Review of Scotland's Cities

Review of Scotland's Cities - The Analysis

6 CONNECTING CITIES

6.1 INTRODUCTION

Transport is central to the economic, social and environmental future of Scotland's cities. Labour markets, business locations, accessibility to customers, housing choices, inward (and outward) tourism, the shape, density and pattern of our urban areas - all influence, and are in turn influenced by, the availability, price and speed of our transport links.

This chapter discusses the key challenges and opportunities facing Scotland's cities, the particularly complex set of issues surrounding transport and the economy and the three key transport connections shaping Scotland's future development: travel within the city and the city-region; travel between cities; and air links, particularly international connections.

6.2 THE CHALLENGE

Demand for transport is the product of a complex set of relationships which evolve over time.

Over the long-term, the primary determinants of transport demand are underlying demographic/social change (e.g. population, household size and its distribution) and economic change (e.g. household income, economic structure, business formation). Changes in the supply of transport (whether new/improved public transport services, changes in the performance of road vehicles or indeed changes in their relative attractiveness) will in turn affect individual's travel choices. How this is expressed will be shaped by the cumulative effect of individual land-use planning decisions, whether for a single house or a new shopping centre. The complex interactions between these factors will also shape individual attitudes and behaviours. The amount of time that UK residents are prepared to spend travelling is surprisingly stable over time and between places, but emotional attitudes to public transport, for example, can and do change over time, in response to objective changes in service but also in response to more subjective factors.

At the level of the individual traveller change is dynamic and unpredictable, but at the macro-level patterns of change tend to be long-term and well signalled. It is therefore possible to set out with some confidence the broad direction of change and in particular how it has affected Scotland's cities.

The private car is overwhelmingly the dominant mode of travel in Scotland. The estimated total volume of traffic on major roads has grown by about 16% since 1990. This growth has not been evenly distributed, but has instead been concentrated on Scotland's trunk roads and in the Central Belt and the major urban areas.

Table 6.1 relates traffic volumes on Scotland's major roads to the relevant road length for each of the local authority areas. The pattern is clear: trunk roads consistently carry the highest traffic volumes, reflecting their role as both through routes and local distributors; and for both trunk roads and other major roads traffic volumes are highest in the Central Belt and the four major cities and diminish as one gets further away. There is nothing particularly surprising about this. But the consequences are apparent in increased congestion and unpredictable journey times on trunks roads and in/around cities.

TABLE 6.1: Traffic Density on major roads by road class and LA in 2000 (million vehicle kilometres per km of road)

Council	Trunk Total	Local Authority A Roads	Total Major Roads
North Lanarkshire	21.79	5.37	10.57
Glasgow City	13.12	5.70	8.60
Edinburgh, City of	7.54	6.85	7.05
Aberdeen City	6.94	6.32	6.56
East Renfrewshire	9.27	4.48	5.94
Dundee City	9.59	3.93	5.57
West Lothian	13.91	2.86	5.26
West Dunbartonshire	9.42	3.33	5.11
Inverclyde	2.72	7.25	4.94
Falkirk	8.30	2.80	4.76
Midlothian	8.65	2.55	4.43
East Dunbartonshire	-	3.83	3.83
Fife	8.09	2.53	3.68
South Lanarkshire	5.95	2.30	3.63
Renfrewshire	7.66	3.62	3.40
East Lothian	4.73	2.27	3.26
East Ayrshire	4.56	2.22	3.03
Clackmannanshire	-	2.90	2.90
Stirling	3.47	2.57	2.90
Angus	6.68	1.68	2.67
Perth & Kinross	5.10	1.06	2.55
South Ayrshire	3.27	1.87	2.53
North Ayrshire	3.77	1.30	2.11
Aberdeenshire	4.21	0.98	1.63
Dumfries & Galloway	2.97	0.67	1.63
Moray	2.36	0.92	1.47
Scottish Borders	2.16	0.87	1.21
Highland	1.32	0.34	0.75
Argyll & Bute	1.19	0.53	0.74
Shetland Islands	-	0.65	0.65
Orkney Islands	-	0.45	0.45
Eilean Siar	-	0.40	0.40
Total: all Scotland	4.04	1.50	2.31

Source: Scottish Transport Statistics 2001 - Table 5.2, Table 6.4(b)

The private car is overwhelmingly the dominant mode of travel in Scotland.

