ContentsEditorial 1PublicationsScottish bus and coach statistics 1998/991999 National road maintenance conditionTraffic in Great Britain: Q1 2000Road goods vehicles to mainland Europe: Q4 99Transport of goods by road in GB 1999UK port traffic: provisional statisticsBulletin of rail statistics, Q4 1999/2000

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News Rail industry developments 1999/2000DETR’s Transport Statistics website online

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Ad: College of Aeronautics – job applications 5SeminarsSustainability measures and indicatorsTransport information needs of a devolved WalesFreight statistics

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17News of members 20Dates for your diary 20Next newsletter 20Appendix: DETR statistical publications 20

EditorialThis is the first newsletter to be written from start to finish in Microsoft Word – and I’m afraid there is some evidence that my struggles to solve formatting problems which never arose under Lotus Word Pro have not been entirely successful (bullet points, in particular, have a mind of their own!). The reason for my unwilling migration to Word is, in a word, Email. I can Email attachments in Word direct to printers, or to subscribers, and be confident that they would be able to open and read them. With Word Pro I could not have such confidence. Incidentally, the last newsletter was compiled in Word Pro and saved in Word before being Emailed for printing. I’m sorry that the resulting formatting changes were not fully corrected before printing, which accounts for the discrepancies between the pagination shown in the contents table and the actual page numbers.

We must also apologise for the postponement at short notice of the seminar on airport accessibilty statistics due to be held on 7 June. This has now been provisionally rescheduled to take place on 25 October.

Following representations from some members, the News of members section of the newsletter is being re-focussed to concentrate on activities which are likely to have a direct influence on the provision or analysis of transport statistics; and these will be reported somewhat more fully than in the past. Design, operational and other activities with no statistical output of interest to members will be excluded. Partly as a result of this policy, and partly because a previously contributing member has decided not to renew its membership, there are no entries in this section on this occasion.

Scottish Executive: Bus and Coach Statistics: 1998-99

This Bulletin describes the trends in Scottish bus and coach services over the ten years from 1988-89 to 1998-99, using statistics provided by the DETR. A summary table gives some key figures over a longer period, including 1985-86, the last full year prior to the deregulation of bus services outside London. The tables include, in many cases, comparable statistics for Great Britain and/or for “Great Britain outside London”, where this is more appropriate. The commentary generally focuses on the latest year (1998-99) and compares it with the previous year, and with trends over the past ten years.

Thanks to the agreement of all the major operators to the publication of such figures, this bulletin provides, for the first time ever, estimates of the level of and trends in the provision of local bus services and the patronage of such services for parts of Scotland. The other improvements in this edition are the inclusion of charts showing the trends in the main sets of figures and the extension of some of the longer-term series back to 1975.

The main points are:

Scottish bus and coach services travelled 518 million vehicle kilometres in 1998-99, 7% less than in the previous year but 8% further than in 1988-89

The distance travelled by local bus services in Scotland was:

TSUG NEWS

358 million vehicle kilometres in 1998-99, 3% less than the previous year

has increased by 10% in ten years, compared with an increase of 11% in Great Britain

per head of population in 1998-99 was 52% higher than Great Britain

on subsidised services has increased by 36% over the past 10 years, compared with 9% in Great Britain outwith London

The total number of passenger journeys on local bus services in Scotland: was 413 million in 1998-99, 6% less than in the

previous year fell by 36% between 1988-89 and 1998-99,

compared with 19% in Great Britain and 26% for Great Britain outwith London

represented 81 journeys per head of population in 1998-99, 9% higher than the corresponding figure for Great Britain

In real terms, fares on local bus services in Scotland were 1% higher in 1998-99 than in the previous year. They increased by 20% over the past ten years, compared with 21% for Great Britain. Over the same period, motoring costs rose by 4% in real terms

Passenger receipts from Scottish bus and coach services totalled £421 million in 1998-99, in real terms £1 million more than the previous year, but 4% less than ten years earlier. Local bus passenger receipts in Scotland were £300 million and, in real terms, fell by 11% over the past ten years, compared with no change for Great Britain, and a fall of 6% for Great Britain outwith London

Public transport support for local bus services in Scotland in 1998-99 was £28 million, 10% less in real terms than in 1988-89, compared with falls of 45% for Great Britain, and 20% for Great Britain outwith London

In Scotland, over the past ten years, the number of single decker buses has increased by 25%, the number of double deckers has reduced by 33%, and staff numbers have fallen by 15%. In consequence, operating costs per vehicle kilometre (including depreciation) were 34% lower in real terms than ten years earlier

Since 1975, Scotland has seen a 54% reduction in the number of local bus passenger journeys but a 6% increase in the distance travelled by local bus services. This compares with a 44% reduction in

passenger numbers for Great Britain as a whole and an increase of 8% in vehicle kilometres.

Copies of this densely packed 32-page bulletin are available, price £2.00, from:

The Stationery Office Bookshop71 Lothian RoadEdinburgh EH3 9AZ

Tel: 0131 228 4181Fax: 0131 622 7017

Enquiries for more information on Scottish transport statistics should be addressed to:

Alastair DouglasEAS2: Transport Statistics BranchThe Scottish ExecutiveArea 3-G13Victoria QuayEdinburgh EH6 6QQ

Tel: 0131 244 7255Fax: 0131 244 0888Email: transtat@scotland.gov.uk

1999 National road maintenance condition surveyThis report, published in April, provides the results from the NRMCS visual survey, which monitors changes in the visual condition of the road network. It also includes the results of a survey of the structural condition of local authority principal roads, and a similar survey of motorways and trunk roads.

The annual NRMCS is sponsored jointly by the Local Government Association, the DETR, the National Assembly for Wales and the Highways Agency.Copies of the report are available from:

DETRHighways Maintenance Data UnitZone 1/27Great Minster House76 Marsham StreetLondon SW1P 4DR

Tel: 020 7944 3092Fax: 020 7944 2166E-Mail: roadmaintenance_stats@detr.gov.uk

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Traffic in Great Britain - First Quarter 2000Traffic levels have risen by 1% since the first quarter of 1999, according to provisional estimates for the first quarter of 2000. Revised figures for 1999, published in May, show traffic levels 1.7% higher than in 1998.

These and analyses by vehicle type and road class are contained in the statistical bulletin. This bulletin presents the road traffic sustainable development headline indicator updated to 1999. Key results show that between 1998 and 1999:

Car traffic rose 1%, one of the lowest year-on-year increases in recent years

Two-wheeled motor vehicle traffic rose 16%, a sharp increase following a six-year period of little change

Pedal cycle traffic rose 5%, in contrast with an average fall of 4% per year from 1995 to 1998

Motorway traffic rose 3% between 1998 and 1999 - lower than the average rate of increase in recent years. Traffic on major built-up roads rose only 1%.

This Statistics Bulletin is available from DETR, TSR2, Zone 1/29, Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DR. (Tel: 020 7944 3095).

All quarterly estimates are subject to revision, as they are based mainly on data from 132 automatic traffic counters in the road.The government published a set of about 150 indicators in Quality of life counts in December 1999 to provide a baseline assessment for monitoring and reporting on future progress towards sustainable development. Road Traffic is one of fifteen headline indicators.

