A look at the transport industry in January
Sadiq Khan vowed to press ahead with the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to the Greater London boundary despite receiving backlash. To ease the burden on Londoners, the Mayor is introducing a £110 million vehicle scrappage scheme to replace high polluting vehicles. Compliance for the ULEZ has increased from 35% in 2017 to 94% in 2023, highlighting the effectiveness of the scheme. The ULEZ needs to be part of a wider effort to tackle poor air quality in London, and act as a blueprint for similar schemes in other UK cities.
Former Energy Minister Chris Skidmore published his long-awaited net zero review. The paper was well received by industry with praise for its extensive research, in-depth analysis and comprehensive consultation process. The review rightly frames the transition to net zero as our best opportunity for growth in the coming decades rather than a financial burden. We hope the government reads and responds to the review, outlining how it will influence future policy.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced the next round of the Levelling up Fund, with £2.1 billion committed overall and £672 million earmarked for transport projects. The announcement came under severe scrutiny and was accused of favouritism towards some regions. Analysis from the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) showed that if the North of England were a country it would have the lowest levels of investment in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) excluding Greece. An honest pursuit of levelling up must reverse historic imbalances in funding by focusing on left behind regions in the UK.
Below we take a look in more detail at what’s been happening in our core policy areas of transport, decarbonisation and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Active travel
- Active Travel England is investing £32.9 million to create a national network of active travel experts to work with communities, enhance high streets and boost walking and cycling. The Capability Fund could see up to 1,300 new green jobs created across England. It has been set up to help local authorities design high-quality active travel schemes that take into account the views of local people.
- Transport for London (TfL) has released data on the success of its Santander Cycles hire scheme in 2022, that shows the scheme experienced yet another record-breaking year, with 11,506,889 hires. This is 565,625 hires more than were made in 2021, which was also a record-breaking year for the scheme.
- A new £55,000 programme to encourage children aged 2 - 5 to walk to and from nursery has been launched by West Yorkshire Mayor, Tracy Brabin. West Yorkshire is one of the first regions in the UK to launch a dedicated early years walking programme, which will support 30 nurseries and schools throughout 2023. This will help support over 900 young children and encourage families to commit to healthy travel, instilling positive habits that can last a lifetime.
Public transport
- Earlier this month, TfL celebrated 160 years since the first Tube journey took place. A programme of activities throughout 2023 will celebrate London Underground’s role as the lifeblood of the city, connecting Londoners with work and leisure opportunities for the past 160 years.
- TfL, in partnership with the Rail Delivery Group, British Transport Police, Metropolitan Police Service and City of London Police has launched a new campaign to encourage a culture of active bystanders on public transport. Through the campaign, TfL hopes to inspire Londoners to look out for others by learning to recognise the signs of sexual harassment, offering support to a person who has been targeted, and reporting any incidents.
Elsewhere in public transport this month:
Buses
- Almost one in 10 local bus services were axed in Great Britain in the last year despite government promises to improve local transport connectivity as part of its levelling up agenda. The reductions – equivalent to more than 1,000 registered routes – follow the publication of a national bus strategy for England in 2021, aimed at improving routes and service frequencies. An analysis by newspaper, The Guardian, of data from the Traffic Commissioners – the body responsible for registration of local bus services – found the number of live registered services fell 9.5% between January 2022 and 2023.
- Go-Ahead’s bus companies have carried two million passengers at the nationwide promotional fare of £2 since the Government began funding a scheme capping the price of bus travel on New Year’s Day. Under the offer, adult single fares across England are no more than £2 for a three-month period, irrespective of distance.
Rail
- HS2 celebrated another major milestone in January, with over 1,000 apprentice starts now confirmed on the UK’s flagship transport levelling up project. The total number of new starters has reached 1,126, putting the company building Britain’s new railway on track to smash its target of creating 2,000 apprenticeships.
- The government has acted with the biggest intervention in its history to ensure rail fare increases for 2023 are capped at 5.9%, 6.4 percentage points lower than RPI figure on which they are historically based. Fares will officially rise on 5 March 2023 and like last year, the government is freezing them for the entirety of January and February, giving passengers more time to purchase cheaper flexible and season tickets at the existing rate.
- HS2 is celebrating a world-first with its latest feat of engineering, after sliding a 12,600-tonne bridge over the M42 in Warwickshire. Around 450 construction workers from HS2's Midlands contractor Balfour Beatty VINCI (BBV) slid the bridge a record 163 metres, to position it across the motorway. The site team worked around the clock for 40 hours during the dramatic operation to position the Marston Box bridge.
E-mobility
E-vehicles
- The sale of new electric cars overtook diesel models in the UK for the first time in 2022, but overall new car sales fell to their lowest level in three decades, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Electric car sales rose by more than a quarter in 2022, accounting for 16.6 per cent of sales, while diesel demand fell to less than 10 per cent.
