1 / 45

Motoring Towards 2050

Motoring Towards 2050. Roads as Utilities? The need for institutional reform Stephen Glaister Imperial College London and Director RAC Foundation LSE, 19 January 2009. The Utilities in Britain. Telecommunications Gas Electricity Water Railways. 1947 – 1979 Nationalised Industries

berget
Download Presentation

Motoring Towards 2050

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Motoring Towards 2050 Roads as Utilities? The need for institutional reform Stephen Glaister Imperial College London and Director RAC Foundation LSE, 19 January 2009

  2. The Utilities in Britain Telecommunications Gas Electricity Water Railways www.racfoundation.org

  3. 1947 – 1979 Nationalised Industries Common features: Strong public interest considerations Natural monopolies (networks) Owned and controlled by the State Claimed to be inefficient and poor quality of service www.racfoundation.org

  4. Conservatives under Mrs. Thatcher Desire to encourage forces of competition economic efficiency (labour costs) meet consumer needs reduce size of the State Later… promote private shareholding raise cash for the Treasury (reduce taxation) www.racfoundation.org

  5. Competition in a natural monopoly?? 1. Separate the distribution network from supply of service 2. Sell network to private shareholders for-profit monoploy, subject to regulation 3. Promote competition for supply over the network by private enterprises 4. INDEPENDENT, public interest regulation www.racfoundation.org

  6. Telecoms, Gas, Electricity, Water, Rail Consumer pays a fee for use Fee determined by independent regulator publicly declared principles: economy, efficiency, fair return on capital, fund capacity investment Consumer protection: eg Quality of Service is published and debated Direct connection between value to consumer and investment in capacity For roads we have little of this: Individual cannot hold provider to account

  7. For Rail there is now a coherent strategy High Level Output Specification (HLOS) Statement of Funds Available (SoFA) Independent Regulator to adjudicate that it all adds up [High speed rail proposals will have to be shown to be good value for money, genuinely good environmentally affordable by the taxpayer (!)]

  8. There is no HLOS or SoFA for roads! The Government’s rail strategy has Defined level of capacity increase (much of it local commuting and in London area) A definition of who will pay a balance between passengers and national taxpayer What would HLOS and SoFA look like for roads? Why don’t we have them??

  9. We do pay for our roads www.racfoundation.org

  10. Road users do pay charges! Road tax is a substantial charge for use of system What are the principles? to raise general Exchequer revenues? to incentivise efficient use of the system including carbon & environmental concerns? to fund investment in capacity? Little info on what you get for your money (Q of S)

  11. Relentless traffic growth(source: Road Statistics 2007, DfT) www.racfoundation.org 11

  12. Why congestion has got worse www.racfoundation.org

  13. Growing demand for roads Between 2005 and 2041: • Population will grow by at least 11% • Most growth in the E, S and London • Incomes will double • Number of cars will increase by 44% • Road traffic demand up by 43% DfT forecast 29% by 2025 www.racfoundation.org

  14. Government agrees!National Traffic Forecast (2008) www.racfoundation.org

  15. Will current proposals deal with the roads problem? Hard shoulder running Better roads management Travel Demand Management Local road pricing schemes …. etc.. I doubt if they will

  16. The problem for the fututre Population growth 2001-21 and 2021-41 -10% or less -5% to -10% -1% to -5% +1% - -1% 1% t 5% 5% - 10% 10% or more www.racfoundation.org

  17. RAC Foundation estimates 2005 – 2041 (fuel at £1.50/litre) www.racfoundation.org

  18. Speed change (%) 2010-41 Traffic change (%) 2010-41 www.racfoundation.org

  19. Model: Sources DfT FORGE 2010 Tempro Generally, official DfT parameter values Elasticities from our previous research Model structure from previous work for Independent Transport Commission www.racfoundation.org

