The Future of Transport

• The UK’s population is growing and putting increased strain on infrastructure.
• The UK population is also ageing – over the next 25 years the number of people aged 65 and over is expected to rise by 65%, to 16.4 million.
• Many ‘new seniors’ will be more active than we’ve known in the past: working, travelling and participating across spheres of society. Others will be more frail.
• Public transport design must pay close attention to these passengers’ capabilities, wants and needs.

The UK population is estimated to be 71-75 million by the year 2035 – an increase of at least eight million from today
– ONS Population Project data

• The UK’s social structures are in flux, driven by fragmentation and individualisation.
• The traditional family unit will continue to decline with  lower fertility rates, delayed marriage and increasing divorce rates.
• This coincides with an increasingly networked mindset which forms virtual networks and communities.
• As knowledge work (work with information or the production of knowledge) approaches 50% of the UK’s workforce, the financial and cultural void between skilled and low-skilled workers widens. Low-skilled workers, and young people in particular, may find it harder to get work.
• Here, transport is key – workers of all levels need practical and affordable methods for travelling to work.
• Currently, 34% of all households are occupied by one person, and the average size of a UK household is expected to decrease from 2.34 (2004) to 2.09 in 2029.

• The need to control rising global temperatures will inevitably have a large impact on UK lifestyles.
• Environmental awareness is rising but ethical attitudes do not necessarily translate into ethical behaviour.  Change will likely be driven by government and urban planning policies.
• Scarcity and cost of energy sources will also drive change –  the age of cheap oil and cheap energy is coming to an end.  Limitless car use will not be an option for many.

“We’ll see a shift from the ‘anytime, anywhere’ mindset to one characterised by taking care and thinking harder about our choices of where we live, work and how we move about.”
– Rupert Faussett, Forum for the Future

22% of the UK’s carbon emissions arise from cars.
– Environmental Protection Organisation

• The period of ‘assumed affluence’ – steadily increasing national and personal wealth – is coming to an end.
• New ideas about value are emerging: taking greater care with the fewer purchases we are making, and an end to seeing the world as a supermarket of possibilities.
• A key characteristic of this is purchasing with consideration for quality and longevity.

A recent poll by Ipsos Mori showed how people, for the first time, are generally acknowledging that their own children are likely to have a lower quality of life than they themselves do.
 – Ipsos MORI end of year research 2011

• As we increasingly become an ‘always-on’, 24/7, society this trend is on an inexorable forward path and will manifest itself across increasingly diverse parts of our lives.
• Work, socialising, travelling, and exercising will all increasingly be carried out in the digital and ‘real’ world.
• The importance of the digital space to human connections will only increase – especially with the millennial generation born into Facebook.

An average Facebook user has 130 friends and likes 80 pages. Each week on Facebook more than 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared

Almost two thirds (65%) of the UK online population have used Facebook within the last month, while 95% of 16-20 year olds and 74% of 21-24 year olds have done so.

The expert consumer financial advice site moneysavingexpert.com now has as many active users as Twitter. As well as articles on financial  products, users of the site can create profiles, leave comments and interact.
 – Yougov

• The empowerment of the individual (and individual as consumer), and their influence on corporate and public decision-making, will grow.
• Public and private organisations will need to be prepared to react to challenges on traditional hierarchies, no longer ‘talking at the consumer’.
• Consumers are increasingly informed, savvy, discerning and questioning, with less trust in ‘the institution’.
• There will be a movement from ‘command and control’ to ‘open-source’ models of behaviour.
• Members of online campaign organisation 38 Degrees voted to launch the Save Our Forests campaign in October 2010 when the Government first announced plans to sell them off. Hundreds of thousands signed petitions, wrote to MPs, commissioned opinion polls and bought ads in national newspapers. Government scrapped the plans

“[Open innovation and democratisation] comes from less bureaucracy, fewer people who can tell you no, greater chance for youth. Youth is more innovative and a lot of it is just open source and you are free and you just do it.”
– Tyler Cowen, economist/author, The Great Stagnation

• We are experiencing increased female participation in the workforce and in education, which has far-reaching hard and soft implications for our society.
• A greater emphasis on certain (traditionally thought of as ‘female’) values in society: greater emphasis on notions of health, well-being and support and empathetic models of management and working.
• Women’s greater presence will ask great questions of working patterns, working styles, leisure patterns, family structure and parental roles.

