CROST: on the track of affordable tramways

Talk by Lewis Lesley

UCL 4th March 2009

Introduction

Presently traffic air pollution kills an estimated 5000 people a year in London. This is a toll bigger than the Great Smog of Dec. 1952, six months after the last tram had been replaced by diesel buses. The 1952 Smog led to the Clean Air Act 1956, which introduced smokeless zones and banned smoke producing fires. The EU Air Quality Directive cannot be met in London on present policies. An application has been made to defer the implementation date. Even if this is granted there will come a time when the air quality can only be met by banning road vehicles, especially those with diesel engines, since it is the NOx and PM10 that are the most intractable. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution reported at length about the health impacts of traffic pollution in its Report "Transport and the environment". The dangers it pointed out 15 years ago, have not been acted upon. Time is running out.

The EU Environment Commissioner is taking enforcement action with the prospect of unlimited fines for London (and other cities) failing to reduce pollution levels below the EU "safe" standard. This enforcement is separate from the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to satisfy EU sustainable targets. Burning less fossil fuels (in diesel engines), by employing electric traction will improve air quality, and if powered by renewable generation be sustainable, with zero emissions in operations, and a significant reduction when mode transfer is included. Air quality monitoring in London can be found on http://www.londonair.org.uk.

The Congestion Charge Zone reduced motor traffic within it by 24% but increased it in the rest of London by 3% from displacement. The City of London, after the IRA bombs, achieved the same result by traffic restrain measures. Short trips within London zones are dominated by walking/cycling or car (Table 1). Only in inner London does public transport have a dominant market share (Table 2). Outer London is like the rest of the UK, with most trips (c60%) by private car.

Since 1993, travel in London has increased from 23million trips per day to nearly 28million (+20%). This reflects the growth of population and the number of tourist/visitors. Use of all modes of travel has grown.

Table 3 shows that public transport carries nearly one third of the trips made but that private cars carry more trips, over a third of the total. Most notable are the increases in rail, bus and cycle usage, well above the average for all modes, although for cycling the numbers are rather small. The growth of Tube usage is constrained by capacity. In relative terms car use and walking have declined.

The importance of public transport for the central area can be seen from the morning peak commuter total of 1.1million (Table 4) in 2006, which is only slightly (7%) more than the 1993 figure. Here public transport dominates, with an 80% market share.

Reducing traffic air pollution to satisfy the EU Air Quality Directives, a significant number of bus and car trips must be diverted to walking/cycling and electrically powered public transport ? This is practical, as over 70% of trips are less than 8km long. Market research however shows that whilst car users can be attracted to rail based public transport, they are unlikely to transfer to bus, and in any case buses pollute.