While estimated road traffic levels for Scotland as a whole would appear to have remained broadly stable over the last five years, there has been considerable regional/local differentiation. In particular, traffic mileage on Lothian roads increased by over 16% over the same period. ⁵⁴ And the available evidence points to renewed increases in the years ahead. Road traffic is currently predicted to grow by a further 27% over the next two decades (Table 6.2).

TABLE 6.2: Projected Local Traffic Growth from 2001 (All vehicles)

	Projected road traffic growth without targets (% vehicle Kms)			Projected traffic growth assuming local RoadTraffic Reduction Act targets achieved (% vehicle Kms)
	2006	2011	2021	2006	2011	2021
National average	9%	16%	27%	6%	11%	20%
Edinburgh City-Region
City of Edinburgh	12%	18%	30%	-6%	-13%	-13%
East Lothian	8%	15%	25%	8%	15%	24%
Midlothian	5%	8%	15%	7%	14%	28%
West Lothian	9%	17%	25%	9%	17%	24%
Glasgow City-Region
Glasgow City	8%	15%	24%	10%	21%	40%
East Dunbartonshire	10%	17%	28%	10%	17%	28%
East Renfrewshire	10%	18%	29%	-4%	3%	12%
North Lanarkshire	8%	21%	33%	8%	21%	33%
Renfrewshire	7%	14%	27%	9%	17%	24%
South Lanarkshire	10%	18%	29%	10%	18%	29%
West Dunbartonshire	8%	16%	28%	9%	16%	28%
Aberdeen City-Region
Aberdeen City	10%	19%	34%	-10%	-20%	-20%
Aberdeenshire	11%	21%	34%	8%	12%	13%
Dundee City-Region
Dundee City	6%	12%	22%	6%	11%	21%
Angus	8%	16%	25%	9%	16%	24%
Perth & Kinross	8%	16%	25%	8%	16%	24%
Highland	8%	14%	23%	13%	28%	64%
Of which Inverness City	13%	22%	37%	n/a	n/a	n/a

Source: Review of Local Transport Strategies and RTRA Reports, Steer Davies Gleave (2002), CSTM3 Central Economic Case; Inverness City projection based Highland Local Transport Strategy

The largest increases are again being forecast for the cities and/or their surrounding hinterlands:

Almost 80% of the predicted 27% increase in road traffic by 2021 is projected to be in and around the 4 major cities, with traffic projected to grow by 30% in Edinburgh, 24% in Glasgow, 22% in Dundee and by 34% in Aberdeen.
Traffic in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness is projected to grow faster than or at the same level as the surrounding city-region - this probably reflects their role as primary drivers of economic growth, and in particular employment growth, in their respective city-regions.
Traffic growth in Glasgow and Dundee is projected to lag traffic growth in the surrounding city-region, either reflecting the more diverse pattern of employment and residential development in their respective city-regions or in the case of Dundee the forecast decline in household numbers. The more dispersed pattern of traffic growth projected in the Glasgow city-region is probably both a consequence of and a contributor to the difficulty of servicing suburban and off-centre developments by public transport. Public transport services, whether fixed (rail) or in principle flexible (bus), are in practice best able to serve radial trips to/from a city centre or similar, rather than the multi-dimensional transport needs of say North Lanarkshire or West Lothian.

A key influence is likely to be ongoing changes in levels of car ownership. While Scotland's peripheral rural areas have of necessity had high levels of car ownership, Scotland's urban areas have historically experienced much lower levels of car ownership. Indeed, Scotland has the highest number of households without access to a car of any UK nation/region, except London. Only the North-East of England and London have lower numbers of cars per 1,000 of population. ⁵⁵ Relatively low car ownership in Scotland presumably reflects historically low household income, compact urban areas with good accessibility, and the extensive network of bus services.

