Senior transport politicians in the West Midlands are welcoming a shift in the way Government is to measure congestion in major cities, which they say gives more recognition to public transport and other sustainable travel options.
Two new indicators, to be used in the latest round of Local Transport Plans submitted to Government, will look at delays to people rather then vehicles.
“Official congestion statistics that simply count the number of cars stuck in traffic jams don’t really fit in with the development of a proper integrated transport policy,” comments Cllr Gary Clarke, chairman of the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority.
“The new measure takes on particular significance in major cities like Birmingham where, for example, we already have more rush hour commuters on buses, trams and trains – so a simple count of vehicle delay does look like it might be unfairly biased towards getting cars moving. It’s people that matter, not vehicles,” he adds.
Public transport bosses have raised the hope that use of the new congestion criteria could make it easier for policies to solve rush hour delays to buses and could give a boost to car-sharing schemes.
“If Government targets continue to be based solely on the number of vehicles that means the congestion problem for a car with a single driver is given the same weight as for someone with several passengers in a car-share scheme or even a bus with fifty or more commuters on board,” comments Cllr Clarke.
The new guidance is contained in a technical note recently published by the Department for Transport. It says the ten largest urban areas (London, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Tyne & Wear, Nottingham, Leicester and Bristol) will be required to set congestion targets based on average person delay on key corridors in the morning rush hour.
The new guidance says future measures of ‘traffic’ levels on key corridors will count the number of people travelling along the route, rather than the number of vehicles. For average person delay, traffic flows and journey times must be disaggregated for different categories of vehicle, for example: cars/vans, larger goods vehicles, non-stopping minibuses, non-stopping coaches, and stopping buses.
Link to DfT note
