Transport network optimisation

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1. Introduction

This document is intended for key transport stakeholders at both regional and local council levels. Other interested parties will include transport user groups and local communities. The document is intended to provide inspiration and practical guidance for local and regional council elected representatives and staff to achieve better outcomes over the next few years.

Transport network optimisation can mean a multitude of things. It may be as practical a concept as managing the traffic signals in a city so that delays to motorists are minimised across the road network. This discussion document takes a broader view of the concept, however. It looks at ways of getting the best or most effective use out of New Zealand’s road transport network. This means not just moving cars, but moving people and freight efficiently and sustainably within economic, environmental and social constraints. It assumes that New Zealand will not attempt to build significant additional road capacity.

“Optimisation” in this discussion document means effectively balancing various impacts and objectives to get the best value for society out of the road network, recognising the increasingly pronounced nature of competition for scarce road space. These varied objectives include user convenience and comfort, congestion reduction, road and parking cost savings, consumer savings, accident reductions, improved mobility options for nondrivers, energy conservation and pollution emission reductions. They also include more diverse objectives such as support for increased land use accessibility, community redevelopment, habitat preservation and increased public fitness and health.

Moving people and freight efficiently is critical to economic development, although opportunities to minimise the amount of travel should also be seriously considered. Optimising transport in our towns and cities will also provide opportunities to minimise the transport “footprint” on the urban environment, with reductions in visual pollution, urban sprawl, community “severance” (the effect large roads and motorways have on severing communities) and simply the amount of space devoted to motor vehicles.

Transport network optimisation (in this document) is concerned principally with optimising the road network; it does not attempt to optimise the rail, sea or air networks. These modes are considered only in their capacity to provide alternatives to travel by road and thus help with road network optimisation.

Furthermore, the focus of this document is the urban (rather than rural) components of the road network. Accordingly, the air network has only a small role to play. Rail and sea transport, however, have some significance in the urban environment as alternatives to road travel, both for passenger transport and freight.

The key legislative framework for transport in New Zealand is provided in the Local Government Act, the Resource Management Act and the Land Transport Management Act. Significant progress has been made nationally over recent years on identifying goals and targets for New Zealand’s transport system, culminating in “Sustainable Transport”, the 2007 draft update to the NZ Transport Strategy (uNZTS). National issues are discussed more fully in Section 2 (“National Context”).

There are many different definitions of sustainable transport, the general theme of which is that sustainable transport involves providing short-term, local transportation options without jeopardising long-term, global needs. Truly sustainable transport must balance a variety of objectives, including economic and environmental aspects.

While some options are presented as being sustainable, they only address certain aspects (for example, converting to solar powered cars might be more environmentally sustainable but would not reduce congestion or decrease the road toll). Claiming a new road is sustainable because it uses recycled road materials would be spurious. A thorough evaluation of the full environmental, social, cultural and economic implications over the life of the road is more likely to conclude that it was not sustainable.

Some people expect mechanical engineers will develop motor vehicles that are fuel-efficient enough to maintain the current levels of transport use at future fuel production levels. While motor vehicle efficiency will improve, these efficiency gains will not be sufficient to maintain current levels of car mobility.

Some people do not believe that oil production will decline (under the phenomenon known as “peak oil”); others believe that alternative fuels and technologies such as bio-fuels or hydrogen cells will be able to replace our current level of oil use. It has been shown, however, that global oil reserves and alternative energy sources will not support continued growth in fuel demand [4]. Oil discovery and production rates will not be able to cater for the current and increasing demand for transportation [5, 6, 7] under “business as usual”.

Fuel consumption at current levels is causing irreversible climate change through increased carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions to the atmosphere. Even if motor vehicle energy sources were plentiful and did not emit CO₂ in future years, concerns with the safety records of our current transport systems would require a rethink in favour of safer systems, either by providing physical segregation between faster and slower, more vulnerable road users, or by slowing motor vehicle traffic on urban streets to speeds more compatible with walking and cycling.

In the long run, we are likely to have to change our lifestyles to evolve to a more accessible but less mobile society. Providing people with access by a variety of means, rather than motorised mobility, will be increasingly important. Besides the “peak oil” and climate change reasons for these changes, there are increasingly well recognised health reasons. Accessibility is a better goal than mobility.

Some people believe that road pricing measures and increasing fuel prices based on a diminishing supply and a global increase in demand will diminish the demand for transportation and result in reduced travel, fuel consumption and traffic congestion. Congestion charging on its own will not ensure sustainability and more consideration should be given to land use, equity and mobility issues. Also, China, India and Russia (and many other countries) currently subsidise fuel heavily so that consumers are not paying the full costs of motorised travel. In this environment, global demand seems unlikely to diminish in the foreseeable future.

At the core of this document is a growing understanding that various demographic and economic trends are fundamentally changing future transport demands, so a number of structural changes are needed now in land transport policy and planning practices to prepare for the future. Specifically, a more diverse and efficient transport system will better meet the needs of an aging population, reduce the exposure of individual consumers and the overall economy to risks of rising fuel costs and climate change, help increase safety and health, and respond to changing consumer preferences. “Business as usual” is unlikely to lead to optimal outcomes. The changes needed to meet future demands will require new approaches and institutional relationships.

With the national legislative and policy framework mostly in place, implementation is now needed at the local and regional level. The New Zealand Transport Agency is convinced that a strong partnership is needed between central government and regional and local government to effect the changes that are necessary.

Accordingly, this document attempts to provide practical examples of how change might be implemented locally and regionally in the short term (see Section 5). It is expected to encourage dialogue with key stakeholders on specific projects or packages that will help implement national directions in ways that are seen as beneficial, locally, regionally and nationally.

In practice, this is likely to mean a variety of complementary initiatives that collectively improve travel options, encourage use of efficient modes, and create more accessible land use patterns to help create a more economically and resource efficient transport system.

These initiatives are likely to need strong leadership at the local and regional level. “It is government that determines, explicitly or implicitly, how much the car will be used”, says Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of the Colombian capital Bogotá, speaking in Brisbane in February 2008. According to Peñalosa, governments must resist the temptation to build more roads and highways; their leadership in reducing space for cars can force travel behaviour change.

The document discusses the national context first (Section 2), then international trends (Section 3) and five overseas case studies where land use and transport integration and a variety of interventions are features (Section 4). Section 5 is devoted to about 30 case studies from New Zealand; in contrast to the international case studies, they are typically good examples of an individual treatment to optimise transport rather than an integrated approach. Section 6 identifies potential action for implementation by local and regional councils to help achieve network optimisation and more sustainable transport systems in New Zealand.

 

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Page created: 9 October 2008