Significant differences are also apparent between Scotland's cities. Car ownership is higher than the Scottish average in the Aberdeen area and, marginally so, in the Lothians. Both Glasgow and Dundee have significantly lower car ownership than the Scottish average (Table 6.3). Similar patterns are discernible for those holding a driving licence. These differences again presumably in part reflect wealth effects.

TABLE 6.3: Percentage of Households with access to one or more cars

	1991	2001
Aberdeen City	60.0	62.1
City-Region	68.2	71.5
Dundee City	45.3	50.8
City-Region	53.4	60.0
Edinburgh City	53.5	58.7
City-Region	57.5	63.6
Glasgow City	33.4	40.5
City-Region	48.4	55.0
Highland	68.5	73.1
Scotland	57.4	63.5

Source: Scottish Transport Statistics, Scottish Household Survey

But car ownership in Scotland is on a strongly upward trend, with households having use of at least one car rising from 57.5% of Scottish households in 1991 to 63.5% in 2001. A key challenge for Scotland and its cities will be managing the implications of car ownership levels closer to those common elsewhere in the UK (which are in turn rising closer to higher car ownership levels elsewhere in northern Europe). If car ownership in Edinburgh and Glasgow reaches the existing ownership levels of say Bristol then this would imply an additional 35,000 and 90,000 cars on the road respectively. This underlines the importance of breaking the link between car ownership and use.

6.3 THE OPPORTUNITIES

Lower car ownership is associated with greater use of other modes of transport. In 1999/00, public transport, walking or cycling was the primary means of travel to work for 55% of Edinburgh residents, 52% of Glasgow residents, 45% of Aberdeen residents and 42% of Dundee residents. This compares with 32% of those residing elsewhere in Scotland. ⁵⁶ This is in large part a consequence of the greater availability of convenient and good quality public transport services in the large urban areas - see Table 6.4 below.

TABLE 6.4: Views on public transport: is it convenient? is it good quality? (1999/2000)

	Convenience of public transport					Quality of public transport
	Convenient		Neither or No opinion	Inconvenient		Good	Poor
	Very	Fairly	Neither or No opinion	Fairly	Very	Good	Poor
All Scotland	43%	32%	7%	9%	9%	17%	5%
Large urban areas	54%	31%	5%	6%	4%	27%	4%
of which
Aberdeen City	53%	35%	3%	5%	3%	22%	3%
Dundee City	57%	28%	7%	5%	4%	33%	2%
City of Edinburgh	55%	31%	4%	7%	4%	30%	4%
Glasgow City	54%	32%	4%	6%	4%	29%	6%
Other urban areas	46%	34%	8%	7%	5%	17%	3%
"Accessible" small towns	37%	35%	9%	11%	7%	11%	4%
"Remote" small towns	38%	32%	13%	12%	5%	7%	3%
"Accessible" rural areas	22%	30%	9%	18%	21%	5%	13%
"Remote" rural areas	14%	23%	9%	19%	35%	2%	13%

Source: Scottish Household Survey

... car ownership in Scotland is on a strongly upward trend...

International comparisons of car usage are only available for Glasgow - see Table 6.5. This data shows that although Glasgow has a relatively sustainable modal split when compared with other Scottish cities, when compared with similar sized conurbations in Western Europe, it tends towards the bottom half of the league table. This suggests that there is considerable scope for improvement, and much to be learnt from European cities, where walking, cycle and public transport play a far more significant role in city journeys.

TABLE 6.5: Modal split for selected European cities (%)

	Car	Public Transport	Foot/cycle
Madrid	30	32	38
Amsterdam	31	17	51
Frankfurt	42	21	37
Vienna	41	30	28
Glasgow	55	12	33
Rome	57	23	20
Lille	62	7	31
Athens	65	22	12

Public transport (and walking and cycling) remains competitive in cities and major urban areas more generally. This reflects:

the generally compact nature of Scotland's cities, facilitating short journeys from home to work;
the continued importance of high volume radial routes, which allow the provision of good quality, high frequency public transport services;
the deterrent effect of city centre (and increasingly suburban) congestion to travel to work by car;
the growing prevalence of traffic restraint measures, such as traffic calming, pedestrianisation, loss of road space to buses, and rising costs of parking for those who do not have free employer parking; and
measures to improve public transport services.

