Category Archives: Transport

Purpose & Policy: Transport

Hereford Station. Usage here and across the network is increasing. Investment is needed: who should pay and own   it?
Hereford Station. Usage here and across the network is increasing. Investment is needed: who should pay and own it?

In my last blog I talked about how Anu Partanen found a purpose underlying the policies that shape Nordic societies, and single terms like capitalism and socialism are not helpful, creating as they do false dichotomies, that can obscure the bigger picture. This way of thinking I find useful in looking at all manner of issues.

Let’s take UK transport policy, and debates around the railways as an example. For most of the last 70 years the UK rail system has largely been underfunded. It is important to note that our rail system has been in decline from the days of private companies before 1948, through the years of a nationalized service and through the last couple of decades since privatisation.

The predominant view was that roads were a more modern alternative. Oil companies and car manufacturers reinforced the politicians in this. Political debate focused on whether the system should be nationalized or privatized. This to me seems a very secondary consideration. Clarifying the long term purpose of what a transport policy should look like, and what part rail should play within that framework, seems to me to be what is required. Then, and only then, does what part of it ought to be in public ownership and what part in private ownership and what other models might be appropriate for various bits of infrastructure become an important issue.

Any sensible transport policy fit for the twenty-first century ought to focus on how we can cut carbon emissions and pollution, ease congestion, increase safety and make mobility affordable and accessible for all. For many decades it has been clear that cars are not suitable for big cities, and that even smaller towns are plagued by too many of them. Rail has many advantages over road transport. Steel wheels on steel rails generate much less friction than rubber tyres on tarmac, and are therefore more energy efficient, and their longer thinner shape further adds to this advantage. Railways are the fastest way to move large numbers of people. Walking, cycling, buses and trams then need to be integrated into the rail system.

UK tragically lost many of its railway lines with the Beeching cuts. Now the government is pushing the HS2 high speed line, which seems a very poor investment. By contrast Switzerland has what is considered Europe’s best railways. They did not experience any equivalent of the Beeching cuts and have not focused on high speed rail. Their priority has been intensity of use, reliability, quality of service and safety. The UK should follow this model and invest heavily in regional railways, suburban rail and tram systems, and in the walking, cycling and buses that are all needed to make any modern city more enjoyable and pleasant to live in. We could also follow Estonia and Luxembourg and make some or all public transport free.

Cars of course will have a role to play, but with excellent walking, cycling and public transport, that role ought to decline, and it would be good to see individual ownership largely replaced by car sharing clubs for those journeys when a car really is the best option. So on to who should own what. The Swiss rail system is a Special Corporation whose shares are owned by the federal government and the cantons. If regional and county councils had a stake in UK rail we might have better provision across the whole country. The cars in our car sharing club are owned collectively by a group of forty or so households within our local community. In Germany the municipal Stadwerke own lots of well functioning infrastructure. There are many possible systems of ownership, and the unregulated free market and the centralized state monopoly may be the two least helpful starting points for thinking about the best future of our infrastructure.

Muddle… or Decisive Action?

Students lobbying Councilors to declare a Climate Emergency

Students lobbying Councilors to declare a Climate Emergency

Last Friday Herefordshire Council unanimously declared a Climate Emergency. It was an inspiring day. About a hundred of us old environmental activists were outside the Shirehall when along came about one hundred and seventy young students who had marched chanting from the collages, down Aylestone Hill and through High Town. Our councillors had seldom, if ever, seen so much support for a motion to be passed. Yesterday the same council approved their own Transport Package, which essentially commits them to spending vast sums of money on road building and peanuts for walking, cycling and public transport. This, of course, is exactly the kind of policy that shows they are not serious about the Climate Emergency that they themselves had declared just a few days earlier. It reflects the muddled thinking of governments around the World, who continue to give billions in subsidies to keep the old fossil fuel industries going, while at the same time professing to be concerned about climate change, ecological breakdown and appalling air quality. It is why more and more people are taking to the streets globally, with groups like Extinction Rebellion and School Strike for Climate Action, demanding immediate and decisive action.

This coming Friday, 15th March, there will be a global school strike for climate action. As of this morning 1209 actions in 92 countries have been announced, and many more are being added each day. I follow many of the organisers on Twitter, and these young people, some only ten years old, are so powerful and eloquent speakers. They put most of our elected politicians to shame.

We need to make policy and investment decisions fit to the physical realities of the ecological crisis. Take road building. While our local council’s top priority seems to be to build ever more roads George Monbiot suggests a target of reducing car use by 90% over the next decade. Halting the manufacture, sale and use of fossil fuel cars, lorries and buses is a political decision. As I have repeatedly argued on this blog battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell alternatives already exist, and having most of the cars in car sharing clubs rather than private ownership we can further decrease the damage they do and the space they take up. If we are serious about action on climate change, or children’s health, or the liveability of our cities, then we have to make planning policy decisions in the understanding that the era of the privately owned motor car is over.

Sustainable Shipping goes Commercial

Renault-Neoline-sailing-cargo-ship

Renault-Neoline. A sailing cargo-ship, due to be in commercial operation by 2020

Last March I posted a blog about the great success of the Ampere, the first regular passenger ferry using battery electric propulsion, rather than diesel engines. It achieved 95% reduction in emissions and an 80% reduction in operating costs. In that blog I argued that it was likely that short routes, such as the Dover – Calais, would probably switch from diesel to renewables before longer, ocean going routes. However a new partnership between the car maker, Renault, and ship building start-up Neoline are planning a predominantly wind powered regular Trans-Atlantic service, due to start operating in 2020.

The picture above shows what they are proposing. It is quite a large roll-on roll-off ship, capable of carrying 478 cars on two decks. Most of the time while at sea it would be entirely sail powered. For manoeuvring in port and times of slack wind a diesel engine is planned. I would like to see Neoline replace this diesel with a hydrogen fuel cell engine. However, even with the diesel engine, emissions are forecast to be 90% lower than conventional ships as essentially this is a new iteration of a sailing ship, although no doubt with smart computer controlled sails.

I have on this blog written about several experimental hydrogen fuel cell ships. Now construction is just beginning on what will be the world’s first regular commercial hydrogen fuel cell ferry. It will be a 70-foot long catamaran, capable of carrying 84 passengers, and will commence operating in San Francisco Bay sometime later this year, initially on a three month trial basis. It will carry sufficient hydrogen for two full days operation.

Combining the sail powered ship designed in France by Neoline and the hydrogen fuel cell ferry under construction in California seems to suggest the path to a truly sustainable global shipping technology. Predominantly wind powered, but with clean hydrogen fuel cell technology for manoeuvring in port and as back up for when the wind is not strong enough. How long will it be before these technologies replace diesel on the huge bulk carriers that criss-cross the planet’s oceans. That would improve local air quality in ports, cut carbon and other emissions, and be quieter and so less disruptive to whales and dolphins, and it might also be considerably cheaper than dirty old diesel. What’s not to like?