“The world has gone social. And women are more social than men.”
 – Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, Facebook

Seamless ‘always on’ living

• The overarching shift in the way we live our day-to-day lives will be ever-greater seamlessness.
• Our days will increasingly move from compartmentalised, fragmented frames of time, to free-flowing, flexible timeframes. Waiting/dead time will be minimised.
• An increasing number of public and commercial services are available 24 hours a day in British towns and cities. Government services are increasingly available via the internet around the clock – partly through an explicit shift to online service provision.
• Access is the key to seamless living.

Life through the lens of health and wellness

• Consciousness and enthusiasm for health will be woven more tightly into everyday life.
• This will only increase in the future as the population ages and people seek ways in which to manage their health better to stay active and productive for longer.
• We see wellness shaping the Government agenda, as happiness indicators become measurements of economic and personal health.

“The contours of the city as a gym are becoming clear. It is now taken for granted that new neighbourhoods must favour walking and cycling.”
– Simon Kuper, Financial Times

Strength in networks

• As society abandons vertical, top-down power structures, networks and ‘the collective’ become increasingly important. This is facilitated largely by technology, with significant impact on shopping, music and video sharing, online trading, social initiatives, political protest and much more.
• ‘Productive relationships’ are initiated online and based on mutual interests, mutual desires, connections related to business and so on.
• Companies are far more ‘open’ to consumers and consumers have much greater power to influence companies –  for example FixMyTransport.com.

“A further sign that parenting sites are becoming increasingly popular and powerful groups to be reckoned with.  Netmums launched its new bloggers network on 1 July 2011 and has been inundated with both enthusiastic mums and dads wishing to write about their experiences.”
– Emma Barnett, digital media editor, Daily Telegraph

The enduring need for face-to-face time

• Digital connections in spaces like Facebook and Twitter do not replace physical relations; they enhance them and increase opportunities to nurture them.
• A net effect of the rise of one-person households will be the desire for more socialising and more frequent activities with others.

“Electronic mobility is more likely to serve as a net stimulus to travel: by fostering more social and business relationships in cyberspace. It feeds the desire for real face to face encounters.”
– John Adams, professor of geography, University College London

More flexible working

• Experts forecast that it is far more likely that companies will negotiate more flexible hours with their employees, as well as switching between time in and out of the office, than move wholly towards home working.
• This will lead to many people being able to choose their start and finish times for the working day, plus the days they spend at their company office.
• This flexibility will of course depend on the ability/type of organisation; for example, the service industry requires people to be present in a specific location.

“The advantages of flexible working are undeniable-productivity and efficiency savings, a reduced carbon footprint, employee wellbeing-and are for both companies and their workers.”
– Norman Baker on the Government’s Anywhere Working initiative

Pic Greg Macvean 17/05/2022

Working in the company of others

• Knowledge workers gather in cities to collaborate and compete. Companies will continue to need to be based in business hubs.
• This enhances the need for services, entertainment and public transport in these areas.
• The Work Foundation forecasts a growth in knowledge work to 55 per cent of all work by 2020.
• Another developing trend is of a ‘third space’ of office ‘hubs’ between home and the workplace.  As technology advances, experts spot an opportunity for transport and its infrastructure to meet future flexible working needs.

“If you look at somewhere like Manchester, it’s gaining skills-highly skilled people are moving there. Leeds too. If this continues, the sort of industries clustering will be higher skilled, more knowledge intensive, there’ll be more employment there. So, you’ll get more of a community scene going on around these places too.”
– Neil Lee, The Work Foundation

The pull towards the city

• London and the South East could increasingly become, in both physical and political terms, more like an amalgamated ‘megalopolis’.
• However, there will also be a regional surge as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle’s knowledge industry clusters grow.
• In recent years we have seen the flourishing of the city centre as a residential space.
• We are experiencing a suburban renaissance.  80% of Britons live in suburbs, and planners are getting behind the strategy of using suburbs to make towns and cities more resilient in coping with future congestion stresses.