But even in cities this competitive advantage is under threat. As noted above, car ownership is increasing and more diverse journey patterns in our daily lives are making traditional radial public transport services less appropriate for many requirements. For example, the increasing number of parents combining part or full time work with raising children is creating more complex journeys between work, home and nursery. And even where the demand is there, capacity limitations on specific public transport routes can result in overcrowding, so turning away prospective users.

Since the 1950's, travel in Scotland's cities has therefore shared the general move away from public transport and towards the car (e.g. peak hour bus journeys to Edinburgh centre were 31,000 in 1989 but 19,000 in 1996). There is some evidence that the significant investment in public transport friendly measures since the late 1990's has stemmed this trend, at least in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but it is far too soon to claim a turning of the corner in favour of more sustainable transport options.

Scotland's cities and their hinterlands therefore both experience the most acute problems of traffic growth and congestion, but also offer the greatest opportunities in terms of making sustainable transport a reality. Can we build on existing relatively high levels of public transport, walking and cycling in the cities, before wider economic and societal change further erodes the competitiveness of sustainable transport options?

6.4 THE EMERGING RESPONSE

The Scottish Executive's aim is to stabilise road traffic at 2001 levels by 2021. ⁵⁷ As we have seen, a key element of this will be establishing a long-term strategy to tackle congestion in our major metropolitan areas. That is why 9 out of the Executive's top 10 transport priorities in Scotland's Transport: Delivering Improvements, focus on improving public transport and providing motorists with public transport alternatives in and around our cities, where these do not already exist.

Table 6.2 above shows Local Authorities' own projections of traffic growth for their area assuming the road traffic reduction targets contained within the Local Authority Local Transport Strategies are delivered. These projections should be treated with care: the local authority derived projections in column 2 reflect local assumptions rather than the national assumptions on economic growth used in column 1; and the projections in column 2 will not be consistent across local authorities. But the pattern is clear:

Only Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and East Renfrewshire are anticipating reductions in traffic growth to below "trends continued levels" over the period to 2021 (Chart 6.1 shows Aberdeen and Glasgow as examples). This will require significant public transport investment and traffic management measures.
The other Local Authorities, including Glasgow and Dundee, are either projecting unchanged or higher levels of traffic growth. This is perhaps less surprising for the outer city-region authorities, where complex journey patterns and car dependence are the norm, but in the case of the two city authorities, suggests either an optimistic view of local economic growth or an unwillingness to take radical traffic reduction measures, perhaps related to concerns that such measures would have a detrimental impact on economic growth.

chart

The Scottish Executive's aim of stabilising traffic volumes by 2021 is extremely challenging. By the end of 2002, the Executive will be undertaking a comprehensive review of the targets of the four main cities and their neighbouring authorities, to review targets, and to revise them where appropriate, and to identify the range of measures (and associated costs and benefits) necessary to deliver these by 2021. These will include measures aimed at increasing walking and cycling, growing train passenger numbers and local bus use. This will be followed by a detailed review of the Road Traffic Reduction Act reports belonging to the remaining local authorities, to be completed by June 2003.

The immediate policy challenge has a number of aspects:

How best to allocate resources to make a difference? Hitherto a large part of capital funding has gone on local projects, which have often proved too small to make a difference and were often stand-alone, so poorly placed to exploit synergies/network benefits. Scotland's Transport: Delivering Improvements recognises that in future a more directive, top-down prioritisation of available resources is required, focusing on tackling congestion in and around Scotland's major metropolitan areas. The shifting of new spending away from the bottom-up Public Transport Fund to the new national top-down priorities reflects this change of direction, but this will inevitably face competing calls for funding from across Scotland.
In tackling the congestion problems, no single solution will be applicable in all circumstances. Packages of measures will be required, and empirical evidence from the UK and elsewhere is compelling that these will need to comprise both 'sticks' and 'carrots': 'carrots' without 'sticks' just do not work. This requires political courage - both in making the decision to try new approaches and in the small day-to-day decisions that enforce and roll-out the measures required. Improved public transport on its own does not necessarily cut car trips. Complementary packages of improved public transport and traffic management measures (whether traffic calming, bus lanes, parking restrictions/charges, bus lanes or road tolling) do. Those who take action now will benefit in the long term through improvements to the liveability and efficient working of their areas, but in the short-term the cost/disruption of the new measures will loom large and may disadvantage those who act over those who don't.

