Concluding Remarks

This is a plenary session, in which the aim is to raise issues that are of interest that perhaps we didn’t cover in some way. I’m going to invoke the chairman’s privilege by making a few points that I think are interesting in the context of what we have heard today.

One thing I think that we can take away is that we need to work from a clear definition of the problem. There may be surveys from different sources – probably the train people have them, the airline people also – but do we have an overview of the problems that people see about transport today? I doubt it somehow. Of course, only when new possibilities are introduced do people then see new problems, so it’s a bit of a vicious circle? Anyway, we do need to know more about city transport issues as they are seen by the transport consumer, the person who is buying the service.

We heard something about the plans in London for benchmarking successful transport strategies from around the world. It will be helpful if the benchmarking process also includes a look at the way in which successful systems were handled politically. This is something we need to know. The most important thing we can be doing is developing successful action strategies for future transport improvement and change. If we can learn from some benchmarking of programmes that worked that would be very, very useful.

We majored a bit on the idea of changing from being a network operator or an equipment supplier to becoming a mobility provider, to looking more at the provision of mobility services to the end customer rather that just making the system or the equipment. This isn’t easy for the established companies – the makers of railway cars and automobiles and so on. It is clearly an opportunity for the newcomers to this world; the web-aware new entrants who are in touch with people and who understand how to interpret what people want. They’re good at that, so they might be able to fill that bill.

We heard a lot about the need to think in systems terms. OMRON had, for example, some very interesting individual systems for vehicles and for transport modes. I think what we were seeing were sub-systems of a whole. They were sub-systems that actually fitted into a complete large system that constitutes both vehicles and networks. We are really looking for the creation of the bigger system that controls – and helps us utilise efficiently – the transport media that we have.

Linked to that is the trend to CCTV, closed-circuit television. We’ve a lot of it today, and we can assume that by 2020 we will have it everywhere. There will be practically no place that isn’t under surveillance with closed-circuit television. There are big questions there: who’s watching, who’s looking at the tapes and who’s observing and how is the information being used? Can we use closed-circuit television and some of the findings from all this observation to improve efficiency of operation, not just prevent criminal activity? Or to carry out other kinds of research?

The issue of choice and availability came up in a number of interventions. Too much choice is not good. It’s nice to have a wide choice and a wide selection of different options in anything you do in life – in the supermarket or in transport – but choice is really only useful if it’s easily managed. At the moment we seem to have the worst of both worlds. We have a huge choice of products and services for transport: airlines, rail, ship, motor vehicle, bus, coach etc. But at the same time we have poor, partial, biased information available about these choices. We don’t have an integrated system of information that allows us to choose what we need for the trip that we want to make. That’s a very complicated process.

We have to struggle toward some way of giving a more integrated view to the customer of what his or her choices are, and how they should be selected. Our failure to do this accounts for a lot of unhappiness about transport. Again, I would like to know what people think about transport and what their concerns are. I think a lot of unhappiness arises because you are not able to make as intelligent a choice of the kind of transport you want, as ideally you should be able to.

Goods transport was mentioned. The point was well made, with tele-shopping featuring in a scenario in one of the presentations, that there would be a considerable increase in local deliveries. Are we going to be under attack from the famous white van man? I know he is infesting neighbourhoods more and more and he is a menace. As part of the phasing in of improvements in transport we are going to need a new generation of lighter, more versatile and narrower white vans. The big Transits are going to have to give way in cities; they are too wide and too big and too much congestion is caused by them.

We saw that people – as Terence Bendixson explained – want to live where mass transit can’t go, for example in suburban areas. We need somehow to preserve the advantage of the car, with its flexibility and ease of moving to areas which can’t be accessed otherwise. We are challenged to combine the car with more efficient guidance systems that will help it be used in high-density urban corridors. Of course intelligent vehicle highway systems will be very much part of this process. I am hoping that we can use these intelligent systems to make the car less of a problem in the city. The bus, the coach, is an efficient urban transport system if it is well used. If it is not well occupied it is of course quite inefficient. In fact I'd like to say that there is at least one kind of vehicle which is always at least 50% capacity, and that’s a sports car.