Navigating digital urban landscapes

• Technology and what is being described as the ‘internet of things’ will transform how we move around future ‘smart cities.’ Environments will become immersed in real-time information flowing seamlessly around locations and people.
• ‘Augmented Reality’ merges the online and offline worlds, creating a wealth of opportunities for services.  The vision is that any ‘thing’ – from fridges to buses and buildings – will be able to share data and adapt to suit our needs.
• Local authorities will be able to deliver much more efficient services, such as reducing waste, traffic lights could respond to changing traffic flows, or people could see how full a train is before they leave for the station.

“We will increasingly live in a world that is always on, where people are constantly connected and distance in many ways ceases to matter as it once did. Yet a strange thing will happen as distance dies- physical location of people and things will, in some respects, start to matter more than ever.”
– The Economist ‘Distance is dead, long live location’

Desire for filtering and customisation

• In an age of information and data overload, there is an increasing desire for filtering and customisation.
• Technologists talk about the ‘Age of Personal Informed Reality’ – the notion of the internet being a customised resource.
• Data is both pushed and pulled to the individual. It is increasingly displayed visually, often having an immersive game-like feel, is real-time and is highly socialised and interactive.
• This, of course, has profound implications for relationships with brands and services. We are increasingly going to ask questions of them based only on our needs and we will only want to hear from them about matters relevant to us.

“We call it snack society because everybody snacks on little bits: little bits of data, little bits of information, it’s all customised just to you.”
– Lynn Dornblaser, Direct Mintel International

Pick-up and put-down ownership

• Concepts of ownership will continue to develop from the current proliferation of hiring and rental schemes into a culture of ‘pick up and put down’, where people can’t afford and don’t desire the volume of things owned by past generations, such as cars.
• It is likely to be easier to adapt to shared ownership models when it comes to transport in urban areas, as residents of rural areas have a greater dependence on their cars, and it would be more difficult to attain a critical mass of people to make it viable.

“For many people… universal access is better than owning. No responsibility of care, backing up, sorting, cataloguing, cleaning or storage. We can… say that in this realm of bits, property itself becomes a more social endeavour.”
– Kevin Kelly, senior editor, Wired magazine

A key priority for the future is a public transport system which champions access and inclusion for all segments of society.

• This impacts those who are vulnerable or with disabilities, poorer or lower-skilled workers, and families with a need for more flexible childcare arrangements.
• For many of the groups, particularly older people and school children, a much greater value will be placed upon the safety of public transport. Clear, easily understood way-finding and guidance systems will be required at all points of the journey.
• For those groups making decisions about the financial cost of work-related journeys, questions regarding how far the Government or businesses might be able to assist grow more and more relevant.
• To cope with these requirements, there is a need for more flexibility in the physical and service design.

Examples

• Madrid follows a universal ‘design for all’ approach to its city centre planning. Such planning not only re-considers what public space is, in conceptual terms, but also pays particular attention to the specific way it can be physically navigated by all sections of society.

•  It includes smart design details such as tactile paving for elderly and partially-sighted citizens, ergonomic street furniture, well-lit and accessible restrooms, and swiftly comprehensible way-finding.

• The Berlin-Brandenberg line (VBB) has developed its online journey planning tools within the framework of the research project ‘Baim’ (BMWi) to ensure that those requiring ‘barrier-free’ or ‘limited access’ public transport routes are well catered for.

Implications

It is a crucial to put social inclusion at the heart of the public transport service. This suggests:

• an opportunity for partnership with relevant bodies such as Age UK
• using ‘design for all’ principles across the passenger journey: how can the needs of poorer people, mothers, older people, children, and disabled people be taken into consideration for ease of access
• safety becomes a greater priority, underlining the need for a staff presence.