Road goods vehicles travelling to mainland Europe - Quarter 4, 1999This report on the total number of road goods vehicles travelling to mainland Europe from Great Britain, published in May, includes for the first time seasonally adjusted figures to help identify underlying trends, especially changes between successive quarters. The figures presented below are on a seasonally adjusted basis:

During 1999 as a whole, the total number of vehicles travelling rose by nearly 189,000 from 2,054,000 to 2,242,000

The number of powered vehicles rose by 14% while the number of unaccompanied trailers crossing to Europe rose by 1%, to account for 35% of all vehicle traffic in 1999

The share of all vehicles travelling to Europe by foreign-registered powered vehicles rose from 35% to 39%, continuing the trend of recent years, but still accounts for a very small proportion of overall road freight traffic in the UK

The report shows the following changes from fourth quarter 1998 to fourth quarter 1999:

the number of powered vehicles rose by 16% - slightly above the annual trend

the number of unaccompanied trailers increased by 12% - rather more than the overall annual increase shown for this traffic

35% of all vehicle traffic was unaccompanied trailers

the total number of vehicles travelling rose by 75,000

Survey results are broken down by country of vehicle registration, by country of disembarkation and by UK port group. Separate figures are given for powered vehicles and unaccompanied trailers.The report, which is published by the DETR, is available free of charge from Lisa Ayers, Transport Statistics Freight Division, tel 0117 987 8484.

Transport of goods by road in Great Britain: 1999Freight moved by heavy goods vehicles decreased by 1.8% from 152 billion tonne kilometres in 1998 to 149 billion tonne kilometres in 1999, according to figures published in May. Other key findings from this annual report include:

tonnes lifted fell by 3.9% from 1,630 million tonnes in 1998 to 1,567 million tonnes in 1999

tonne kilometres grew by 66% between 1980 and 1999 (equivalent to an annual rate of 2.7%). This annual rate of growth is greater than that of GDP (2.4%), manufacturing output (1.2%) and construction output (2.0%) over the same period

the total tonnage carried rose by 19% between 1980 and 1999 (equivalent to an annual rate of 0.9%). This rate of growth is less than that for tonne kilometres because the average length of haul has also increased: from 68 km in 1980 to 95 km in 1999

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the total number of vehicle kilometres increased by 45% between 1980 and 1999

The Continuing Survey of Road Goods Transport (CSRGT) is based on a weekly sample of heavy goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes gross vehicle weight. In 1999 questionnaires (recording the activity of each vehicle during one week) were sent to the registered keepers of about 17,000 vehicles, an average of around 320 per week. This Transport Statistics Report is available from DETR on 01709 891318.

UK port traffic: provisional statisticsThe underlying trend in freight traffic through UK ports is increasing, according to provisional statistics issued in May by the DETR. Although total freight traffic fell 3 million tonnes to 566 million tonnes in 1999, this was due to the ending of sewage dumping at sea. Excluding sewage dumping traffic, last year port traffic increased by 1.7 million tonnes.

Container and roll-on/roll-off traffic through major ports increased by 4.1% in tonnage carried, to 131.8 million tonnes, while the numbers of units rose by 5.2% to reach 9.8 million, of which 5.4 million were road goods vehicles and unaccompanied trailers, and 4.4 million containers.

Other points of interest include:

Freight traffic through the major UK ports in 1999 accounted for 94% of total UK port traffic. At 532.6 million tonnes, it was down 0.6 million tonnes on 1998

Foreign traffic fell by 0.4 million tonnes to 371.2, with imports down 2.3% to 193.7 million tonnes and exports up 2.4% to 177.5 million tonnes

Domestic traffic totalled 161.4 million tonnes, 0.3 down on 1998

Crude oil traffic rose by 1.4% to 186 million tonnes, while petroleum products and gas traffic rose by 2.1% to 82.6 million tonnes

Major UK ports lost over four million tonnes of traffic in 1999 due to the ending of the dumping of sewage sludge and effluents at sea from 1 January 1999.

These provisional port traffic statistics for 1999 are a foretaste of the full detailed results to be published in the annual report, Maritime Statistics 1999, due out in September. These are based on annual freight returns by port authorities and undertakings to the

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (for ports in Great Britain) or the Department of Economic Development, Northern Ireland. Where necessary, the statistics contain estimates for returns not yet received.From 1995 onwards, only the major ports (those with at least two Mt of cargo annually, plus a few other smaller ports) are required to supply full detailed statistics. The smaller ports supply just two summary figures, total inwards and total outwards traffic. Maritime Statistics 1999 will contain some estimates of the breakdown of traffic at the smaller ports.

Copies of the provisional statistics are available from the Maritime Statistics Branch of the DETR. Telephone: 020 7944 4443.

Rail statistics 1999/2000 - fourth quarterRail passenger patronage is at its highest level since 1946, according to this DETR Bulletin published in June. The most recent results show that passenger patronage and freight traffic have maintained their upward trends. A comparison between the figures for the fourth quarter of 1999/2000 and the fourth quarter of 1998/99 reveal that:

passenger-kilometres increased by 6%

freight tonnes moved (tonne-kilometres) increased by 12%

and comparing 1999/2000 overall with 1998/99:

Passenger-kilometres increased by 6%, to a level (38 billion) last reached over 50 years ago

Freight tonnes moved increased by 6%, maintaining the recovery of recent years

The Rail Bulletin brings together information available on national railways, organised into sections covering passenger statistics, freight statistics, Government support and investment.

The operators’ computerised ticket system used to provide data for the passenger- kilometre series is not currently capturing information for certain new ticket types. This affects figures from 1997/98 onwards. An assessment has been made of the level of this under- recording, but the figures are still subject to further investigation and may be revised in later Bulletins.Seasonally adjusted series are now published for passenger kilometres, revenue and journeys to enable legitimate comparisons between any quarters.

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The Bulletin includes figures about punctuality and reliability calculated in accordance with the current Passenger Charter. A new measure, the Public Performance Measure, is being developed. First results will appear in a new Bulletin to be published by the shadow Strategic Rail Authority in June.Press copies of the Bulletin will be available upon request on 020 7944 4448.

Rail industry developments 1999/2000Among the developments during the year, according to a statement dated 25 May by Lord Macdonald, the Minister for Transport, were the:

setting up of a shadow Strategic Rail Authority (sSRA) charged with the task of bringing strategic direction to the rail industry

submission by Railtrack of its investment plans, containing options for spending £52bn over the next 12 years. These were being considered by the Rail Regulator. In addition, the sSRA had so far awarded £11.6m from the new Rail Passenger Partnership Fund to improve local passenger services

carrying out of a National Passenger Survey designed to improve accountability of train operators

introduction of the sSRA’s new Public Performance Measure to provide a more accurate picture of train operators’ performance by including all trains every day and avoiding exclusions such as void days

DETR Transport Statistics websiteThis website, the subject of a recent TSUG seminar, is now live on www.detr.gov.uk. Go to Statistics at about the ten o’clock position – click – then click on Transport Statistics to pick up most current and past publications.

For an up-to-date list of publications, visit the National Statistics Website (www.statistics.gov.uk), which is also now live

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Seminar 1: Sustainability measures and indicatorsThis seminar, held at the ILT’s London office on Wednesday 26 January 2000, had two speakers:

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Phil Bly, former Research Director at the Transport Research Laboratory and chairman of the CIT Working Group on Sustainable Transport, and

Mike Sumpter, of the Waterman Partnership and formerly with Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, who chairs the IHT Working Group on Sustainability.

I am indebted to Martin Dale for the following account of the meeting.

Phil Bly began by providing some of the reasons for the current concern about sustainable Transport. There were problems relating to:

health [pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO) and acid rain]

global warming [greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), seen to be threatening the planet]

resource depletion [including land-take and depletion of oil stocks]

social and economic consequences, encompassing a range of issues.

Transport contributed a large proportion of atmospheric emissions: 26% of CO2, 91% of CO, and 61% of nitrogen oxides. The proportion of CO2

attributable to transport was set to increase. Over the last 30 years car travel had increased by 186%, road freight by 111%, and air travel by 250%.

Phil presented five alternative definitions of Sustainability. Two examples were:

development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

the avoidance of irreversible processes whose long- term consequences and acceptability are unknown

Under most definitions current policies were ‘unsustainable’ and likely to remain so. The real issue was how to make these policies more sustainable. The main components of the transport problem were:

how much travel in total? what sort of travel? problems relating to each unit of travel, and when and where to travel?