The City authorities are leading the way here: City of Edinburgh Council is consulting on the introduction of urban congestion charging, ambitious traffic management schemes are being introduced in Glasgow and Edinburgh city centres and on key radial routes; Edinburgh and Aberdeen have produced maximum parking standards for new developments, other authorities, such as Glasgow City Council and Aberdeenshire Council are at the final stages of their preparation.

It is clear the Scottish Executive will have a key role. A particular challenge will be how best to support those who are prepared to take the measures to help themselves and how to ensure a balanced approach in planning decisions and provision of work place/retail parking. This is especially so in the case of Edinburgh. Transport topped most consultees' 'must do' lists for Edinburgh. Growing the wider Edinburgh city-region labour market is crucial if the area is both to anchor recent development and sustain further economic growth. Nowhere else in Scotland are the transport challenges so great and the opportunities so considerable.

As we have seen, the drivers of transport choices are long-term in both their emergence and their effect. Decisions we take now on the location of a new office development, a new hospital or an out-of-centre retail park, can have implications for travel choices for years to come. A poorly sited development, largely dependent on car access, will lock in problems for the long term. It is far easier to design a sustainable development in the first instance, than retrospectively to bolt-on public transport, cycling and walking options after the event. This thinking now runs through the National Planning Policy Guidelines on Business and Industry (NPPG2), Housing (NPPG3), Town Centres and Retailing (NPPG8) and Transport (NPPG17). The challenge will be to ensure delivery on the new policy direction on the ground.
Road traffic authorities, transport operators, Strathclyde Passenger Transport and others need to work together to reduce congestion in our major urban centres. And as we will see below, it will be imperative to address transport at the level of the city-region.

TRANSPORT AND ECONOMIC CHANGE

Economic change continues apace, with the provision of transport infrastructure and services often lagging behind. Our City Travel To Work and Housing Market Areas are expanding - see below; employment patterns are changing (part-time work, 24-hour working, "stretched days", off-site working); choices of business location are evolving, in particular the growth of edge of city office parks and the revitalisation of the central business districts; and the long-term shift from manufacturing to services continues. All impose new transport demands: out of hours services, personal safety, connecting new locations and more diverse travel patterns.

The Challenge From Business

To explore the emerging business issues, the Cities Review Team undertook a series of focus group discussions with selected businesses from the five cities. Key issues arising included:

Skills shortages and rising house prices forcing businesses to recruit from further afield; yet concern that unless public transport can be improved, long-distance commuting will involve staff stress and turnover;
Recruitment and staff retention would be helped by measures to ensure accessible affordable housing;
Reliability and travel times were still 'much better than in south-east England', but in a competitive market improvements are needed to attract and retain labour;
For most, transport is a middle-ranking issue rather than a major problem. Skills, research and market opportunities were all seen as more important. But congestion and parking difficulties were of growing concern to firms in Edinburgh and Glasgow;
Business still prefers sites with ample parking but these are less likely to be available, especially in Central Belt. Peripheral city business zones allow much higher levels of car usage, yet create their own parking and congestion problems. Need for general improvement in urban public transport linked to regional corridor improvements.
Need to introduce high quality public transport at an early stage in the development of business locations both on city centre fringes and on edge of city sites;
Longer periods of business opening now a fact of life for many, with 25% of staff in some firms operating on a 'stretched day', increasing proportion of women in the workforce, and shift to more flexible hours - corresponding need to ensure safe evening travel by public transport, improved service frequency into the evenings, better lighting and greater 'buzz'/activity in business areas which tended to become dead after 6 p.m.;
'Hot-desking' and flexible working becoming more common, but wide adoption would have to overcome strong managerial (and employee) cultural attachment to 'normal' work and office hours and 'hands-on' managerial supervision;
Firms from Inverness, Aberdeen and Dundee attach considerable importance to good quality links to Edinburgh and Glasgow - to access business/university contacts and airports and to demonstrate to business visitors that the 'peripheral' cities were accessible;
Firms in Aberdeen, Inverness and Dundee reported a marked rise in video conference and other measures to reduce business travel costs - much of this being related to travel beyond Scotland;
Most business air travel was based on access to hub airports with a good range and frequency of international services (not solely Heathrow, several firms preferred to use continental hubs). This meant a strong interest in access to Edinburgh and Glasgow airports for onwards connections and/or connecting flights to other hubs.
Considerable interest in improving air connections, though 'image' benefits difficult to measure and some uncertainty about how far such improvements would directly increase net jobs and business profitability. Yet perception that failure to improve links to major airport hubs might mean a loss of existing headquarters or missing out on global company expansion.

