Written evidence submitted by the Campaign for Better Transport (SRI0042)

About us  

Campaign for Better Transport is the national charity working across England and Wales to make transport better, greener and fairer. Our vision is for all communities to have high quality, sustainable transport that meets their needs, improves quality of life and helps protect the environment.  

Summary

Road maintenance and upgrades are necessary and welcome, particularly where it contributes to reallocating road space to sustainable transport modes and improving safety. However, building new roads is counterproductive to meeting the Government’s stated objectives of reducing congestion, growing the economy and levelling-up. This is because:

• New roads increase congestion, and the cost-benefit justifications for RIS2 projects have been nullified by the delay of several of the schemes.
• Decarbonisation, growth, productivity and levelling-up can be delivered much more cost-effectively, with better long-term results, by investing in public transport.
• Lessons for RIS3 can be learnt from the current strategy: namely, there needs to be greater transparency on the carbon trade-offs of road building, and wider consideration of alternatives to road enhancement.

Instead, the Government should be prioritising investing in public transport. We believe the Government should follow the example of the devolved administrations and set traffic reduction targets as well as halt and review all planned road schemes which have not progressed to significant delivery stages. Public funding saved by cancelling strategic road schemes should be re-allocated and instead invested in improving bus and rail services, alongside other forms of sustainable transport.

Roads investment and the needs of consumers and business

It is generally believed in both political and business circles that road building is not only an effective, but essential, means by which to stimulate economic growth.[1] However, there is little evidence to substantiate this claim. Analysis demonstrates that within five years of a road being ‘upgraded’, the volume of traffic has returned to the same level as before expansion. Any reduction in congestion is therefore temporary, nullified by increased congestion elsewhere or an increased number of drivers using the improved road.[2]

One year ago National Highways admitted that 33 of RIS2’s schemes would be delayed. Each of these is to take at least a year longer than planned to open for traffic.[3] Delays to RIS2 projects mean they will be even more expensive than originally planned. National Highways has not assessed the impact of these delays on the supposed benefits to road users, businesses and consumers.[4] Given the limited economic gains from road schemes generally, presumed benefits are likely to have been negated by the delays and additional costs. Calculations from Transport Action Network suggest that cancelling only five of the RIS2 road projects which have poor value for money can save £16 billion.[5]

Roads investment and other policy priorities

As currently constituted, HM Government’s roads investment programme is a hinderance to decarbonisation, levelling-up, productivity and growth.

Decarbonisation

RIS2 schemes are estimated to increase emissions by approximately 19 to 21 MtCO2e, as a result of emissions from construction, higher speeds and more cars on the road.[6] Road transport is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the UK. Road-user focussed decarbonisation is therefore essential if Britain’s legal requirements under the Climate Change Act are to be met.[7] To achieve this, tailpipe emissions must be drastically reduced and decarbonising the car industry needs to be accomplished.

The current Strategic Road Investment plans will increase the quantity of roads and congestion on them. Department for Transport estimates the increase in traffic to be somewhere between eight and 54 per cent from 2025 to 2060.[8] In contrast, the Climate Change Committee estimates that, even with a fast uptake of EVs, a traffic reduction of 17% by 2050 is required to meet the balanced pathway of carbon emissions.[9] Other analysis puts that estimate of traffic reduction required to 2035 at 25-40%.[10] Therefore the roads investment programme undermines the Government’s decarbonisation priorities. This is why Campaign for Better Transport is calling for a pause on road building and a review of the plans for RIS3.

Levelling-up

Access to private vehicles varies by income as 38% of households in the lowest income bracket have no car as opposed to 16% in the highest.[11] Roads capacity increases therefore only serve to entrench car dependency and inequality in our society. By comparison, low-income households are much more reliant on public transport provision, particularly buses. Research by Campaign for Better Transport found poor access to public transport is a significant factor in areas becoming left behind, contributing to high levels of unemployment and poor health and social outcomes.[12]

Campaign for Better Transport welcomed the fact that of the 111 projects awarded funding from Round Two of the Government’s Levelling Up Fund, 28 were transport projects and 13 more include transport elements. However, a much greater investment in public transport provision is required for access to be significantly improved across the country, particularly in left-behind communities.