Indicators of sustainability should:

preferably be primary, i.e. related directly to the problem. For example, we want to know by how much emissions have reduced as a result of

journeys switching from car to bus, rather than just the number of journeys that have switched

summarise the whole problem. In the U.S. a regulation had been applied to a limited set of vehicle-types, and the indicator had ignored other types of vehicle. If of necessity an indicator has to be limited in its coverage, then at least the degree of coverage should be estimated

involve acceptable costs, commensurate with the seriousness of the problem

illustrate the effectiveness of the measures adopted

Under health, the primary indicators were the relevant transport emissions, mainly CO, particulates and lead. Ideally we would estimate the numbers of people affected by traffic pollutants, rather than other sources, but this was not always possible. The nearest available secondary indicator was the measurement of pollutant concentrations weighted by population density.

Under global warming, the primary indicators is the amount of CO2 emitted by road vehicles. This correlates closely with fuel consumption, and can therefore be estimated accurately. If alternative fuels were to be adopted, then methane loss would also need to be estimated.

Under other environmental problems, indicators would need to cover, inter alia, resource depletion, petroleum stock, land-take, noise [where the measures would vary depending on the type and duration], visual intrusion and severance [both of which were subjective and complex to quantify].

Technology could potentially achieve a great deal, for example:

total pollutants could be kept below their 1990 level for the next 40 years

fuel efficiency for cars could increase by 50% over the next 20 years. The spur for this could be pricing or regulation, including action on company cars

‘green cars’ could be marketed

air travel, though currently a small proportion of the whole, could also benefit from improved technology

Under planned EU regulations, emissions of pollutants such as carbon monoxide and particulates were expected to fall in the short-to-medium term. But emissions of CO2 were projected to increase substantially, on current trends. Any solutions were

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inextricably bound up with the social and economic issues. For example, would a global fuel price increase threaten economic activity? Could rural areas remain viable?

Summing up, Phil was optimistic that much could be done, but this presupposed that the international will was there. There was an urgent need for global action on CO2 emissions. Whilst it was possible to ‘live with’ the health and environmental problems, there was a need to envisage the consequences, 50 years ahead, of allowing present policies to continue.

Discussion following Phil Bly’s presentation:

Q: Aren’t the economic and social issues a distraction from the primary issues?

A: Best to concentrate on those aspects of policy which cannot easily be reversed. Social and economic factors often fall into this category. They are part of the picture that has to be visualised

Q: The major problems are on the one hand dependency on the car, and on the other hand social exclusion

A: We have to ask ourselves whether we want the consequences of current policies. The social costs may be much greater than those borne directly by travellers

Q: Transport indicators need to be ‘joined up’ with environmental indicators, reflecting the close link between land-use and Transport

A: Careful monitoring of land-use policies would be needed. For example, the effects of lowering taxes on ‘local’ shops. It is best to combine land-use policies with other initiatives, such as pricing policies

Q: To tackle global warming, a reduction in transport emissions is needed. On the other hand, there are demands for more specialised services, which inexorably increase the amount of travel

A: Agreed

Q: Is the amount of road traffic a suitable indicator?

A: Following recent reviews of road traffic reduction targets, these were now more focused, especially in areas where congestion is greatest. The DETR used road traffic as one of its ‘headline’ indicators [see later discussion].

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In his presentation Mike Sumpter examined a number of practical attempts to introduce indicators of sustainable transport:

the DETR Indicators of Sustainable Development [1996],

Sustainability Indicators for Kent [1996],

Sustainability Counts [DETR, 1998],

Kent Design [1999],

Good Practice Guide on Sustainable Appraisal of RPGs [DETR, 1999],

PPG13 - Public Consultation Draft [DETR, 1999].

On the indicators for Kent, there were 69 in total, including 11 under Transport, 7 under Resources and 11 under physical Environment. The frequency of monitoring varied between continuous monitoring and surveys at 10-year intervals. The Transport indicators included road traffic flows, the percentage of residents living and working in the same district, and expenditure by the county on all modes of transport.

In Sustainability Counts, the headline indicators were

economic growth social investment employment health education and training housing quality climate change [greenhouse gas emissions] air pollution [number of days above acceptable

levels] transport [road traffic] water quality wildlife land-use [new homes on previously developed

land] waste [including waste disposal].

The DETR document included a diagram showing the interrelationships between these factors. Transport, for example, was affected by land-use and economic growth, and in turn affected air pollution, climate change and wildlife.

Kent Design [1999] was based upon a progression, starting with objectives at the top, and then working through to principles, guidance, and monitoring and performance. One of the objectives related to movement, where the related principle was to promote movement by walking, cycling and public transport, to reduce both pollution and dependency on the car. This in turn led to guidance on specific issues: for example, that public transport be brought to the heart of a new development; that parking provision be appropriate to the locality and reflecting

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the alternative modes of transport; and that cycle storage provision be incorporated at destinations.

In this progression from objectives to targets to indicators, the level of definition increased as one moved towards the indicators themselves. This paralleled the increasing degree of definition as one moved from policy formulation through to monitoring.

Finally Mike covered the main objectives of the latest PPG13: the provision of more sustainable choices, and the need to reduce travel, especially by car. Reflecting on the benefits of a day of enforced home-working during a recent rail strike, Mike wondered whether a policy of making employees work one day a week at home might be viable, given the potential saving of 20% in commuting journeys.

Several points arose in the discussion following Mike Sumpter’s presentation:

Q: It is counter-productive for each local authority to produce its own set of indicators. We need an agreed set to be used by all, and central guidance on what these are

A: Agreed. The DETR headline indicators are a start. The LAs are trying to achieve a consensus, but the politicians will always have their own favourite indicators. The DETR would be issuing a handbook of suggested indicators in Spring 2000, to provide a menu for LAs. A new publication, Quality of Life Counts [1999], now has 15 headline indicators

Q: Isn’t congestion a ‘good thing’, in that it chokes off traffic growth?

A: No, it’s a very poor way of constraining demand, because of side-effects such as pollution and intrusion. Even if all traffic was ‘non-polluting’, pollution remains at the point of production

[Chairman’s comment: there are basically four ways of handling congestion: shut the road; control access by permits; road pricing; and queuing. Of these, queuing has been shown to be economically inefficient, as well as having environmental drawbacks.]

Q: How is congestion defined? By difference between actual and free-flow speeds?

A: The threshold level of ‘acceptable’ congestion may vary from place to place. Total delay at speeds below the speed-limit could be one measure. For those living near the congestion, traffic flow, weighted by population, could be the appropriate indicator

Q: LAs need guidance at the regional level on the level of parking charges, if these are to be influenced by Sustainability considerations

A: Agreed

Q: In assessing alternative schemes there will be a need to combine all the indicators together, to provide a metric for making a choice. How can this be done?

A: Very difficult to handle even the headline indicators on their own, let alone the 69 Kent indicators. There are links between the factors. Perhaps LA officers should just present the indicators, and allow politicians to weight them together?

Q: Mike’s suggestion of one day a week working at home might have the effect of inducing more short trips near the home, making some public transport unviable, or encouraging people to live further from their work

A: A study by Southampton University suggested that home-working did reduce overall travel

[Comment by Phil Bly: one of the Kent indicators was the number of park-and-ride spaces provided. This in itself was not an ideal measure, because it was far removed from the objective of reducing intrusion, pollutants, etc. It is best to monitor a central core of indicators, closely related to the ojectives.]

Seminar 2: The transport information needs of a devolved WalesThe first TSUG seminar in Wales was hosted by Cardiff County Council in Cardiff on February 2 2000. The event, which attracted over 50 attendees, was opened by County Councillor Christine Priday (Deputy Mayor Environment). Edited versions of papers presented at the seminar are given below.

