🧓 Old Timers

Good day my good friend.

Do you like what I’ve done with the place? You may have noticed that the newsletter is slightly different to normal, and that is for one reason and one reason only. Wordpress as a newsletter platform is completely and utterly awful. Newsletters constantly go missing, and it has a nasty habit of sending drafts instead of the finished product. So I have ditched it for beehiv.

From now on, shortened versions of this email will be published on the Mobility Matters website, but newsletter subscribers will receive the full fat version.

Anyway, enough of the intro. To business.

During my reading this week, I came across this very interesting post by Nicholas Hellen over at Zag Daily relating to support for concessionary travel and the lack of evidence on its ability to shift people’s mode of travel. The central thesis of the argument is that the UK taxpayer, whether through national government on regional bodies like Transport for London, forks out a lot of money to support free travel for the elderly through the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (and local variants thereof), without any evidence that it has an impact on modal shift.

For those of you who are not aware, the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme provides free travel on local buses across England for those qualifying based on age (this is the state pension age – currently 66 years old) or with a qualifying disability. As standard, the pass allows unlimited free travel on local bus services (i.e. not coach services) between 9:30am and 11pm on weekdays, and all day at weekends and on public holidays. Transport authorities, Combined Authorities, and transport operators may provide additions to this scheme – typically in terms of providing free travel 24 hours a day and/or extending the scheme to trains, metros, and trams – at their own expense.

Introduced in 2008, it is, in effect, England’s biggest experiment in free public transport. It is available to all of those eligible – so around 11 million people aged over 65 years old plus an unknown number with eligible disabilities. There are around 8.8 million pass holders, so while we do not know the number of eligible disabled persons, we can assume that a sizeable percentage of the eligible population has such a pass.

So, has this made an impact on the use of public transport over time? While we cannot say for absolute certainty, the National Travel Survey data on travel by those over 60 years old could at least give an indication as to whether there has been an increase in the use of bus services since the pass was introduced in 2008.

What this data indicates is that this policy has failed to encourage more elderly people to use buses. And quite spectacularly, even before COVID. Tracking the use of buses over time since 2002 by this age cohort, by 2019 the use of buses was in fact down by 27%. This fell even further after COVID, with current bus use by the elderly being half of what it was in 2002.

The distance travelled by bus, in contrast, held up much more. By 2019, the average distance travelled by bus by persons aged 60 years old and over each year only declined by 21% compared to 2002, with the fall off from a 2008 peak really not starting to bite until after 2015 (compared to trips dropping off since 2011).

There may be all sorts of reasons for this. One that I can think of off the top of my head include the current generation of pensioners being much more extensive car users compared to previous generations (and car ownership is the number one predictor of a persons likelihood to use buses). Another is the collapse in the supported bus network over the last 15 years.

A detailed study of this would no doubt reveal more interesting explanations and get to the bottom of the causal factors. But in terms of a modal shift initiative, the concessionary travel scheme has been a spectacular failure.

But does that mean the concessionary pass scheme itself is a failure?

I have my own views on the relative merits of the scheme. In short, the concessionary travel scheme is not so much a sledgehammer to crack a nut as it is a cruise missile to crack a nut, with an equally devasting impact on local authority finances. But when judging if it is a failure, you have to understand why it was introduced.

It was never about modal shift. The concessionary travel scheme can best be understood as a social good, allowing the elderly and those with disabilities to be able to use their local bus services to access essential services in their communities. Such as healthcare, food shops, and even going to see family and friends.

Anyone who has ever worked on transport policies and schemes will know that data should only be collected on things that are essential to know to understand the impacts of the scheme, in relation to the objectives. The objectives of the concessionary travel scheme was never to encourage modal shift. It was to ensure that pass holders could continue to live their lives.

How does government judge this? By monitoring the number of pass holders, and the number of trips they make using passes. As well as monitoring spend on concessionary travel across the country. The excellent annual publication of concessionary travel data goes into this in detail, and its worth a read. All data which, incidentally, paints a similar picture – fewer people using buses.

There is also extensive evidence that the concessionary travel scheme has had a positive impact on recipients’ sense of belonging and being part of a community. Benefits often not captured by standard assessment methodologies.

