Asked by Lord Moylan To ask Her Majesty’s Government what
assessment they have made of the report by INRIX 2021 Global
Traffic Scorecard, published on 6 December; and in particular, its
findings (1) regarding the number of hours UK drivers spent in
traffic, and (2) that London is the most congested city in the
world in terms of traffic congestion. The Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport My Lords,
although officials have noted the...Request free trial
Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the report by INRIX 2021 Global Traffic Scorecard, published on 6
December; and in particular, its findings (1) regarding the
number of hours UK drivers spent in traffic, and (2) that London
is the most congested city in the world in terms of traffic
congestion.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport
My Lords, although officials have noted the INRIX report, the
department makes its own assessment of congestion using the
metric of average delay based on seconds of delay per vehicle per
mile. This is generally a more accurate way of estimating
congestion in contrast to grossing up the total hours lost from a
small sample to total driver population, as INRIX has done.
My Lords, I assume the implication of that Answer from my noble
friend is that there is no congestion for us to worry about. I
was going to ask her whether the Department for Transport still
holds to the assumption that vehicular traffic congestion has an
economic cost, or whether it has, since Covid began, altered the
methodology by which it applies that assumption, so that it is
much less concerned about it.
I reassure my noble friend that we still believe that vehicular
congestion has an economic cost; this can be a personal economic
cost and a national economic cost. But we do not estimate a total
cost of congestion on the road network as a whole; that is not
routinely assessed by the department. We look at things such as
journey time savings on road schemes appraisal, alongside many
other impacts, be they economic, social or environmental, to make
the right decisions.
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the three most congested
roads in London are the A503, the A2 and the North Circular Road,
which are multilane roads with no cycle lanes? Would she also
agree that the Blackfriars north-south cycle route now carries
five times more people per route than the carriageway next to it?
Is there not an argument for having more cycle routes, in
particular on the high street in Kensington, which Kensington and
Chelsea council has removed illegally?
Oh, my Lords, not again. The noble Lord has clearly been looking
at the INRIX report in some detail. It is correct that the roads
he cites are some of the most congested in London, but that does
not necessarily mean that they are ripe for a cycle path. What
one does need is effective cycle networks running through long
distances. He rightly mentions the one over Blackfriars Bridge,
which is a huge success. It is up to the Mayor of London, working
with the local highways authorities, to put these in place.
My Lords, following my noble friend Lod Moylan’s Question, does
my noble friend the Minister remember that one of the main
arguments put forward for HS2 was the economic cost of faster
travel time by HS2, and that an economic calculation was made of
the economic benefit caused by the faster travel? Will she use
the same methodology to apply to traffic congestion in
London?
My noble friend is exactly right. That is exactly what I was
saying earlier about journey time savings. For example, a number
of projects in London have been put forward by the mayor looking
for funding from the Department for Transport. In order to
appraise those schemes, we look at journey time savings and, as I
said to my noble friend, a number of other metrics to ensure that
we make the right decisions.
My Lords, in contrast to the noble Lord, , as a London resident and a
cyclist, I regularly see cycle lanes which are more or less
unused, particularly when they run almost parallel to park cycle
lanes. Given London’s status as the most traffic congested city
in the world, have the Government made any assessment of the
contribution—including pollution—paradoxically made to congestion
by the narrowing of roads to accommodate cycle lanes?
My Lords, well designed cycle lanes need not cause any additional
congestion and can be a highly efficient way of moving many more
people than the equivalent road without a cycle lane. As the
noble Lord, , mentioned, the cycle lane
over Blackfriars Bridge is a fantastic example of this. But the
key thing is for the design to be appropriate. In London, this is
a matter for the Mayor of London and for local authorities.
Recently, one of the national newspapers—the Daily Mail, I think
it was—reported that rail tickets in the UK cost up to seven
times the amount as for similar journeys in Europe. If the
Government are serious about reducing road traffic and
congestion, they will need to make public transport a more
appealing alternative. What steps will the Government take to
reduce the cost of rail and bus journeys?