  20. Road type www.racfoundation.org

  21. Urbanisation www.racfoundation.org

  22. Regions www.racfoundation.org

  23. Time of the week www.racfoundation.org

  24. six journey purposes: HBW Home based work HBEB Home based Employers Busines HBEO Home based Essential Other HBDO Home based Discretionary Other ( NHBWEB Non Home based Work/Employers bus. NHBDO Non Home based Discretionary Other LGV Light Goods Vehicles (less than 3.5 tonnes gross weight) Rigid Rigid Heavy Goods Vehicles Artic Articulated Heavy Goods Vehicles PSV Public Service Vehicles (Buses/Coaches) Rail www.racfoundation.org

  25. g = p + v (1/s) + ww + t + ... xi = xi exp { jij (gj - gj)} www.racfoundation.org

  26. www.racfoundation.org

  27. Time values scaled with regional incomes www.racfoundation.org

  28. Roads and Reality Strategic Road Network: • Trunk roads in Britain + some rural principal roads • Targeted Prog. of Improvements up to 2015/16 included • Additional capacity 2010 to 2041 considered 200 Lane Km pa increments up to 800 LKm pa • With and without ‘Efficient’ Road Pricing • Pattern of improvements similar to Eddington www.racfoundation.org

  29. The alternatives Let congestion continue to grow unchecked Build & widen roads without reforming pricing Reform pricing and heavily restrain demand To reform pricing to improve efficiency AND additional capacity to preserve mobility www.racfoundation.org 29

  30. Roads and Reality Efficient Road Pricing: Replaces existing motoring taxes with • A carbon tax on fuel (14p litre) • A distance based charge reflecting • congestion • harmful emissions • road track costs • accidents www.racfoundation.org

  31. Roads and Reality Costs and benefits - £bn p.a. www.racfoundation.org

  32. Road pricing deals with congestion Extra capacity restores mobility Both are needed to do the job – a policy package 600 Lane Km pa justified with OR without pricing This is not excessive by historical standards www.racfoundation.org

  33. Carbon: Follow through principles ofStern and Eddington Decide what the price of carbon should be Ensure everybody pays it Secure Transport’s correct position in carbon reduction hierarchy Do road and rail appraisals properly and use them… www.racfoundation.org

  34. Congestion vs carbon On current values Congestion is a bigger problem than carbon Carbon will be reduced by • Implementation of better technology • More sensible pricing Fuel duty already over-prices carbon? carbon = 14p/litre duty = 60p/litre www.racfoundation.org

  35. The objections: carbon Effects on fuel consumption and carbon emissions www.racfoundation.org

  36. Predictability of journey times As the network gets closer to capacity Average journey times increase (classic congestion) Variability of journey times increase. Conventional appraisal has only considered the average www.racfoundation.org 36

  37. People and business becoming upset about variability Public attitude research Eddington, DfT research. Quality of service to the user www.racfoundation.org 37

  38. PSA Journey reliability target An attempt to represent variability by Journey time on the slowest 10% of journeys on a sample of about 90 routes. Target was to improve this by the end of the three years ending March 2008. www.racfoundation.org 38

  39. T www.racfoundation.org 39

  40. Problems The measure is difficult to understand and almost impossible to explain to the public It is highly aggregated by: Time of day Road type Location 12 month moving average There are technical failings An important research area www.racfoundation.org 40

  41. Conclusions GB is a rich nation … … unable to bring itself to spend the resources necessary for adequate transport infrastructure More infrastructure implies more spending!

  42. A realistic, long term national roads strategy  Roads: the only public utility to be provided by a purely administrative process with little regard for value to users Pricing, taxation and investment to be moved away from the Treasury’s economic and political priorities and towards transparent transport policy-related considerations Reconsideration of the principles behind road taxation must be a part of this ? Time and distance-based pricing as part of a tax reform and investment package?

  43. Governance reform Some lessons taken from the other public utilities ? New and independent authorities could be a useful part of future reform. We need better measures of quality of service This would facilitate the necessary rebuilding of trust between accountable bodies and users.

  44. PSA measure for one route www.racfoundation.org 44

  45. T The underlying data Section-by-section measurement gives more useful data? (scales have been adjusted to indicate contribution of each link’s contribution to PSA1) www.racfoundation.org 45

More Related