04Policy recommendations

Large cities are well positioned to sustain an efficient and well-used public transport system because the density of property development not only creates demand but it makes investment feasible. Yet outside London UK cities have less extensive networks than their European counterparts and public transport use lags well behind. Addressing this disparity could increase annual public transport use in the UK by nearly one million passengers.

The Westminster Government has recognised this with the creation of the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements that provide a decade of funding for large English cities to support investment in infrastructure. But this alone will not deliver a marked increase in public transport use.

There are a number of themes that emerge from the case studies presented above that national and local government should address in addition to looking at how to expand infrastructure. These include integration of services, the importance of empowered transport authorities, the requirement for property density, the need to raise revenues locally and focusing on overcoming difficult politics.

Plan for property density

Previous work by Centre for Cities has shown that the less dense urban form of large UK cities is a major factor in explaining why their public transport networks do not connect as many people to city centres as comparable cities on the continent do. This is likely to explain why levels of use are lower.

The success of all policies designed to increase passenger numbers will depend on the density of cities. To improve the underlying economics for public transport UK cities should, firstly, focus on developing city centre economies to increase the concentration of jobs. As more people commute into a city centre it becomes less practical to do so by car, increasing the relative merits of taking public transport. This explains why so many central London workers use public transport to get to work.

Second, UK cities should use their powers to implement Local Development Orders to plan for mid-rise housing near existing and new public transport stops. This will be supported by national planning reforms currently set out in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

Third, putting in place a land value capture mechanism should be considered so that the public sector benefits from some of the financial uplift that an investment in public transport generates. In the UK, tax incremental financing has been used to capture growth in business rates from the Battersea and Nine Elms development. A similar result could also be achieved by a land value tax such as that used in Montreal.

Empower transport authorities

In many of the case studies above there is a single body responsible for running the public transport networks that are examined. Again, this is something that London, through TfL, has benefited from for over two decades.

Where similar bodies are already in place, for example Transport for Greater Manchester, these authorities should be given the same powers that TfL has. Where there is no body in place for a major urban area the Government should fund the creation of one.

Integrate services

Better integrated services make a public transport system operate more effectively. This includes having integrated ticketing and ensuring different public transport modes connect seamlessly with one another.

As a result of legislation that either has been or is about to be passed in both England and Scotland large cities across the UK now have the option to introduce bus franchising, a power London has long benefited from. Greater Manchester has started rolling this out and Liverpool City Region is set to follow. Bus franchising will open up the ability to fully integrate different modes of public transport. However, as franchising will require revenue and infrastructure funding support, cities should ensure the material benefits outweigh the costs, and cities, where commercial partnerships have not worked, should be prioritised.

Franchising will have further benefits, such as allowing transport authorities to borrow to invest and own data on a network’s performance which can then guide where investments are made. Other large cities should take advantage of this opportunity.

Raise revenue locally

Revenue raising powers, such as congestion charging or workplace parking levies, are important for two reasons. The first is that they provide money to invest in public transport which can be spent either on infrastructure or on the cross subsidisation of services. The second is that they increase the cost of driving and so alter the relative benefits between public and private transport.

With this in mind national governments should give powers to local transport authorities to allow them to introduce congestion charging and workplace parking levies. This will soon be the case in Scotland.

Overcome difficult politics

Having powers to make substantive change is not the same as using them. Imposing charges on drivers is not politically easy – the rejection of congestion charging in Manchester via a referendum in 2013, the scrapping of workplace parking levy proposals in Bristol and more recently the political furore around the expansion of the ULEZ in London show this clearly.

Options here include:

• Making improvements to public transport networks before introducing policies that have a financial cost for residents to ensure they have an affordable and reliable alternative to driving.
• Publicising network improvements through campaigns and public engagement that make clear the benefits of new policies.
• Demonstrating how revenue raised from charging schemes will be used to improve public transport.

Be wary of discounted ticketing schemes

Changing the relative cost of public transport compared to private transport is one way to make public transport more appealing. However, while reducing ticket prices can attract attention, doing this without investment in the public transport service provided is unlikely to bring about long-term modal shift. Local and national government should therefore be wary of adopting such measures in isolation.