City challenges

Today, almost three quarters of the world’s population resides in cities – and this share is increasing. By 2025, it is estimated that there will be 135 cities worldwide with more than four million people.

Cities that provide high quality access and efficient, environmentally and socially sustainable mobility are likely to be more economically successful and better at attracting investment and jobs. Inaccessible and congested cities will be less likely to profit from the benefits that agglomeration provides. There is now a growing realisation that successful cities are clean and accessible, and that a mobility policy is essential for economic and social success – but putting such a policy in place is complex.

While cities are all very different, they have remarkably common transport problems and numerous shared errors in trying to deal with them. In spite of considerable strides in many cities to improve urban travel, congestion is still endemic, air quality problems are common, poor public transport frequent and facilities for walking or cycling are often inadequate or dangerous. Moreover, most cities and regions have made the same mistakes in trying to manage and reduce these problems. They have failed to organise the growth and spread of the conurbation and have not managed to master rapidly growing car usage. Often, engineering solutions are prioritised ahead of solutions for people, and problems are tackled individually and not necessarily cohesively.

There are two broad sets of factors that determine the success of an urban travel policy. First, there are the ‘hard’ components such as the road and public transport infrastructure, parking facilities, stations and interchanges. These are crucial, but in many developed cities they are already in place and can be changed only minimally. The second factor for success concerns the ‘softer’ components of policy. These include system management tools, communication with the public and key stakeholders, and the institutional arrangements that allow issues to be dealt with more coherently. These criteria are central to an urban policy and without them there is little hope of success.

Public transport is key to urban travel management, and in general the denser the city, the more important its role. Strong support for public transport is central to helping these cities become clean and efficient. But what is often not realised is that policies to improve public transport infrastructure and services cannot be implemented in isolation and must be accompanied by, among other things, measures to manage car traffic.

This integrated approach is not only desirable, it is indispensable. Failure to manage car use and promote walking and cycling alongside efforts to improve public transport is unfortunately one of the consistent mistakes made by cities over past decades. Helpful in making this holistic approach happen are local or regional agencies that plan and oversee development and operations of urban travel across all modes.

Successful cities have improved their public transport systems, bringing new investment, improving accessibility, focussing on client needs, strengthening passenger information systems and working with clear financial and operating targets. Market disciplines and customer focus have contributed to significant improvements in quality. But important challenges remain, especially to serve suburbs and more generally on financing.

There are few cities that can boast successful management of growing car traffic. Cars are inefficient users of urban space and there is an undoubted case for restricting access, especially to inner cities. This is not an anti-car policy; it is a practical response to the space and environmental challenges we face today. However, in political terms, cities and governments have not been able to explain to citizens how this is compatible with freedom and with all the other benefits car ownership and use provides.

Among the greatest challenges facing transport policy today is how to reduce CO2 emissions. Climate change mitigation policies are increasingly focusing on cities, including urban travel activity. A big challenge to decision-makers is the lack of coherent, comparable urban travel and emissions data, and it is rare to find cities that can provide verifiable information on emissions or the impacts of different policies and measures. One positive development is the emergence of city groupings that are working together to share experience and benchmark progress with each other. An additional encouraging feature is that many of the policies aimed at improving urban transport such as traffic management, bus priority measures, pedestrianisation and support for cycling, also reduce CO2 emissions.

Cities should be able to implement their own plans, but national frameworks and policies are essential to guide them, give incentives and to support them in the achievement. This central support has too often been missing or inconsistent. The Forum’s long standing work on sustainable urban travel has, we believe, contributed to encouraging a number of Governments to set a more consistent support framework for cities. It is clear that new partnerships between cities and central governments will be needed to tackle the challenge of climate change.