Transport & Road Research Laboratory – BENEFITS TO TRANSPORT USERS AND OPERATORS ARISING FROIM A PROPOSED TRAVEL GUIDE FOR GREAT BRITAIN 1977

Description

The Transport and Road Research Laboratory argues that Great Britain’s public transport network, while extensive, lacks integrated national information, leaving travellers to piece together fragmented timetables and limiting efficient use of existing services. It proposes a comprehensive town-to-town Public Transport Guide providing 24-hour schedules of quickest routeings with precise step-by-step travel instructions and interchange details. Using computer compilation for 150 sample origin-destination pairs revealed increased effective service frequency, and modest but significant reductions in journey time, waiting and interchanges. Estimated benefits (1975 values) from simply integrating existing timetables include community cost savings of £24–£63 million per year and additional operator revenue of £18–£39 million per year, without rescheduling services. Estimates are conservative—assuming only 3% of trips affected and a low value of time (35p/h)—and inflation since 1975 would raise them by over a third. Further work will assess feasibility, format, production, maintenance and dissemination of the Guide.