essentially a function of how much use you make of it. It's slightly more sophistocated than that, in so far as the use refers to the time of day when you're using the road network and also the volume of traffic that might be using that part of the network at the same time as you're using it.

SB: So this would replace fuel tax, replace the tax disc?

CB: It isn't entirely clear. I don't think for one minute it will replace fuel tax, because for a start fuel tax is something like 80% of the total cost of a litre of fuel, but we must also be mindful when we're considering fuel of issues of supply and the environmental effects that there could be if we were to reduce the costs of fuel to a ridiculously low level. At one stage the Government were talking about any road user charges being tax-neutral in that it would merely reallocate the current taxes that are being paid by road users.

SB: So why do we need this?

CB: The principle reason why we need this is that we've tried no end of other policies to solve our congestion problem and we're almost like a poker player with one chip left on the table - there's no point putting that chip on red or black, it's got to go on a number - because the only way we can really solve the problem of congestion is by doing something radical. The fundamental problem we face is that if we're to believe traffic forecasts, and I'm sure that's the case, we're going to have a gridlock situation over the next 10 or 20 years if we don't do something about it.

SB: Schemes like this are already in operation in places like Italy, Norway and Singapore. Are they working?

CB: I'm reasonably familiar with the situation in Singapore, I've been there two or three times and I've read what academics have written about it. In Singapore the system does work, there's no question about it that it was reduced the volume of traffic and it also has a very important psychological effect. The vehicles in Singapore are fitted with a machine on the dashboard which is credited with a certain number of units, and depending on traffic conditions you can actually see the number of credits decreasing, especially in very congested traffic conditions. So it does make you think about whether or not you should actually be using a car in those circumstances. The scheme that operates in Norway - there's one in Bergen and one in Trondheim from what I can remember - those schemes are much lower tech, they basically involve an entry charge being made for any vehicles which enter a particular cordon around those two towns during peak periods, so they're much lower tech than the Singapore one. But again, all the empirical evidence studies that have been done of these show that they work, they have led to a reduction in traffic volumes.

I should also add that the congestion charge in London has led to a reduction in traffic volumes, estimated broadly at about 20%. So these schemes do work. Economically though they are dependant on there being some elasticity of demand in the market for travel. If the market is very inelastic these schemes are not going to work; they might generate some money but they won't solve congestion.

SB: Now the Government have said that they're not at this stage looking at a national scheme, they say there is no data they can use to plan that, but there might be more local schemes like the one in London. Is that working?

CB: As I've said to you earlier, by all accounts there has been a 20% drop in traffic congestion. It will be interesting to know what effect the recent geographical extension earlier this week has had on traffic volumes. What was said on Newsnight on Monday, although I think they were being a bit sensational about it, they said there has been a substantial drop in traffic. Maybe what will happen in the fullness of time is people will realise that the alternatives are maybe not as effective as what they might think they are and resort to paying the charge. The big difference in West London, though, are the number of residents who live there and are exempt for something like 90% of the charge so it's not going to have a lot of effect on them. But I think critics of road user charging have been surprised at the effectiveness of the London scheme. They were arguing that to actually manage it properly and collect the toll and collect the fines and so on was very difficult. Well it might be difficult and it might be costly but at least it does work.

SB: Is London something of a special case? They have the underground and perhaps better alternatives to the private car.

CB: Yes, London is a special case, no question about it. And it's become even more of a special case because the profits from the road user charge have gone into improving public transport. There's now something in the order of 400 more buses on London's roads than there were before the congestion charge started. And the sheer intensity of the volumes of traffic in London does make it a special case. If you look elsewhere in the country though, without exception the number of people using alternatives to the car - particularly road based public transport - the volume of demand for that road based transport has been consistently falling as more and more people have resorted to using their vehicles in highly congested conditions.

If we look at West Yorkshire, though, one of the very positive things we can report is a big increase of the use of the local rail network. This though is invariably the outcome of a very positive subsidisation policy on the part of the PTE. It does cost many millions of pounds to keep the local rail network going but at least it has resulted, as you would have hoped for, in many many more people using that network, particularly for work purposes.

SB: Can public transport cope if people left the car at home?

