London: A city in perpetual gridlock

London: “We’ve had to put our engineers on Boris Bikes to get to clients because that’s been the fastest way,” says Anthony Impey. “Some days traffic congestion is appalling — it’s by far the biggest external challenge we face.”

Impey runs Optimity, which, from offices in the City, installs and runs “superfast” wireless broadband for companies across London. “Our ability to get around London is fundamentally important,” he says. “If a customer has lost their broadband connection and we’re delayed by half an hour, that’s half an hour that an office of, say, 50 people, can’t work.”

Impey’s frustration is backed up by the facts. Research published by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, a consultancy, and Inrix, a traffic information provider, suggests drivers waste 82 hours a year in traffic jams in London, and that the situation is only going to get worse.

In 16 years’ time, on current trends, drivers will be spending nearly two additional working days a year — or a total of 97 hours — in traffic in London, compared with an average of 65 hours in Paris, Stuttgart or even Los Angeles, long a byword for gridlock. The CEBR estimates that the direct and indirect annual costs to the UK of congestion will rise by 63 per cent to $33 billion (Dh121 billion) between now and 2030.

The impact is not confined to the capital. “Something like two-thirds of the costs of congestion are felt in London and the southeast,” said Edmund King, president of the AA, and a visiting professor of transport at Newcastle University. “But if you ask Scottish hauliers what the most important road in the UK is for them, it’s the M25.”

According to the CBI employers group, congestion is a key concern for 95 per cent of UK businesses. Mark Dittmer-Odell, head of infrastructure at the group, says that, although traffic jams have obvious consequences, like wasted time or delays in getting components to customers, there are more intangible effects as well.

“Congestion reduces the pool of potential employees because it reduces the catchment area within which people will look for work,” he says. “Improving the road network is also essential to boosting trade outside the UK.”

Dittmer-Odell fears there is a perception among policymakers that, since businesses have no choice but to use the existing road network, a good quality one is “nice to have” rather than an imperative need.

This is a familiar feeling for commuters or hauliers sitting in stationary traffic at infamous bottlenecks like the A303 by Stonehenge. But there is a growing sense of frustration about the stop-start nature of attempts to address the problem.

In 2012 David Cameron, prime minister, raised the idea of selling off motorways and highways to the private sector only to balk at the potential backlash from motorists over increased charges and tolls.

The coalition has frequently unveiled road upgrades and improvement schemes, announcements that belie falls in funding. The total spending on all roads — local and national — fell from 9.7 billion pounds (Dh57 billion) in 2009-10 to 7.5 billion pounds between 2009-10 and 2012-13, according to RAC Foundation.

“Over the past five years, spending on roads has fallen significantly, in both cash terms and real terms,” says Professor Stephen Glaister, RAC director.

Ministers have earmarked a large increase in funding for the next parliament: the Highways Agency’s capital expenditure will jump from 1.5 billion pounds next year to 3.7 billion pounds by 2020. The increased independence of the agency — which has been turned into a government-owned company with a five-year investment cycle — has also been welcomed.

“This is a really positive example of something this government has done to take the politics out of road maintenance and building,” says Dittmer-Odell. “This has the potential to provide a relatively constant level of funding.”

Yet the agency’s capital expenditure budget is vulnerable to the spending review that the next government — of any political colour — will have to carry out next summer. With all the main parties promising to ringfence the National Health Service, transport could once again face deep cuts.

While road building and improvements may help congestion, many argue for additional measures such as road-pricing schemes. “We believe a national system of time- and distance-based pay-as-you-go driving will eventually have to replace existing motoring taxation,” says Glaister. “It is hard to see any other mechanism that would simultaneously help cut congestion, reduce carbon emissions and address the Treasury’s long-term decline in fuel duty income as the vehicle fleet gets greener.”

But others believe the lessons learnt from schemes like the congestion charge in London should deter other experiments.

“Small businesses tell us that traffic is a major burden on doing business in the capital, but so too is the congestion charge, with two-fifths of our London members saying it is a direct tax on their business,” says John Allan, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses.

Oliver Hogan, director of the CEBR, says traffic volumes have built up again since the charge’s introduction and is one of several voices calling for more 21st century solutions. “Technological solutions have the greatest potential,” he says. “Real-time demand management seems to be the way forward.”

“Big data” and connecting satellite navigation systems to broader communications networks have already been used to reduce bottlenecks in London. During the 2012 Olympics, for example, Inrix analysed real-time traffic across the capital and around key Olympic events to help TfL manage flows. Connect Plus uses a travel time measurement system to manage the M25.

“Technology innovations like multi-modal routing and real-time traffic [monitoring] in connected cars and on mobile devices should be adopted more widely,” says Matt Simmons, Inrix’s European director.

Even though some worry that this risks moving the responsibility of managing congestion away from government and on to individual drivers, Optimity’s Impey would welcome them. “My vision is of London being a ‘gigabit’ city where data — and not just data — move around at lightning speed. This would reduce traffic volume in a positive way,” he says.

But he recognises that congestion may simply be an unavoidable feature of life in London. “It never makes me think I’d move out of London. It’s the price we have to pay for being in the centre of everything.”

— Financial Times