Clive Lewis, of the Demographic and Transport Statistics Department, Statistical Directorate, The National Assembly for Wales, presented a paper describing the role of the National Assembly. Clive began by reviewing the currently available data sources:

Three annual publications by the ONS (Office for National Statistics) covering the UK: Regional

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Trends and Social Trends, which aim to reflect the main areas of current socio-economic interest; and the Annual Abstract of Statistics, a weighty reference volume with around 400 pages of tables containing time series data. Each publication has a separate section of transport statistics

The Assembly Statistical Directorate produces two, broadly equivalent, compendia publications annually. First, the Digest of Welsh Statistics, which concentrates on data for Wales as a whole, giving figures for a run of years, the latest plus the previous ten, wherever possible. Second, the Digest of Welsh Local Area Statistics, which as far as possible provides similar information at the local authority level, typically giving figures by the now 22 unitary authorities. Inevitably there is a greater range of data at the Wales than the sub-Wales level and this is certainly true of transport

In the next level down, so to speak, are the statistical publications of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). The compendium publication is the annual Transport Statistics Great Britain along with Road Accidents Great Britain: The Casualty Report. Then there are the transport statistics reports and bulletins which focus on particular topics, such as maritime statistics, transport of goods by road and the national travel survey. DETR is now issuing many of these in their series of ‘Focus on ...’ publications. In general these publications provide little regional data or separate data for Wales

Finally there are the two transport publications issued annually by the Statistical Directorate of what is now the National Assembly for Wales (previously the Welsh Office): Welsh Transport Statistics and Road Accidents: Wales. The latest edition of Welsh Transport Statistics is published today [2 February]. Production of the full volume of 1998 road accident tables has been delayed, though summary 1998 data were published in a Statistical Release (SDR 49/99) in December 1999 and some of the standard tables can be provided on an ad hoc basis. But, in an effort to catch-up, we are considering the publication of the 1999 and 1998 data together in a single volume.

Welsh Transport Statistics has eleven sections:o Road lengthso Licensing and registration of vehicles

o Road freighto Road accidentso Motor vehicle offences National Travel Survey data on personal travel

patternso Road traffic volumeso Public service vehicles - bus and coach datao Sea transporto Air transporto Finance and the economy

Notable by its complete absence is anything on rail. However, the National Assembly aims to publish all that it can obtain from official sources. It certainly does not have a secret horde of transport statistics kept from view.

Apart from data on road accidents and road lengths, the National Assembly relies very largely on DETR for its data. A brief comment first on the ‘in-house’ data. Road lengths are collected annually from local authorities when, in effect, they advise us of changes in lengths by category of road since the previous April. The road accidents system is part of the DETR system in so far that the basic report form for gathering the information is the Stats19 completed by the police in cases involving personal injury.

Before moving away from sources, perhaps I can mention here a recent ONS development to provide users with direct on-line access to official statistics as well as to raise public awareness of government and other official statistics. It is called StatBase and it has, essentially, two parts:

StatSearch, which provides a comprehensive catalogue of censuses, surveys, analyses, products and services which are the responsibility of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) and other suppliers of official statistics. It also provides contact details for further information and advice. It has a simple keyword search facility and a comprehensive structured searching mechanism to help users find the information they need

StatStore, linked to StatSearch, which contains statistics on a wide range of social, economic and socio-economic matters. The statistics can be viewed or downloaded to users’ own personal computers. Software is available to use with downloaded statistics to allow users to explore, manipulate, chart and map the datasets included within StatBase. The system was launched just over a year ago - and can be found via the GSS Website www.statistics.gov.uk.

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The metadata is comprehensive but the data contents are, currently, more limited - though the situation is improving all the time, and more timely statistics will be available in future.

StatBase also provides a gateway to a new chargeable service called StatBase-TimeZone, which represents a more accessible, user-friendly and flexible version of the existing DataBank time-series service of mainly economic data.

Statistical issues of common interest to central and local government are discussed in the Welsh Statistical Liaison Committee, a GSS consultative group. Transport statistics issues have not, hitherto, been prominent, but the need for local authorities to prepare local transport plans may raise their profile in that forum. There is also the Transport Statistics Liaison Group, a sub-group of the Central and Local (Government) Information Partnership (CLIP), the main forum for discussion between central and local government on statistical matters at a (nominally) GB level, though I am not aware that there is much direct Welsh involvement in that group. Only the Transport Statistics Users Group (TSUG) seems to provide a forum which extends beyond central and local government representation, and this is its first meeting on specifically Welsh issues. There are, of course, many ad hoc meetings that take place between central government and transport interests in Wales, but few address statistical issues in their own right, as opposed to referring to them.

One of the features of National Statistics is a requirement for government departments to consult on their forward plans for statistical work. The way in which the Assembly does this is currently being considered.

There is, as always, a need to identify the priority data requirements so that effort can be concentrated on developing those, and to exploring opportunities to utilise new or unexploited sources of data as well as foster regular liaison and partnerships with those who are involved in producing and using transport statistics. Part of the way forward - though only involving local authority statistics and the requirements of the Assembly for them - may be through the formation of a Local Government Statistics Unit. This is currently being examined and proposals should shortly be issued for public consultation.

* * *

Nick Holmes then gave a paper presenting the local authority viewpoint. Nick currently works in the

Transport Policy Group at Cardiff County Council, and has responsibility for the Local Transport Plan and Unitary Development Plan preparation. This involves not only the longer term policy preparation but the practical application of information to development and performance issues.

Nick considered the information requirements of local Highway Authorities, on a statutory basis, for longer term policy plans and for operational problems. Monitoring must follow the policy lead which is towards walking, cycling and public transport.

Why, he asked, do we need information on movement? The need to move from one point to another is derived from the relative positions of land and the uses we make of that land. In desiring to move from one point to another we may either find or create problems. It is to provide a degree of choice and opportunity, without prejudice to others, that we strive to provide “sustainable movement”.

Local Authorities are bound by the Local Government Act 1999 to operate “Best Practice” and to demonstrate that it is in operation. This is monitored through the Audit Commission as an “independent third party”. NAW have issued a consultation document on which indicators are to be provided for scrutiny. These indicators contain both objective and subjective (attitude) measures.

Local Authorities are bound to ensure that air quality meets nationally specified targets and that they report on their approach to road traffic reduction. These are linked to the non-statutory obligation put upon LA’s by the Prime Minister for every LA to have a Local Agenda 21 plan in place by 2000.

Under Highway Acts LA’s are required to consider road safety, although to date the targets set have been non-statutory.

In framing policies for movement, LA’s require information to identify the objectives policies are designed to meet and require to know if the outcomes and outputs do indeed contribute positively.

When making operational decisions, be it on maintenance, construction or development applications, it is necessary to have both policy and situation information. Policy information will identify the possible, and information on the situation will give some guidance on how to proceed.

Regarding data requirements, we need to know about the different constituents of the overall network serving all modes of movement – not simply roads,

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but also foot-ways, cycle-ways, bus routes, rail routes and in some cases taxi, post-bus and dial-a-ride. The road information should also give the space allocation to different modes, and restrictions such as resident only, weight limits, freight routes, etc.Trip generation can be obtained from data bases such as TRICS, which can provide a guide to motor vehicle trips from specified land uses. The problem is to know what was the person trip generation and where there is trip suppression. The lack of non-motorised movement information has not in the past been considered important, but this has changed.

Home interview information, whether from national census or local study, is the ideal for most analysts. It is unfortunately also the most rare at local level. Work-place surveys are less prohibitively expensive than home interview surveys, but by their nature are stratified by persons in work, location and land use. Road-side interviews are difficult to organise on the busy roads of today and require police presence, which can prove difficult and expensive. Traditionally flow counts are made and origin-destination matrices approximated statistically. Turning movement studies are useful for small areas, but become prohibitive for more complex networks.