CB: I think the way it could cope would have to be alongside public transport improvement there would have to be all sorts of improvements to the local traffic management system to give public transport that opportunity to compete. So we would have to see more bus lanes for example, providing speedier access into city and town centres. I think we'd also have to see more bus priority schemes and more park and ride systems. Because it is very difficult to lever motorists out of their cars by even trying to offer a realistic public transport alternative. I don't think the cost of using that is a particular issue, it's the quality of the substitute service that public transport is able to provice.

SB: And also the availability, like evenings and weekends?

CB: Well that's another issue. Deregulation in retrospect is not the best thing that we did to encourage public transport use. One of the downsides of deregulation is that in the off-peak period - early morning, evenings, Sundays particularly - there are very few quality bus services available. This means that at these times people invariably need to use their cars for personal trips such as shopping, socialising, going to restaurants, pubs and the like. So unless there is a massive new amount of subsidy provided for our private transport operators, there is no way they are going to put on additional services because the economics of it just do not stack up.

SB: One of the points that Tony Blair makes is that congestion is bad for business because it disrupts the delivery of goods and services. How about getting those goods and services off the roads and onto the rails?

CB: In theory that sounds fine, and some of our big retaillers have done this. The potential for doing this is really quite small. For a start, very few distribution centres are linked directly to the rail network, so road transport would have to be used for some stage of the trip. The other factor is the economics of it. Although estimates vary it is generally recognised that where the length of haul for more types of good is less than 300 miles then it is not economic to use rail as against road. So unless there is some new subsidy for rail freight I just cannot see that happenning for the vast vast majority of businesses.

SB: Now some of the concerns people have are about privacy, people feel it's Big Brother. Tony Blair says that isn't the case, what are your thoughts?

CB: I'm not sure about that, and this is a fear that many people have. If you look at satellite navigation systems that they have on commercial vehicles, it is possible for the companies that own those vehicles to know where those vehicles are at any one time. The media have received all sorts of leaks about computerised systems that can do this, so that the bills that can be produced for road pricing will be very similar to your mobile phone bills whereby the full details of the journeys you are making could be provided. Equally though there could an aggregation system whereby the individual details were not available. Having said that if you got your bill and you were disputing it, the only way you could know if it was correct is if you had a blow by blow, day by day account of the journeys that you'd made.

SB: You mentioned earlier that there are environmental issues, can you talk us through those?

CB: We're now towards the end of February, looking at the calendar on my wall, there is a photograph of Huddersfield when there is about 5 or 6 foot of snow. Now I can remember when winter was winter, spring was spring, summer was summer and autumn was autumn. That is no longer the case, we haven't had substantial snowfall for a good number of years; people go on holiday in the middle of August and it's almost like the middle of winter. A lot is happenning with the climate, and it's quite interesting that Tony Blair said recently that when he retires he was going to concentrate his political energies and efforts into doing something to avert some of the worst features of climate change. We really should be concerned about climate change, not just from a selfish point of view as it effects ouselves, but as it is going to affect hundreds of millions of people in parts of Africa, Asia and so on. We can do our bit by having a transport policy that is more environmentally focused, that is more sustainable. And one of the easiest ways of achieving this is through trying to get more people to leave their cars at home for journeys where there are alternative forms of transport available.

SB: Just finally the Government says they don't have any firm plans yet for a national road pricing system; do you think it will ever happen?

CB: I don't know, that's a good question. I think from a transport point of view it has to happen. What is going to happen in the interim is there are various experimental schemes that are going to be tried out, in the West Midlands, in Manchester, Shrewsbury, Cardiff I think is another place. The idea behind these is to try to learn from those experiments and to see how feasible it is to have a national system. It is possible, the technology is there and in many respects there are strong arguments for having a national system. If it does happen I think it will take at least 10 or 11, maybe even 15 years to be implemented. But I think the fundamental question we have to keep asking ourselves is if we don't do it what is the alternative. And the alternative would appear to be misery.

SB: My thanks there to Professor Colin Bamford. If you have any comments about Science@Huddersfield don't forget our email address is science@hud.ac.uk, our website is www.hud.ac.uk/sas. From me Steve Bentley, my guest Colin Bamford and everyone here in the School of Applied Sciences at the University of Huddersfield, bye for now, we'll talk to you next time.