The negative impact of the car on the environment and the socio-economic urban structure is still a pressing issue today. The book reviews urban planning responses to the car in British, American and German cities and shows how a combination of enormous misjudgment  of vehicle growth and a neglect of opportunities to develop public transport  further has brought modern cities to the point of environmental and economic collapse. The second edition will address and evaluate the transport policy achievements (or non-achievements) in the last 20 years in Britain and Germany, including influences from other European countries.

On average, in areas close to good public transport, car ownership is reduced by about 38 cars per thousand population, or about 9%, but in Germany it was in some locations up to 42%.

The effect varies according to the area. In some cases better public transport attracts higher-income people to live there, without the high levels of car ownership they would otherwise choose. In other areas public transport releases people with lower incomes from the pressure to buy a car. Underground systems have the strongest effect, then light rail/tram and rail. Bus lane corridors seemed to have less effect but the final judgement has still to be made. The book contains 87 figures and 103 tables and will be available in the next month.

A survey on funding of public transport systems through land value capture and its perspectives in 8 European cities (Helsinki, Copenhagen, Munich, Madrid, Greater London, Ile-de-France – Paris). The research reviews theory, evidence and practice of land capture values. It contains interviews with key stakeholders in these selected cities and a literature review on the topic. Not published.

The Results of 15 Urban Areas in France, Germany, UK and North America
International Best Practice on Public Transport

After the international success of Bus or Light Rail: Making the Right Choice (2000) with a second edition in 2003, and Future of Urban Transport – Learning from Success and Weakness: Light Rail (2002) comes this third volume in the ETP public transport series. The question tackled is the effect of trams and light rail on the economic success of cities. 15 cities in France, Germany, UK and Canada are studied and detailed lessons drawn covering developments since the late 1970s. Results are given for:

• Effects on residential property prices, office rents and retailing
• Numbers of shoppers in city centres
• Car ownership
• Retail structure and competition between city centres and sub-centres
• Parking requirements
• Changes in building and development patterns

There are strong policy conditions for success – especially three policy instruments must be harmonised: support for market forces; strong use of land use planning; and combined public, internal and private funding. If the right conditions and alignments are lacking, economic development will not occur.

Contains 196 pages, 28 tables, 81 figures including maps.

This publication first published in 2000 by European transport expert Professor Carmen Hass-Klau has been completely updated. It includes 2 new case studies: Freiburg and Rouen. It also includes a completely new chapter on the different types of new guided buses and a technical valuation. The summaries of the current state-of-play in urban transport policy have been revised to take account of recent developments, including in some cases the shelving of planned schemes. Since the first edition there has been something of a U-turn in Britain in favour of new light rail projects and extensions. Guided bus schemes in contrast are rather thin on the ground in Britain.

Success rankings of urban light rail systems:

British systems in 3rd ranking group, held back by bus deregulation and lack of fully integrated tickets.

This book by European transport expert Professor Carmen Hass-Klau gives detailed figures for the relative success of light rail systems in 24 cities There are three groups: the most successful ones are the light rail systems in seven cities, namely five cities from the top-ranking group – Freiburg, Zürich, Basel, Köln and Strasbourg – and two cities high in the second-ranking group, Rouen and Calgary. This gives two from Germany, two from Switzerland, two from France and one from Canada.

By contrast, the three British light rail systems included (Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham) are all in the third group. Professor Hass-Klau said:

‘There is no point whining on about Britain having the worst rail system in Europe. The point is to understand what makes for success. On light rail, the British systems have great potential, but they have so far not managed to establish levels of popularity and growth in demand anywhere near the best European networks. This is not mainly because of defects in the systems themselves, but because the transport planning is less integrated – they are faced with uncoordinated competition from buses, only limited integration in tickets, and timid policies on town centre pedestrianisation and traffic restraint. These lessons must be learned if light rail is going to meet its full potential in the UK’.

The book finds that the most important conditions for success are

* The use of integrated ticketing such as travel cards;
* Complementary use of car restraint measures
* Population densities along the light rail corridors

By comparison, operational attributes such as speed seem to have less influence. High population densities, though helpful, are not always necessary.