As the ADEPT National Traffic Managers Conference returns on October at Northampton Saints Rugby Club, chair of the National Traffic Managers' Forum Mark Corbin (pictured) speaks to Dominic Browne about why people should attend, what is new in the industry, and the politics of expectations.
This year the conference theme is Preparing, delivering and managing resilient road networks. How do you define resilience in this context?
It is going to be quite broad. When we talk about resilience in a purely roads context, we are looking at the performance of the network and how it deteriorates. Then there is always the conversation about climate resilience and the impact that the transport sector has on the climate. So part of the conversation at the conference will help us better understand how we prepare to be more climate-resilient as network managers.
In terms of network management to reduce carbon and congestion, are we still finding our way?
I think in some ways we are still trying to find our way and we are seeing different initiatives come forward. A good example would be ADEPT's Live Labs. We are looking at different materials, different ways of doing street lighting and how we can influence people’s behaviours.
You will find multiple approaches across different authorities. We have identified a massive issue that has been built up over hundreds of years. The way people travel, the way buildings emit, and the way manufacturing happens - these are issues that have built up over generations. We are not just going to unpick this in a short period of time.
It’s not just one element, is it? It is about every part of the supply chain, the network, the wider economy and even the international community.
That is why the theme of our conference around preparing delivering and managing is so critical. Because it is really easy to make a decision in one part of the chain without fully appreciating the impact it might have on a subsequent part of the change.
We have to understand what is coming, what we are currently delivering and whether that is helping us address the big issues of the day – like climate change and poor air quality - and then how we are managing it. Unless we are collaborating across all elements the whole thing falls apart.
You have the roads minister, Richard Holden, speaking at the event. What are you hoping the DfT’s position will be?
I hope we have a strong position around resilience. We do have a National Resilience Framework, published last year. We want to have some assurance about the direction of travel. It's important to hear that the direction we are going is still the right direction and the legislation programme is still the one to take us there and tackle the big issues such as net zero and air pollution.
We have seen the first tranche of councils take on moving traffic enforcement powers. Any early indications of how that is going?
We have this issue on the conference agenda, and we have someone from Derby speaking about their experience of it. From what I have heard, those in the first wave welcome the opportunity to be able to look afresh at how we enforce those areas of the network we know are particularly problematic and of course, there are other authorities preparing a fresh wave of applications. We want to utilise the full toolkit and this gives us the opportunity to use more of that toolkit for network management so it can only be a good thing.
Do you think the political pressure from the Government over issues like low traffic neighbourhoods or London’s ULEZ, is unfair to local authorities?
I don’t think this is a conversation between local authorities and the Government. I think people want to have a choice in transport. It is about giving citizens a choice in how they travel.
I don’t think anyone objects to having the opportunity to walk and cycle because I think people recognise there are great benefits to having better and safer spaces to walk and cycle in. I think any community would want that. What we have to be careful about is how we enable it. For us as practitioners, I think it is all about how we ensure that communities are at the heart of driving that forward. What it needs is community engagement. I think if you bring politics and labels into it that is not where we want to be.
But the people who are anti-LTNs or ULEZ say they are in favour of choice and want to use their car and the people who are pro-LTNs and ULEZ say they are in favour of choice and don’t want to be car dominated. So it’s a complex problem to untangle, isn’t it?
We can’t get away from the complexity. This is transport, nothing is simple. There are going to be people on either side of these arguments – for and against - and they are going to be in the same community. So you have to get people together to participate in the design of these solutions around objectives that they are happy to agree on. Who doesn’t want to live in a place with cleaner air, less noise, safer streets? So it’s really about how you get the community to come together over objectives they have co-designed.
Are consultations still fit for purpose?
Of course. The challenge we face with this generation, moving away from transport for a moment, is people have high expectations. They have high expectations when they do internet shopping or watch a streaming service. They have high expectations in the way they live their lives outside of transport so they are not going to lower their expectations when they come to transport. It doesn’t work.
What we have to do is match the expectations. The voice of the community and bringing people together to co-design is important.
What does the future hold for traffic management?
Making sure we are highly skilled and equipped, have a handle on technology and understand the politics. Those are the three key areas. Building a highly skilled and competent workforce is still a big challenge. Technology is rapidly changing and enabling things we would not have thought about 10 to 15 years ago. How do practitioners get really competent around what the data can show us and how to interrogate the data to answer the big questions? I also think perhaps a little bit of politics. What the political environment around us is prepared to enable is going to be quite important.
Why should people attend the traffic managers conference?
There is something for everyone in the traffic, highways and transportation space. This is an important one for us. It is our fifth conference. So, it’s a big one. We are looking at the big issues around how we manage the network, and there are great networking opportunities. We also have the police on the agenda. This is the first time we have been able to do that. Having that law enforcement voice is important for a traffic management conference.
Critically we also have a national cyber security expert on the agenda. Our networks are digital so it is critical we think about how to keep them safe for people. It is an important aspect of our work that is not visible enough.