A mobile app allows a range of passengers to plan public transport journeys according to their specific requirements. This is about equipping more marginal groups with tools to navigate and overcome potential barriers.

The willingness of passengers to accept a ‘one-size-fits-all’ system will decrease over time as industries and services offer bespoke solutions, enabled by technology, with the aim of empowering the customer.

• If transport mimics trends seen across many other service industries, people will expect more individualized information.
• Flexible, personally-responsive developments could signal the end of the traditional timetable. Passengers will be alerted to journey changes via their personal mobile devices.
• Flow and a sense of personal control, not just speed, is the priority here. Passengers should never be held up by having to wait for information.

“The future of transport is as much about the transport of information as it is physical mobility.”
– Dr Michael Hulme, Social Futures Observatory

“The way people went about [their] lives was more uniform in the past – the residential unit, where people worked, where people socialized. Now it’s more mixed, more diverse, lots of economic decision makers with different needs. Groups of people living together have their own needs, their own money – separate money.  Fundamentally, this means more independent decision makers, and an ever greater appetite for personalization.”
– Dr Richard Batley, director of research, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds

Implications

• This is first and foremost a challenge for fluid information provision and exchange to provide a feeling of personal control.
• There will be a focus on real-time data provision, open source data services, filtered for personal relevance.
• The increased diversity of journeys and needs requires a deeper segmentation of passenger needs as the willingness of passengers to accept a ‘one-size-fits-all’ system will diminish over time.

Examples

• The Spotify mobile app provides the same content and level of functionality as the PC/Mac version, thus increasing the ‘flow’ of the user’s day. Time away from the computer ceases to become time away from the music collection and listening options.
• Digital signage at car parks displays the number of free parking spaces in the different zones, suggesting the route you could take as you drive. This is a simple idea that removes the chance of breaking up the flow of customers’ experience.

Travel will become more collaborative over the next decade, both in terms of how people travel and how the industry interacts with travellers.

• In a world where collaboration with peers is more productive, efficient, and transparent, people will expect to become partners with, rather than customers of, service providers.
• Grassroots communities which provide travel solutions to fellow passengers will grow. There will be further growth in consumer-led, online peer-to-peer travel advice and conversation, sparking a ‘democratisation’ of travel.
• Passengers will see an increase in the number of person-to-person – or person-to-object – conversations they are able to participate in, and will expect a more immediate response from these conversations. For example, a train might tweet to say that it is on time, and has seats available in certain carriages.
• Companies are already becoming more adept at allowing people to take control and ownership of how they interact with products and services, and at providing more supportive customer service.

“We’re looking at lots of different ideas in terms of making the experience on our planes unique. [We’re looking at] ways of creating better opportunities to meet one another. At the moment we have a crude version, seat-to-seat chat, but the new version will be internet-enabled, through the seat back, involving social networking and social gaming throughout the craft and maybe craft-to-craft.”
– David Cush, chief executive, Virgin America

Examples

• Some UK councils have set up Safe Route to School schemes: web-based public forums for public communities (parents, schools and pupils themselves) to enable the collaborative sharing of day-to-day information about school journeys.
• FixMyTransport is a collaborative website designed to solve specific problems that passengers encounter whilst using public transport. It gives passengers the tools to report their public transport problems to the correct operator or authority.

Implications

• The nature of relationships between passengers and travel providers will change, moving from a model of service provision and selling to being an aggregator of information and facilitator of relationships.
• There is a potential new space for travel agent-style brokers who filter aspects of diverse points of information together for the individual.
• Providers will need to think more about the value of their lifetime relationship with a traveller, than the next transaction.
• A more personal relationship between provider and passenger may well lead to expectations of rewards/incentives.

Person-to-object Twitter feed, showing how services might personally relate to their customers.

We’re not just travelling to places, we are doing more things as we travel. The future is about passengers’ ability to remain switched on, tuned in and productive while using the public transport system.

