Transport and economic development - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 5

1 Transport and economic

development

1.1 Introduction
It is currently fashionable, in certain social circles at least, to discuss people's travel
behaviour as a matter of lifestyle choice, in much the same way as whether they buy
organic food. Of course individuals can make quite radical changes to enhance their
own well-being and/or to support some altruistic principle. (We will be exploring later
- in Chapter 16 - the scope which exists for such changes in behaviour.) But there is a
danger of extrapolating from this and imagining that transport policy in the round can
be presented as primarily a matter of personal choice.
For a start, not all transport is personal in nature. Just under a fifth of all road
vehicle miles is represented by freight movements which deliver the goods and support
the services which are central to our lives. Of the remaining (mostly car) mileage
about 40% is made up of personal travel for commuting or business purposes, and a
further 30% is for education (including escort), shopping or personal business reasons.
Although there may be some scope for people to alter the means of travel involved
in these journeys, their overall volume and pattern is essentially determined by the
spatial organisation of economic activity in their home area. Leisure journeys which
utilise sports or entertainment facilities are constrained similarly. Many social journeys
involve the maintenance of links with friends and family who have become physically
separated as a result of moving to take up opportunities offered by different job,
housing or education markets.
To begin with we therefore review the fundamental relationship between transport
and economic development and how this has evolved to create the patterns of travel
on which we now depend to sustain our present living standards and social networks
(1.2). We then look at trends in transport supply and transport costs (1.3 and 1.4) and
at changes surrounding car ownership and licence holding which are central to the
private car becoming the dominant travel mode (1.5).

1.2 Transport and the economy
Before the era of mechanised transport, trade and travel was limited to what could be
accomplished on foot or horseback or by wagon, barge or sail. The settlement pattern
of villages, market and coastal towns across most of the country reflects this. Even
when mechanised transport was developed, its use for regular personal travel was
inhibited by cost. The density and form of present-day towns derives from the fact that
walking was and still is used for a large proportion of everyday journeys.