Jason Ford, news editor
The number of people living in cities isn’t getting any smaller. In 2014, 54 per cent of the world’s population resided in urban areas, a figure that is expected to grow to 66 per cent by 2050.
According to the United Nations, continued urbanisation coupled with global population growth could add 2.5 billion people to urban populations by 2050, with almost 90 per cent of that figure concentrated in Asia and Africa.
People living in cities will need transport in order to go about their lives and if their particular metropolis is anything like London – with its largest population since WWII – it will find itself having to undergo considerable investment into transport infrastructure to relieve existing services and accommodate those commuting to and from the city.
One such project is Crossrail, which is expected to facilitate quicker travel times across London whilst absorbing more passengers. With services set to start in 2018, the £15bn investment in rail services will increase central London’s rail capacity by 10 per cent and an bring an extra 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of central London.
In terms of open land, London isn’t in a position to start major projects from a blank of sheet of paper but it has shown with Crossrail that it is capable of harnessing the services of engineers to solve a problem with minimum disruption.
This remarkable feat of engineering – which covers a route of over 100km, including 42km of new rail tunnels – more than deserves the plaudits it receives but rail is only part of the transport equation and a glance at many urban and suburban streets (and SMMT stats) reveal that the love affair with the car is far from over.
As you’d expect, this is the case in Geneva right now where the annual motor show has entered its second week with its usual array of all that’s wild, whacky and often superb from the automotive world.
A concept that combines dual modes of transport can be found in Pop.Up, a project partnership between Airbus and Italdesign that reveals a glimpse of a future where shared services start to reach for the skies.
In January 2017, The Engineer reported on Airbus CEO Tom Enders’ prediction that a prototype single-passenger demonstrator – developed as a solution to the growing problem of traffic congestion in urban areas – will undergo flight tests within the next 12 months.
To that end A³, Airbus’ advanced projects and partnerships presence in Silicon Valley, is working on Vahana. Designed to make urban air travel a reality, Vahana is intended to be the first electric, self-piloted vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) passenger aircraft.
In Dubai, driverless passenger drones could be criss-crossing the skies as early as July this year as part of city’s bid to offer autonomous human flight over short-to-medium distances.
Of course, we could all sit down and imagine a transport concepts as fantastic as the ones presented above. However, the concept of shared services is already with us and ideas around networked modes of transport won’t seem as unattainable when solutions such as AI become more robust and trusted.
Looking many years into the future, London’s transport planners might find themselves thinking seriously about introducing such solutions. Current thinking precludes expanding the capital beyond the M25 but even if the city does undergo physical expansion, the people within it will still need to get around, be it on road, rail or air or a version of all three.
This is crackpot. Leave the lower air to the birds, which are now falling victim to wind turbines.
Crossrail is a costly disaster: a traditional twin tunnel project, which like all tunnelling will take many years to complete, costs billions and has a very small capacity. a modest service. It also takes the wrong route across London – ie Oxford St, failing to link up London’s main north, west and eastern train terminals.
Far better would have been a multi-tier surface ‘artery’, on three levels at least, that runs from Paddington Station, up the Marylebone/Euston Roads and on to the City and Liverpool St Stn. Built of composite materials, it could be built far more quickly and cheaply than Crossrail. It would have provided the vital high volume, higher speed, multi-mode transport artery that South East England and London desperately needs. Secondly, this route would link the mainline termini of London closely together via through train scheduling, making it much easier to connect with other parts of the UK. It would have 10x capacity, and run without any delays. The new Crossrail link will be just like the Jubilee Line – a tube of glue – if just one train fails – the entire line comes to a halt until it is cleared – a disaster we should have avoided. No thanks to all the British engineers who supported the project in the first place.
Kill the birds, keep the insects and slugs. Great concept.
Visit Hong Kong. Great mass transport. Buses and taxis around the clock. They even have more buses on certain public holidays, when people don’t sit in the office all day, but want to get out, to visit the temples. Compare that with UK where no bus is going on a Christian holiday like Christmas Day.
MTR and buses and ferries are clean in Hong Kong. No graffiti.
A lot of transport in Hong Kong is done by elevators and escalators. Shopping malls, sports centres, restaurants, MTR stations, hotels, residential blocks are merged into one gigantic complex, where everything is accessible on foot. From the MTR station you have shuttle buses to large office buildings which are a bit off the beaten track. And naturally, a parking lot in Hong Kong costs you more than an apartment in London.
Often people and street are separated. People using walkways high above the street level. The street left for vehicles. Sometimes the lower 5 levels of a building left for car parks. Then 5 levels shopping arcade, with 20 floors of hotel and residential buildings on top.
Try Bangkok, where the MRT has free shuttle buses to ferry passengers to the train from the next parallel streets.
Japan got their Shin Kansen in 1964.
What ever happened to the Buchanan report. Another hyped up fizzle. Many towns have changed very little since the report was issued and traffic has just become worse with emissions issues now being recognised as a major problem. We need to learn lessons from Europe (not popular now I fear) and Hong Kong and we do not have a monopoly on wisdom and seem to have spent a lot of money on poorly conceived projects that have overrun and produced little real benefit. The rest of the country could do with some of the funds that always seem to be focused on London. Tram and light rail schemes have been cancelled or delayed by a metropolitan based government to the detriment of other larger cities. The recent announcement by the Mayor of London must be seen as a shot over the bows for “more of the same”.
Re. “Current thinking precludes expanding the capital beyond the M25”
Hasn’t anyone noticed that London effectively annexed its surroundings well beyond the M25 a long time ago! We may prefer to think of these areas as being Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, etc., but since they actually serve as housing areas for people working in London, the planners clearly ‘lost the plot’ a long time ago.
I live on the Dorset coast, and even we get London commuters on the early trains to Waterloo from here !
London may be the hub, but the ‘spokes’ reach out all over the SE of England.
Flying cars? I don’t think so. Even highly automated, they would still be too much of a safety risk flying over heavily populated areas.
What about controlling population? Or is that a potato no political party is willing to handle, and too much like China? This aspect must be considered in a couple of decades maximum, because mega high density living is not human, nor good for humane social and mental health. Our cramped island cities squeeze our natural resources and pollute the atmosphere. Please understand I’m not part of the lunatic Green brigade who seem to operate in an idealist non competitive world, just that I’m very aware of the bulging planet.
Discouraging the ‘start’ of new lives (except when a ‘bond’ of being able to pay for such has been deposited…) and encouraging activities (eg smoking with poor filters, extreme sports, pollution, famine…) which will ensure a statistically significant change in death rates. I cannot believe I am writing what I am, but….Brave New World? Probably one ‘we’ (actually you, I will not be around!) will have to develop within Graham’s timeframe.