I’d like to see – and it was raised in connection with some of these presentations – a little more competition for the car in horizontal transport. Such as travellators, for example, or multiple small pod systems working along tracks. Cable cars – we don’t get enough use out of cable cars. There are a number of competitive means of horizontal transport for short and long distances. It would be good to see these encouraged in competition with the car.

We had a number of comments about bicycles and the question of cycling and its role. I would like to see that extended to the lightly motorised electric two-wheeler. I’ve looked at some transport plans recently – the House of Lords conducted a study on transport a year or two ago – and there was no mention of motorcycles or of low-power two-wheeled vehicles. None, zip, zilch! And that isn’t right, because they have a role in transport. They are quite efficient and they have 100% or even 20% occupancy much of the time. I would like to see them given a bit more consideration.

One of the headlines on the think-tank scenarios said, ‘Buy your own bus’, which is great, because that touches on the issue of ownership. Cars are bought, generally, or leased – like horses and traps were originally. We have followed that tradition. And of course if you are wealthy enough you can buy your own railroad car. In the 19^th century many wealthy people did, just that and had it hooked up to the train when they wanted to travel. Buying a railway car today may seem an odd thing to do, but jets and helicopters are personally owned and used for transport systems.

The whole issue of ownership is ripe for rethinking. For example Mercedes-Benz recently launched a programme under which your lease allowed you to change your car. You had a basic lease under which you could switch cars from season to season or use them within the context of the lease. If you take a time-share somewhere for two weeks does it come with a car? There should be a car there, as part of the time-share. It fits with the concept Honor mentioned this morning of a new generation that is less obsessed with owning things. Maybe they want to be able to pack up their life in a big bag and maybe they don’t have to own a car.

Just a couple of other points. I’m interested in the question of who are the best customers for good transport design. Are they government-owned operators? Are they private systems? Or are they the independent publicly owned operator? Maybe benchmarking exercises could help us understand better who is really interested in good transport design.

And the last point that I have is that the title of this meeting – Moving On, the Future of City Transport – is terrific. I couldn’t help wondering whether there is today a journal that covers this field. Is there a publication that covers the field of general transport, of progress in transport and the future of transport in the broadest sense that this implies? If not perhaps this could be the beginning, in co-operation with a publisher, of a journal or periodical that would inform us about the latest developments in this field. That’s just a thought for the future.

I am co-Director with Roger Coleman of the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre. I just want to say, just to pick up on Karl’s point about the journal, I do think it is a very exciting idea but I think it fronts a bigger idea in a sense in that today and yesterday evening we’ve come together as a network from a range of different interests and specialisms that who don’t normally talk to each other. Urban planners, automotive industry people, and public transport providers and also technology providers, and I think from our point of view and from everybody’s point of view it is very important that this network isn’t allowed to fragment. We’ve come together, there is a network, and we must now look at ways in which we can continue this dialogue and deepen it. If it’s a journal, if it’s Moving On 2001, or even 2020 so be it. But I think the important thing is that we maintain the dialogue and begin to produce ideas and alliances from it.

 Karl Ludvigsen

I know it has been a long day and a productive one and what I would like to do now is thank everyone for their contributions, involvement, commitment, and I like the suggestion about finding a way to continue this dialogue which I think is extremely valuable, great idea, and thank the team and staff of Helen Hamlyn and the Royal College of Art for organising a very rich and edifying day and a half. And with that I am happy to declare these proceeding concluded. Thank you.

Moving On Home

© The authors and Royal College of Art, 2000
This is an unedited transcription of proceedings: a fully edited publication will be available later in the year.
Last Updated: 14 April 2000
Corrections and comments to: David Whittle