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CILTHK Newsletter issue 9 02
Urban Transport
After many years in the practice of
transport – planning, developing,
constructing, operating and
maintaining, and having been
involved with metros, light rail,
buses, roads and the Channel Tunnel
project - I became an academic in
1991. The Americans like to think of
Imperial as the British MIT. I prefer to
think of MIT as the American Imperial
College. At Imperial we teach a
master’s degree in Transport Studies.
For some time, as head of the
programme, I used to give the first
lecture of the 12-month series. I
always opened with the statement
• Transport is politics.
What did I mean by this?
The study and practice of transport is
essential to the well-being of a
nation in that it comprehends vastly
more than the technicalities of
engineering and the detail of
operations, important though these
are in their own right. It is even more
essential in urban areas – doubly,
trebly so in the world’s great cities.
I have long argued that, to be
successful, urban transport must
address a pentagon of issues
• Operational, communications
and personnel matters
• Physical equipment and
infrastructure
• Environmental effects
• Finance and funding
• Organizational and institutional
issues
or, as it has been described, the
pentagon of software, hardware,
ecoware, finware and orgware. I
should perhaps just emphasize that
three of these (ecoware, finware and
orgware) are ‘made-up’ words.
Not only is each one important in its
own right, it is the inter-relationship
between them which raises the greatest
problems. Nearly all engineering
problems in the design, development
and operation of any system arise at
interfaces. At a larger scale it is at the
interface between the five elements of
the pentagon that the greatest
difficulties arise.
Engineers have often confined their
interest only to the hardware of a
project, or even to a small sub-set of
the hardware. Not only do systems
require a broad understanding of their
environmental, financial and
organizational context, more
specifically planning, design and
construction cannot be divorced from
operational, maintenance and
personnel issues. There were many
reasons for the success of the MTR in
Hong Kong. One of them was
undoubtedly the involvement, from the
earliest days, of the man who was
ultimately to have the responsibility as
the Director of Operations.
As in so many activities in life the first
thing we have to do, to be successful,
is to define our objectives
What are we trying to achieve?
It continues to amaze me that people
persist – in both the public sector and
the private sector – in arguing about
solutions before they have agreed what
the questions are.
What the users, the consumers, the
public want and need must be central
to defining the right questions. We
must also recognize that the public,
indeed we ourselves, have conflicting
objectives. (ICE 1998)
• We need access to the people,
activities and resources necessary
for a fulfilled life, Access which is
affordable, safe, secure,
comfortable and convenient
• But, we do not want our lives
affected by other people’s use of
transport
• And, we want to live in and enjoy
a safe, healthy, quiet and
attractive environment.
Access means being able to get to
friends, family, employment, shops,
schools, hospitals and leisure facilities.
All people need access – at all stages
of their lives. Industry needs access to
markets and to suppliers. There are
many people who do not have the
levels of access that many of us take
for granted - people with mobility
handicaps, afraid of attack, afraid of
death and injury; people on low
income, who do not have a car;
young people; people in rural areas
who are wholly car-dependent.
There are many barriers to access –
lack of information, congestion,
difficulties in changing mode. We
need to ensure that our transport
does not impose costs on others or
future generations – accidents, death,
injury and environmental damage,
loss of land, visual impact, noise,
global warming, acid rain, ill-health.
Perhaps there are three ways ahead to
approach the challenges of the future:-
• Lifestyles and land use –
which can be changed to modify
the demand for transport,
reducing the need for travel,
and providing greater scope for
walking or public transport
• Technologies – which can be
developed to solve the problems
caused by transport
technologies of old, as well as
providing new opportunities
• Transport systems – which can
be developed to ensure that
each mode of transport
operates at its optimum, and
that all modes combine to
provide a seamless transport
system for all.
Much is said about the need to
‘integrate’ transport. But do we really
know what this means? In my
country, the United Kingdom, the
government has defined integration
as follows. (DETR 1998)
We want a transport system that is
safe, efficient, clean and fair. We
need a new approach, bringing
together the public and private
sectors in a partnership that benefits
everyone.