Other factors to consider include:

Parking supply/cost Public transport fares/quality Tolls/taxes Safety Perceptions (inc satisfaction/security/severance)

These factors may have been collected on occasion but not always linked to basic movement data. How often do we check private vehicle flow when bus fares rise? Do we know how many people transfer to other modes when parking restrictions are put in place? Why can some bus routes attract a wider social range of customers than others? We will need to know whether congestion charging or PNR tax will affect certain trip purposes more than others (elasticity) and whether the derived income, if spent on public transport, will provide something car drivers and passengers will be prepared to use. In the past RTA data has been used with delays as a cost saving to balance the cost of road building (COBA). It is seldom considered that the deterrent effect to travel and perception of personal security are also derived costs from RTA’s. People’s perception of the utility of services, such as buses and public transport information needs to be provided for Best Value services.

Turning to the collection of data and preparation of movement information, it can be seen there is potential for much broader information collection. But the key for provision of “best value” for data collection will be co-operation and getting consistent definition for multi-use data.

Large quantities of information can be derived from household interview surveys. These can provide virtually all the streams of data required, including attitudes. The NAW requirements for Best Value need public attitude surveys to provide evidence of satisfaction with public transport and provision of information. As this is required, it is necessary to consider the additional marginal cost of collecting other key information on person trips and characteristics, ideally where this complements rather than duplicates census data.

If a household interview is not feasible the road-side interview is a good source of origin/destination information and characteristics of travellers. By their nature road-side interviews must be brief to gain the co-operation of travellers, and this may compromise the range of data collected. The use of road-side interviews may be prejudiced by the cost and availability of police, and on some roads the inability to conduct a stop and question survey without causing unacceptable congestion.

Road-side surveys where vehicle registration, turning movement and/or flow are counted are more numerous, because of the lower cost implications. Unfortunately, some surveys are not conducted on a systematic basis and thus are not capable of combination to provide fuller or more reliable information. The reliability of data is affected by the sample rate (see Monitoring Personal Travel for Local Transport Plans, DETR).Traffic information is beginning to increase in value by providing feed-back to travellers about their journey and potential delays. Traffic data can also be fed from detectors to activate variable message signs (VMS) to provide alternative route information or warnings. Real time information systems for drivers and passengers are becoming the norm. Cardiff County Council has the biggest real time bus information system in Britain. It provides bus arrival times, route reliability and junction priority. This is from a geo-position satellite system (GPS) and SCOOT traffic control system operating in combination. The real time bus information system being commissioned in Cardiff, not only gives waiting passengers the buses

11

scheduled at their stop, it also enables checks on reliability of services and junction priority.

The collection of information on walking and cycling trips is more problematic, because of the less formal nature of those networks. Pedestrians notoriously take the shortest route irrespective of the engineering designed for their “safety”. This is true to a lesser degree of cyclists. Cyclists are usually counted during classified surveys on roads, but are they the main routes taken by cyclists? Often walking routes follow vehicle routes, but there are often less obvious informal networks between attractions, used by pedestrians. How are we to show our policies lead to more cycling and walking and how much more?

In conclusion, there is now more pressure to provide public information, targets and monitoring. Data collection and analysis to provide information will need a change in emphasis, but to what effect? Let’s consider this in the following terms:

Strength – information, data based decision making and measures of change

Weakness – data collection could occupy too large a portion of available resources

Opportunity – to establish systematic, targeted information collection

Threat – scarce resources could be diverted from operations to monitoring

It is vitally important that resources are allocated for data collection and equally important we realise the value of multi-agency co-operation to maximise the returns of our investments from better targeted service delivery and public information.

It is encouraging that the Data Collection sub-group of the South East Wales Transport Advisory Group is already reviewing data collection in its area. It is to be hoped that this co-operation will provide an effective framework for the future.

* * *

Professor Stuart Cole, Member of the Welsh Transport Advisory Group; external Professor of Transport, University of Glamorgan; and Director of TraC at University of North London, presented the final paper addressing:

The decision-making context The political context Future data needs Decision-making areas and data availability Conclusions

It is a reasonable supposition, he said, that much of the National Assembly’s initial transport policy decisions and its starting point in developing its own policies was The Transport Legacy in Wales, produced by a group representing a wide range of professionals in transport - operators from bus, rail, air and sea ports; environmental, pedestrian, freight (road and rail), cycling, and disability groups; user representatives; academics; and representatives of public services - the police (traffic and crime), local government planning and policy officials, and policy and planning civil servants. The final report formed an overview of the issues of concern to those groups looked at objectively, if with some providing an emphasis for their standpoint. There was “a surprising amount of common ground between members on the key transport policy issues.”

The consensus identified in the Legacy has been reflected in the publications of both political parties and interest groups. In party political terms Labour’s position reflected in the Welsh transport policy statement, Plaid Cymru’s Transport - the alternative route, the Liberal Democrat commitment to a Passenger Transport Authority for Wales and the Conservative comments at a meeting of politicians and professionals organised in Caerdydd/Cardiff, indicates a degree of inclusiveness which might form a perfect vehicle to show how ‘inclusivity’ and ‘process not an event’ may be achieved in the radical approach to policy making upon which the National Assembly’s Secretary-Committee decision making is based.

This consistency extends to the CBI Wales, which recommends a strategic transport authority for Wales and significant investment in road, rail and air infra- structure within and to/from Wales, and the integrated approach to transport investment and provision set out by two of Wales’ key environmental bodies.Were those aspirations to be achieved, the National Assembly would need to acquire new responsibilities, powers and associated funding, most if not all of which would come from departments and agencies in London which currently perform those activities in Wales. Considerable publicity is given to the costs of such transition - the availability of objective statistical evidence would help decision makers conclude the extent to which these were likely.On 1 July 1999 the Welsh Office transferred powers to the National Assembly for Wales to fund or regulate:

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limited rail investment (strategic development schemes)

trunk road and motorway construction and maintenance

bus service subsidy (tendering) levels certain environmental powers

integrated transport packages grants walking and cycling schemes the Planning Policy Guidelines framework

Local authorities have powers to fund:

o local road construction and maintenanceo bus service co-ordination and subsidyo limited rail service developmento traffic management schemes

A study of the first six months operation of the Local Government; Environment, Planning, Housing and Transport Committee through their agenda and minutes will indicate the area in which the Committee sees itself having a role. In June 1999, it reviewed the Transport Legacy for Wales; in November it considered in detail the draft guidance to local authorities in Wales on Local Transport Plans. This has a significant implication in the provision of statistics on a local and national basis in measuring the achievement of its primary objectives:

o protect and enhance the natural environmento economic efficiencyo improved traveller safetyo accessibility for non-car users and car userso providing integration within transport modes and

with land use.

These are overeaching areas - the detailed requirements of the plans need detailed statistical analysis if the right decisions are to be made. And bringing the Committee’s deliberators up to date, at its 19 January 2000 meeting it considered the Transport Bill’s references to railways, local transport plans and bus strategies, road user charging and workplace parking levies; and the progress on the Road Traffic Reduction Acts.

The Committee’s discussions in November 1999 on implementing integrated transport policy in Wales identifies the breadth of analysis and the range of starting point documents which the Assembly has to consider (much of it in liaison with county councils and other ‘stakeholders’). There is in the briefing paper a list of areas in need of further work:

o national public transport networko rail strategyo national cycle network

o national concessionary fares schemeo reducing the impact of traffico integrated transport networks

All require statistical data on a Wales-only basis (together with where possible UK and other EU member states’ comparisons). Much of these data are not available, though they might exist in a format not compatible with other data. They do however provide an insight into the National Assembly’s areas of interest and the associated statistical needs which are likely to arise.

