Archived decisions

Agenda Item 9

Report to the

Transport for South Hampshire Joint Committee

Date: 30 September 2009

Report by: Peter Murnaghan

tel: 01962 846920 email: [email protected]

Subject: Transport for South Hampshire Performance Indicators

Purpose of the Report

This report considers the issues involved in establishing a set of indicators that will, over time, provide an illustration of the trends in trip making and use of the different transport modes across South Hampshire. Much of this data is already recorded in the three Local Transport Plans, but will require some more work to harmonise into usable indicators for the sub-region to enable progress and changes to be monitored and suitable targets to be set.

Recommendation

That the Joint Committee supports the development of Performance Indicators for transport across South Hampshire.

Introduction

1. The recording of targets and indicators have been required as part of the Local Transport Plan (LTP) process for a number of years. The data in the three LTPs for Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton pre-dates the establishment of Transport for South Hampshire and has evolved in slightly different formats, to reflect the original requirements and differing characteristics of the three authorities.

2. It has not previously been necessary to draw together the results from the three authorities into a meaningful and representative data set for the sub region. Indeed, individual indicators and targets have specifically been required of the statutory authorities, as part of their respective LTPs. However, there is clear benefit in working towards a set of key indicators, from which challenging targets can be set for South Hampshire. This is timely in the light of the forthcoming LTP3 and the Delivering a Sustainable Transport System (DaSTS) guidance. Furthermore, the South Hampshire Agreement (MAA) signed by PUSH and TfSH in July 2008 contains a transport performance indicator - Transport sustainable highways - and it is necessary to provide information to PUSH as a means of reporting progress against this target.

Key data available

3. Traffic count data is recorded by each of the authorities by means of permanent counters embedded in the roads at a number of key points. Similarly, the Highways Agency maintains a continuous log of traffic flows between the junctions on the motorway network.

4. This data is useful for maintaining an overview of the quantity of traffic along particular links, although it is of less use in determining the distances of individual journeys or peoples' destinations. Such data, which is needed for precise modelling of trips to justify interventions or improvement measures, needs to be gathered through interview surveys with drivers. These are currently being collected at a number of key sites, as part of the Sub Regional Transport Model development (see separate report). Data from the national Census every ten years is also of some help in determining key destinations on a fairly coarse level.

5. The background data collected from the traffic counters is, however, the most reliable indicator of background growth. This, of course, does not reflect the use made of individual vehicles, nor of public transport. A bus passing over a traffic counter will record a single vehicle, whether it is carrying sixty passengers, or running empty.

6. A measure of the modal share is therefore also useful. For many years, Southampton has collected data on all modes crossing cordon lines into the city. These are very valuable indicators and demonstrate that from 1995 to 2008, there has been a steady fall in the number of cars and light vehicles entering the city and a similar decline in the number of bus passengers. Conversely, the use of rail and cycle have both increased over this period (see Appendix 1).

7. Useful as the Southampton data is, it is not replicated in Portsmouth or Hampshire. For mode specific data in these authorities, it is necessary to rely upon information provided commercially by the individual operators. For the ferry and rail operations, it is based on ticket sales from their stations or terminals, but this is likely to under-record regular journeys made by season ticket holders. For the bus operators, it is disaggregated into operator-wide totals, so as to avoid exposing the commercial performance of individual routes, or groups of routes. Where operators provide services across a wide area (for example into the rural and North Hampshire), an operator-total figure becomes meaningless for travel within the sub-region.

8. Data is also collected on the mode share of journeys to school. This is a clear area in which the local authorities have power to influence peak hour traffic, where the `school run' contributes to traffic congestion in term times.

Potential Indicators

9. In developing potential indicators and subsequent targets, it is necessary to consider both the existing data available as a basis and to consider the strategic nature of the sub-region and the overall high level objectives that need to be monitored. To this end, indicators are likely to emerge on both `relative' targets and absolute targets.

10. The following indicators are considered to have the potential to develop into key sub-regional targets to inform the Joint Committee of trends. They may also be a useful starting point to develop for LTP3. At the present time, only the first of these is quoted in the South Hampshire Agreement, the MAA.

(i) traffic growth on the Highways Agency's motorway network;

(ii) traffic growth on the local road network;

(iii) increase in journeys by passenger transport (bus, rail and ferry);

11. Benchmarking data from other authorities and agencies will be required in developing these indicators.

12. The information currently to hand for each of these and a commentary on the harmonisation work needed is summarised below.

13. Traffic growth on the Highways Agency's motorway network

Base year 2008 Data source

M27 Junction 5 to 7 AAWT*

133,000 (2006) 131,000 Highways Agency

* Annual Average Weekday Traffic flow

14. This fall in motorway traffic is likely to be influenced by a variety of

factors, including the M27 road works taking place during 2008, fuel

price increases and levels of economic activity.

15. Traffic growth on the local road network

Base year 2008 Data source

1174million km (2006/7) 1180m km Southampton data

18340 am peak flow (03/04) 17084 Portsmouth data

281867 AADT* (2004) 281679 Hampshire South data

* Annual Average Daily Traffic flow

16. Three different approaches will need to be harmonised before a target can be set.

17. Increase in journeys by passenger transport (bus, rail and ferry)

Base year 2008 Data source

19.3m bus jnys (2006/7) 19.4m bus jnys Southampton data

11.2m bus jnys (2003/4) 11.7m bus jnys Portsmouth data

28.5m bus jnys (2006/7) 29.8m bus jnys Whole Hampshire data

14.2m rail tickets 15.2m rail tickets ,, ,, ,,

4.05m ferry journeys 4.07m ferry jnys South Hampshire data

18. While rail ticket sales data could be obtained from train operators for Southampton and Portsmouth, and separated from stations in central and north Hampshire, this would not equate to passenger journeys.

Also, bus patronage data is not available from the commercial bus operators in respect of the South Hampshire area.

19. Mode share in journeys to school (reduction in car trips).

Base year 2008 Data source

23% children by car (06/07) 20.3% Southampton data

31% primary children (04/05)19.8% Portsmouth data

13% secondary children 9.0% ,, ,,

31.9% (2007) 29.6% Whole Hampshire data

20. The whole Hampshire data is misleading, being influenced by the longer distances to school in the largely rural catchment of the county. It may be possible to disaggregate this figure to district level, to seek a more realistic indicator for the urban south part of the county. This could blend with the relatively ambitious targets in place within the cities, with their higher density housing and closer proximity to schools.

Conclusion

21. With transport now being considered and measures justified in a strategic manner across South Hampshire, it makes sense to start to harmonise the wealth of data that is collected and measured into a common format and to maximise the use of Benchmarking data. This will allow trends to be illustrated across the three authorities and highlight areas of common performance and results that might differ from the norm over time. Such data in a common format will provide a set of key indicators, from which challenging targets can be set for South Hampshire.

22. It is proposed that officers from the three authorities work together on developing both `relative' and `absolute' targets involving the public transport operators and Government agencies, to assemble common data sets for the principal indicators listed above. This will provide a `dashboard' of performance and trends, so that specific actions can be identified and agreed in the future.

2156Rpt/967/PJM