Just a 10% increase in local bus connectivity would produce: a 2.7% fall in employment deprivation; a 2.8% fall in income deprivation; a 2.7% fall in employment deprivation; and an increase in post-16 education, it provides a greater economic return than building new roads.[13] Investing £2 billion a year for the next five years would increase the number of bus services by seven per cent, improving services for an additional 20 million people and consequently increasing labour markets. For every £1 invested, this would generate nearly £4 in economic benefits.[14]

In terms of rail, increasing investment in rail infrastructure by 10% compared with the expected baseline could boost the number of jobs in the UK rail supply sector by nearly 21,000 in 2025-29. If that extra investment were focused outside of London and South-East England, then that in turn would help to reduce overall regional wage differentials and contribute substantially to levelling-up.[15]

To promote levelling-up across the country, we ask the Government to rebalance funding away from roads investment towards bus and rail, with a particular focus on left-behind neighbourhoods.

Productivity

One of the biggest problems inhibiting economic growth in the UK is its low productivity. Despite consistently high levels of roads spending, Britain’s output per hour growth between 2009 and 2019 was the second slowest in the ‘G7’.[16] Therefore, building more roads has no discernible impact on employee productivity.[17] Furthermore, analysis demonstrates that median journey time savings have little if any effect for each driver in practice, with only 1.5 minutes saved during peak periods and 1 minute during the inter-peak/off-peak period as a result of improved roads.[18]

With the ability to spend one’s time productively on a train, rail travel provides a much stronger business case than driving. The Department for Transport sets ‘values of time’ in order to quantify the direct economic benefits of journey types by various modes of transport. The Department’s values of working time by train per person for the most popular routes works out at £40.72 per hour. In contrast, a car driver (or passenger) over the same distance is only valued at £22.00 per hour.[19] Investing in improved rail services is a simple means by which the Government can help businesses cost-effectively reduce their carbon emissions and increase their employee productivity.

Growth

There is no evidence that building more roads stimulates growth. In 2017 Transport for Quality of Life studied the impact of road schemes on traffic, the environment, the economy, road safety and land use. The report demonstrates that where road construction was justified on the basis of local regeneration or economic development, the growth was slower than predicted, did not occur at all, or was of no benefit to the area concerned. Road schemes approved on claims they would reduce journey times and therefore provide access to a greater number of jobs demonstrated no measurable economic benefit.[20]

By contrast, investing in public transport has been proven to stimulate growth. For every £1 invested in bus infrastructure, more than £8 in economic benefit is generated.[21] Reducing bus journey times for commuters by 10% would add more than 50,000 people to the workforce. A 10% increase in local bus connectivity would produce a 2.7% fall in employment deprivation.[22] For every £1 of activity on the railway system itself, a further £2.50 of income was generated elsewhere in the UK economy.[23] Pre-pandemic, rail travel brought social, environmental and wider economic benefits that are worth £1.2bn to small and medium-sized enterprises.[24]

Lessons from RIS2 to be incorporated into RIS3

In 2020, National Highways estimated that it would spend an extra £5.5 billion in the period 2025 to 2030 on RIS2 enhancement projects. Construction delays have led to the estimate more than doubling to £11.5 billion.[25] The National Audit Office concluded in September 2022 that 76% of the projects that will run into RIS3 are ‘low or poor value for money’.[26] This is unjustified. The additional expenditure could be better invested in order to achieve the Government’s objectives. Campaign for Better Transport calls for the re-allocation of spending from road building to public transport. As an example, just 20% of the RIS2 budget would be sufficient to fund the Bus Service Improvement Plans for all local authorities as part of the National Bus Strategy.

A key lesson from RIS2 is the need for greater transparency, particularly regarding decarbonisation. Transport for Quality of Life have concluded that RIS2 does not meet legally-binding requirements to cut carbon emissions in line with the Climate Change Committee budgets and the Department for Transport’s own decarbonisation plan. Therefore, RIS3 must include clarity on how trade-offs to achieve Net Zero will be handled, where accountability lies and how performance will be examined. There are concerns that the process by which road projects in RIS2 were approved did not adequately consider alternatives including not building, low-building options and demand management. RIS3 must therefore ensure that there is evidence of those deciding on projects being advised by a wider range of expertise and experience.[27]

February 2023

Endnotes