This paper discusses some areas of policy making which overlap between the National Assembly and county councils. Where such overlaps occur there is no comment on how the responsibilities are allocated. This paper will consider a range of issues and decisions in which the National Assembly may wish to involve itself and the statistical needs of those aspirations. The continuing discussion can then develop through cross reference to what is currently available to planners, transport economists, advisors, consultants and the decision makers, and what gaps have to be filled.

The major justifications for increased statistical analysis in transport decision making are:

the very high levels of investment required for new infrastructure and the wide scope of policy areas

the effects of transport on a wide variety of people - in their personal travel patterns and in the movement of freight.

This paper considers selected aspects of the decisions to be made currently or in future scenario by the National Assembly as illustrations of the need for a wider statistical regime.

In terms of the economic efficiency of the transport network several costs of congestion figures have been produced. A valuable contribution to assessing that efficiency would be to provide a data series on man-hours lost from congestion by mode - road, rail, air and ports (sea/air) operators. Some data exist at CIA, Railtrack and the train operating companies, but collecting these from data in different formats and gathered for differing purposes presents one of the frustrations in creating all-Wales data. This issue will arise later in the paper.

Associated with this is the business traveller’s time-efficiency rate. Achieving “there and back in a day” is possible between Cardiff International Airport and Amsterdam or Bruxelles but not for any other

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destination. There are however no data on the effects of not being able to do this in terms of:

loss of working time outputs overnight stay costs overnight income (for example, for Wales’ hotels

and restaurants) loss of income to Wales’ economy for overnight

stops elsewhere.

These costs shown on a regular basis would provide trends for use in evaluating options on expenditure to achieve for example a 3-hour journey time from the north (Bangor) to the south (Cardiff).

Data are also required on the lack of air slots at potential destinations from Cardiff International Airport, e.g. Frankfurt, Rome. Highlighting this position and forecasting potential demand through extra flights will have three effects:

increase usage of CIA

increase economic justification for investment in better road and rail landside links to CIA through journey time savings and environmental benefits

reduce congestion on the M4 for air travellers currently using London Heathrow or Bristol.

In this way trend data could be provided to evaluate the south Wales transport corridor options.

Air transport passenger and freight flows are produced by the Civil Aviation Authority on an inter-airport basis. This gives the existing flows and might enable the dormant demand inherent in expanding services to be identified. If the CAA data were extended to journey purpose (at least business and leisure), city/county of origin and mode of arrival, then options for expanding CIA and its land-side links could be better evaluated. This would require a more extensive survey of passengers than current CAA data based on aircraft departure logs. There might also be issues of commercial and personal confidentiality. But again the data exist in airline computers but are not available to transport planners.

Additionally the forthcoming study on regional airports in Wales will no doubt contain valuable flow data on modal split of landside movements.

A critical issue in evaluating new transport infrastructure is the impact it has on employment and industrial regeneration. This is of particular importance to Wales where unemployment is high and incomes low in both urban and rural areas. The DETR report on transport and the economy provides a detailed analysis of the appraisal techniques

required. The modelling and forecasting of freight movement and travel for business purposes can be directly linked to economic activity. Data are therefore required on the transport impacts consequent upon the decisions of individual travellers and companies in relation to land use, production and employment. The issue of expressing these impacts in monetary terms “is not usually met and is not in prospect”.

The National Travel Survey (NTS) produces an overall picture of travel patterns in the United Kingdom. As such it highlights one aspect of the statistics vacuum facing the National Assembly:

it is out of date when it is produced, due to the complexity of the analysis and the infrequent collection, although the 1996-98 update now provides more recent data

its outputs are not available on a disaggregated level for local studies (unlike for example employment and retail data which are available on an EEA basis).

The NTS needs to be disaggregated to provide data on Wales, and has to be collected more frequently.

The NTS provides few statistics on child travel to school and is inadequate to evaluate policies on safe routes to schools. Road Accidents: Wales provides a detailed account over several years of accident rates by type of road user, by authority area, by type of road, etc. Therefore, while the accident data produced are of a high quality, based on sources such as the police computer, and in great detail (10% of Welsh Transport Statistics plus a 188-page supplement), further information is needed to address new policies. NTS data on accidents and safety comprise 4 pages based on early 1990’s data used in decisions 10 years later.

The further breakdown of cycling and walking data - the predominant modes involved in ‘Safe routes’ policies - is needed, and on a Wales basis also.

New policies require new data presentations, such as an emphasis on accidents involving children. However this has a cost, and politicians must be aware of this if they want the effectiveness of their policies to be measured. In evaluating safe routes to schools plans there is a need to consider:

the number of children in accidents

how many are car passengers and how many accidents involve cars?

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are the inputs correct (e.g. while police accident data may cover all occurrences, are the accidents consistently allocated to the proper category - where two categories may be involved?).

what is the basis of the survey questions?

Adequate trend data on safe routes to schools policies will take three years to collect. Even then there may be recording problems. There is also an issue of peak flows (when most children travel to school) and the split of accidents in relation to flow rates.

The replacement of a “predict and provide” roads building policy by evaluation of alternative options on a value for money basis means that, for example, the A55 corridor improvements would have been assessed as part of the European Union’s Trans European Network and on the basis of how can road improvements be compared with rail electrification, or a rail upgrade alone, be evaluated.

Use of the Common Appraisal Framework (e.g. on the M4 motorway between Magor and Castleton) presents a clear case for public transport data to be collected on as regular a basis as road traffic flow data. This would enable comparative analysis to be carried out and the impact on modal split to be monitored.

When considering freight operations, long, trans-European journeys have increased over ten years, and 80% of journeys are now over 1000 kilometres. There is a need to switch resources from road to rail and generate data to evaluate modal change (as a result, for example, of the Wentlooge Freight Terminal and other as yet unplanned terminals) on an economic/environmental basis, not merely financial grounds.

Modal split data collection has to be kept up to provide trends not snapshots and trip purpose data is needed to identify optional modes of passenger travel, destination and product data for freight options, and criteria used in determining modal choice. First Group for example have considerable market research data on the last of these though only some are published. Traffic control and monitoring systems could also be used to identify flow trends and peaks, and modal split.

In the case of roads in Wales good supply side data (e.g. number of kms) are provided, but demand trends (road usage) are limited to unitary area, type of vehicle and type of road. However, road data are amongst the better facilities provided on an all-Wales basis, reflective of the policy needs of the erstwhile Welsh Office. Detailed data do exist for traffic flows

at selected junctions - often recent data and with a sound basis. National Assembly trunk road flows are well measured, as are many county roads, especially where improvements were recently evaluated. Data are also held by the Severn Bridge operating company and if analysed in transport planning terms (rather than perhaps purely financial terms) would provide excellent data on time of day/seasonal/ vehicle type flows. Two issues arise here. One is of compatibility; the other is availability, and at what cost, to the researcher.

Parking data could be calculated from car park ticket sales and may in urban areas give an indicator of traffic flows into the central business district and be used in an evaluation of out of town parking/shuttle bus provision. Unfortunately, much of the data are kept for financial/audit purposes by county treasury departments rather than additionally as a basis to calculate time of day/week/year flow trends.

The involvement of the National Assembly in funding Local Transport Plans requires considerably more public transport data to be made available. The present structure of public passenger transport in Wales involves private companies in a contestable market, thus making much of the data commercially valuable. Access to bus or rail ticket sales data is limited despite the fact it would provide, for example, bus passenger data on a corridor where justification of a bus lane was being evaluated. Similarly data exist on passenger flows, load factors and spare capacity in peak and off peak periods and for National Express and Trans-Cambria services, but may not be available to transport planners.

TOC’s have the following rail data:

ticket sales records for pre-booked seats. These give train specific data, but turn-up-and-go (still the most frequently used ticket types) provide less useful data for determining trends and travel patterns

on train counts and on train surveys

data collected for revenue analysis or audit purposes. These may not be in a format suitable for transport planning or forecast purposes

data on service level requirements (for example in relation to the PSR) relating to passenger numbers or load factors, which may be put forward as a reason for reducing or increasing service levels. The provision of passenger loadings means that demand data can be set against supply levels.