- Zap-Map, the UK’s leading charge point mapping service, has published new year-end figures for charge point installations in 2022. As of the end of December, Zap-Map’s data shows that the number of ultra-rapid charge points grew almost 80% in 2022. The high-speed devices increased from 1,290 at the end of 2021 to 2,295.
- According to a new report form the RAC, the cost of using public rapid and ultra-rapid chargers for electric vehicles has increased by 50% since May and for some on long journeys it costs more to top up batteries than it does for petrol and diesel drivers to refuel. It now costs an average of 70.32p per kilowatt hour to rapid charge an EV on a pay-as-you-go basis. This is up from 44.55p in May and 63.29p in September. The rising cost of electricity is the main contributor to these price increases.
Aviation
- Manchester Airport has unveiled plans to become the first UK airport with a direct supply of low carbon hydrogen fuel, announcing a partnership with HyNet– one of the UK’s leading Government-backed industrial decarbonisation projects. The airport has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the two founding partners of HyNet. Progressive Energy, which develops projects to decarbonise the energy sector, and Cadent, which will build and operate HyNet’s hydrogen pipeline network. Through the MoU, the partners are aiming to deliver hydrogen to the aviation sector at the earliest opportunity, including through the connection of Manchester Airport to a pipeline being developed by HyNet.
- The government has revealed the names of the next cohort of aviation ambassadors who will engage with young people and help inspire them to pursue a rewarding and successful career in aviation. Working with the government, the ambassadors will share their skills and experience, particularly with young people and underrepresented groups, to highlight the wide range of opportunities available in the sector. This year’s group includes the UK’s youngest qualified flying instructor, a trailblazing air traffic controller, and a former Air League scholar.
Roads
- According to a report from traffic information supplier, Inrix, London’s roads remain the most congested in the world, with more time being lost to traffic jams than before the pandemic. Drivers in the capital spent an average of 156 hours waiting in traffic during 2022. The report found Bristol had the UK's second worst road congestion, followed by Manchester, Birmingham and Belfast.
- Seven projects spread across the UK, from Lanarkshire to Devon, have been awarded £30million of funding through the Live Labs 2: Decarbonising Local Roads competition. The programme supports projects led by local highways authorities focused on tackling the long-term decarbonisation of highways infrastructure, such as streetlights, and transforming local authorities’ approach to decarbonising roads. The winning projects include cutting carbon emissions from our streetlights to producing asphalt made from green waste like grass cuttings.
Air quality
- Busy streets in Glasgow and Edinburgh have passed air pollution tests for the first time according to environmental campaigners. Friends of the Earth Scotland analysed official air pollution data for 2022 showing a reduction in pollutants on pollution hotspots that are monitored. It found 2022 was the first year that Glasgow and Edinburgh did not breach air pollution limits, excluding the impact of lockdowns in 2020.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
- Coventry University has been tasked with helping to change the face of transport for people with disabilities through a £20 million grant to create the UK’s first evidence centre for accessible and inclusive transport. The grant has been made available by disability transport charity Motability, whose research shows that disabled people in the UK currently make 38% fewer journeys than non-disabled people – a figure that hasn’t changed in the last decade. This impacts disabled people’s access to healthcare, employment, education and social activities.
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A new report from gender equality charity, Fawcett, shows how an exclusionary culture both within Westminster and online is damaging our democracy, and risks pushing women out of politics altogether. A House for Everyone: A Case for Modernising Parliament presents new survey data and interviews with current and former MPs on the issues that create this culture. The report identifies a number of 'push and pull factors' that impact MPs' decisions to stay or leave Parliament, including lack of support systems, online abuse, sexism, racism and ableism. Key findings show:
- Only 37% of women MPs agreed that 'the culture in Parliament is inclusive for people like me', compared to a majority of men (55%)
- 69% of women MPs and 49% of all MPs have witnessed sexist behaviour in Parliament in the last five years
- 93% of women MPs said that online abuse or harassment has a negative impact on how they feel about being an MP
- 73% of women MPs said they 'do not use social media to speak on certain issues because of the abusive environment online', compared to 51% of men
- The annual Women in Public Affairs survey, led by research agency Opinium, has revealed an overwhelming majority (96%) of women working in the public affairs industry are worried about the cost-of-living crisis. Over half (51%) of respondents say they are worried about the impact on their mental health and are concerned that they will need to reduce essential spending (53%).
We hope you found our January roundup interesting and informative. Follow us on twitter and LinkedIn or sign up to our mailing list to keep up to date with our analysis of key industry topics. If you need help with any of these policy areas, or anything else, email us at info@jfgcomms.co.uk. If you would like to shape the content you read about in future monthly transport roundups, please take a moment to complete our poll.