It is easy to bemoan the lack of data on modal shift of participants in the concessionary travel scheme. But to be honest that was a secondary objective. Data which, in transport planning parlance, is ‘nice to have.’ In hindsight this may be useful to have a richer understanding of the scheme’s impacts, but hindsight is a wonderful if fickle thing.

Has the scheme resulted in modal shift? Very unlikely. Should we have collected data on mode shift? Possibly. Does this mean that the scheme is a failure? I would argue not, as it has had real benefits to a lot of people, even if bus use by the elderly has fallen. Whether or not the scheme needs reform, however, is another question entirely.

The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author – they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.

World model‑based end‑to‑end scene generation for accident anticipation in autonomous driving

TL:DR - Proposes a generative “world‑model” pipeline plus dynamic prediction that significantly improves early accident anticipation for AVs under data scarcity and visual noise.

Communicating with two vehicles immediately ahead boosts traffic capacity sixfold in connected autonomous vehicle platoons

TL:DR - Real‑world platoon experiments and simulations show that a two‑predecessor communication topology can dramatically increase capacity and stability for CAVs.

Harnessing hybrid buses in the near term leads to faster transit decarbonization

TL:DR - For a fixed budget, integrating hybrids into fleet transitions yields additional near‑term emissions reductions.

Air transportation carbon dioxide emission forecasting: An improved back‑propagation neural network

TL:DR - Introduces an ISSA‑optimized BP neural network (or really clever algorithm, in plain English) that outperforms baselines in forecasting civil‑aviation CO₂ emissions, informing targeted mitigation strategies.

Data analytics to advance the inference of origin–destination in public transport systems: tracing network vulnerabilities and age‑sensitive trip purposes

TL:DR - Presents a robust OD‑inference framework that improves alighting time/place estimation and reveals demographic disparities.

Here are some articles showing that, despite the state of the world, good stuff is still happening in sustainable transport. So get your fix of positivity here.

Electric buses roll out on Cornwall’s Rame Peninsula (Route 70)

Six new electric buses, run by Go Cornwall Bus, are now in daily service on the rural Route 70 linking Torpoint, Millbrook and Cawsand. The rollout includes accessibility upgrades (two wheelchair bays, audio‑visual next‑stop info) and a pledge to plant 60 trees linked to the fleet.

m1 metrobus extension approved with new segregated cycleway

The West of England Combined Authority approved an extension to the high‑frequency m1 metrobus in Bristol, investing c.£3.6m. The project also delivers a two‑way segregated cycleway on Hawkfield Road, traffic calming, and multiple upgraded pedestrian crossings.

Oxford Street’s one‑day pedestrianisation boosts footfall and sales

London City Hall reports the traffic‑free “This is Oxford Street” day lifted area footfall by c.45% week‑on‑week, with nearly 70% of surveyed stores seeing similar or higher sales than a typical Sunday. The Mayor says fuller pedestrianisation plans will now move forward.

Bee Network corridor upgrades add new cycle lane in Rochdale

Rochdale Council confirmed works are complete on A58 Manchester Road, delivering new signalised crossings, resurfacing and sections of a new cycle lane from Castleton centre towards Rochdale town centre. Next phases start early October and will continue the continuous cycle route.

Mumbai’s fully underground Metro Line 3 opens end‑to‑end

The final Phase 2B segment of the Aqua Line (Line 3) was inaugurated on Oct 8, completing a 33.5‑km, 27‑station underground cross‑city metro. Services begin across the full corridor with fares from ₹10–₹70, with a projected daily ridership of c.1.3 million.

Wendover Productions really, really hate Newark Airport in New York.

It’s not often I post a nice public transport map. But this one by Southampton City Council is an exception. It suffers the same problem as many public transport maps in the UK - namely the complexity of the routes nearly ruin it. But the colour contrasts are clear, as are the main routes that services run down. What I like above all, however, is the clarity of the interchange opportunities with ferry services, notably for services from the city to the Isle of Wight and Hythe.

These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.

Can heavy metal be beautiful? In 1984, Metallica answered that with an empthatic “yes” with one of the best heavy metal songs of all time in Fade To Black. Just sit back, listen, and feel it.