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However there is no standardised format for passenger data between TOC’s. Some published data on passenger load factors in peak periods exist in London and Scotland but these might not be applicable to Wales. In addition, survey data may be available but may be unreliable because of the difficulty in measuring the position accurately. Payments and subsidy figures and total passenger miles are available from OPRAF but other data which OPRAF, Railtrack or TOC’s have may be:

on a total franchise basis - six passenger franchises operate in Wales

confidential and not available to the National Assembly under current rules. Some passenger charter data is in the public domain.

on a company or Railtrack zone basis

performance data by recording sections (2500 in total). This could be done in Wales retrospectively to 1995, as data are aggregated from sections to zones

TOC performance data collected on a service group level at monitoring points. However on Euston-Holyhead (Virgin Trains) there is only one monitoring point in Wales and on Cardiff to Portsmouth (Wales and West Passenger Trains) there is also only one monitoring point (Cardiff). Data in that format are of little value in making National Assembly decisions

cancellation data, which could be provided for Wales at a small cost. However, rail and bus data are not compatible - rail is on a per train basis; bus on a route mileage lost basis.

Of all this data, passenger and freight flows are the most valuable to National Assembly planners, followed by network capacity figures. Ticket sales data could be disaggregated. Apart from data collected for OPRAF purposes, other data sets may be incompatible between companies for comparative purposes, depending on collection and analytical regimes. In any event they might be made available to transport planners within the Assembly (by statute or franchise/licence agreement conditions if required) but may not be available for publication.

In conclusion, three questions may be posed:

what data are on offer publicly and in National Assembly or UK Government publications?

what additional data could be obtained from official sources?

what other data are available from other sources?

To evaluate policy effectively what information is required?

o National statistics currently produced for Wales have gone through a professional statistical process and are therefore correct in statistical terms

o Statistics from other sources are collected using a variety of techniques and presented in various formats. While many of them are assembled using sound statistical techniques, some data may not be compatible with other data and a very small proportion may not be statistically sound

o The techniques used to collect statistics and the format in which they are presented would have to be harmonised if full use was to be made of all available sources - National Assembly, county councils, police, bus and rail operators, and others

o Data on modal split are available but the analysis of the reasons for modal split is not in the public domain

o The National Travel Survey does provide data for Great Britain over three year periods. However it is seemingly not possible to disaggregate these figures and a new data set for Wales would need to be established

o There is little point in introducing policies such as road use reduction targets unless appropriate data to measure its effects are introduced. Or put another way Secretaries and Ministers should ensure that appropriate funding for such data collection is included in their budgets

o Car use data should also be interpreted with care. In Blaenau Gwent for example there is some of the highest unemployment/lowest income/lowest car usage in the country. But economic regeneration leading to increased wealth and increased car ownership would show a reversal of traffic reduction objectives

o Who collects the data? Are LAs collecting data on, for example, SWIFT and TIGER, and are the output statistics standardised or agreed between LAs to provide a comparative basis with other county council data elsewhere in Wales? Is the Welsh Statistics Liaison Committee’s brief wide enough to cover detailed transport statistical data rather than budgetary data alone?

o At present many of the statistics relating to Wales attract little cost if they are part of DETR aggregated data based on counties and regions within Great Britain. Collecting statistics for

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Wales alone would incur costs and require a larger statistics directorate in Cardiff. However comparisons need to be made with European Union member states who practise similar devolution (e.g. Germany and Spain) to see what figures may be required to assist decision making

o Links between data services are a mechanical process. As important is identifying the indicators which explain the trends and present those in a common format for counties and Wales

o The issue of commercial confidentiality of data from bus, rail passenger and freight (road and rail operators) arises. Similar personal confidentiality arises with some travel data. These issues need to be addressed to enable such travel data to be incorporated in national statistics. This would of course provide a valuable lesson in co-operation between public and private sectors in the provision of transport statistics carried out on a manageable scale in a small county but which could be translated into a UK model.

Seminar 3: Freight statistics

This seminar, held at the Institute for Logistics and Transport on 1 March 2000, included three speakers:

Simon Chapman, Freight Transport Association, on the FTA quarterly transport activity survey;

Bill Eadie, Baxter Eadie Ltd, on freight transport chain statistics; and

Tom Smart, Top Flight Research Ltd, on a continuous monthly survey of freight shipments via a panel of businesses.

26 members and visitors attended the seminar. Kit Mitchell has provided the following notes.

Simon Chapman explained that the FTA is a multi-modal Trade Association. Members operate more than half of the British fleet of HGVs (200,000 vehicles) and are responsible for more than 90% of freight carried by rail in Britain. The FTA has been conducting a quarterly survey of transport activity since 1996. This is to support the policy activities of the FTA and to better inform members of general market conditions when negotiating freight rates. The basic premise of the survey is that transport is a derived demand and that, as such, freight transport is a barometer of wider economic activity. The role of the survey is to capture a measure of freight activity. The core areas covered are headline statistics on prices

and costs, activity trends and business confidence, and supplementary questions that differ from quarter to quarter. The design of the survey has been based on the CBI survey of business confidence. Members views are sought each quarter on activity in the forth-coming quarter and how this compares with the previous one. The survey is designed to pick up both short-term changes and longer-term structural trends.

About 800 companies are sent the questionnaire each quarter. These range from big manufacturers to small third party freight handlers. Usually about 130-150 companies respond. In January 2000 the 130 responses covered 21,000 HGVs and 7,000 small goods vehicles. The survey records how many respondents consider various factors are increasing, decreasing or staying the same. The principal output is the percentage of respondents expecting an increase/decrease, which provides a measure of various trends. The absolute level of activity is not measured. Its target audience is FTA members, Government and commentators on the freight industry.

Headline statistics cover changes in headline prices and HGV operation costs. Components of freight operating costs identified are wage settlements, diesel prices and exchange rates. The driver and fuel together contribute about 70% of the total operating cost of a 38 tonne HGV. Between 1985 and 2000, the cost of fuel increased from 25% of total to 34%.

Members’ views are sought on changes in the levels of domestic road freight, international road haulage services, use of short sea/deep sea and airfreight services and the use of bulk and intermodal services.

Road freight grew strongly in the fourth quarter of 1999. This is expected to fall back in the first quarter of 2000. The principal sectors responsible for the increase in activity are retail and construction. Respondents in the agricultural sector expect activity to fall sharply (-29% balance). The South East is expected to be far the strongest region, while a small fall in activity in the Midlands is expected.

The steady decline in international road haulage activity since the end of 1997 was checked by the last quarter of 1999 and prospects are expected to improve further in the first quarter of 2000.

Strong growth is expected on the Western European short sea routes, with more limited growth on other routes. Export volumes are expected to increase on all airfreight routes in the first quarter of 2000 with the exception of the Middle East, where export volumes may remain unchanged. On Trans-Atlantic

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and West European routes, rising export volumes have combined with strong growth in imports.

Strong growth is expected in rail freight activity for both intermodal and conventional bulk services in the fourth quarter of 1999.

The scheduling reliability of the road network continues to worsen. The rate of deterioration had eased in the first half of 1999, but members reported a sharp downturn during the second half of 1999. Service reliability for bulk rail freight movements also showed a marked deterioration in the fourth quarter of 1999. For intermodal services, reliability was unchanged, having fallen in the third quarter.

The final question in the January 2000 survey asked about members’ experience of the millennium bug. None of the respondents had experienced transport disruptions caused by their own software or embedded systems, and the UK’s transport infrastructure was also bug-free. 3% reported knock-on disruptions caused by the millennium bug affecting providers of third party transport services.