• As mobility becomes more complex, and full of more activities, the idea of travel time as ‘lost time’ could be dramatically reduced, or even made entirely obsolete.
• As economic conditions and congestion put constraints on physical travel, there is the very real possibility that people will travel less but want to do more when they are on the move.
• In terms of leisure travel, when the onus to simply get you there is removed, the destination and feeling of exploration begins from the journey’s outset – replacing passengers’ conventional sense of what constitutes ‘the destination’.
• Public transport can become a hybrid space between office and coffee shop cultures, to remain in step with other trends seen across the rest of the service industry. This will reflect the increasingly dated distinction made between work and play.

“Mobility is less just a means of moving, and more a set of multiple activities.”
– Professor John Urry, author of Mobilities journal, University of Lancaster

“Energy, transport, business, public services and food supply can no longer be considered in isolation. We need to create integrated mobility systems that will provide people with choice, flexibility and seamless connectivity – whether they are travelling from one place to another or accessing goods and services in all sorts of different ways.”
– Forum for the Future

Implications

• Fundamentally, this is about the public transport infrastructure becoming more valuable to everyday life, which requires greater integration in terms of planning.
• There is a need to take advantage of new urban environments, which become infused with the ‘internet of things’ and technological or virtual access to goods and services.
• Initiatives will have to be developed to give people more from their journey time – to offer them more than simply a means of getting from A to B.

Examples

• In South Korea, a platform-length interactive billboard was installed in a subway station, designed to look like a series of supermarket shelves displaying images and prices of common products, each one with a QR code attached. Customers scanned the code of any product they wished to purchase, and then orders were delivered to the user’s home the same day.
• Kings Cross Hub is a listed building, one minute from Kings Cross station, where members are offered an ‘inspirational place for meeting, working, innovating, learning and connecting’. It borrows elements of a members club, an innovation lab, a ‘think and do’ tank, a serviced office, a lecture hall and the comforts of home. It attempts to rethink the relationship between work, leisure, and journey time by blending them into one physical area.

A number of factors point to the need to plan for a future of more frequent local journeys:

• An increased ability to work/connect virtually has strong potential to reduce the need for some longer-distance journeys – but conversely increases the desire to maintain face-to-face contact locally.
• Older people tend to make more local journeys, and greater numbers of single people will mean more thriving activity hubs within local areas.
• Additionally, people are seeking to feel a closer connection to the place where they live and, if visiting, to learn about local nuances and stories.
• Urban planners are placing increasing focus upon using our suburbs (where 80 per cent of Brits live).  Efficient transport has the potential to enable passengers to travel quickly and smartly in and out of suburbs, offering genuine alternatives to the car. Transport hubs can engage their inhabitants much more by celebrating their localities.

Imagined floor plan of Brighton station. A destination that offers passengers a variety of services celebrating its unique cultural, social and geographical sense of place.

“It’s about how you can invest in the right kind of infrastructures for encouraging businesses and residents around local areas like Bicester.  What we want as a place in terms of housing, business, transport.  Railway industry and franchise process needs to be more woven into the thinking of urban planning.”
– Martin Tugwell, Oxfordshire County Council

“New rail stations should be more integrated into their surroundings than ever before. Where many stations still feel somewhat removed from the city, Zurich is creating a seamless experience where it is impossible to tell where city ends and journey begins.”
– Tyler Brule, editor-in-chief, Monocle

Examples

• The bike share scheme in Bordeaux forms part of the city’s fully-integrated transit system. It has 1545 bikes and 139 stations. The design and implementation are integral parts of a much broader transit system for Bordeaux and its vicinities. Nine out of every 10 bike stations are at a transit stop, and within the city the stations are close together – never more than 300 meters apart. Passengers use a new single Radio Frequency Identification Bordeaux transit card which is valid throughout the region, and allows card holders to use the bikes at a substantially discounted rate.
• Freiburg’s multi-modal public transport system offers passengers a balanced and culturally integrated array of journey options. It is frequently cited as a public transport model which dictates cultural behaviours in the city, rather than the other way round.

“Trains as linking structures are very good ways of moving a lot of people around very effectively. I think the most important change to make for the future is how we connect things up properly – how we can get to the major centres quickly and efficiently, then from there to what you need to get done that day.”
Dr Michael Hulme, Social Futures Observatory

Implications

• There will be a greater need to think about the end-to-end journeys of passengers (especially in a future where there may be more high-speed, longer routes like High Speed 2).
• It is a real challenge for transport planning to become truly integrated with local urban planning.
• There is increasing need for partnership with local authorities, to work together to make areas or towns attractive places to live. where mobility needs are adding to a sense of efficiency and quality of life.

Potential mainstream behavioural change towards more sustainable and cleaner travel options is likely to be driven as much by economics as by ethics.

•  Increasing awareness of the environmental and financial costs of long-haul travel could persuade many to travel less.
• People may begin to judge the ‘cost’ of their journey not just in financial terms, but also in terms of the impact it has on the wider world.
• We will begin to see fewer, shorter journeys – and these will be less impulsive, and more considered.
• Increasingly, industries have begun to reward ethically and environmentally minded behaviour, and this might begin to be the norm for public transport too.

“For responsible travellers, the impact of flying on the environment is difficult to ignore, and carbon offsets have become an established tool to reduce the impact of holidaying.”
– Justin Francis, managing director of Responsible Travel

“Walking, cycling or taking public transport helps reduce congestion and carbon dioxide emissions and will also reduce our overall footprint. Many people are choosing public transport. In the last 10 years the distance travelled on London buses has increased by 37%. The distance travelled by rail has increased by 34%.”
– WWF, ‘Top ten ways to reduce your ecological footprint’

Implications

• The cost of journeys will need to be seen as ‘worth it’ and will be compared against a scale of necessity. We will start to ask if meetings need to be face-to-face, or whether we need to go and get something if it could come to us.
• Public transport will need to counter the fact that the automotive industry is developing eco-credentials, challenging the inherent sustainability advantage of public transport.
• People will expect to be able to compare modes of travel in one place, and to be told the exact price of their journey, as well as its environmental impact.

Smart energy device which tracks the environmental and monetary costs of each journey. Passengers are able to make their travel decisions based upon a precise combination of financial and environmental information.

The technology industry is offering more and more personalised devices which further consumer ‘bubbles’. Transport needs to offer safe, protective spaces that provide a comfortable and personalised realm.

• The car industry has embraced technological advances in order to maintain relevance in a changing world. The car epitomizes journey control.
• This will have an effect on what passengers will demand of a public transport system.
• Operators need to carefully consider the steps they can take to replicate – or even exceed – the high standards of customisation offered by cars.

“The future of the car is one of car as app. Transport devices will become technological cocoons…even cars as being extensions of the office, with all the communication devices around passengers.”
– Dr Michael Hulme, Social Futures Observatory

“We are working on a project now which will lead to a mega city vehicle, designed for urban areas. We are going to design it in such a way that people will see when they look at the car that the future has started. That’s one of our aims.”
– Adrian van Hooydonk, design director, BMW

Example

• Virgin America is planning to offer passengers more entertainment options on flights, including the ability to multi-task across platforms – just as they do in their lives on the ground. They will offer both connectivity to personal devices and accessible dynamic content. The new Red service offers a larger, high-definition touch-screen seatback monitor with full Wi-Fi connectivity and a range of content unrivalled in the skies, along with the ability to use personal electronic devices to connect to the system pre-flight, in-flight and post-flight. Additionally, the system allows flyers to order food and drinks directly to their seat from their screen.

Implications

• Technology needs to become an ally. This will create the opportunity to help people design journeys, organise their days, go about their daily activities and connect with others (both on and offline) in a way the car cannot.
• While people carry devices around with them, there are some things that they will still need such as a power supply. They will expect the experience to be ergonomically suitable and customised to the device/activity they are doing.
• While people are providing their own devices, they still want to be able to elevate their experience by connecting to bigger screens, or dampening out surrounding unwanted noise.

Public transport journeys impact on passengers’ emotional moods. Operators must start to engineer services that safeguard that mood.

