Insights from cities with typical transport profiles in England and Germany
Transport research often focuses on case studies of cities that are in some way exceptional in terms of their commitment to and investment in sustainable transport (public transport, walking and cycling) and the patterns of travel of their residents.
But a project by LSE Cities for the RAC Foundation instead compares cities in England and Germany with travel patterns that are typical for their country (“typical mobility cities”) to learn how different factors may affect mobility.
The key messages from the study are:
- Typical mobility cities in Germany have higher levels of cycling and lower levels of car use (as a share of all trips) than typical mobility cities in England, mirroring the national picture. Levels of walking and public transport are comparable in both countries.
- Typical mobility cities in Germany have seen a marked reduction in car use and an increase in cycling in the past two decades, except during Covid. In contrast, in typical mobility cities in England, modal shares have remained more or less stable across car use, public transport, cycling and walking, other than during Covid.
- Multiple factors appear to affect modal share, with relevant policy levers both within the transport sector and beyond (e.g. industrial strategy, land use and spatial planning, levels of devolution and local state capacity):
− The spatial structure and urban form of a city, including density, mixed land uses, proximity to services and amenities, transport infrastructure, economic geography, and the integration of land use planning and transport policies impact on how many trips can be taken by sustainable modes by determining how far people must travel and whether public transport, cycling and walking are viable options.
− The supply and design of transport infrastructure and services in typical mobility cities determine which modes of transport are available to and convenient for people. This, in turn, is a function of political prioritisation, budgets, pricing structures, governance and economic factors.
− Cultural, governance, and leadership factors in typical mobility cities affect both how land use and transport systems are shaped over time, and the individual transport choices people make. Cultural factors (e.g. class, individualism vs. collectivism) affect the meaning and value people place on different transport modes. While in Germany, city-level data on modal share and car ownership are readily available, this is generally not the case in England. City-level modal share data are available for all trips in Germany, but typically only for travel to work (commuting) trips in England. Car ownership data in England come mainly from census household data, while in Germany it is possible to obtain data on the number and types of vehicles registered at the city level.
The findings lead the authors to make several recommendations to UK policymakers including:
- Promote growth in urban cores, instead of the urban periphery, by prioritising and financially incentivising
high-quality and higher-density redevelopment of brownfield land and repurposing existing building stock. - Use revisions to the Treasury Green Book to update the transport appraisal and business case process to
prioritise improving accessibility to points of interest via sustainable transport modes. - Learn from the German model of the Verkehrsverbund for regional integrated public transport bodies.
- Continue to devolve more powers and funding to Mayoral Strategic Authorities over planning and delivery of large-scale integrated transport infrastructure projects.
- Start collecting all-trip modal share data at the city level (e.g. by increasing National Travel Survey sampling) to build a fuller picture of transport patterns in UK cities.
- Set up a UK What Works Centre for Integrated Transport as a leader in evidence-based transport policy-making.
The full research team are: Philipp Rode, Ben Plowden, Charlie Hicks, Saraja Gantner, Matthias Brüning, Jenevieve Treadwell and Alexandra Gomes.