The methodology and interpretation of the Quarterly Transport Activity Survey is still being developed, and Simon Chapman would appreciate comments from TSUG members. Copies of the survey are available, free of charge, from Simon Chapman (simon.chapman@fta.co.uk or Freight Transport Association, Hermes House, St John’s Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN4 9UZ).

* * *

Bill Eadie described a number of surveys that provided statistics on freight transport chains. That is, for given consignments, information on origin, destination, routes, modes and transfer points between modes. These were intended to provide the connection between the trade movement of goods and transport movements, and to explain trends in the use of different transport modes. They also helped to define the market for transport services, to identify potential for new services and the hinterland of ports. Typical studies are the effect of the Channel Tunnel on charges to cross the Dover Straits and the traffic on other routes, and the likely effect of permitting 44 tonne trucks to ports as well as rail terminals.

Applications for such information include:

EU objective of developing sustainable transport Identify desirable changes

Developing policies to encourage such changes Identification of opportunities for new services.

Past surveys in the UK were:

1978 Inland origins and destinations of UK international trade, by the National Ports Council, sponsored by DOT. This sampled 65,000 consignments

1986 Origins, destinations and transport of UK international trade, by DOT, sponsored by Eurotunnel, British Ports Association, British Rail and the Post Office. 30,000 consignments sampled

1991 Origins, destinations and transport of UK international trade, by DOT, sponsored by Eurotunnel. 54,000 consignments sampled

1996 Origin and destination survey of UK inter-national trade, by DETR, as part of the STEMM (Strategic European Multimodal Modelling) project in the European Commission Transport Research Programme. This sampled 16,000 consignments

The STEMM project

developed models of intermodal mode and route choice

identified barriers to intermodality

used models to assess the effect of policy measures

calibrated on transport chain distributions from surveys.

The model was tested on a Trans-Alpine case study and matched the basic flows to within 5% before calibration. It was further improved by calibration.

As the sample sizes of these surveys were small it was not possible to disaggregate very far by mode, commodity, route, etc. In 1993, Customs statistics for movements to Europe, which had provided the sample frame, were lost. The 1996 survey therefore changed the sampling frame to ship’s manifests, extended by data from other road haulage surveys.

The MYSTIC project in the EC research programme 1998-99 aimed to improve the methodology for collecting transport chain statistics. For freight there were two surveys, one of shippers, the other of logistics operators. The shippers survey involved only 600 consignments and was intended to understand decision processes in selecting mode and route. The survey of operators was to investigate the

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possibility of capturing data on movements from existing electronic control information.

The conclusion was that most data elements for transport chains are available electronically, but they are not structured as expected and are scattered across systems, companies and countries. Data are usually available within a country for domestic operations, but overseas data for international operations are not available. There is no common message structure, coding or shipment identity. Statistical requirements need to be specified and agreed with industry, so that systems could be designed to consolidate data records.

Eurostat is working to extract as much quality inter-modal information from existing freight data bases. These data are necessary for the assessment of policy options. It was proving much more difficult to check electronic data for errors than to check paper returns.

* * *

Tom Smart, Managing Director of Top Flight Research Ltd, described the continuous audit of shipments provided by a panel of 400 UK businesses, the International Freight and Express Panel (IFX ™), which has been in the field since 1986:

Data Collection is continuous Reports are produced quarterly 8 – 10 weeks after the end of each quarter.

The Shipments Sample is very much bigger than the surveys (Origin and Destinations, STEMM or Mystic) described by the previous speaker. In the year 1999, the following freight shipment numbers were audited, weighted, calibrated and reported in the IFX_UK Monitor.

Road/rail services (to Europe) : 120,241Sea freight (worldwide) : 13,852Air freight (worldwide) : 45,402Total 179,495

In addition, almost 300,000 lighter/more urgent shipments were processed. These had been handled by the document courier/express parcels/postal services sectors. Thus there was a total of almost 0.5 million shipments, which comprise a census of each panel member’s international shipments, by all modes.

Panel Members are selected following a screening survey process, which is replicated every 3 – 5 years. In 1997 that survey comprised 8,500 completed interviews, based on the 1.6m records then available in the BT/Yellow Pages database – the most comprehensive business listing then available.

That survey produced the following estimates of the population of international freight and express users in the UK, which represents the initial weighting frame for panel data.

All Establish-

ments

20+ Employees

(000’s) (000’s) (% of Shpts.)

All Yellow Pages businesses

1,600 196 -

Users of any outbound

269 70 -

Royal Mail only 153 29 -Users of any relevant services

116 40 -

Parcelforce 49 16 68 Air Express 77 30 81 Air Freight 30 14 76 Road Express 25 12 81 Road/Rail freight 25 11 79 Sea FCL 15 8 83 LCL and General 21 11 84

Panel Members are businesses with 20+ employees. These comprise only 12% of the general (Yellow Pages) population, but 34% of those using relevant international services.

In Sea Freight FCL, they represent 53% of the user population and provide 83% of shipments

In Road/Rail, 44% of the user population provides 79% of shipments

Shipments from companies with fewer than 20 employees can be ratio-estimated with a high degree of reliability.

The Panel is recruited to be generally representative by UK (origin) area, company size, broad business activity and weight of modal usage. These variables are available to categorise shipment data in reports.

Shipment data are retained at individual shipment level and comprises a wealth of detail concerning

the service providers consignment characteristics consignment routing from origin to destination transport charges paid by users

Historically, the shipment data have been provided to Topflight in a huge variety of paper formats, but of course Topflight is exposed to e-volution in the same way as others. The difference is that it now handles a

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huge variety of electronic formats and has had to develop its own methods of checking the electronic data for errors!

Clients have traditionally come from the commercial Service Providers’ Sector and they use the IFX reports for both strategic business planning and for tactical marketing/development decision making. However, Tom pointed out that, among other things, the continuous nature of this work makes it ideal for before-and-after scenario planning, and thence modelling and forecasting. Indeed, certain parts of the data appear to be very robust leading indicators of (eg) the relative health of manufacturing and services sectors, in surviving the current (and previous) currency aberrations.

To date, results have been restricted to commercial clients, but Topflight plans to publish ‘Benchmark Pricing’ reports soon, based on IFX panel data.

News of membersNo members’ activities reported for the period since 17 April 2000 have met the new criteria for inclusion in this section (see editorial, page 1).

Dates for your diary

Oct 30-31

A conference in Madrid on Community transport statistics at the dawn of the 3rd millennium. For further nformation, please contact Fred Hitchins at IRN on 020 7251 4040 (fax: 020 7251 8452, Email: info@irn-research.com)

We are progressing the Autumn/Winter schedule of seminars, which will provisionally include the following topics. We hope to issue the confirmed list of seminars within the next month.

Airport accessibility statistics

Statistics for the undevolved North of England. To be held in Sheffield or elsewhere in South-west Yorkshire or Lancashire

Statistics on access between the Channel Tunnel and the Midlands and North. To be held in the Midlands

London statistics, following the mayoral election

Road safety

Next newsletterPlease send contributions for Newsletter 53 to:

J M WoodsWest Wing43 Church LaneLower BemertonSalisburyWilts SP2 9NR

Tel: 01722 422169Fax: 01722 503007Email: liswoods@cs.com

Appendix:DETR Statistical PublicationsA schedule of publications to be produced during the next two months by Transport Statistics, DETR, is given below.

July 2000 Transport Statistics for Metropolitan Areas: 1999*

Vehicle Licensing Statistics: 1999*Aug 2000 Vehicle Speeds in Great Britain: 1999*

Road Traffic Statistics: 2000 Edition*

Traffic in Great Britain Q2 2000*

Road Travel Speeds in English Urban

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Areas: 1999/2000*

Bus Quality Indicators: Q2 2000/01*

National Travel Survey: 1997/99 update*Road Goods Vehicles Travelling to Mainland Europe: Q2 2000*

*Bulletins supplied free of charge.

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