The linkages between transport, the levels and distribution of economic activity and labour force behaviour are undoubtedly crucial, but the mechanisms at play are far from straightforward:

Improved transport links can economically benefit the better connected area, if it increases markets that can be served from a given location, but they can also harm its economic prospects, if quicker/cheaper access allows external suppliers to supplant indigenous suppliers.
The effects of improved transport links can affect different socio-economic groups differentially. Professional and managerial people travel further than people in unskilled or partly skilled occupations. ⁵⁸ New or improved rail services may disproportionately benefit medium to higher income groups, with the lower paid excluded by relatively higher rail fares. Similarly, out of town locations can offer improved all round access by private transport, benefiting those having use of a car, while at the same time severely limiting access by public transport, dependent on pre-existing infrastructure or minimum passenger volumes to make routes viable, excluding those without access to a car from taking up employment opportunities.
At current levels of employment nationally/regionally, there are just not the significant groups of unemployed around, who would be able to take up employment if only transport options were available (e.g. as illustrated by the rapid rate at which the Motorola redundancies found new employment). Opening up new transport links or offering cheaper fares may allow some individuals to take up higher paid and added value employment to the benefit of the overall Scottish economy, but it is unlikely in itself to bring the unemployed back into the labour market, without associated investment in pre-employment training/skills. The more significant role of new or improved transport links is likely to be in opening up new areas for housing development at longer distances from places of employment.
Individual responses to improved transport links can also be complex and may sometime cut across the objectives underlying the particular improvement(s). For example, extended transport links to serve a wider catchment area may actually encourage longer and longer commuting trips, so exacerbating congestion. Similarly, efforts to regenerate a depressed community, by helping individuals travel to more distant employment opportunities, may in the long-term result in them moving closer to their new place of employment once they have the income to do so, so failing to address the problems of the depressed community that led to the original transport investment.

As a consequence, much of the discussion about transport and the economy in Scotland lacks well-rooted supporting evidence. Decisions are being made about funding priorities and the choice/design of specific projects with only the most generalised and crude understanding of the economic dimension.

The Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA) examined the relationship between "Transport and the Economy" in their 1999 Report to the UK Government. Recognising the importance of the issues, they recommended that transport appraisals should include an economic impact report, focusing on the functioning of local labour markets.

This approach is being implemented within Scotland through the Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance requirement that project promoters prepare Economic Activity and Location Impact assessments, which seek to assess income and employment effects. This seeks to ensure that the earliest possible consideration is given to the wider objectives and implication of transport policies and projects as part of the definition of problems to be addressed and potential solutions.

Further work at a strategic/regional level to set the economic context and objectives for the Executive, local authority and private sector policies would be helpful to inform decisions on specific projects. The changing Edinburgh, Glasgow and wider Central Belt labour markets would in particular benefit from empirical research to inform future decision making on transport priorities within the framework of the economic Activity and Location Impact assessments, the proposed City-Region Plans and the National Planning Framework. The planned Scottish Executive research study to investigate how future demographic, household, employment and associated lifestyle changes in Central Scotland will affect patterns of land use and related transport needs over the next 20 years is a useful start in addressing current gaps in both our data and understanding. Links with the Future Skills Unit, Local Enterprise Companies and employers might also be beneficial.

« Previous | Contents | Next »

The Scottish Government

Publications

On this page: