Integrated transport and land use

Mind the Gap: Britain’s 2.4 Million Missing Station Homes

Lots of countries struggle to build housing near stations. The UK is particularly bad at it. This report from the UK's Centre for Cities examines what to do about it.

Key Takeaways

• About 2.4 million homes are missing near stations. Britain’s 12 largest cities would have roughly 2.4 million more homes if housing around their existing stations matched French and Japanese peer cities.
• In Britain, living near a station barely changes density. In French and Japanese cities, land near stations is much denser than land further away.
• In the urban cores of Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle, land within walking distance of a station is on average less dense than inner-city land further from one.
• Britain is falling further behind. Between 2011 and 2021, the average British big city built less than half as many homes near stations as its French and Japanese peers.
• About one-third of stations in British big cities added fewer than 100 homes within 800m over the decade. Almost every French station did better than that. London is the exception: it significantly outbuilt Paris despite developing around fewer stations.
• Most cities need density more than new stations. Outside London, only 24% of the station density gap comes from missing stations.
• Missing stations explain 61% of Leeds’s gap and 64% of Bristol’s. The proposed Leeds tram alone could support over 30,500 homes around its new stops.
• The August 2026 planning framework presumes in favour of development near “well-connected” stations, with minimums of 35–45 dwellings per hectare. Peer cities far exceed those levels near their best-connected stations. Mayors and councils will need to go well beyond the minimums to catch up.
• In France and Japan, station owners and developers work together to densify. In Britain, Network Rail owns the stations while local government controls planning, which causes delays. The report recommends:
  • a “fast track” so mayors can take over stations through enhanced partnerships;
  • Network Rail audits of station land in each mayoral area within 12 months;
  • Wider use of Mayoral Development Corporations and Mayoral Development Orders;
  • Spatial strategies and local plans that set high densities and low parking requirements near stations.

Comment

I am a big advocate for increasing housing densities around stations, so this report is welcome.

Getting Network Rail to release land for housing may be challenging. London had to try several models to make it work within Transport for London. Finding governance models that align incentives for Network Rail to release its land would be critical for success.

What Next?

Do you have low-density areas around stations that should be reviewed for increased housing opportunities?

Strategy

From Predicting to Shaping: What 40 Transport Scenario Projects Teach Us

Scenario planning to explore long-range transport possibilities is a common tool. But how can you do it well? This research looked at 40 scenario planning projects to draw lessons.

Key Takeaways

• Three main themes and ten subordinate themes were identified.
• Theme 1: Modal Shift - A common theme and is a spectrum between radical modal shifts and notable status quo or baseline scenarios. Subthemes:
  • The Market refers to the role of industry, and market forces, in modal shift and/or modal stability.
  • Policy reflects change through internal or external policy intervention.
  • Consequences reflect important outcomes beyond transport, such as in the environment or health.
• Theme 2: Society - Reflects collective thoughts and actions of human beings. Subthemes:
  • Attitudes refer to orientations towards public issues in transport and sustainability.
  • Urban environment refers to how urban form and land-use choices affect travel distances and modal choice.
  • Wellbeing – satisfaction, happiness or the meeting of needs – appears mostly through equity (fairness).
• Theme 3: Innovation - captures the tendency to identify new technologies and/or practices as driving trends or uncertainties that shape future transportation. Subthemes:
  • Net-zero emissions propulsion technology was almost entirely represented in sampled published transport scenario narratives through electrification.
  • Digital refers to innovation in computer technology and/or data usage, including AI.
  • Automation refers to innovation in self-driving (autonomous) vehicle (AV) technology.
  • Sharing reflects innovative business models (or ecosystems of models) that introduce sharing of transportation (of trips, of components, of vehicles) into the market.
• The trends that flesh out scenarios tend to be handled from a narrow transport perspective rather than an interdisciplinary or critical one.

Comment

The main challenge is using this scenario planning to actually shape the future. In transport, we have traditionally focused on the predict-and-provide model of planning more than the vision-led approach.

To get better outcomes, we need to grasp the nettle and be more proactive in shaping the outcomes we want to see.

What Next?

How can you help deliver the scenario you want to see?

Autonomous Vehicles

Beyond Safety: Why London Should Price Robotaxis From Day One

London is debating the introduction of robotaxis into the city. This report from the London Assembly's transport committee looks at how they should be regulated.

Key Takeaways

• Under the new framework for licensing autonomous passenger services, the power to grant an operating permit sits with the Government, rather than the local transport authority.
• Found there to be considerable uncertainty around many of the claimed benefits of autonomous passenger vehicles and their alignment with the Mayor’s transport targets.
• Operators’ safety claims are based on studies and assessments in US cities, and we remain unconvinced that this will necessarily translate onto London’s complex road network.
• There are also potential impacts on congestion and the wider public transport network which are highly uncertain and without a fuller understanding of what an actual rollout would look like in London.
• Rather than just accepting the autonomous passenger service model proposed by operators, London should be looking at the transport problems it is trying to solve and then considering what solutions this technology could provide.
• The impact of the introduction of automation on London’s roads is as yet unknown. Much depends on the conditions under which services are deployed and the type of services that are introduced.

Recommendations:

1. The current Automated Passenger Service (APS) permitting framework should be regarded as transitional, during the initial small-scale pilot phase. When the Government puts in place the full regulations...it should devolve the power...to Transport for London (TfL).
2. The Government should establish a formal process by which Transport for London (TfL) can request that an Automated Passenger Service (APS) permit be suspended.
3. Transport for London (TfL) must consider its consent to any Automated Passenger Service (APS) permit application for operation in London within the context of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy and its policies and targets.
4. Transport for London (TfL) should adopt a stronger safety baseline than that of the ‘careful and competent driver’ as a condition for granting consent to an operator being given an Automated Passenger Service (APS) permit.
5. Transport for London (TfL) should establish a definition for safety incidents involving autonomous passenger vehicles.
6. Transport for London (TfL) should establish ‘empty miles driven’ as a core reporting metric, as a condition for granting consent to Automated Passenger Service (APS) permits.
7. Transport for London (TfL) must ensure that operators share travel information from passengers using their services.
8. Transport for London (TfL) must engage with disabled people during the process of designing its guidance for autonomous passenger services in London.
9. Transport for London (TfL) should require operators to meet a passenger personal safety standard, as a condition for granting consent to Automated Passenger Service (APS) permits.
10. Transport for London (TfL), in partnership with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust and the London Fire Brigade (LFB), should establish a standard framework for interaction between autonomous passenger vehicles and emergency services across London.
11. The Government should give TfL the power to set a cap on the number of autonomous passenger vehicles operators can deploy in London.
12. Transport for London (TfL) should work with taxi and private hire drivers, their representatives and autonomous passenger service operators to develop a fair transition plan for the sector.
13. During the pilot phase of the Automated Passenger Service (APS) permitting framework, Transport for London (TfL) should commission and publish a research paper on whether and in what ways autonomous vehicle technology could be used to support progress towards the targets set out in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy (MTS).

Comment

We need to look beyond safety and consider how to capture the benefits of robotaxis while mitigating the downsides, particularly the potential impacts on congestion from increased vehicle miles travelled through induced travel and replacement of more efficient modes such as public transport.

Given that London has a congestion charge, it is disappointing that the committee did not see fit to recommend road pricing for robotaxis from the start. It will be much harder to do this once robotaxi services are well established and used.

I wrote extensively about this in a series of blogs at the beginning of the year.

What Next?

Do you have a good policy for regulating robotaxis that goes beyond safety?

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

Here is what else I came across this week:

• ​Asymmetric modal interactions between demand-responsive transit and fixed-route transit: - Research on how to mix DRT and Fixed-Route buses in a rural context.
• ​The Route Forward - Report from Cycling UK on the high returns being delivered for the places that are being transformed by cycling.
• ​Eight Ways Women Experience Transport Differently To Men You May Not Know About - A blog post about women's transport experience.

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