The Government have, of course, been extraordinarily generous to
the rail system. Over the course of Covid, we have been able to
keep services running to make sure that people can get from A to
B as and when they have needed to. We are now entering a new
phase for rail, where we will be looking at introducing the
structures around Great British Railways in order to benefit
passengers—it is all about putting passengers first. As the noble
Lord knows, on buses, we will be allocating £1.2 billion of
transformation funding. We hope to do that fairly soon. We would
like that to focus on bus priority to speed up services, so that
we can break the cycle of decline.
My Lords, on that issue of generosity, obviously, getting cars
off the road would be the quickest way to decongest our roads
nationally. But in London, bus passengers, through TfL, actually
pay for all the road repairs, and therefore they subsidise
motorists. Does that seem right?
I am not sure I understand the noble Baroness’s point. The point
that I am able to respond to is about getting cars off the road.
This Government do not want to take cars off the road: the whole
point is that we need to provide the right type of journey for
the right passenger. For some people, that will mean using
private cars, and for others it will mean using buses. It also
means decarbonising the private vehicles that we currently
have.
My Lords, I wonder if I can ask the Minister about enforcement,
particularly in relation to e-scooters. We have cyclists going
the wrong way on pavements in one-way streets, and we now have
the blight of e-scooters, which appear to be entirely
unregulated, as they race down streets, incredibly silently. We
have started to see the first fatal accidents. What are the
Government doing about that?
The Government are very clear that the use of e-scooters outside
trial areas on public property is illegal. It can lead to a fine
of up to £300, six points on a driving licence and the scooter
can be impounded.
My Lords, given that inflation is running at very high levels as
measured by CPI, but even higher levels as measured by RPI, being
some 7%, can the Minister assure us that the benchmark for
setting increases in rail fares will be CPI and not RPI?
My noble friend raises a really important point. This Government
considered very carefully the extent to which we wanted to raise
rail fares this year. Of course we will make sure that we take
equal care when we look to raise fares, if at all, in future.
My Lords, the Minister referred earlier, in an answer to my noble
friend , to the Government’s
generosity, both past and in prospect, to public transport. Can
she say how much of that generosity is actually being spent on
reducing the cost of travel?
I could, but I am afraid that I do not have the full briefing
with me today in order to go through all the different elements
where that is the case. But I can say to the noble Baroness that,
for example, the national bus strategy very clearly sets out our
ambition to be able to get a fair ticketing system for bus
passengers and to enable services to be more frequent, and
therefore for the entire system to operate more effectively.
My Lords, I am a member of the healthy cities commission at the
University of Oxford, chaired by my noble friend , where we are looking into the
effects of commuting as well as congestion. If London is the most
congested city in the world, what calculations have the
Government made of the effect on the economy, the lost time, and
the money and hours lost, as well as on pollution?
Again, that is a hugely complicated question, which probably goes
beyond what I can answer today. The noble Lord is right; in terms
of congestion and changes to commuting behaviour, the system has
to adapt. That is why, in London, we have a very good integrated
system, which comes under TfL and the responsibility of the Mayor
of London. It is up to him to look at all the different modes
that he has available, whether it is the Tube, overground,
cycling or walking—all those different ways—to ensure that we get
the maximum economic benefit for London. Only this morning, I
spoke to the CEO of London First, and we discussed that in
detail.
My Lords—
My Lords—
My Lords, it is the turn of the Labour Benches.
My Lords, no matter how much this is dressed up, there is no
doubt whatever that congestion in London has got worse, and part
of the reason for that is bad cycle lanes, as on the Marylebone
Road, Park Lane and Lower Thames Street. Another reason is the
closing of so many small back roads, so that the moment there is
an accident, or something like that, everything clogs up. The
journey that I do every day, and which I have done to try to
avoid public transport and not give everyone in this House Covid,
takes a third longer than it used to; it is getting longer and
longer. We have to do something. Surely we must open up those
side roads and get those bicycle lanes sorted out.
Well, I would very much encourage the noble Lord to use public
transport. There is nothing wrong with public transport, and I
think that even he would find it perfectly comfortable. He also
might wish to talk to his colleague in the Labour Party, the
Mayor of London, whose responsibility it is for London. But the
noble Lord mentioned something that had not come up previously:
low traffic neighbourhoods. They are really important for
reducing rat-running, and we think that, where they are well
introduced, following local consultation, they can be hugely
effective in encouraging people to take up cycling and walking
and for taking traffic off the streets.
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