On his retirement in 2040, veteran transport journalist GEORGE PANGLOSS looks back on the seismic changes on the railways and complementary modes of transport since the dark days of the early 2020s…
Who, in 2022, could have imagined that 73% of Britain’s railway network would have been wired by 2035… that container trains for Plymouth and South Devon Freeport would be running via Okehampton and Tavistock… or that stations had regained their 19th century position as the epicentre of communities?
Looking back, no one in 2022 could have anticipated the accelerating pace of change on our railways and transport generally, following the environmental devastation of the mid-2020s.
The huge scale of global heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, dust storms, floods and smogs finally prompted most governments to translate climate talk into the Draconian action the situation demanded. And not before time.
Governments finally recognised that in the drive to reach net zero by 2050, winning slowly was the same as losing, and in Britain the only way to make the changes needed was to form a national government.
Party politics were effectively suspended, and an effort was made to adopt a more collegiate style of government that put country and competence before sectional interests.
Huw Merriman, one of the few rail ministers who really wanted the job, became Transport Secretary and created what was arguably the first coherent transport policy for England since the 1945-51 government (Wales and Scotland had devised integrated policies by the early 2020s).
Realising, in Merriman’s words, that “rail is one of the best returns on investment that taxpayers can ever make”, government placed the railways centre stage as the backbone of transport.
Their value was enhanced by recognition that greener transport and rail investment provided solutions to other problems, whereas roads created more problems than they solved. Road construction was limited to building a few bypasses, providing Dutch-levels of cycling infrastructure, and putting an end to potholes.
The siloed thinking of ministries was replaced by mutually supporting policies to effect change. All government decisions were viewed through the prism of climate change to provide joined-up thinking.
A fundamental part of a coherent transport policy of mutually reinforcing measures was a revised hierarchy for investment and taxation, determined by their contribution to carbon reduction. Road pricing replaced fuel duty, with charges that reflected the local availability of greener modes (to avoid penalising areas that lacked realistic alternatives to an electric car).
Public acceptance of the need for radical change had been steadily developing, owing to recognition of its positive aspects as well as anxiety over constant weather disasters and the huge health costs attached to pollution.
After years of asking for decisive and consistent government action, the business community convinced government that a major element of economic revival and net zero should be new green technologies - particularly tidal power, in which the UK became the world leader, creating tens of thousands of new jobs and substantial exports of equipment.
Britain finally had a government that understood a fundamental fact of railway economics: that they have high fixed costs, and the only way to defray them is by intensive use.
Fares reform based on single-leg pricing simplified the system, helped by app-based pay-as-you-go ticketing, which had the same effect in boosting public transport use as the Oystercard had in London from 2003.
The low prices offered by Austria’s KlimaTicket proved unaffordable in the UK, but very low fares for children did succeed in growing an already resilient family leisure market.
Public transport information was revolutionised by providing all modes, including car and e-bike hire, on a single app with real-time operating details.
Arguably the greatest single agent of change was a rigorous reform of planning, which put an end to the idiocy of creating car-dependent developments in an age of climate crisis.
By the end of the 2020s, electric or driverless cars were no longer seen as a panacea for individual mobility. Conflict over lithium and other rare materials required for their production, and dominant control of them by China, made them prohibitively expensive.
The Holy Grail of devising safe driverless cars in dense urban environments proved a fantasy. Test beds for driverless cars showed that it was impossible for them to operate safely in an environment that contained pedestrians and cyclists. Average speeds achieved in urban areas were even lower than driven cars, and driverless vehicles were constantly overtaken by e-bikes.
For many people, car clubs replaced car ownership, continuing the trend of young people no longer seeing the car as a status symbol.
Why (they asked) would I spend tens of thousands of pounds on something that, on average, is used for just nine hours a week? Would you invest in a factory that operated for just 5.3% of the week?
Universal education about climate change and sustainable practices helped drive modal shift, as did punitive taxation of SUVs which reversed the illogical trend to larger vehicles. Moreover, the damage done to human health by particulates from tyres and brakes (whatever the source of power) became much better understood.