• There is a wider opportunity for transport to be more central to the fabric of daily life.
• Having a seamless journey can set passengers up for the next part of their day in a positive way. The mark of a truly successful journey, is not noticing the journey.
• Operators and transport providers have a huge opportunity to forge collaborations with other services here.

“We need to think about ways to influence social norms in positive ways to promote low-carbon, healthier lifestyles. The leading mobility players of the future will plan today to influence these lifestyles, rather than simply relying on putting more vehicles on the road or developing additional infrastructure.”
– Forum for the Future

“Transport planning needs to be central to social and cultural change – the emphasis upon delivery of quality of life and wider societal demands such as quality of life and climate change, the shape of our environments, rather than just delivering A-B travel in a shorter time.”
– Robin Hickman, director of research, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds

Examples

• SUICA (Super Intelligent Urban Card) cards in Japan have the pre-pay and travel functionality of the Oyster card but they can also be used in many stores and retail kiosks (with the same light touch way of using), not just in stations but all around the city. Importantly, using the SUICA for small purchases – drinks, food, books – around town doesn’t add any baggage – physical or functionality-wise – to the core concept of quick, light, pre-paid travel.
• Also in Japan, train line operators commonly own lots of real estate and operate department stores too. At major station hubs, they build department stores on top of the tracks, providing not just great facilities and experiences to newly arrived and soon-to-depart customers, but also a seamless transition from station to place and vice versa. The stores and volume of people naturally attract other leisure companies like hotels and cinemas, creating mini towns on top of stations.

Implications

• People will increasingly consider emotional benefits when selecting how they will travel. They will begin to think about how they want to feel when they arrive, not just how to get there.
• Transport may require success measures beyond speed and time saved to incorporate more emotional measures such as happiness and stress levels.
• The station experience will become just as important as the actual journey – it impacts the entire journey.

Transport providers’ current approach clearly sees public and private transport systems as distinct and wholly removed from one another.

• The current approach may undergo a sea change to one in which private modes begin to borrow from public systems, and public transport takes cues from private travel.
• Questions surrounding matters of ownership, and how one might ‘own’ or ‘buy into’ transport options, are already being asked.
• If transport providers begin to focus on their responsibility to facilitate the easy linking up of journey segments – how passengers can most easily navigate their way off their mode of transport and on to the next – then the transition between public and private transport can become truly seamless.
• Passengers will expect to be given the information, connections and ticketing solutions needed to switch between transport modes easily and nimbly.
• The aim is an unrestricted form of travel, where passengers are unencumbered by car ownership and are instead free to take advantage of a spectrum of transport systems that work together seamlessly.

“There is the potential for a new business model. At the moment we’ve got this fragmented mix of modes which don’t work together, they aren’t even allowed to work together. If train joined with bus, rail, taxi – if they can get together to provide an alternative way of doing things, public transport could be a real force.”
– Rupert Fausset, Forum for the Future

“An organic nexus system, already commencing in some societies in the rich ‘north’, would consist of multiple, dense forms of movement mainly of small, ultra-light, smart, probably biofuel or hydrogen-based, de-privatised ‘vehicles’. A mixed flow of slow-moving semi-public micro-cars, bikes, hybrid vehicles, pedestrians and mass transport and these are integrated into networks of physical and virtual access.”
– Professor John Urry, author of Mobilities journal, University of Lancaster

Examples

• Car clubs and such schemes expand as commercial organisations get involved (for example, the Peugeot ‘Mu’ initiative in France will supply anything you need, from a bicycle to a scooter to a car to a van, with options like child seats and rooftop boxes).
• In 2011, after two years in operation, Dublin’s public/private bicycle scheme was hailed a success with plans to increase the number of bikes and stations almost tenfold.  Currently Dublin bikes make double the number of journeys London bikes make per year.

Implications

• A more co-ordinated and coherent way of working amongst providers and modes will prioritise customers’ journeys rather than the mode itself.
• Could car-share and station operators work together to take people from carriage to rental car, hassle-free?
• This would become a key lever for public transport to make the system more attractive, and efficient and sustainable travel a practical reality for people.